Girl Group Messaging

This is something that actually came to my mind a short while ago and I had to think about it for a long time.

I was chilling out listening to some classic K-Pop tracks when some classic Girls Generation (SNSD) came through as the next track. It was the classic, “Oh” which was something that I probably had not heard fully since I moved to South Korea. But in hearing the song again and enjoying the rhythms that took me back to my late 20s, I clocked the lyrics in the chorus:

Oh, oh, oh, 오빠를 사랑해 Oh! Oh! Oh! Oppa I love you

Ah, ah, ah, ah, 많이, 많이 해 Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah! So much, so much

수줍으니, 제발 웃지 마요 I’m shy so please don’t laugh

진심이니, 놀리지도 말아요 I’m sincere so please don’t tease me

또 바보 같은 말뿐야 Again it’s only foolish words 

 

Oh. OH. (And no, I am not exclaiming the song title but actually realising something.)

This was basically declaring their love and/or interest in a man. And that was it.

After the initial shock, I started to go through some more of their songs. Genie (my favourite of theirs). Gee. The result was the same. All of these songs basically were declarations of love towards a faceless male love interest. And it was very coded towards a male audience.

I shared my thoughts to my personal trainer (hereby known as my P.T. from now on) whilst I was at the gym the other day who was born in the year 2000 and is my 딧동갑 (dit-dong-gap: people who have the same Eastern Zodiac sign). We tend to talk about K-Pop a lot as he likes to remind me when I was a fully grown adult being interested in the debut of BTS, he was still in elementary school. I tend to threaten him with violence because of this. My threats merely amuse him. That is our style of banter I guess.

This is a somewhat accurate recollection of how our conversation went whilst he was stressing me out with doing lunges:

Me: “Do you remember that Girl’s Generation song- Oh?”

P.T.: “Yeah, I do… never liked it though.”

Me: “I just clocked that it was pretty much girls just crowing over a potential love interest and declaring their love for their ‘oppa’”

P.T.: “Yeah, most K-Pop songs were like that when I was young. That’s why I never liked them.”

Huh. Actually, that made a lot of sense. I remember reading something years back that said K-Pop would not have the popularity it had back then if more people understood Korean because the reality is a lot of lyrics are too twee or just generally nonsensical. But the point of my P.T.’s comment about “most K-Pop songs were like that" got me thinking about other songs of the time by girl groups that I had enjoyed but never really thought about the lyrics/meaning behind them (mostly due to the fact I didn’t have a grip on Korean back then)

So I started a bit of a deep dive into songs of that era (Gen 2, 2.5, and early 3) and, yep, a lot of the girl groups had a lot of these songs where the girls were earnestly begging for the attention of the guy(s) they were singing to. KARA, T-ARA, Sistar, Wonder Girls and Twice all had songs that were talking about gaining the affections of a male love interest either by acting sweetly or wearing makeup/perfume. And funnily enough, those groups in question had a large male fandom.

YG Entertainment girl groups were the ones who kind of broke the trend. 2NE1 were famed for having a strong and high fashion image (although YG himself mentioned that the girls were “very ugly for a group”) which attracted a stronger female fanbase which, back then, was unusual for K-Pop as the GGs were for the guys and BGs for the girls. One could say that 2NE1 actually broke the mold of this, as did Blackpink years later though there was an initial push to have them have a stronger male audience as they were pushed for their looks at first.

Not going to lie, looking back on it the whole thing was a bit of a shock to the system on how blatant it was lyrics wise. And it was so one dimensional that I can see why young Koreans of the past never really got into the music even if now they would enjoy it for nostalgia purposes.

I am glad in that sense that the music of these past few years have turned away from the times of old; but that is more of a personal thing as I am understanding a lot more language wise than I was 10-15 years ago. Would these types of songs still be popular these days? Honestly, it would depend on the group but due to the nature of fandom (and general sentiment against the male gaze these days) I don’t think it will happen anytime soon.

I may be wrong.

I hope I’m not.

(P.S: I will do a version of this post for the boy group songs of this era because it was WILD.)