Recently in an International Conference
held in Seoul, organized by Innocean, the largest advertising agency in Korea,
there was an exclusive session for discussing the phenomenon of Gangnam
Style.
After winning the T20 World Cup of Cricket,
the entire West Indies team danced with horse-riding steps to the tune of
Gangnam Style.
An ordinary music video called “GangnamStyle” in Korean language, uploaded by the Korean Hip Hop singer called Psy, in
YouTube just 80 days ago has already exceeded 420 million views, creating a new
record in the Guinness Book of records.
Many celebrities including Tom Cruise, Britney Spears and many others
have shared Gangnam Style in their Facebook pages.
Psy, with an unassuming personality not
befitting a pop performer (with the original name: Park Jae-sang), is suddenly
visible all over the world, through Internet, Visual and print-media,
performing and giving interviews. People all over the world are singing “Oppa
Gangnam Style” and organizing “Flash mobs” dancing with ridiculously funny
steps.
For the first time in history a Korean song
has reached the second place in the BillBoard Hot 100 list. Within a few weeks of
its release, millions of copies of Gangnam Style were sold all over the world.
Within this short period through song
sales, commercial endorsements, concerts, and royalties, singer Psy has already
earned more than 15 million dollars.
What
is this Gangnam Style music video?
Gangnam is the name of a place in Seoul,
where fashionable and rich young people used to get-together. It is considered “cool” for a
young guy to be known as a Gangnam person. In the song, written, composed and choreographed by
Psy himself, he describes a person who tries hard to become stylish and cool
like a Gangnam person; but eventually fails.
That explains why he looks terribly
“uncool” in the video with his looks, costumes and the funny horse-riding dance
steps and sideways shuffle.
How this video could immediately go viral
and achieve such an unprecedented success with global reach? It has firmly
established as a global phenomenon and continues to attract more than 5 million
surfers a day.
This definitely is a classic case of an
Internet Meme.
The song is in Korean language. The singer
Psy is hardly known outside Korea. The theme of the lyrics is to satirize
certain elements of Korean culture and social aspects of the neo rich in Seoul.
If it gets popular in Korea, where people can easily identify themselves with
the lyrics, music and the body language, it is quite understandable.
But, how could a seemingly unimpressive
song in a foreign language get spontaneously accepted globally as a greatest
pop song of recent times? Suddenly how people get addicted to this song and the
rhythm of the outrageous dance steps of the singer?
There is no dispute about the power of the
Web and the social media. Still there is no clear answer what makes this
particular video a huge winner among the thousands of videos uploaded every
day?
Is it a fluke? Quite possible.
The
important question is:
“Whether it is possible to make it happen
intentionally by planning and manipulating with hidden rules and with appropriate
machinations to create an artificial phenomenon of such a massive scale?”
Already the tools of Web 3.0 and social
media are used for behavioral advertising and marketing. For doing this, some
basic rules and logical principles are used. Like any other advertising strategy
it has a limited scope.
But for achieving a success to the scale of
“Gangnam Style”, apart from reaching a wider audience, it requires elements to
manipulate and control of the collective human mind.
Does it sound like Science Fiction?
No. We have already seen some samples of
what could happen. The panic and exodus of North East people back to their
homelands in India, and the mob violence against the Anti-Muslim video etc. are
some examples for negative impact. Arab Spring is an example aimed at positive
goals.
But these happenings could be attributed to
some normal and straightforward reasons such as spreading rumors and hate
messages through Social Media to instigate passion among vulnerable sections of
people.
But we cannot rule out the possibility of
“planned manipulation of collective human mind”, because the tools and frame
work are already in place. There are unlimited possibilities for using them for
positive or negative results.
In wrong hands, it could prove to be
dangerous and could be used to create chaos and havoc in the world.
The possibilities are frightening.
