Plastic surgery, whitening skin creams, and intense crash diets are at the core of South Korean beauty standards. Normalized to an extent where procedures like injections of artificial nose/lip fillers cost less than a month’s worth of groceries, altering your physical appearance is almost a requirement to be “beautiful.”

Growing up partially in Korea and the U.S., it became difficult to figure out which beauty standards I, a) should follow b) liked. The drastically different trends of beauty are most apparent in aspects like makeup, where even what color foundation you’re expected to use differs.

I’m constantly told by my parents that “if you got a nose job you’d be so much prettier!” When I was in high school, it seemed like a crazy idea that I could never get behind. Maybe it’s because of the continuity of these comments that I’ve been subconsciously pressured into feeling like I need to criticize every single aspect of my facial features, but now, it’s something that I’ve been considering.

But why are South Koreans so enthusiastic about resorting to such drastic measures in order to feel beautiful? In a photography series created by South Korean photographer Ji Yeo, Yeo captured several South Koreans immediately post-plastic surgery. Offering them companionship, she interviewed these people to try and understand what it was that made them want to alter their appearance so much they felt like putting themselves through the intense healing process that follows cosmetic procedures.

Their responses were generally that the normalization of plastic surgery makes it seem like an easy way to soothe their insecurities about their appearances. Considering the disregard for the physical pain of surgery that these patients have because of the appeal that the final result of feeling prettier fosters, it made me wonder, could this be some form of self-harm? Putting oneself through intense physical pain, in order to feel better, to cope with some insecurity, is the basis of self-harm. As someone who struggled with and continues to struggle with it, I can’t help but equate such intense procedures with this concept.

When someone is so consumed by a feeling of self-hatred or dissatisfied with a situation, they often look to harming themselves without regard to the physical pain they feel. It’s because the physical pain replaces the emotional pain, something that many are willing to trade off. Cutting or burning, two of the most common methods of self-harm, result in scars. Semi to permanent scars that are reminders of the emotions you felt/feel, ones that often trigger you to do it again.

Could placing yourself in a situation where you have an alteration of your physical appearance in order to feel better about yourself, alterations that often feel addictive and entice people to want more surgery, be something like self-harm?

While reading this week’s texts, the first thing that came to mind was white, Italian artist Ariana Grande’s long list of questionable actions of late: a gradually darkening fake tan, queerbaiting (the practice of hinting at a same-sex relationship, usually done for sex appeal) in the music video for her single “break up with your girlfriend, i’m bored,” use of Japanese culture and characters as a “trend” in her music videos as well as an unfortunate mis-spelling of “7 rings” as “Japanese BBQ finger” for a hand tattoo and blaccent (the imitation of the way that those who are Black speak, of which is appropriative). As a fan of hers—which I’m not entirely sure if I still am—it’s been incredibly disappointing and frustrating to watch.

Much like Miley Cyrus’s short-term adoption of Black culture for her Bangerz album concept,—in which Cyrus picked up twerking and grills to incite a “shock factor” at her 2013 VMA’s performance and be “trendy”—Ariana Grande has monetized off of a culture that isn’t hers. As straight, white, U.S. citizen, upper class, and cis-gendered females, artists like Grande and Cyrus have the privilege of choosing when they’d like to be “Black” and when they’d like to be “White,” or in Grande’s case, when she wants to be straight and when she wants to be lesbian, something that those who come from/identify with these cultures do not have the ability to do. This is where I believe the problem with appropriation lies. Culture isn’t a costume that’s worn for a season and then can be thrown away; it’s a way of living, an intimate sense of identity which belongs to a community that is often discriminated against by White persons like Grande or Cyrus. A superiority complex is developed by those who appropriate, because they can take on the parts of a culture they like and deem “cool,” leaving what’s left as negligible and unqualified. 

Unfortunately, in K-Pop culture, that same appropriation is explicitly present, most commonly through the wearing of dreads or in a more serious situation like MAMAMOO’s case, Blackface. The gray area, however, lies in other parts of Kpop culture, like its music, which is informed by genres such as R&B, jazz, and Hip-Hop, all genres which have been created by Black artists. But before deciding which side of the appropriation-appreciation scale Kpop culture tilts towards, I agree with Doobo Shim’s argument that although “Koreans have emulated and appropriated American cultural industries with ‘Learning from Hollywood’ as a slogan…Koreans have provided their own twists to the foreign styles and forms” to create the hybrid that is Kpop culture (Shim 37).  What makes K-pop Korean is what makes it different from American Urban pop; Koreans have not claimed R&B or Hip-hop as their own, which enables K-pop music to generally stray from appropriating Black culture. There isn’t an imitation, rather, there is innovation built from the creation that is rightfully owned by Black people. I think a good example of this is the song “IDOL” by BTS, which incorporates traditional Korean music and dance with production that derives from current American popular music (i.e. member V’s use of the vocalization “brrruh” with heavy autotune, a popular trend in trap music today).

But when exactly can we say something is “appropriating” culture? Minh-Ha T. Pham’s substitution of “racial plagiarism” for cultural appropriation is, “a more precise formulation for [the] kinds of practices of unauthorized and uncredited…copying” (Pham 68). Plagiarism can be definitively proven, whereas the term “appropriation” leaves room for subjectivity.

With the development of the new and improved lens that is the term “racial plagiarism,” I think it’s become even more imperative to try and educate others on why it’s harmful to racially plagiarize and how this plagiarism has and continues to occur, especially because in countries like South Korea, the offensive activity stems from ignorance, rather than malice. Although still problematic, the lack of education largely contributes to the perpetuation of such appropriation. Innovation is how a society develops, and I do not believe that building on foundations is wrong, nor that it implies that these beginnings are owned by those who fuse it with their own culture; what’s important lies in giving credit where credit is due, and understanding that plagiarism, no matter how insignificant it may seem to those who practice it, is still, taking what isn’t yours, and claiming it as your own.