POP CULTURE SEMIOTICS 101

(Or...A modest explanation for the success of Gangnam Style)

Seeing as Gangnam Style is everywhere at the moment, I thought I'd humbly suggest a reason for its runaway viral success, and a suggest its implications.

You could try to explain the sheer magnitude of its global cultural domination by citing the goofy charisma of its chubby rap-protagonist, Psy, and the song's eminently imitable dance moves. Perhaps the bright colours, sense of humour and catchy tune are to blame. Maybe its the loving and uniquely South Korean homage to the visual tropes of bling hip-hop culture.

But those things are mainly just signifiers: the elements that strike you on first viewing. It's not the text that matters; it's the subtext and the context.

And the context of the hip-hop / bling / rap music video seems key to me.

Now I'm no expert, but it seems to me that there's an undercurrent of Western cultural condescension here, because there is a disconnect between the the message that Psy is intending to send and the way the message is being received.

Gangnam Style is actually a satire on the pretension of Seoul's wealthy citizens. To use the technical term, it's a pisstake.

It's irony proof already because Psy knows what he is doing.

But of course, stripped of that context and subtext, we in the West try to understand it within our own cultural parameters. And that means bringing forth our patronising Western colonial attitudes to Far Eastern culture. If you don't know any better, Gangnam Style is a bad photocopy of American youth culture, a Chinese whisper of hip hop swagger that sounds like “hey, sexy lady!”.

Even in these super-connected times, to us, the East is still peculiarly foreign, particularly other. But, of course, they still want to be Western right? Or more exactly: American.

So the ignorant West condescends to their assumed innocence.

Like watching a four year-old being Joseph in a nativity play, “ah bless, how sweet! Look how hard he's trying!”.

I've done something similar to this myself.

For the 2002 World Cup, I was entranced by the mass-orchestrated, cherry-red clad hordes of South Koreans watching their team's extraordinary run to the semi-finals on giant screens in public squares. What a fabulously biddable, pliant and obedient race, I thought. For them to – all of a sudden – really really like football now, when heretofore they were completely ambivalent.

I pictured them each being summoned individually to an oak-lined government office, where a stern apparatchik sat each one of them down and said: “You really really like football, now. Goodbye.” And then ink-stamped their hand to make it official.

Having had South Koreans as clients, let me tell you: they are not biddable. And they are not at all pliant. Very into their heirarchies though.

In fact, Gangnam Style's success is a symptom of something much more interesting. It's a sign that South Korean pop culture products can achieve global success, and as such it's a sign that South Korea has come of age as a major cultural player in the global entertainment economy.

Economics at school taught me that every nation has three industry sectors: Primary, Secondary and Tertiary. Primary industry covers mineral extraction and food¹, Secondary is mainly manufacturing stuff, and Tertiary is the service sector. The social, people-focused industries. The kind of job where you sit in pointless meetings all day, tell your friends that you're really busy and go home at the end of day feeling empty, having achieved nothing. Mature, modern countries create the majority of their wealth in the Tertiary sector.

Well, entertainment products are in that third sector, too. And after Britain's empire gave the world its sports and the American empire its popular music, suddenly there's a gap in the market, or rather a vast swathe of global niches to be filled.

Japan blazed the trail in the 1980s with anime, manga, Transformers, Nintendo and lots more. After Sony spent thirty years creating the best electronic devices, the West was ready to accept, and to love, and to buy, what the Japanese created for those devices.

Now the global village is ready for South Korea. Sure, there have been some great South Korean cult horror and action movies and K-Pop has a growing fanbase, but now they have truly arrived.

And by the way, the South Korea is light years ahead of the West in mobile technology. They've had 3G and 100% ownership of mobile phones for a decade. They have the fastest broadband connections on earth. Behaviours they consider second nature, and skills they have developed for over a decade, are emerging here in the West, and likely to dominate all kinds of tertiary economic sectors for the foreseeable future.

We are going to learn a lot more about them than just how they like to dance.

1Yes, all these descriptions are very simplified, but really, you want to read 500 words on Definitions of Economics terminology? Thought not.

