The Pop Corporation

These K-Pop bands are a massive, multi-million dollar business and on one hand, it’s great to see young pop fans getting into music that is spoken in something that isn’t English. However, there’s a big problem – what’s with all the Nazi stuff?!

The most recent news concerns Chaeyoung who is a member of Twice. She’s worn a t-shirt that features a swastika. Now, this one feels quite benign, as she was wearing a shirt which featured Sid Vicious who is himself, wearing a swastika logo. Now, punk’s flirtation with fascism is something that still rankles (huge amounts of punks are willing to talk about it, but even more of them are happy to sweep it under the rug), so wearing a swastika by osmosis is ill-judged, sure, but did it set the alarm bells off because this isn’t a one-off?

The singer apologised saying: “I didn’t correctly recognise the meaning of the tilted swastika in the t-shirt I wore. I deeply apologise for not thoroughly reviewing it, causing concern. I will pay absolute attention in the future to prevent any situation similar from happening again.”

That would all be fine if the same singer didn’t perform in clothing that had an American flag on it and the QAnon slogan ‘where we go one, we go all’ on it too.

There’s more too. BTS – just about the biggest pop group in the universe currently – have been seen wearing hats that were styled on SS officers, which featured an eagle and a swastika. And so did another group, Keyakizaka46.

Another member of BTS has also been seen wearing a shirt that celebrated Korea’s liberation from Japan, which may seem harmless enough until you consider that the shirt in question was accompanied by the image of an atomic bomb’s mushroom cloud. To say this is grim is something of an understatement.

Of course, there’s more. K-Pop Metal group, Pritz showed off a new look in 2014 which, as you can see below, bear a gruesome resemblance to Nazi uniforms. The group’s management said “the thought never occurred” to them that any comparison could ever be made. So what were they going for, if not fascism?

Apparently, the red armband was inspired by a traffic sign and the arrows represented the group’s desire “to expand without a limit in four directions”. And everyone muttered bullshit under their breath.

And there’s more. So much more. In ’21, Sowon of GFriend posed with a Nazi mannequin, going as far as giving it a cuddle and caressing it. One of Purple Kiss wore a Nazi uniform for a photoshoot.

Korean boyband Epex went as far as referencing the 1938 Kristallnacht pogrom against Jewish people in Nazi Germany in their track ‘Anthem of Teen Spirit’, singing “I see them burning raw, Crystal Night is coming” whilst wearing uniforms flirting hard with literal fascism. That was last year in 2022. There’s no excuse, given that such controversies have blighted K-Pop for years and years now.

Add to this, credible criticism of the scene’s use of blackface and use of racial slurs, K-Pop continues to tread a very problematic line, seemingly in the name of cheap publicity. The use of the n-word by scores of K-Pop artists, and the cheap winking that goes with Korean words like “nikka” (“니까”) and “niga” (“니가”), which vaguely translates to an informal version of ‘you’, many black critics have justifiably said ‘they know what they’re doing‘. PopCrush have a round-up of K-Pop groups in blackface, if you can stomach the evidence.

With Big Bang’s G-Dragon posting an image of themselves in blackface and hoodie, mocking the death of Trayvon Martin, you can’t help but be furious. It’s obvious that pop music is a reflection of society, including it’s ills – is it fair to ask a bunch of pop groups to fix something that is obviously broken in Korea at large?

Well, to ask them to mend it might be a bit much, but it is absolutely paramount to call them out on it and ask them not to participate. The acts and their labels and management are absolutely complicit in the whole sorry affair, especially given that they are marketed and managed to within an inch of their lives.

If every item of clothing and image is as scrutinised as their complex dance routines and artwork, then yes, it is right to be angered at the whole thing and at some point, the mealy-mouthed apologies need to stand for something more substantial. And the fans of these bands need to do their part too. Sure, they’ve hijacked racist hashtags on Twitter to troll extremists, and even fucked with the ticketing of a Donald Trump event. However, if you’re not calling the rest out and financially supporting bands who make these moves, then you become implicit too.