This past October, the K-pop singer Choi Jin-ri, known as Sulli, was found dead in her home. The cause of death for the former f(x) member was suicide. Just one month later, Goo Hara, a South Korean singer and actress, also commit suicide. She was reportedly close friends with Sulli. I recently have begun following the music genre of k-pop and the community/fandom is unnecessarily toxic and extreme in their opinions. In the Korean entertainment industry, even more than the American entertainment industry, there is a huge emphasis on external beauty and maintaining a youthful, elegant image. However, like almost all stars, Sulli and Goo Hara received a crazy amount of pressure and harassment from an early age. A majority of this came in the form of social media/online comments. Platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have become cesspools of negativity for k-pop "stans" that bash on groups they don't support and the supporters of those groups. This recent news really stuck out to me for a few reasons.Part of the reason I took this class was because of this happening. I hoped that some part of the class would cover cyber bullying/the negative impact that technology can have on us as a society. Another reason this stuck out to me was because every family member or friend that knew I was into k-pop started asking me questions about it since it made mainstream news. A piece from this class that really stuck out to me and related to this was Shannon Vallor's "Social networking technology and the virtues". More specifically, the "Empathy" section of it stood out to me the most. I really liked how Vallor acknowledged empathy's claim to be a virtue even if Aristotle didn't directly say it was a human virtue. What was most interesting to me though, was the discussion about empathy in online platforms that was raised. Empathy, according to Vallor is the ability to "feel with others". It really boggles my mind to think about the impact social media has on empathy and people's willingness to say hurtful or vile things online opposed to in person. This k-pop example is just a small seed in a field full of cyber bullying issues, but I just wanted to address it because it intertwined a couple of my hobbies together and I want to raise awareness on the effect of cyber bullying.
Here is an article about Sulli's death if you want to learn more about it: https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2019/11/07/Suicide-of-K-pop-star-Sulli-puts-spotlight-on-cyberbullying/4371573147309/
Your post was well-written, and the K-Pop example definitely relates to empathy in online communities. This is especially true with the world of this Korean genre, since it is so extreme and the stars feel so much pressure to be perfect. In order to make your argument more solid and pertain to the assigned readings even more, I would recommend referring to Vallor's piece in the beginning and using more specific examples that relate to Vallor's arguments. I felt like there was a little disconnect between your discussion of K-Pop and social networking virtues.
ReplyDeleteI definitely see where you're coming from with the disconnect, I was trying to incorporate the readings more this time around, but this is for sure something I can clean up for the edited blog post.
DeleteI enjoyed reading your post especially since K-Pop has gained a large following in the recent years. I had a difficult time reading your post at the top because of the placement of the photo you included in your post. There were many lines so it was hard to keep track of which line I was on and which one came next. I have noticed this "extreme" following that you are referencing online, and I'm surprised that it has not changed especially after these tragedies that occurred in the K-Pop community. I think a way for you to tie the topic of cyber bullying to Vallor's piece would be to explain her piece more since you briefly introduce it then go back into talking about the cyberbullying.
ReplyDeleteHi Jacob! First of all, thank you for brining this topic up because as a Kpop fan it was such a heartbreaking news. I think you did a great job on connecting to Shannon Vallor's writing about empathy and how the whole situation happened. I also agree that the internet is very toxic to all the celebrities because some people just don't have empathy towards others. I think Serena was right about adding more information from the reading to strengthen your discussion.
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