Do All Korean Guys Wear Makeup
Why K-Popular has Korean Men Wearing Makeup
Traditional masculine ideals in South korea are being redefined by cultural, social, and economic forces
H ere's a novel stat: South korea accounts for well-nigh 20% of the globe market for men's cosmetics. This means annual sales of more than $1 billion courtesy of a mere 25 1000000 men, and this figure will inflate by l% over the side by side five years. On a per capita level, Korean men have everyone vanquish. Why? Because "appearance is ability" and "youth equals power."
We're not just talking skin lotions or aftershave hither. Korean urbanites are also smitten with BB Cream, brow pencils and guyliner. Girlfriends and spouses not only store cosmetics for their male partners in Seoul, but also casually apply lipstick to their faces in public without anyone sharpening the proverbial pitchforks.
That said, shouldn't gender-bending exist a complete no-no in the deeply Confucian culture of Korea? Likewise, befitting its two years of mandatory military service for young men, shouldn't Korea's benchmark for masculine beauty be the hardy, rugged type? Like Clark Gable? Fifty-fifty Bruce Lee? While that was one time truthful, South Koreans now prize the puckish, Peter Pan wait over Gerard Butler-esque alpha male chic.
T hese stats won't surprise longtime fans of Korean pop music (M-Popular) one flake, though. The industry has been key in redefining what S Koreans consider the comely male. Pick out merely near any K-Pop video on You lot Tube featuring a lad or two and you will exist dazzled by thick, smoky eyes, impossibly chiseled features and a penchant for bright lipstick. Hell, in that location are video tutorials online offering DIY tips to expect just like them.
Selling androgyny for sex appeal is not new to mainstream music. Anybody from Bowie to Boy George to hair-metal did so. Fifty-fifty Lord Bieber and One Direction become dolled upwards for shoots, though naught remotely as radical as G-Dragon or Seventeen. Still, well-nigh makeup-wearing western acts came, shocked and left without profoundly changing the status quo. Many had a feral component to their sexiness, a kind of danger past association.
The purse strings of K-Pop — formally known as SM, YG and JYP Entertainments — probably took the long view on acquirement streams hither. Therefore, while y'all always worried that Billy Idol or Adam Ant could shiv you mid-serenade, there is no such edge to almost meticulously packaged males that constitute G-Pop. Sure, nosotros get the odd edgy visuals sometimes, but these generally seem contrived and for outcome.
T he most elaborate marketing plans would, of course, be completely useless without strong economic drivers pushing social alter. South korea is an ultra competitive club with some of the longest working hours amidst developed nations. It went from having a per capita output less than the communist north'due south five decades ago to becoming an immovable member of the aristocracy G20 club. Such single-minded pursuit of the almighty won can, unfortunately, exist a double-edged sword.
Due south Korean workers may exist the most stressed in the world and the country'due south suicide stats trump every nation barring Guyana, specially for immature men. In a social order orbiting around material success, where anybody is competing for the same handful of topflight universities and corporations, male citizens latched onto makeup as a ways to serpent by the contest. Egged on by cultural pillars similar K-Popular, the idea of emulating "flower boys" became "a marking of social success."
Due south Korean companies probably enabled this obsession with pare-deep. Every task application, after all, requires a headshot and many owners prefer having face-readers on board interviews to decide if an applicant's visage is suitable for their business across academics and skills.
Unsurprisingly and so, plastic surgery is commonplace in South korea and an increasing number of men desire Caucasian noses and slim jawlines, while approximately one in 5 female person Seoul-dwellers take gone nether the knife for diverse procedures. Indeed, long earlier Psy broke You lot Tube counters with his monster hit, the city'south Gangnam district was famous throughout Asia for its strip mall-like array of personal enhancement clinics.
T wo events in the belatedly 1990s reportedly accelerated the upending of traditional masculine ideals in Southward Korea. First, Japanese cultural staples like manga and anime fascinated Koreans later on the government eased restrictions on their import. Peculiarly popular were the "shoujo" diverseness targeting teenaged girls where male characters are "bishonen" or "beautiful boys" with exoplanet-sized eyes.
Not long after, the starting time moving ridge of "blossom boys" crashed onto Korean TV screens courtesy of One thousand-Pop acts like DBSK (aka TVXQ) and later through the super popular local drama "Boys Over Flowers," again inspired past a Japanese manga. Suddenly, macho men were passé and elvish imps made women swoon across the country.
The IMF Crunch of 1997 too ostensibly pushed Korean women to rebel against male stereotypes. When the downturn hit Southward Korea, female person workers were laid off in much higher numbers than their male colleagues. Since weathering the crisis required a resurgence of nationalism, social club expected them to take one for the team and quietly support their men.
Even so, Korean women didn't take kindly to this slight and began rejecting the "the ideals of men equally potent, provider types." Coupled with the influence of Japanese comics, the emergence of "flower boys" in advertising and new movies that sold the soft, feminine male, they began pining for partners that were "more interested in satisfying them than their companies."
S uspicious that mainstream media sources were cherry-picking narratives that fabricated Korean men seem kooky, I reached out to my good friend Hyoung Jun Rim in Seoul. Hyoung is a record producer in the thick of all things 1000-Pop and a professor of music at the Korea Art Solarium.
He admits that Korean men apply makeup on a daily ground, but improved chore prospects are only part of the equation. "It is about competition, just not only for job interviews." There is a "self-satisfaction" that comes from looking skilful in the mirror and highly-seasoned to the opposite sex, Hyoung says. In short, a need to preen every bit human as hitting the john, although what constitutes "handsome" in South korea today might incur homophobic slurs elsewhere.
Hyoung also doesn't buy the Japanese cultural imports or IMF Crisis theories to explain the shift in masculine standards. K-Pop, he suggests, is a relatively new manufacture all the same experimenting with its image and focused solely on making money. Korean boy bands similar TVXQ and EXO, for example, are actually pop in manga-obsessed Japan, so androgyny could but exist a branding strategy.
Seoul may exist the male person makeup capital letter of the world, but personally Hyoung nonetheless puzzles over why South Koreans are infatuated with waif-like men wearing heavy cosmetics. He tells me he overhears people enthusing, "That guy'south head is sooo small, so handsome!" and only shakes his caput.
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Source: https://medium.com/cuepoint/why-k-pop-has-korean-men-wearing-makeup-21501bd8b0cf
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