Ecological Messages in K-Pop

As you may have guessed from the fact that one of the authors has a whale shark for an avatar, all of us at AKF care deeply about the environment and the preservation thereof. In between my daily acts of masturbation and gardening, I like to see how K-Pop represents my views, and I am pleased to say that a lot of K-Pop carries with it a deeply powerful ecological message. Today I wish to present to you a handful of the K-Pop videos that show a strong concern for the state of our earth and all creatures on it, especially whale sharks. I see no reason to beat around the bush any longer; let us begin.

'FM' (Crayon Pop)

This is a recent one and tells a profound ecological narrative with characters that we will grow to love and a rip-roaring storyline that will teach you to turn that fucking tap off. The way I choose to interpret it is that humanity has become a nomadic species that settles on planets only until we destroy them by letting the evil greenhouse gases torment us. Crayon Pop are the only line of defense stopping these gases from literally murdering everyone. The MV location switches between a desolate planet that has already been spent by humanity, and the current planet of residence. As the MV shows, the battles are bloody, and sacrifices are brutal. "FM" tells of a worst-case scenario in which we gleefully deplete all of our planet's resources, which then leads to this hideous nomadic lifestyle; nobody wants that, not least Chrome Entertainment who put hours upon years of scientific research into determining this horrific future and putting it into such an easy form for us to understand. Hopefully, we will all take notice of this and stop killing the whale sharks (PTS_Sr gets very sad), or at the very least train our children to beat up greenhouse gases; either works.

'Good Night Like Yesterday' (Lovelyz)

Woollim chose to take a more conceptual approach than the narrative focus chosen by Chrome. We ecologists argue that peaceful coexistence with nature comes through an appreciation that all flora and fauna has the same right to exist as humans, one of the most inspirational figures in my life is Arne Naess who argued for this "biocentric equality." Lovelyz has perfectly captured this by showing humans and man-made structures living in a beautiful symbiosis with the greenery around them, thus becoming part plant themselves. This literal interpretation of ecological doctrine is helped by the fact that everyone in Lovelyz is unbelievably attractive which would seem to show the beauty of nature in comparison to crusty Sunggyu as he sits on his chair in the dark, unable to escape the bare cell of his own creation. The serene nature of this music video is perhaps a more acceptable image to the public than the angry, speculative "FM," but it nonetheless shows the sheer power of nature and how humanity should not try to tame it. Trees bring light into our lives, and if you try to stop that, you must be a dickhead.

'Gun' (9Muses)

Look at what the petroleum industry and petroleum-powered vehicles are doing to our once proud desert metropolises. The only business left in this shanty-town sells petrol, which only damages the planet and the local economy more and more as the series of huts that 9Muses reside in build up an economic dependency to the petrol industry. Did you see when that guy rocked up on his motorcycle? They were so excited to have a customer that they put on a choreographed song, dance, and party for him (thus losing more money in the process). The tendrils of our hyper-industrial society reach out to these places with less provision in terms of natural resources so that they become wholly dependent on the goods given to them by TNCs. Not only does this exploit workers worldwide and potentially destroy the livelihood of thousands of people in the surrounding area, but it spreads environmental damage to even the most untouched of places. "Gun" is a cutting satire of how big businesses with little regard for the environment use the profit system to benefit themselves while pushing everyone else down. It acts as a smashing indictment of the frontier mentality and environmental disregard shown by big business.

'더' (Just Music)

This is a daringly conceptual MV about man's relationship with the environment and how we can best control our resources. During CJAMM's verse, he precisely measures out a clearly finite amount of water as a frog desperately crawls to find a safe habitat, and we are given impressions of how helpless the situation is by CJAMM and Nochang's expressions. Nochang and the dancer live in a room of unnecessary excess with disused chairs, bird cages, and other knickknacks, which is representative of the damage that mankind's intense thirst for knowledge has wreaked upon our planet. It is as Fritz Schumacher says: "Mankind is now too smart to survive without wisdom." Then we have Vasco sitting in a room and filling it up with smoke that he blows from his nose, a clear visual metaphor for how we fill our atmosphere with greenhouse gases with little sign of restraint. Vasco also advocates humanity taking a role of stewardship over the Earth by saying, "We own that shit." While deep ecologists would be unhappy with this viewpoint, the majority of us ecologists are "shallow" and would tend to agree with Vasco. Most heartbreaking of all is Swings, who represents all of humanity as we sit on our throne to come to the realisation that we have nothing left; we are used to our cake stands being full of cake, but there is not even the tiniest crumb or speck. In the end, the situation is not resolved; perhaps Just Music is portraying a worst-case scenario, but perhaps they are instead saying the damage has been done and it is already too late. Powerful stuff.

'Wiggle Wiggle' (Hello Venus)

I have insider information that Fantagio Music expected the fap levels of this video to be through the roof, as indeed they were. They hoped the high levels of fapping would cause environmental scientists to consider the possibility of fap-power as a renewable energy source. You could boil the kettle every morning by watching "Wiggle Wiggle" or "Paradise Lost" or "Eyes, Nose, Lips," and this would lower the usage of electricity, thus preserving the earth for that bit longer. Thanks for looking out for us, Fantagio.

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We could all learn a lot from K-Pop companies about looking after our surroundings so that future generations can enjoy them. Some of these may have been overly anthropocentric for your tastes as an ecologist, but I merely intended to present the wide scope of environmental ethics present in K-Pop. I hope you use this information wisely, so you can stop the killing of whale sharks.