Is K-pop gay? This is a question that has eluded a definitive answer in my personal interaction with the genre for a long time, and those with opinions online oscillate wildly, a hallmark of the fandom that has earned K-pop its reputation in online spaces. Circumstantially, a lot of people I have met within the space have been gay. Lining up in front of a venue hours before a K-pop concert you will be confronted with various implied and explicit markings of queerness from an abundance of pride flags, to the shipping culture generally focusing on those of the same gender (I’m not saying the shipping is inherently queer or productive to queer causes, but in many of these cases it is done in the spirit of deviance in sexuality, I could write pages on the impacts of shipping, but that’s not what I’m focusing on here, bear with me). Within K-pop, one’s affinity with certain groups or idols can exist as a kind of flagging within the larger fandom. Comments such as, “Oh, your bias (a term used to express one’s favorite member within a given group) is Moonbyul (an idol widely speculated to be queer in her identity)” is accompanied by a raised eyebrow and knowing look. Yet, despite how many in the fandom identify with queerness, the number of these idols who is explicitly out is vanishingly small.
Yet these claims of an idol’s sexual inclinations are based in some form of reality. Video compilation abounds on sites like YouTube titled things such as “Fruitiest K-Pop moments” or “Idol’s closet is made of glass”. Most of these compilations depict these idols engaged in various things that could be construed in some fashion as queer. Female idols reacting with annoyance or disgust to men they are interacting with. Two idols of the same gender hold hands for a long period of time, choosing word choice that insinuates ambiguity when describing their ideal type. Again, many things that could be construed as queer in nature that ultimately fall short of declaring oneself to be queer. In general, such outright declarations are understood to be impossible due to the control exerted by the companies these idols work for as well as the conservative culture prevalent within South Korea. Additionally, many of the actions that American fans get lost in cultural translation as was referenced in the most recent class presentation on representation of queerness in non-western contexts. Not seeking to retread the points made in the presentation, I instead wish to focus on the music that is created by and for these idols and how it can be dissected to reveal potential queerness.
When thinking about the actual content of some of these songs, one of the main things that my mind jumped to was that of affect theory. The fact that intention can carry less weight compared to impact serves as an excellent parallel for some of the themes depicted within K-pop. Since 2015, with the rise of K-pop group Blackpink rocketed to success on the back of its concept of girl crush, a theme supposedly centered around alt aesthetics and empowerment of women. Concepts, given the commercial nature of the industry, serve as general framing, aesthetics, and guidelines for how the group operates. While other groups had done a girl crush concept in the past, Blackpink made the concept far more mainstream due to their massive popularity. While the actual claims that such concepts can be seen as empowering due to the high level of body control, promotion of very specific images of femininity, and tying this femininity to commercialism, if we got back to the tenants of affect theory, there is some kernel of truth of believed truth within the perfected corporate image these idols present.
This image becomes even more complicated when discussing the actual music produced by these groups. Authorship of songs by idols themselves varies from group to group, but a commonality typically occurs that there is some level of creative freedom allowed within these spaces of music production. This becomes interesting when performing media analysis of these pieces as there most accessible interpretation seems to be heavily queer coded. The inspiration for the title of this post comes from the music video of group i-dle, whose music video Oh my God can be very easily read through the lens of a sapphic relationship. Yet the purpose of my analysis is not to bring to light the themes of queerness within the song, but rather to consider the implication of what it means in the context of the K-pop industry and affect theory. None of the artists behind the song identify as queer openly in any way, which is commonplace given Korea’s conservative culture as well as the binding contracts holding many of these idols to strict standards of media presentation. As the title of this piece implies, it seems that in these cases, a death of the author occurs while the artist is still living, creating an interesting dichotomy when a corporate created product is turned into a vessel of queer expression implicitly through its fandom. Now the complicating factor is that this is done intentionally, or at least tacitly endorsed by these large media companies in order to generate more profits, and what that says for the legitimacy of the representation or art form, but at some point, such arguments become cyclical in conclusions. There isn’t one answer that I believe applies to this specific genre, but it is an interesting piece to consider the various factors that dictate how art is created and how we are supposed to consume it.