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why white kpop idols (lana, popsicle, exp edition) are a symptom of the disease: a thread.
let’s start at the beginning. historically, a standard in beauty in asia was skin color. how much money and power one had was reflected in skin tone; did they work in the sun to support themselves/family, and get darker skin, or did they have servants/subjects to work for them?
whether this fed into racist rhetoric or vice versa, once white colonialists came, this standard allowed space for colorism. soon it was no longer about status, it was about skin color, point blank. it still is: bleaching creams are popular all over the asian continent.
why? because beauty has become eurocentric. white=beautiful. so let’s fast forward to now. in k-pop we’ve seen numerous examples of this. we’ve all seen idols with white faces and tan necks or fansites that edit idols to look 3 shades lighter. just look up “kpop whitewashing”.
so whether korea has realized it or not, this has left a space open for white idols to debut. vernon, nancy, and somi are all mixed right? half white, half korean. of course they had their struggles, but they’re very well-known/successful idols. so what about samuel kim?
samuel was on a survival show, right? and he was doing really well, but the minute his parentage was revealed and koreans found out he was half-mexican, his ratings went down immediately. samuel is still successful, but isn’t as mainstream as the other idols mentioned previously.
https://twitter.com/koffeebuttr_/status/1143956101366521856?s=21">https://twitter.com/koffeebut...
let’s talk about non-korean foreign idols. jackson, sorn, bambam, lisa, wayv, yuta, momo, mina, sana. what do they all have in common? they’re all thai, chinese, or japanese, correct? but not only that, they’re all light skinned.
there was one recent breakthrough with the z boys and z girls, two sibling groups that feature idols from across asia. it’s especially great because they’re are two indian idols, priyanka and sid. they’re asian, yet people still find it bizarre that dark skinned asians can debut.
so imagine how hard it is for other dark-skinned asians just to debut like thai/japanese/chinese idols often do. imagine how hard it is for half-BLACK, half-korean idols just to debut like half-white half-korean have. it’s so hard that they’re nonexistent
think of one dark-skinned asian idol (besides priyanka and sid) or one black idol in training or has debuted. it’s extremely hard, maybe impossible. because colorism makes it near impossible for dark-skinned asians and black idols.
(it’s interesting that the door is locked for dark-skinned asian and black idols despite how influential black culture is on kpop, and how often kpop idols appropriate black and south asian culture but y’all don’t want me going off on a tangent)
so when white idols that could make a career on any other world stage decide to debut as k-pop idols in the rare space that broadcasts asian talent worldwide, it’s an obvious use of white privilege. americans, think of one MAINSTREAM asian american musical artist. ain’t it hard?
asian representation is minimal here, and in many other heterogeneous areas in the world with mixed racial/ethnic demographics. but white people can make a career literally anywhere; most “world stages” exist in majority white spaces and have a massive reach.
https://socialsciences.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/UCLA-Hollywood-Diversity-Report-2018-2-27-18.pdf">https://socialsciences.ucla.edu/wp-conten...
https://kontinentalist.com/stories/asian-representation-in-movies-have-things-changed-since-1997">https://kontinentalist.com/stories/a...
with kpop, groups must break through barriers of xenophobia, racism, and language to be successful. and even then, they’ve consistently been considered a niche category of music.
white people breaking into an asian space and creating a career off of white and light-skinned privilege when they already own most of the worldwide music and entertainment industry and are hypervisible within it, is invasion.
white kpop idols are a symptom of the disease of a white need for dominance specifically in spaces for poc. send tweet
popsicle is not a kpop group! it’s a group of girls coming to sk to learn about korean culture. k-culture is consumed by a lot of different ppl across the world and none of the girls are dark-skinned but that’s a different discussion for a different day https://twitter.com/mynameishyunjin/status/1144354071945474048?s=21">https://twitter.com/mynameish...
**ONE of them is dark skinned WHEW CHILE the typos in this thread 
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also!! i included east/south asian beauty standards and colorism within that community as context for an explanation as to why it’s so unfair for white people to break into that space. but i am not asian! colorism is a worldwide phenomenon but LISTEN to asians when they speak on-
how it pertains to their community. def not tryna step on any toes here :)
i’d like to make some clarifications!
1. i know wayv isn’t kpop, i used it as a shortcut to mention the members that are a part of the kpop groups of nct, i didn’t have the room to mention them allhttps://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="😪" title="Sleepy face" aria-label="Emoji: Sleepy face">
1. i know wayv isn’t kpop, i used it as a shortcut to mention the members that are a part of the kpop groups of nct, i didn’t have the room to mention them all
2. people have brought it to my attention that the photos i’ve used are edited/whitewashed! honestly i should’ve looked at them more closely. i understand that jackson, bambam, lisa, sorn and south east asian idols in general are pretty dark-skinned in comparison to koreans.
i also understand that they’ve gone through xenophobic and colorist struggles themselves, the way i worded it may seem like i’m trying to erase struggles they’ve had and it isn’t . just used them as examples because they made it though, they debuted.
3. i also know that half-white half-korean idols have had stugfles as well! same thing, i used them as examples because it’s much more common that they debut than half-black half-korean idols.
it’s been muted luvs, a thread on successful half-black half-korean idols is coming at some point
