I know there's a trend with young people leaning towards leftism/socialism/communism/wokeism/collectivism. But kpop is also very popular among the youth. And if we are being honest kpop as a business model just bottles down into pretty people advertising overpriced non-essential items to people much less affluent than them. This is capitalism at it's core. But it's also not 'humane capitalism' either, because the end-goal is NOT to make the lives of the masses better but to make a handful of CEOs and artists megarich. The positive outcomes (such as diversion from life's problems) are a tangential consequence but not the main goal of why the industry keeps going.
Can kpop fans be considered full fledged capitalists?
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Life is already capitalism. Might as well watch pretty people while we're at it.
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True
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Life is already capitalism. Might as well watch pretty people while we're at it.
But it seems quite opposite to the anti-Darwinian sentiment a lot of kpop fans carry. Obviously kpop is just for entertainment but since they support kpop more than they support social equality, they shouldn't be surprised why kpop has become a multi-billion business yet very little progress gets made on other fronts.
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I have to say that I quite agree.
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Some are, some can't be. A lot of fans stream for "free" ("free" = selling ads to YT, Spotify, etc.) online.
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Some are, some can't be. A lot of fans stream for "free" ("free" = selling ads to YT, Spotify, etc.) online.
Ehh, that's still Capitalism.
Capitalism is just an economic system where Capital is controlled by private individuals or organizations.
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Akornism
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yes
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Pretty much
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I think our generation in general has a lot of contradictions.
We tend to strongly dislike capitalism, but we are full-fledged consumerists. Not only in kpop but in everything else ( clothes, phones etc... )
We are the 'green' generation, yet we travel by plane way more than our parents and are the ones eating fast and processed food.
We go crazy for human rights issues, yet we still support brands that are clearly NOT good.
So yeah, I don't think it's about kpop fans. It's a more global issue.
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I think our generation in general has a lot of contradictions.
We tend to strongly dislike capitalism, but we are full-fledged consumerists. Not only in kpop but in everything else ( clothes, phones etc... )
We are the 'green' generation, yet we travel by plane way more than our parents and are the ones eating fast and processed food.
We go crazy for human rights issues, yet we still support brands that are clearly NOT good.
So yeah, I don't think it's about kpop fans. It's a more global issue.
Actually capitalists tend to support human rights in the form of wokeism because it's de-emphasizes financial inequality and reframe injustice into just racial terms. Thereby the blame of inequality doesn't concentrate on the 1%, comprising the largest owners of wealth and property, but it gets spread around to the majority (who are mostly white people). This is why when anti-billionaire movements like Occupy Wall Street got going, the media suddenly started to focus even more on racial inequality. So yes, social narratives are allowed or encouraged as long as it gives some advantage to the most rich and powerful. They can hide behind the masses of white people while their companies post a pro-LGBT or BLM tweet and get praised for it.
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Actually capitalists tend to support human rights in the form of wokeism because it's de-emphasizes financial inequality and reframe injustice into just racial terms. Thereby the blame of inequality doesn't concentrate on the 1%, comprising the largest owners of wealth and property, but it gets spread around to the majority (who are mostly white people). This is why when anti-billionaire movements like Occupy Wall Street got going, the media suddenly started to focus even more on racial inequality. So yes, social narratives are allowed or encouraged as long as it gives some advantage to the most rich and powerful. They can hide behind the masses of white people while their companies post a pro-LGBT or BLM tweet and get praised for it.
While plenty of company will try to play the 'woke' part, that's not exactly how that works.
One big part of systemic racism is wealth inequality. A lot of the racial issues would be resolved if POC and white people had the same chance at education, at getting a good job, at making equal money, at getting the same social position.
This is the same thing for feminism : most women have less money than men. Most women have a lesser social position than men. And the numbers skyock if we talk about WOC. What we call 'glass ceiling' is very real.
So no, fighting for human rights isn't incompatible with fighting capitalism. You are talking as if these issues weren't entirely intricated. Once people start turning against wealth inequalities, it's not hard to notice WHO is benifiting from them.
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While plenty of company will try to play the 'woke' part, that's not exactly how that works.
One big part of systemic racism is wealth inequality. A lot of the racial issues would be resolved if POC and white people had the same chance at education, at getting a good job, at making equal money, at getting the same social position.
This is the same thing for feminism : most women have less money than men. Most women have a lesser social position than men. And the numbers skyock if we talk about WOC. What we call 'glass ceiling' is very real.
So no, fighting for human rights isn't incompatible with fighting capitalism. You are talking as if these issues weren't entirely intricated. Once people start turning against wealth inequalities, it's not hard to notice WHO is benifiting from them.
It's a distinction of proportionality. Obviously racism can appear in any society but the institutionalized form began from the richest in the population using their wealth to create new systems of exploitation to profit from. Random white people couldn't possibly create the system of chattel slavery. It's rich merchants and nobility that owned the trans-Atlantic boats and land who put it into place. And obviously white people benefitted from being adjacent to this and being the managers for the elite. But now that the situation changed the same elite are using divide and conquer strategies to divert direct blame to their actual or spiritual forefathers in predatory capitalism. Some things shifted but the essential slavery of people still remains, the slave labor in third world countries, the "blood diamond" mining in Africa, and even sexual slavery that also serves the elite (ie. Jeffrey Epstein type cases). Performative activism, rather than actual life improving progress, is just another tool of theirs for diversion.
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It's a distinction of proportionality. Obviously racism can appear in any society but the institutionalized form began from the richest in the population using their wealth to create new systems of exploitation to profit from. Random white people couldn't possibly create the system of chattel slavery. It's rich merchants and nobility that owned the trans-Atlantic boats and land who put it into place. And obviously white people benefitted from being adjacent to this and being the managers for the elite. But now that the situation changed the same elite are using divide and conquer strategies to divert direct blame to their actual or spiritual forefathers in predatory capitalism. Some things shifted but the essential slavery of people still remains, the slave labor in third world countries, the "blood diamond" mining in Africa, and even sexual slavery that also serves the elite (ie. Jeffrey Epstein type cases). Performative activism, rather than actual life improving progress, is just another tool of theirs for diversion.
Yes but performative activism isn't activism.
The people who actually matter and are making changes in the world ? They are fighting for human rights AND against inequalities, one cannot go against the other.
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People who go around social media boasting how they are warriors for social equality are not even the issue here, or even those that actually do real life advocacy and push for reforms. I'm talking more about large corporations and organizations that try to give themselves the sheen of being socially progressive and benefiting from the PR, but are never put to task on what they are actually doing to make progress besides some symbolic gestures.
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People who go around social media boasting how they are warriors for social equality are not even the issue here, or even those that actually do real life advocacy and push for reforms. I'm talking more about large corporations and organizations that try to give themselves the sheen of being socially progressive and benefiting from the PR, but are never put to task on what they are actually doing to make progress besides some symbolic gestures.
Yes, that what I meant.
Corporations don't see any benifit in fighting race or gender inequalities. But since society is evolving, and more and more people ARE interested in these issues, corporations have to follow. And most of the time it looks really fake and stupid.
I don't think anyone should see these corporations as 'actors'. If anything, they just react to what they perceive as 'trendy'. But if they have to react, it still means that something is happening. Which is the most interesting part, always.
Anyway, I honestly don't think we are disagreeing there. No power-holding corporation ( or government... *cough* *cough* ) is interested in changing things, because why would they. No matter how much they pretend, I don't think anyone actually believe they care. This is not where any change will come from.
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