Vinson Cunningham: We've been listening to a lot of K-Pop recently. Let's face it, K-Pop, BT, s, out, the gills. Which song has been stuck in your head for the past 48 hours? 
Naomi Fry: Swim, swim, water. Falling Off your skin? Swim. Swim. I just wanna dive. I just wanna dive. Sorry. 
Alex Schwartz: Wow. I couldn't help but join in, 
Naomi Fry: of course, because. It is undeniably sticky.
Vinson Cunningham: Sticky. 
Alex Schwartz: It's sticky. 
Naomi Fry: It's the new single swim from BTS. 
Vinson Cunningham: It is. 
Alex Schwartz: Wow. 
Vinson Cunningham: It's really, that's really the hit. I 
Naomi Fry: mean, it's the first single for now. 
Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. 
Naomi Fry: From their new album. Just release. 
Vinson Cunningham: I just mean to my ears, you know, 
Naomi Fry: to your ears. 
Vinson Cunningham: It's the hit. Yeah. Is there another favorite in the room or was that, was that was the sing along indicative of a mutual swim?
Love. 
Alex Schwartz: Definitely. I'm into swim right now. I, I've been listening a little bit too 'cause
Vinson Cunningham: Oh that's old school. 
Naomi Fry: Dynamite. Yeah. 
Vinson Cunningham: Which I did not know was BTS. 
Alex Schwartz: So same when you learn that song is by BTS as I did, I would say within the last 48 hours you say, ah, this thing that has actually become part of my DNA another BTS reference for those in the know was in fact implanted there. By this mega successful Korean boy band.
I just thought that I came programmed with that song. But no, it's actually a BTS song.
This is Critics at Large, a podcast from The New Yorker. I'm Alex Schwartz. 
Naomi Fry: I'm Nomi Fry. 
Vinson Cunningham: I'm Vincent Cunningham. Each week on this show, we make sense of what's happening in the culture right now and how we got here.
Now, last week, something very big happened in the music world. I can't stress how big, if you know anything at all about K-Pop. And frankly, even if you don't, you're already aware of who. 
BTS!
Vinson Cunningham: Goddamn right.
        CLIP: Dynamite
The group, as we know, is made up of seven members. And I'm just gonna start listing accomplishments. They just roll one after the other. They have over 104 billion streams worldwide. They're the best selling Asian act ever, and arguably the most popular band ever. Like of all time in 2022, they announced that they were gonna take a break so that they could, you know, casually complete the mandatory South Korean military service. It's been nearly four years since they went on this break, and last week they dropped their comeback album, aan.
        CLIP: Body to Body
The album release has been nothing short of. A worldwide event, a A news event, a geopolitical event. There was also a comeback concert, live streamed on Netflix. Perhaps you saw it, a new documentary about the group is about to land on Netflix and all this is to say it felt like.
The right time to do an episode about K-Pop, which is today absolutely everywhere, right? 
Alex Schwartz: Oh yeah. I feel like most of pop culture is somehow, somehow leads to K-Pop. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And frankly, I've been a little bit intimidated by the idea of engaging with it because I've just felt so out of the loop. And then of course, I realized I'm not as out of the loop as I thought all of these songs that are swirling in my head or that I seem to have become ambiently.
Intimately aware of Are K-pop songs, K-Pop Demon Hunters? I have, I have watched it. I can't wait to discuss it. Um, K-pop at the Oscars. We all live blog the Oscars and you know, I, um, was, was very clued into Leonardo DiCaprio just. Waving his, his little light bulb just from the front row. Gamely, gamely waving that thing, 
Naomi Fry: just gamely waving because you know what?
This is now the air we breathe basically. Yes. I mean, even if we're not aware of it, it's like opening the tap and what comes out is K-Pop or just generally a kind of like ambiently Korean. You know, water. Yeah. Coming out of the tap. I mean, I'm just thinking even about like Korean beauty, the notion of we're now looking to Korea, um, in regards to like how we look.
Yeah. How we take care of ourselves. You know, this is something fairly new, but already totally ubiquitous, even if we're not. Thinking about it. 
Vinson Cunningham: And so accordingly, today we're diving into this world of BTS and K-pop. We're talking about the new album, the intense BTS fandom, and about the meteoric rise of K-pop.
More broadly, this phenomenon has been described as this word hallu or the the Korean wave. Almost as if it's temporary. But you know, the way we experience pop phenomena is that sometimes they just win. The question I have is when does a wave a bubble, a moment just become a new reality? So that's today on critics at large, the soft power of BTF.
________________


You know, sometimes we do this, we jump into, none of us are experts on a thing. We come with a friendly curiosity to a world that is not necessarily our favorite.[a][b] None of us, I'll just, spoiler alert, none of us are on our regular subway commutes. Just. Jamming the BTS. Can we, can we concede? 
Alex Schwartz: Is it Yes. Is this, is this your play for us not to get assassinated by the fans?
Vinson Cunningham: I'm just saying except for what it is. 
Naomi Fry: Friendly curiosity. 
Vinson Cunningham: Yes. Except us for what we we're, we're coming, we 
Alex Schwartz: come in peace. 
