Running Man, K-wave, and The Bonga People

in #entertainment6 years ago (edited)

tina-rataj-berard-168378-unsplash.jpg

Diana (not her real name) is a devoted fan of Running Man. She has been watching it since the 1st episode. On May 13, 2018, Running Man will celebrate their 400th episode. Diana is waiting for it to be aired. Obviously.

Running Man is a South Korean variety show, first aired on July 11, 2010. It was classified as an "urban action variety"; a genre of variety shows in an urban environment. (source)

Diana forced me to watch it. Yes, of course, why not. I did notice there was Yoo Jae-suk, the main MC of the program. I recognize him at a glance. He was that funny guy dancing in Gangnam Style video clip, wearing a shiny yellow suit.

yoo-jae-suk.jpg

Yoo Jae-suk probably the most famous South Korean MC (source)

Diana laughed so hard watching the show, while I was not. I was not aware of the Korean wave at all. My pop culture references were too mainstream, tick-tocking like a pendulum from the USA to Great Britain. When all my friends started to watch K-dramas and K-pop, I was watching SNL or Conan.

I did watch Korean movies. Even my top 10 favorite movies of all time have two Korean movies in it; "Memories of a Murder" and "Old Boy". But still, when K-pop was a big hit, I knew nothing about it (except for Gangnam Style, because who didn't?).

The Korean Wave (Hallyu) is the increase in global popularity of South Korean culture since the 1990s. First driven by the spread of K-dramas and K-pop across East, South and Southeast Asia during its initial stages, the Korean Wave evolved from a regional development into a global phenomenon, carried by the Internet and social media and the proliferation of K-pop music videos on YouTube. (source)

The Bongas conquer the world

The day I watched Running Man was my first encounter with Korean TV shows. Unfortunately, I couldn't read any Hangul. The show was filled with many of it. There were so many things popping up. If only I could read it, my mind will be very busy. Months later, I found a cool video by Big Bang, Korean biggest boy band (which could be the biggest big band in the world) at that time, and I found similar characteristics. There were so many things happen in one video. Things kept popping up. No offense to the serious production, but I do feel like they have tendency to over explaining something.

There was one brilliant essay written by Umberto Eco titled "How to Be a TV Host". In that essay, he told us about the existence of Bonga nation, a society that flourishes in an area between Terra Incognita and the Isles of the Blest.

The Bonga’s activities are more or less the same as our own, but they have an unusual insistence on the explicit, the declarative. They ignore the art of the implicit, the taken-for-granted.

The Bongas will write “house” on every house, and “door” beside the door. If he invites you to dinner, he will show you to a chair with the words: “This is the table, and these are the chairs!”

Speech requires words, it is impossible to argue. But only the Bongas feel the need to announce it. “Pay attention. I am now speaking and I will use some words,” they said at the beginning of each conversation.

The bizarre needs to over explaining everything would make every Bonga pleonastic. But precisely because of that we can know they have evil plans. "One of them told me that they plan to conquer the world," said Eco in his essay. That means the Bongas want to make people around the world talk like them, not knowing the concept of implicit.

There is a danger of ignoring the implicit.

One way to improve human intelligence is to practice interpreting. A process that includes pattern recognition and an understanding of the process and context, or as the art historian Jonathan Fineberg would say, "...is like sending brains to the gym."

Seeing “is inherently a very creative act, and you’re constantly revising what you think you see… Less than 20 percent of what we see actually comes from the eye,” said Mr. Fineberg. “Most of it comes from processing in the brain and the visual cortex and that comes from memories, reason, emotion and all kinds of other things.” So, he concludes, “if you don’t have that creative capacity or develop that capacity to be agile, you’re at survival risk.” (source)

That would be not the case for Bonga's culture: They would not giving the place a trajectory for interpretation. They merely informed and waited for an explanation, even for the most trivial thing. The terrible news is that we never know how the Bongas spread their influence, but we can find the results everywhere.

I certainly don't want that to happen. I don't want to be a Bonga.

P.S: I do love Running Man now. Ji Suk-jin is my favorite member because he always loses. Just like us. I can relate.

*Photo by Tina Rataj-Berard on Unsplash

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