EMOTIONAL INSURANCE(Or, How to Watch and Bet on Football).
As of today, November 5th, Cardiff City are top of the League Championship.  Naturally, this is cause for celebration.  Like the punchline to the old joke*, I've been telling everyone.
But as any fan knows, it is cause for grave concern.  Because such a utopia cannot hold: they will blow it.  In the most excruciating fashion possible.
We've got prior form here: Portsmouth in the FA Cup Final of 2008, Liverpool on penalties in the League Cup Final and a miserable thumping at home to West Ham in the playoffs in 2012.
And Blackpool in the playoff final 2010, that one really hurt.  Actually, who am I kidding?  It still hurts.
And when your team disappoints, as they inevitably will, the worst feeling of all is how it's completely out of your control. 
There's nothing you can do, unless you are a convert to chaos maths and believe one voice in 80,000 somehow changes the atoms around enough to make a difference. No, in reality you are helpless.  Screaming silently in the void.
But wait. There is something you can do to regain some control, to stop eleven random millionaires from destroying your emotional wellbeing; you bet against your own team.
Of course, it's not the done thing to bet against your team.  In fact, fans and pundits alike seem to see it as a Very Bad Thing indeed.  You're being disloyal.  You will, in some way, not be cheering them on 100%, you're a traitor. 
To them I say, for want of a stronger word, balderdash.
My thinking here is based on the kind of behavioural economics you find in zeitgeisty books like Nudge, Freakonomics and anything by Malcolm Gladwell.  Stay with me: there are no graphs or formulae here. These books are based on the fact that people do not behave rationally - the assumption on which all classical economics is based – they act emotionally and irrationally. I can't think of many spheres of life where people act more irrationally than football, so let's accept that reality and try to make the best of it.
Think about it this way: what if I could sit you down with God, or some Malaysian 'businessmen', and they would guarantee you the result you want for a certain fee?  How much would you pay?  
£5?  £50? £500?
Unfortunately, I can't make that meeting happen: their diaries are impossible to get into.
But if you bet against your team, you get a similar outcome.
If your team win the match or get promoted or whatever you want to happen, then you lose your money, but you have effectively paid a higher power for their victory.  You are delighted.  That terrible disappointment has been averted, all is right with the world; who gives a damn about a few quid when we've been promoted / beaten our hated rivals / etc.?
If they lose, if they blow that two goal lead, if they get relegated on goals scored – well, you knew that was going to happen.  You felt it in your bones. It was completely inevitable. Congratulations: you have regained a tiny smidgeon of control in a chaotic, uncaring, doomed universe. If you bet in-play when your team is ahead 2-0, you have to be getting at least 30-1 odds on them eventually losing...
Now go and have a week glugging cocktails on a Caribbean beach in which to stew in your pain and agony.
Now I don't for a second suggest that a sum of money can ameliorate your pain, but in your darkest hours, after a heartbreaking defeat, it can offer the smallest of crumbs of comfort.  Think of it as emotional insurance.
I'm thinking there are more instalments to be written Emotional Insurance: what if your team is an underdog? Could Emotional Insurance work in spheres outside sport?  Any and all suggestions and comments welcome, and I promise I'll respond to them and take them seriously.  Because I don't always follow my own advice.
And we just lost 2-1 to Bolton after being 1-0 up. 
And it still hurts. §
* An old man walks into a church, and goes for a confession.  The priest pulls back the window, and the old man says: "Forgive me father, for I have sinned. I am 80 years old and I was walking home from the library the other day and two college girls stopped their car and said they were on spring break and  needed directions and we got into a discussion and they offered
 to drive me home and on the way one of them asked me the last time I'd had sex and I told them it had been years and she said would I like to have some fun and before I knew it the three of us were in my apartment and I had the most magnificent sex for two nights and the day between and they're still there waiting for me and promised they'd show me things I never even knew a
man and woman could do. And that's why I've come to confession."

And the priest asks, "When was the last time you went to confession?"

And the old man says, "Actually, this is the first time."

And the priest says, "You're 80 years old and this is your first confession? Why now?"

And the old man says, "Because I'm Jewish."

And the priest asks, "In that case, why are you telling me?"

And the old man says, "I'm telling everybody.
§ It took me so long to write this that Cardiff went to Charlton 3 days later.  We led 2-0, went behind 5-2 (!!) and ended up losing 5-4. I have no theory to cover how to cope with that.