Vinson Cunningham: Stranger. We come in peace. Strangers in a strange land. You know what I mean? 
Alex Schwartz: Would you say We are aliens. 
Naomi Fry: We are aliens. And we are also animals. 
Vinson Cunningham: Aliens. We're animals We're, we are asking you.
Naomi Fry: We're 
Vinson Cunningham: butter 
Naomi Fry: and dynamite 
Vinson Cunningham: to accept us body to body, 
Naomi Fry: body to body 
Vinson Cunningham: into, into your life. And swim with us. And swim with us in these new waters. That's it. So. Given that kind of subject position. To start off with guys, was there a moment when you realized the absolute new ubiquity of K-Pop, how it's reached our culture with a huge bang and remains in that space?
Alex Schwartz: I would say that the K-pop. Demon Hunter's moment was when I really understood how deeply K-pop is part of American pop culture and starting at a very young age. 
Vinson Cunningham: Mm-hmm. 
Alex Schwartz: For kids that I've of course have known about K-Pop and the music of K-Pop and the very devoted Phantom of K-Pop and how international it is for a long time.
And some of the songs definitely because they're played on the radio, they're, they're around, um, have warmed their way into my ears, but the huge. Ecstatic reaction to K-pop demon hunters, I think really brought it home for me. Mm-hmm. And I will just give an example. As recently as yesterday, I was on the playground and I saw one little girl, I would put her at five at the absolute oldest was wearing a K-pop demon hunter sweatshirt.
And another little girl was, um, doing an imaginary play about K-pop demon hunters. And her dad was like, oh, are you a pop star? Mm-hmm. So that's when it really became clear to me that it's. Absolutely enormous. 
Naomi Fry: Yeah. 
Alex Schwartz: Not yesterday, but that's just an example. 
Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. 
Naomi Fry: Yeah. And I feel like it's been growing and growing, but I remember a couple years ago I heard of a daughter of an acquaintance who asked for her bat mitzvah present to be taken to Korea, to Seoul because she is so obsessed with K-Pop.
And I was like, oh, this is like. I guess this is kind of like the new Mecca for, you know, these young people, very young people, children who are uh, absolutely not Korean, but are pulled like moths to a flame, to this like new culture to learn about it, be curious about it, and and obsessed with it ultimately.
Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. For me, I had a student a while back. Write a piece about. The singer Suli. 
Naomi Fry: Mm. 
Vinson Cunningham: Um, part of the, um, the Girl Group fx and tragically took her life right. Took her own life back in 2019. And the essay that this student wrote me, which was really beautiful, um, talked about the intense fan culture. This, this really outspoken, strong seeming young woman was sort of brought to her knees by so many eyes and ears and eventually it's sort of like, you know, the tippy tap of angry fingers from fans. Mm-hmm. I'd known about the popularity, but I hadn't realized that it was such a hot house.  Um, that really, really opened my eyes. But, you know, it's. Everywhere. Yeah. I mean, to me, if I think about pop music, the pop music, you know, back in the day, you know, nsync, Backstreet Boys. Yeah. The only archetype for that accent today is K-Pop, right? 
Naomi Fry: Yeah. Oh yeah. I mean, I, when I, this was actually when we were, um.
Live blogging the Oscars, and I heard the song Golden From K-Pop Demon Hunters that won Best song. 
        CLIP: Golden
I thought it was Carly Rae Jepsen. Like I knew the song, but I was like, oh, I'm so glad Carly Rae Jepsen is back. Like this is a great song. And then I was like, oh, wait a second. You know, I didn't know that this is what it was.
But of course it made complete sense once I realized that. 
Vinson Cunningham: Yeah, I mean, the same thing happened to me with that. We already talked about this, but that ba ba to me that's just like target music. And I was like, oh, that's BTS target music. So I mean it, this just doesn't even 
Naomi Fry: Yeah, yeah. 
Vinson Cunningham: It doesn't code in, in any sort of 
Naomi Fry: mm-hmm.
Vinson Cunningham: Ethnic nationalistic anyway, it's just music that's on when you go to forever 21. 
Naomi Fry: Yeah. 
Vinson Cunningham: And I, and that's like, to me, that's victory. Yeah, absolutely. 
Naomi Fry: That 
Vinson Cunningham: is 
Naomi Fry: victory. 
Vinson Cunningham: So, okay, let's 
Naomi Fry: turn that Outlived forever 21. 
Vinson Cunningham: There you go. 
Naomi Fry: Yeah. 
Vinson Cunningham: Let's turn though. To the new BTS album, which we all have now listened to, Ong.
This is the much anticipated new release from BTS after their. Much reported upon hiatus. They've been gone, not all together, they didn't go all in together, but 
Naomi Fry: they staggered their military service, their, uh, mandatory military service. So there were always be some BTS members, not in the military So the relationship with the fans like the, there will always be some sort of like umbilical chord. Connecting the fans and at least some of the members, the group to the extended 
Vinson Cunningham: universe. 
Naomi Fry: Yes. 
