In this op-ed, writer Aamina Khan argues that the recent xenophobia exhibited by an Australian TV station toward K-Pop superstars BTS is indicative of a larger problem in the way people discuss and dismiss non-English-speaking musicians.
“You’ll like BTS music if you listen without prejudice,” said BTS rapper Suga in a message to readers of American teen magazine J-14 in March 2018. By that time, the Korean group was already on their steady ascent into the U.S.’s mainstream pop landscape. But Suga’s year-old request — half-promise, half-plea — is still being denied by a western world that often insists on using xenophobic language to talk about one of the world's most popular bands in 2019.
The most recent instance of this kind of response came from Australia’s Channel 9 news station, which aired a segment full of snide, often xenophobic jokes, and thinly-veiled criticisms of BTS’s talent. One example comes from comedian Jimmy Carr, who casually referenced nuclear war, saying, “When I first heard something Korean had exploded in America, I got worried, so I guess it could have been worse. But not much worse.” The video has since gone viral and been criticized by the BTS ARMY, but it’s only the latest in a line of derogatory comments and jokes that have followed the South Korean pop group since they became more widely popular.
The septet — made up of members RM, Jin, Suga, J-Hope, Jimin, V, and Jungkook — debuted in 2013, and in 2019, hundreds of millions of people respect them. But even if you’re not a BTS fan, you can still talk about them in a way that doesn’t revert to western-centric tropes and perspectives. As BTS continues their run of global stardom, it’s way past time to address the tendency of English-speakers to celebrate and acknowledge success only when it comes from other English-speakers.
That tendency doesn’t always take the form of blatant xenophobia, and can instead surface in ways that are subtler and more difficult to call out. There’s still an ingrained instinct to refer to hit songs in other languages that cross over as “shocking” or “surprising.” There’s an inclination to mock anything that’s popular anyway, especially when it involves large fan bases of teenage girls and young adult women, but it feels even more insidious when talking about Latin pop or K-pop, or any kind of popular music that isn’t primarily sung in English.
There’s an underlying assumption that it’s only natural for English-speaking artists to go global, perform on world tours, and top charts in dozens of countries. No one would ever question why singers like Shawn Mendes and Justin Bieber, both Canadian, receive such overwhelming success in non-English-speaking countries and are taken seriously as artists by the media and the general public. These pop stars are charming, their songs are well-written and well-produced, and the diehard enthusiasm from their international fans is proof that pop music moves beyond language. It also doesn’t seem like a coincidence that both have embraced Spanish-language influences and collaborators: Shawn with Camila Cabello on “Senorita” and Justin with his verse on Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee’s “Despacito.”
When BTS (or fellow K-Pop stars like BLACKPINK, NCT 127, and Twice) hit these same music industry metrics, succeeding in countries where Korean isn’t as commonly spoken, it’s a “phenomenon” met with no small amount of derision. In the first half of 2019 alone, BTS attended the Grammys both as nominees and presenters, dropped an album that debuted at number one on Billboard, scored their second platinum single, and performed a world tour during which they sold out two nights at London’s Wembley Stadium. The seven members were even invited to become voting members of the Recording Academy. When BTS won Top Social Artist in 2017, it was with 300 million fan votes, beating Shawn, Justin, Ariana Grande, and Selena Gomez.
And yet wins like these are often littered with racist and xenophobic comments on social media, reducing the group to “these Asian f*cks” and an “Asian One Direction.” Following the 2017 BBMAs, when BTS won Top Social Artist, breaking Justin Bieber's six-year streak in that category, Twitter was filled with comments claiming that no one knows who BTS is and that this one award won’t make America start listening to K-pop (we have news for you). One user even protested that because American artists don’t attend Korean award shows (a false claim — see: Charlie Puth at the MGAs) that Korean artists shouldn’t be invited to award shows like the BBMAs.
Meanwhile, western critics still maintain unwavering confusion about why these artists are so popular, often implying that it must not be the music, but the performers’ looks or the fans’ lack of maturity. Last spring, Capital FM’s Roman Kemp told Metro UK that he doesn’t believe that the hype around BTS is about their musical abilities. “When you get bands like that that create this fandomania…are [the fans] there for the music, or are they there for what the kids look like?” Kemp questioned. But the radio host has fed “fandomania” in the past, when he invited onto his show English-speaking heartthrobs like the former members of One Direction, the Jonas Brothers, and Shawn Mendes, who share similar musical sounds and fan demographics with groups like BTS.
The way we talk about pop music that’s sung in Korean, or Japanese, or Spanish, or any other language — whether it’s obvious racism or more indirect — needs to change. According to YouGov Omnibus, 50% of Americans in 2018 said that they “can enjoy” a song that’s sung in a language they don’t understand. In April, a white dad went viral for covering “Boy With Luv” with his 17-year-old daughter; elsewhere, families bonded over the “Idol” dance challenge of 2019. There’s no shortage of fans, and acceptance is growing among non-Korean speakers for these international artists, and still the jokes continue past the usual amount of pop condescension from people who like to dislike what’s popular. But there’s no end-game advantage to excluding non-English speaking artists from the conversation. Pop music, like literally anything else, can only get better if the playing field is broader and more diverse in people and perspectives.
When you deliberately feign ignorance of something you don’t understand, simply because you don’t understand it and won’t take steps to familiarize yourself, you’re perpetuating a problem. Yes, BTS perform in Korean, and they are highly-trained vocalists, rappers, dancers, songwriters, and music producers. The members of BTS are serious artists, not despite being Korean and not despite having young fans, but because of those reasons. At this point, refusal to place them on an equal plane with the most successful English-speaking pop artists is willful ignorance.
Fortunately, music is one of those common human experiences that has the ability to bridge gaps between language barriers. If you believe in that and you’re still lost on how BTS have become such juggernauts, perhaps you can benefit from the group’s own attitude toward their interactions with others. In a fan livestream last month, J-Hope explained candidly that he couldn’t help but think that if his English was better, how much more fun he would have doing interviews and communicating with other artists in the U.S. “But come to think of it,” he said in Korean to 5.5 million fans. “Even if I can’t speak the language, I can communicate with others. Sincerity always works. By any means.”
