“Endeavors to create the consumer’s self identity often involve their consumption of products, services, and media” (R. Elliot and K. Wattanasuwan, 1998).
The concept of Individual identity—or, the “self”— has often been linked to ideas of consumerism. In a capitalist society, an individual’s identity is largely constructed and displayed through the consumption of various cultural products. As social media platforms, digital media markets, and the Pop. Culture industry continue to expand and globalize, our lives and our identities become more and more entwined with the cultural products that we consume. This weeks readings highlight the ways in which the consumption and production of Korean TV Dramas impact the formation of various identities. The identity of fans and fan bases, and the national identity of Korea are formed, strengthened, and remolded as a result of the growing popularity of Korean TV Dramas.
Youjeong Oh analyzes the “discursive consumption” of Korean TV Dramas, and emphasizes the different ways that fans interact with and react to the shows that they watch. Rather than acting as passive consumers of TV Dramas, fans often play an active role in their production, and develop strong affective attachments to TV shows and stars that manifest as online fandoms on platforms like ‘DC Inside.’ As individual fans form online communities around their favorites shows and celebrities, the collective identity of fanbases grow and concretize, allowing fans to interact with TV stars and producers. Through social media platforms and online galleries, fans enact a dialogue with TV producers that enables them to directly participate in the production of certain shows. Oh describes how fans often influence the plot lines of many TV Dramas. Online conversations amongst fans provide producers with insight into what viewers want to see happen in each episode—a process made easier by the ‘live production’ of many Korean TV Dramas. In the case of Sungkyunkwan Scandal, fans even impacted the level of background music after voicing complaints of the music being too loud.
Not only do online forums and social media platforms allow fans to influence TV shows, but these sites also foster active communities that provide fans with a sense of belonging as they form a sort of social identity centered around a particular TV show or desirable TV star. In addition to communicating with producers, fans also communicate with each other. Oh notes that fans produce and reproduce images, videos, and even develop their own languages and lingo. I found the snack deliveries and attendance checks to be particularly interesting. As fans’ attachment to certain shows and stars deepens, they use the Internet as a space to organize, raise money, and display their love for the shows that they watch. The attendence checks establish “senses of belonging, similarity, simultaneity, and thus attachment to each other among users. Therefore, the spontaneous check temporarily forms a community, a group of people who are dedicated to a similar interest at the same time” (Oh, 143). Online forums and social media platforms provide a space for fans to engage with each other, and interact with the producers and actors of their favorite shows. Similar to KPOP fandoms, K-Drama fanbases demonstrate the ties between identity formation and consumption. As fanbases form online, they construct their own collective identies that are held together by online participation, and feelings of desire and belonging.
Yukie Hiratz’s Touring ‘Dramatic Korea’ points to a different kind of identity that is reshaped by the emergence of Korean TV Dramas—the conceptual identities of tourists and the Korean National identity. Hiratz focuses on Winter Sonata, and marks the shows’ popularity in Japan as a factor in the reshaping of conceptions of traveling Asian bodies and the ‘tourist gaze.’ “Indeed…subjects who were moving had been presumed to be male, white, and heterosexual; static women emphasized against dynamic men” (145). Winter Sonata helps generate more tourism to Korea by transforming it into an attractive tourist destination for Japanese women, rather than a “men’s space haunted by guilt.” Hiratz writes, “such a new ‘gaze,’ noticeable among women, overcame the male-dominated imperialistic historical context, reflected new tendancies created by global consumer culture in the 1990s” (148). Shows like Winter Sonata intersect with imperial histories, racialized and gendered conceptions of tourism, and transnational diasporic communities, thus reshaping the global image of Korea from a multitude of perspectives.
The Politics of K-Pop 