Alex Schwartz: And I think there was also a big question about whether they would reunite as a group. There was a press conference when they were announcing that they were going to, they needed to take this leave, and they're all sitting around.
It's, it's called the, um, the 2022 BTS, Festa. They're all sitting around a table. I'll just show you guys. They're enjoying some, some food and wine here at the Festa. They're of course balloons in various shades of purple Uhhuh. The 
Vinson Cunningham: ets their favorite color. 
Alex Schwartz: Yeah. They are talking about taking a break and their feelings about it and the kind of the leader of the group RM is, is saying we're almost 30 now.
Mm-hmm. Our lives have changed a lot. Yeah. I've changed a lot in the last 10 years. Yeah. And I don't know. What I want.
There was this, this heartfelt moment where it was clear they were gonna go follow their own paths and make their own music and try out their independent pop star personas. Like many a solo artists from boy bands before cough, Justin Timberlake. Mm-hmm. And now they've reunited. They've come back, they're here, it is their return.
They've returned. 
Vinson Cunningham: What'd you guys think? First, listen. 
Naomi Fry: So, okay. I feel like I had a kind of, maybe a little bit of, um, of a sense that I wouldn't like it, or like that it would be, that it wouldn't be my, my bag necessarily. Mm-hmm. But then when I listened to it, I was like, wait a second, I like pop.  After like one, listen, I was already like humming along. Yeah. Like body to body, you know. I was already like, it's so crazy. Like how sticky it is. Songs like Merry-Go-Round. And aliens, which were a little bit like, to me, moodier and darker. I think that surprised me. that's, I guess I wasn't expecting that.
Maybe, you know, kind of naively, I, I wasn't exactly sure what I was going to listen to, so I was like, oh, I can, I can see it being kind of a little bit sexier than I expected, I guess. I, I would say. 
Vinson Cunningham: Was it sexier for you as well, Alex, than you, um, anticipated? 
Alex Schwartz: Well, I've been on a bit of a journey. Okay. With this album with, because before I, before it was released, I had no idea that rap was a big thing for BTS.
Mm. So I turned on this album and was very surprised to hear Body to Body. And I was like, oh, the wrapping, where's my like, sweet. Harmonies. Where's, where's, where's my like high floaty voice? How? How interesting. So I paused the album, and then[c] we had screeners to this Netflix documentary, BTS, the Return, which is a new release that's part of the whole album drop package.
And because it shows the making of the album and creates the smallest modicum of drama around whether they're going to evolve as artists, whether they're gonna reach this new maturity. And then the biggest. Theme of all that they're going to really f foreground Korean culture, uh, with the name a Iran for their album title that makes reference to this Korean beloved Korean focus on a Iran.
Suddenly I was like. Oh, it has a narrative. Okay. that made it much more enjoyable for me, I think, than if I was just doing the music. Mm-hmm. And in that I understand the bigger BTS project, which is of course not at all, just about the tracks.
It is about BTS as people and BTS and their journey and their gelling as a group and where they're going. I was, I kind of, I get what the bigger narrative is doing for it. Vincent, I wanna hear what, let's get deeper into the album. I wanna hear what your thoughts are. 
Vinson Cunningham: Uh, 
Alex Schwartz: very curious. 
Vinson Cunningham: So it's interesting to pop music is always where you go to, to see which sounds are still alive, what's still happening, and uh, what from your personal history is like still touching people.
So we've talked a lot about body to body. Can I play the first couple strains of it? 
Naomi Fry: Please? Please. 
Vinson Cunningham: Okay. 
Naomi Fry: I'm, I'm now. Thirsty to hear it. It's been too many seconds. Your last kick. It's been many. Yeah. It's been like an hour since I last listened.
CLIP: Body to Body
Vinson Cunningham: So it's got these kitchen sink almost. Almost go-go. Like. Sort of almost ambient drums. It sounds like it'd be be played on a washboard and on a, you know, on pots and pans. It's got these, for me, very weakened, like minor bottom. And of course it's sampling this, this Ong song. Mm-hmm. Which for me is really, is resonant.
Right. These guys who I agree their absence as we understand it. Is purely nationalistic in character, purely connected to the state, and all of a sudden a patriotic song. And that this is how they come back as people who have gone through what you, any young man of their age would have gone through, totally connected to the spirit of their country.
And here they come with this, and then this song does just explode into a. To me, very close facsimile of a pop song that I really like. 
Naomi Fry: Mm-hmm. 
Vinson Cunningham: Nelly, Tito's Promiscuous Girl. 
Naomi Fry: Oh, the Timberland produced, 
Vinson Cunningham: it sounds like, if I 
Naomi Fry: recall, 
Vinson Cunningham: it sounds like Timberland.
CLIP: Body to Body
You, you, you hear the box? Let's go. 
Naomi Fry: There you go. You already know. 
Vinson Cunningham: There you go. So like that's, that's good for me to know that The mid two thousands. 
Naomi Fry: Oh yeah. 
Vinson Cunningham: Uh, Timberland. 
Naomi Fry: Oh yeah. 
Vinson Cunningham: Bop like that is still important to pop music and you all through this. I was listening for that. There are these haunting, um.
