Pop Culture in Thailand
Hello….
If you finished the start of this article with ‘..it’s me’ or ‘…from the other side’ then you’re probably the audience I’m looking for (and if you got this reference as well). I promise, however, that this was the only Adele reference in this article. It’s been played out quite a bit by now. When talking about pop culture however, it seems fitting to start with a song-turned-meme-reference.
Over the past few weeks I’ve been discussing different mass media influences with my students at University. We discussed the way from modernism to postmodernism, looked at examples of postmodernism and eventually started to talk about pop culture. We then continued our journey from pop culture over to corporate mass media strategies and will further elaborate on how mass media influences nowadays society. For the moment however I would like to focus on pop culture. To be more specific on pop culture here in Thailand.
To give a brief introduction to why I am intrigued with this topic at the moment: Besides teaching Thai students at a University (in English though) I am also lucky enough to teach at a European University (mostly European) students at another University with solely Thai students. Some of the topics overlap so that use some material, in updated and adjusted manner, in similar classes. I do like to use lots of pop culture references in my classes and presentations in general which sometimes leads to laughter, sometimes to awkward silence and sometimes to sad nods a la ‘ok, you tried’. The interesting thing here now is that, depending on the audience, those reactions vary a lot.
“That’s not surprising at all” I can hear you say. Given that the audiences differ (European vs. Southeast Asian / International vs. Thai) and that has some truth to it but isn’t pop culture thought to be something that knows no borders? Especially in the year 2559 (2016) with the internet booming one would assume that borders don’t mean that much anymore. Hashtag globalization.
The main difference, from a cultural standpoint, is certainly that sarcasm is being perceived in a different way — that doesn’t influence the pop culture aspect I was aiming at though but it needed to be said. Having that out of the way, let’s dive into Thailand and pop culture.
When hearing pop culture one probably immediately thinks about music. And then about fashion and movies. When thinking about Pop culture in Asian music quite likely equals K-Pop and fashion is ‘crazy’ and ‘radical’ and ‘all look the same’. For movies. Well. Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee, Tony Jaa. Right?
Those stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason. Obviously. And pop culture and stereotyping seem to have close relations. If broken down and simplified pop culture merely means cultural habits / aspects that are being widely accepted, used, shared…with the wide acceptance of, for example, K-Pop it is no wonder that this pop cultural artifact turned into a stereotype.
And no, of course not everybody in Asia, or Thailand in particular, listens to K-Pop. But a significant amount of (young) people does. And does it with a passion that is, sometimes, quite intense. When consuming K-Pop or, to make it a bit broader, Korean (TV, Movies) culture in general, Thais don’t just stop at listening to Rain or Girls Generation (yeah, I do know a few (older) K-Pop stars as well) or at watching the latest K-Drama on TV. They live it. They become it. This starts at imitating hairstyle and clothes and reaches over to adopting a whole lifestyle and even, in some cases, plastic surgery (it sounds like I’m exaggerating a lot, I’m not though). Therefore it’s safe to say that mass media products in Thailand are able to become quite quickly part of pop culture. From a personal perspective, and that is now probably biased, this happens a lot faster than back home in Europe.
We, the Europeans, also adopt Kanye (Yeezus!) and the Kardashians into our daily routine but not as much or fast — and, most importantly, as consequential as here. While referencing pop culture is one thing, living it is something different and herein lies one of the big differences between Thailand and good old Europe. The willingness to actually live out what pop culture tells us.
When analyzing media we come across terms such as postmodernism and hyperreality. Both mean, more or less, the exaggeration or the faking of real life or real life events. We also learn that the lines blur more and more (enter Robin Thicke reference) but the amount of blurriness (is that a thing? can we make it a thing?) in Southeast Asia is amazing. More often than not it seems as if consumers know that reality shows are not ‘real’ but still they happily accept those ‘fake’ realities as ‘ideal’ and hence strive to implement what they see into their own life. Be it exaggerated dramatic behavior, clothing or make-up style or, as mentioned above, further beauty standards that even lead to plastic surgery becoming more and more accepted and, dare I say it, pop culture.
The fake nose is as accepted as the bleached hair that goes along with the cool band t-shirt and / or the cosplay costume (yes, that’s also a thing here). Thailand is pop culture. And in the upcoming articles we’ll dive even deeper into how that all developed and how it makes sense in a country that also aims on preserving its rich culture and heritage.
Coming up in the next Pop Culture & Southeast Asia related article: #InstaFame.
