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I noticed a resurgence in pop stars, obviously notably sabrina carpenter with her polly pocket brand and very quickly already on her arena tour, which no i did not get tickets to. 

But even see other popstars, which i like all related to doll, taylor swift as barbie, olivia rodrigo as bratz, melanie martinez with monster high. It just shows how we love seeing artists of our time as consumer products.

And obviously this is a resurgence of popstars, because of course there was a whole generation of popstars like britney spears, who as we know suffers from her literal commodification.

But you know who has really perfected the pop star? Korea of course, with their idols. First off, they are called idols which is kind of intense, but they really know how to profit off pop. So much merch, so many brand deals, and I don’t expect anything less from american pop stars.

So with this in mind, I wanted to just paint a generic kpop star and american pop star, but then i thought it kind of looked familiar. And in a way, i really felt like pop stars are a face of capitalism in a way. 

Korea’s rise to soft power start in the coldward era.

Circa 1980s, President Chun Doo-hwan is very famous for launching what we call the three S policy – sports, screen and sex – in that he encourages the development of the Korean media and cinema and brings in sports leagues as a kind of a diversion as a response to pro-democracy protests.  

And as we know, we are all very distracted by our screens in the modern day. Constantly in a state of consuming content about our favorite celebrities and artists.  

Back then, we were terrified of authoritarianism, and external oppressors. 

But i am worried that we have become pacified until we are willing participants in our oppression.