Dr. Drums that sound like they were recorded in a big warehouse is one of the signature sounds of this album, which reminds me of recent Justin Bieber.  His collaborations with the, the genius producer and singer Dije. Um, there's a lot just kind of swimming back and forth in this music and I, I think it's interesting, I think a lot of people have said this.
It's kind of split into two halves. The album. Mm-hmm. And I think swim is when it really turns on for me, uh, body to body notwithstanding swim as we've talked about. I also like the song Normal. Do you guys remember this one? 
Naomi Fry: Yeah.
        CLIP: Normal
Oh, I love this.
Vinson Cunningham: Et cetera, et cetera. Moody, hard drums. 
Naomi Fry: Right, right. 
Vinson Cunningham: Vocals cutting through. I was like, that's, this is when the album turned on for me. I was like, yeah, sing it. it's not an album I'm gonna listen to over and over, but I was like, I get how if I grew up with this group, this album would sound kind of like a breakthrough to me
in a minute. We delve even deeper into the world of K-pop. Critics at large from the New Yorker will be right back.
:: MIDROLL:: 
All right, so we've been talking about Ong, the new album by the boys BTS. Um, another part of the release cycle for the album is a new Netflix documentary about the group, uh, it's called BTS, the Return, and there was also a live stream concert also on Netflix. Did you guys catch? One or either of those? I saw the, the doc.
I've got thoughts. What'd you guys see? And what did you think? 
Naomi Fry: I found it very interesting, like I found, um, the, the documentary BTS return interesting in how it kind of like. Follows and doesn't follow the kind of conventional narrative of, of kind of a behind the scenes like making of an album, documentary, or just even, not necessarily just making of an album, but just like what it means to be in a band and kind of like, let us glimpse behind the curtain.
Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. 
Naomi Fry: you know, there's a scene where they like. I'll watch like of, you know, old videos mm-hmm. Of them, like in, you know, they started in 2013, some of them were still teenagers, and they're like, they say, oh, you know Jim, like you're a full man now.
Look at you're a baby now. Or, you know, yeah. That, that kind of thing. And you know, they're like wearing t-shirts and this house, you know, they're all sharing this house in LA and while they're recording the album and they like go to the beach together, they're horsing around. They're like jumping in the pool, you know, they're doing all of this.
Stuff. Yeah. You see them in the studio like wearing like sweats, sweatsuits, and, you know, not all dressed up like in their like, you know, best and, and so on. But there is something about it that feels like entirely abstract, you know? Yeah. Often k-pop stars from what I've, I've read, you know, towards this, this episode and from just from watching this and kind of like, yeah, reading a little bit around it are.
Uh, encouraged, if not to fall on, take a vow of chastity, then to not reveal really, you know, romantic relationships they might be having, et cetera. Now these guys are like now in their early thirties. Yeah, most of them early to mid thirties. And yet there is this complete kind of disconnect from what it means to be a man in the world, you know?
Naomi Fry: And so. Uh, the romance part of it is just one, one part. It, it can also be family. It can also be friendships Outside of kind of the circle, anything outside of this space, anything outside of the bubble of the BTS group in the making of this album. Those are kind of the broad strokes and it remains broad strokes.
Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. 
Alex Schwartz: I wanna know what you thought, Vincent. 
Vinson Cunningham: I mean, this documentary is psychotically boring. 
Alex Schwartz: Thank you. 
Vinson Cunningham: You nothing, you said it, nothing happens in it. Um, the only interesting things are, number one, the extent to which they're open about the fact that they, this is a really kind of focus group process. And, um, there are people who are not musicians coming into their studio and imposing prerogatives and demands on them.
It should be global. Here's an idea about what the theme should be. And twice in the film, there is a nod to the fans. Once, at the very beginning, they're out on the beach and one of them is, um. Uh, doing a sort of self video and we see cut to some, you know, the voices of the fans being typed into some sort of, it's clear that they're live streaming.
Mm-hmm. It might be an Instagram live, it might be something else like that. Um, similarly, um, 
Naomi Fry: my kink So cute. 
Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. 
Naomi Fry: You know, we love you. 
Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. Yeah. Later on there's another moment. Where that happens. So, okay. We, we are getting this sort of intrusion from me outside this, this sense of being watched, um, some updates about, you know, some videos of them going away for their military service or coming back, but it is unbelievable the extent to which this hour long documentary, nothing happens and nobody says anything beyond this is gonna be hard.
I hope it goes well. And that's it. It is like. Psychotically. 
Alex Schwartz: Yeah. 
Vinson Cunningham: Uh, still and tid and nothing happens and nobody says anything. Unreal. 
Alex Schwartz: May I build on that? 
Vinson Cunningham: Yes. 
Alex Schwartz: Okay. So I actually think that the total boringness of it is fascinating because I agree. The first thing that I understood while I watched this Doll's Dirt documentary was 
Naomi Fry: Doll's Dishwater 
Alex Schwartz: was that, was that some people, and by some, I mean probably millions of them, are going to lap this thing up.
