When South Korea’s leader, Yoon Suk Yeol, attempted to center martial law in early December, the government responded with huge protests. These demonstrations have persisted throughout the nation. An estimated 1 million persons gathered outside the National Assembly in Seoul on December 14 to vote on the action to remove Yoon from office.
The episode of this opposition movement includes the sight of young people swaying to K-pop’s thrilling beat. Protest organizers are blasting out K-pop hits, and demonstrators are waving , K-pop light sticks  , ( portable devices associated with specific artists or groups ), turning the protests into multicolored musical rallies. According to a Chief content, some of the demonstrations resembled” a league dancefloor.”
There are many K-pop songs that have lyrics that evoke the protests ‘ attitude. For example, a verse from Girls ‘ Generation’s Into The New World ( 2007 ), which has been one of the most popular songs at the protests, promotes purpose and camaraderie, with lyrics like:” Don’t wait for any special miracle. The difficult path in front of us might be an unfamiliar future and issue, but we can’t give up”.
However, K-pop fandom even has a connection to politicians and civic engagement. People in their 20s and 30s are the most recognizable demographic party at the prosecution protests, according to observers. Some are K-pop fans and moreover discontented with Yoon’s anti-feminist position, as well as the gender-based assault that is common across Southern Korean society.
These people were the first to install K-pop light stones and practice the protests in a more inclusive manner. Additionally, they distributed lists of valuable rally supplies and location-specific information on social media, such as the names of the protest sites and the public toilets.
And they worked with the older established organizers to repurpose K-pop soundbites, signs, and other items into the rally grounds.
K-pop has also been linked to social activities and legal protests before. During the 2016 countrywide demonstrations that demanded the resignation of President Park Geun-hye, Into the New World was already an anthem for Ewha Women’s University individuals. K-pop has even taken different forms at the Seoul Queer Culture Festival.
Social protesters from other countries have also found K-pop to be popular. Through online payment strategies and hashtag engagement, K-pop fan areas in the US, which attract some of their members from racial and gender minority groups, made a significant contribution to the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020.
And in 2021, a group of K-pop fans in Chile launched an online campaign on X ( previously Twitter ) to support Gabriel Boric, a progressive candidate for president. Abroad, K-pop and its many fans have even operated as a safe place for LGBTQ areas.
History of opposition audio
South Korea, which was under autocratic rule from its development in 1948 to the late 1980s, has a long history of civil opposition.
In the 1970s, college students and labor union leaders held rallies and conferences to protest the incredible breaches of civil liberties that occurred. This action imagined the citizens, known as minjung in Korean, as being at the center of the state.
Students at universities carried out rallies and sang socially conscious music. They drew on a vocabulary of music known as minjung ang, or “people’s music”. Circulated through illegal programmes during a period of repression, minjung ang were sung by school learners, accompanied by acoustic guitars.
Minjung ang sounds are easy. Their songs encourage political waking and affirm the artists ‘ shared commitment to the cause of democracy. Sangnoksu, a representation of this narrative, enables the performers to band together as a divided population determined to alter the course of their country.
The phrases include:” We do not have much, but we stand up hand in hand, sharing grief. Though our route is long and dark, we did awaken, go forth, and eventually overcome”.
Protesters continued to perform throughout the 1980s as the atmosphere of the demonstrations grew more severe. In the town of Gwangju, soldiers opened flames on residents who were calmly protesting against martial law in 1980. At least 165 civilians were killed.
An anthem called March for the Beloved was born out of this tragic event, which was not covered in the conventional media at the time due to strict state repression.
Written in the storage of two of the sufferers, this melancholy tune kept the remembrance of Gwangju dead among the demonstrators, with songs like:” Dear colleagues have gone, our flag still ripples. While working for days to come, we will not get swayed. We continue to march. Keep your trust and act like us.
In addition to minjung ang, pro-democracy presentations in the past – and, to a lesser degree, the current – have oftentimes integrated folk rituals. Pungmul, a conventional farmers ‘ drums instrument, has been used as a tool for this, which features players playing Korean drums and gongs in stand-up structures.
In South Korea, more demonstrations will take place over the course of the next few months to put pressure on the constitutional court, which has 180 times to rule on the senate situation. The protests may continue to honor Minjung Kayo and its related problems.
However, K-pop and its supporters are likely to be at the forefront of a brand-new generation of North Korean music protesters.
Hyun Kyong Hannah Chang is teacher in Asian Studies, University of Sheffield
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