They're going to go to this, oh, I got many 
Naomi Fry: millions, 
Alex Schwartz: and they're going to study. Every single angle of everyone's face, they're gonna try to see, oh, what was he eating? What was he like? What is, what video game is he playing in his downtime? Because that whole. Culture of obsession is very, very much a part of pop culture in general and certainly of BTS.
Um, I learned a really interesting thing from, from our dear colleague and collaborator, Alex Ish's piece about Chairman Bang who, who created BTS mm-hmm. And created the label, um, 
this is a fantastic piece that I really recommend to everyone listening who wants to know more about this.
It's, it's called the K-Pop King, and it was published in October of 2024. the whole thing about chairman be is that he wanted BTS to have this more authentic communication with fans.
They ran their own Twitter account. They were allowed to communicate with people. They were not kept in total isolation. Mm-hmm. That said, they were still supposed to be figures upon whom you could project every fantasy, which is. The heart of this, So you see them, much like with the album itself, striking this note between, um, vulnerability, a kind of calculated vulnerability.
There's a lot of talk in the movie about how anxious they are that the songs won't come together mm-hmm. Um, and that they won't pull this off. It also really prepped me to watch the Netflix Live streamed concert. after every few songs, the group would pause and speak directly to the audience, and again perform that vulnerability. 
        CLIP: Live concert
Like one of 'em said, I, I worried a lot before standing here. Seeing you all makes me so grateful and happy. And then another one said. Hello Army talking to you all right now. Like this makes me so choked up and grateful. Like it was a real performance of this kind of emotion of nervousness, but relief upon return. There's a lot of that.  and then I was listening more closely to the lyrics also, and the love expressed in these songs is for the fans, the BTS Army and the relationship with Army. Um, I just wanna throw one other thing into the pot before I mic drop another BT Rats. Okay. Which is, speaking of these videos, I was watching the video for Swim all these videos, and everybody in the comments is part of BTS Army, the huge fan base showing up to try to make the videos go to a billion views, 2 billion views, and they're all working. They're working hard. They're ants at the ant farm. They're like, we got this fam remember, don't keep streaming. Don't keep streaming swim. Don't do it on a loop. 'cause they're gonna know they're not gonna count those views. Go check out. Let's try to, you know, at the same time make dynamite, rack up more, more views and then come back. And so all of it is everyone cheering each other on in the views and yeah, I'm like, okay, I'm pa am I Army now let me get this more views before I like have to tap my head and remember.
I'm, I'm frankly not Army, 
Naomi Fry: but it's a kind of triangulation, right. In a way being part of the army with, with BTS, as the, you know, it's like they're talking, these people are talking to each other in the comments essentially, and they're saying like, me and you are gonna like, promote. Him. I mean, not him, them, there's something, there's a kind of like relationality there as well. You know, I'm reading the Judy Bloom biography now. Ah. And.
There's a thing, the 
Alex Schwartz: new biography by Mark Oppenheimer. 
Naomi Fry: By Mark Oppenheimer. Okay. Yes. Uh, which I'm enjoying very much. And there's a thing about how Judy and her friend, when they were like in ninth grade or something, were dating the same boy and they weren't jealous of each other. They would compare notes.
They would be like, how many times did he kiss you on the date? How many times did he kiss you? You know, what was it like? You know, they were kind of like relating to each other. Mm-hmm. Through this like. The, you know, this third thing, you know, the third, this third thing of this guy who was like, important. But like there was something about the creating of a community which was just as important, like among, in this case, among the fans, among the army. It feels like, Alex, what you were saying about like Army kind of talking in the comments and kind of like, and saying, oh, he's so cute, he's so beautiful, you know, but there is something a little. Def Fanged about it. 
Vinson Cunningham: It's interesting because if you think about previous manias or youth related manias, um. The sort of mid-century twins of like the Beatles on one hand and the Motown machine on the other.
And how those accompanied what now, I guess, so sociologists called the invention of the teenager. Mm-hmm. That there was a whole developmental area that needed to be. Defined, you know, the, the, all of a sudden there's, there are labor laws and we can't treat children like adults. And all of a sudden, your teenage years had to be something, had to have some content and some shape and some kind of, um, an arc, a story to tell and music.
On the one hand and image making on the other. Mm-hmm. Think of like the Jackson five. Think of mm-hmm. Um, the early Beatles, um, image had had a role to play. And I think BTS against the backdrop of that history is interesting to me because. One of these new terms is called Emerging Adulthood, and, and it's been sort of tracked neurologically where it's like the late teens up until almost your thirties is this new category of, you know, you're, you might, I'm 
Naomi Fry: still there.
Vinson Cunningham: You might live, you might live in a, you might live in a big city and be sort of nominally independent, but you're st there's still a kind of, you know, really identity creation, finding a place in society is happening and it, it really, this is where it's so interesting to me that BTS. Is the result of, let's face it, like a government, the South Korean government saying, I'm going, we're going to invest in this in the way that, you know, old America invested in Hollywood.
Mm-hmm. And invest in k-pop in, in this music and in the creation of these groups. Um, it's almost saying if, if you were the most cynical read of it could be, no, we, we need to model. This, this developmental bridge for a whole society. We're worried that the safe passage between childhood and adulthood is again imperiled.
And so we need to, we need to get some models in there for this. 
Naomi Fry: Make it safe, 
right? 
Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. And so like that's why, that's why it's so interesting to me, this whole thing of like this emphasis on anxiety and worry. Yes. Are we okay? And you know. What if we, almost like in the true patient analyst mode, we created a projecting screen, these kind of weirdly neutral, kind of almost bland figures onto which you could project your struggle to emerge into adulthood.
And these guys are, you're gonna ferry you, um, through their music, but also through their. Uh, appearance in a certain way, um, into this new phase of your life. 
Naomi Fry: Totally. 
Alex Schwartz: Yeah. That's, that's, so Vincent, I think that is so interesting as a take. Um, and I, I love it. I'm going with you, but there's one aspect that you didn't touch on of both, uh, the current K-pop moment and also the mid-century moment in the creation of the teenager, which is of course, as a commercial proposition, of course, the creation of the teenager.
Suddenly you have all these. Kids sort of grown up sort of kids who had money to spend. And so boom, let's spend money on this, this, here we go. It. This has been making me think back to Beatlemania. 
Vinson Cunningham: Mm-hmm. 
Alex Schwartz: You know, I've heard some weird takes. I think people are forgetting a little bit the dark sides of Beatlemania because I've heard some weird takes being like, the difference is that the, the K-pop and the BTS fans can be way too intense and can really, they can be very aggressive, which I think is true.
But the Beatles fans, I guess because they went to concerts together, they understood they were in community together. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Uh, what about all the crazy conspiracy theories? What about Paul is dead? What about, um, John Lennon getting assassinated at the, in front of the Dakota in 1980? What about the super, super dark sides of fandom?
No. That came out there, and of course. The most stark difference, I would say, well before John Lennon's death between BT S's reaction to its fandom and the Beatles' reaction to its fandom is that the fandom changed the Beatles. They changed the music, they changed the way the music was made. They pushed the Beatles into the studio.
The Beatles, they 
Naomi Fry: stopped touring. 
Alex Schwartz: They did not 65. Yeah, exactly. They did not wanna perform live. They were done with it, and they went into the studio and they went on a very, very. Different individual journey as artists and emerged at the end of the sixties, utterly different than they had gone in at the beginning of the sixties.
And that is one of the most fascinating like progressions from childhood to adulthood that I think we have on record watching what happened between the mop top era and 1970. Yeah. When Let It be comes out and the band breaks up. And what was interesting to. Me about some of this stuff we've been watching around BTS and Vincent, you touched on this before, was how calculated this sense of evolution needs to be.
They keep saying in the documentary, we wanna show that we're more mature, we wanna show a new side of ourselves, we wanna express this musically, but also they really can't risk doing something that would be alienating. So this fan service thing, I did find myself watching them up on that stage. Thinking, are they gonna be doing this at 45 at 50?
Can they evolve past the boy band element? And what happens when inevitably they must
Vinson Cunningham: in a minute. How the Korean wave swept the culture. Critics at large from the New Yorker will be right back.
:: MIDROLL:: 
It's hard to talk about BTS as we have been doing without this concept of the Korean wave, uh, many Korean cultural products have started to dominate the global landscape, whether you're talking about, as Nomi earlier, did skincare and beauty products, 
Naomi Fry: plastic surgery, 
Vinson Cunningham: whether you're talking about, yeah. Um, uh, plastic surgery or, um, I mean, food was a big one.
The best part. By the way of that documentary that we all didn't like that much when they eat food, man doesn't look good and man doesn't look like something that any one of my friends, Korean or not today, would lust after and go get. and it just seems to me so interesting to have culture play such a. Obvious and traceable role in the rising visibility of a, of a nation and its culture. 
Naomi Fry: It's really interesting. I, I was thinking about it in comparison to, you know, myself coming from not America to America, you know, And living in America, but also experiencing it from that distance and kind of like lusting over it because of its it, you know, this combination of like strangeness, it wasn't the culture I was born in, but also increasingly something becoming increasingly familiar because of its kind of cultural products, which were omnipresent and. Starting to understand how this might be happening with Korea now and, and certainly if you're a younger person, you know, if you're like a 12-year-old who has Instagram and listens to music and watches Netflix and all of that, you might think, oh. This is where I wanna be. Like, this is something like, I wanna learn Korean, I wanna go there to visit. the idea of kind of like as suddenly ascendant cultural primacy and wanting to be part, I think of kind of a winning team, right? Mm-hmm. Especially, I think because of America everything is fucking collapsing. Yes. And you feel like it's just like we are losers now. You know? Like, I mean, America is of course still like a wor an incredibly powerful world power, but like. Everything is collapsing. And then you see this like, again, I've never been to Korea. I, I don't know actually what it's like to be there on the ground, but seemingly. Things are working, it seems orderly and clean. Uh, you know, like the government 
Vinson Cunningham: supports the 
Naomi Fry: arts. The government supports the arts. It's like, oh, I would like to, 
Alex Schwartz: I'm literally amazed to hear you say this, like, I think this is just a sign.
I'm sorry to interrupt. Mm-hmm. But my, I'm, I astonished and amazed because to me it. Such a sign of how well the soft power is working, that you're saying that 
Naomi Fry: No, of course. No, no, no, no, no. I know. Absolutely. I'm not like, no, I'm not saying you don't. Of course I came up with this myself. Of course. No, like investment from the Korean government.
I'm 
Alex Schwartz: I'm not saying, I'm 
Naomi Fry: not saying that. I'm just thinking this myself with no connection to 
Alex Schwartz: No, no, I'm not. I'm not saying that. I'm not saying no, that's not what I mean. I mean, it's just like. The logical expansion that you're doing, which makes total sense about like, it seems orderly. We live in a mess and our own society is collapsing and it's like, uh, the former president was sentenced to life in prison.
Last month? No. Of in South Korea following vent izing? No, but I'm not, I'm not, again, it's not about the cultural 
Naomi Fry: narrative. 
Alex Schwartz: I'm not, yeah, I'm not, I'm not coming at you at all. No, I mean like saying like, I can't believe it. I'm just saying like, it's fa They did well.  They did well because when your president tries and fails to impose martial law and then goes to prison for life, and we're all here jamming to BTS and being like, let's visit. I wanna get bat mitzvah again to go to soul, frankly. Like it's working wonders. 
Naomi Fry: Absolutely. 
Alex Schwartz: It's working wonders. what's also really interesting to me about the, the export of Korean culture is that you also have the exact opposite. You have squid game, you know? Sure. You have, you have ultra violence, you have parasite, which, um, which I, as a movie I really enjoy, and I know I'm certainly not alone in that.
Um, my favorite Korean director, park Chan Wk, had a great movie come out at the end of last year called No Other Choice, which I was a bit surprised not to see mention at all the Oscars, but Okay. Which. I think dovetails so nicely in some ways with our discussion about these like intense. Capitalistic pressures that this art is made both as a reaction to and as an expression of mm-hmm. The K-pop system. it also makes me think about there is so much pressure on these guys.[d] There is an enormous amount of pressure. There is national pride pressure, there's an enormous amount of economic pressure. We were just this morning as we were prepping the show, sent this headline, um, that the agency behind.
BTS, their shares have dropped because the comeback shows turnout fell short. They have a huge. Power that you feel the weight of this on their shoulders. And so to balance that kind of economic and cultural weight is very fascinating. And that's what I saw on the live show. I saw these guys coming out there and saying, we wanna show you a new side of ourselves, but also let's check in with you.
How are you doing? And that's what I saw when they had female singers. Singing Ari wrong behind them, dressed in traditional Korean clothing. There was a real national pride moment. And I sitting in New York City with no, um, personal connection to South Korea. I'm, I'm tearing up. I'm like, 
Naomi Fry: yeah, 
Alex Schwartz: oh, the culture, you know, it's, it's like the authenticity of it, the strains of the folk ballad.
Um, so that's just, it's, there's a lot, there's a lot on these guys. Shoulders. 
Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. 
Alex Schwartz: Wow. Am I army? I don't know, but I, you might start starting to be army, I feel for them. 
Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. And I mean, speaking of what's on the shoulders, I know that you guys were sharing a novel a, a reading of K-pop demon hunters that has a lot to do with this kind of Oh 
Alex Schwartz: yeah, 
Vinson Cunningham: yeah.
This fan induced pressure. 
Alex Schwartz: Yeah. And K-pop demon hunters, which I watched over the weekend turned by the way, to look at my husband, who had sort of grudgingly decided to sit for this. Man. Was he enthralled? 
Naomi Fry: Was he really? Oh, 
Alex Schwartz: was 
Naomi Fry: I watched alone 
Alex Schwartz: living there? 
Naomi Fry: Was refusal in, 
Alex Schwartz: in my house 
Naomi Fry: to 
Alex Schwartz: participate, living, breathing it.
That's so funny. Wow. Living and breathing it, loving it, running around, singing all the songs. I'm, I'm watching him have a huge emotional reaction to this. But there's this constant underbeat, which I found very sinister in the movie, where every time this trio, this pop star trio is about to take a break, they immediately have decide they wanna go back to work.
Naomi Fry: They just can't not work. 
Alex Schwartz: And it's, and their plot mechanisms for it. But the underlying thing is. for the fans, we're doing it for the fans. And I'm thinking about figures like Elvis, Britney Spears for whom that pressure, among other things, but the pressure to perform for the fans, to be someone, for the fans to also stay the same forever, I think in both of those cases.
Mm-hmm. Elvis, speaking of the army, you know, Elvis goes into the army. Comes back, changed, physically changes a lot. Um, Britney, of course, like forced into this really sexualized role as a young teen and not really allowed to grow out of it in the public eye. Like for the fans can be very, very. Damaging way to live your life.
Naomi Fry: There's a really interesting thing happening now with Chap R I'm sure you guys have seen where mm-hmm. She's constantly chafing against the expectation that she will be present for her fans. Hmm. Like when she's out and about, you know, like the paparazzi are taking pictures of her, she's coming out of a car on her way to a restaurant or like whatever, and she.
Turns her camera on them and is like, don't you know, I'm a I'm a, I'm a person. I'm a person. You're like treating me like an animal. So it's a whole, she's like incredibly annoying. Like she is absolutely like insufferable to me, um, in her kind of like refusal to contend with the fact that yeah, she is a very, very successful, very famous woman now.
People are gonna notice her when she goes outside. You know, people are gonna take her picture probably, you know, she's a public figure. Like, um, but, but at the same time, yes, it is a whole lot of pressure. Like it is a nightmare, like when you are a very, very successful, famous person. you're kind of like in a fishbowl of of mm-hmm.
Of surveillance and attention. And that has broken many over the years. 
Vinson Cunningham: And the, and the being broken is the part that is inefficient for capital. And it's interesting because of course, you know, as we've mentioned. Part of the conceit of the whole group was we're gonna give our fans a lot of access that, you know mm-hmm.
Through Twitter, through videos, et cetera, through all this content and on some way, yeah, maybe it's, uh, you could imagine it as propaganda for the South Korean state. You could imagine it as, um, a way to, to, to circumscribe a, um, an emerging adulthood as we have. But also it can be thought of as in.
Organizing the previously messy thing that is hugely huge pop celebrity.  It's saying no, we're gonna bring in the uncertainty of the pop star into our understanding. We're gonna present that as a product as well. Um, and on some level, therefore tame. The last remaining big problem with this kind of star, which is they burn out.
They get angry and everybody sees past the facade for various reasons. We're gonna, you know, by making that part of the show, um, we can sort of more, uh. Efficiently Tamely present this show and keep it going. 
Naomi Fry: It's like a VE for longer. It's like a vaccine, right? So you inject a little bit of the poison.
Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. 
Naomi Fry: So it's like, oh, we're gonna say like, oh, we feel stressed. Oh, we're not sure how we're gonna do this. Yeah, we don't wanna disappoint, et cetera. But of course there's a whole, there must be. We're talking about people. Yeah. There must be a whole other level of mess. Of course. And of, 
Vinson Cunningham: we've talked about these suicides that 
Naomi Fry: you know well, 
Alex Schwartz: yeah, yeah, it exactly right.
The, the suicides in the industry. Um, and especially there, there was a very famous case of John Yun, who's, who's a man from a, from a different K-pop group, but I'm thinking particularly of, of Sully and Guha, who, two women who dealt with crazy misogynistic abuse. Just fan abuse. Um, so yeah, scary stuff when reality meets.
Um, these fantasy ideals and a lot about this, like, again, going back to our beloved Alex Ish's piece, um, about, about Chairman Bang, a lot of it reminded me of the news cycle that we have now around AI Companions And people. Like these AI companions becoming increasingly realistic, increasingly visually realistic.
You can kind of FaceTime with one or chat with one. You can constantly be texting with one, and of course the B Ts stars are not that at all. They're not going to, you can't FaceTime them and sum 'em up, but there is enough out there that you almost can. You can go to a lot of the cultural output and kind of, even as I was prepping for the show, I was amazed at how many tabs I had open just, oh, I'm just brushing my teeth, watching the concert and I'm putting on my clothes and I'm watching a press conference they gave, and I'm watching the documentary and.
There is an element of AI companionship, I think by sanding down some of the rougher edges of what it means to be an individual. 
Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. Well, um, you can pay to DM [e]with a member of, uh, of BTS.[f] I mean, I think you get an auto reply, but you, there's, there's 
Alex Schwartz: On Weavers Right 
Vinson Cunningham: app on Weavers. Weavers. Right. So there's a, 
Alex Schwartz: a whole app for doing this.
Okay. 
Vinson Cunningham: Yeah. So there's like this, it's like the final frontier. Whether either the corporation or the state or whatever the managing interest can, can step into that. And this is something we've talked about all the time. Uh, celebrities don't need to go talk to journalists anymore. They can do it by Instagram, right?
This sort of, um, further privatization even of this sort of mediatory, what we call para sociality, if that can be monetized and organized, it really is the final frontier of the pop star. And I think this is kind of a new technology. This band is not just, you know. They're not just the exemplary form of something.
They are, they, they're a development of it in a way that is, yes, unnerving, but also really interesting. 
Alex Schwartz: Mm-hmm. It's fascinating. It’s fascinating and it all just brings us back to the music. At the end of this we have all these different cultural products, and at the heart of it is… the music! [g]
Naomi Fry: Yeah and it’s a very intimate thing to listen to someone listen in your ear. Or croon in your ear, whatever. Rap in your ear. 
Swim, swim. 
 [EXT END] 
Vinson Cunningham: This has been critics at large. Alex Barrish is our consulting editor, and Rhiannon Corby is our senior producer. Our executive producer is Steven Valentino. Our show is mixed by Mike Kuman, and we had engineering help today from Pran Bandi with Music by Alexis Rado. We'll be back in your feeds next week, and in the meantime, you can always find our episodes@newyorker.com slash critics.