Soft Power In Your Area
What Louis XIV and Blackpink have to do with each other.
Bonjour à tous et à toutes,
You may notice a refreshed look around here! That is the doing of Suze Myers, a friend of mine who I first met while I was an undergrad at Barnard. I whole-heartedly recommend her talents for any and all visual branding, website building, and graphic design needs that you may have.
x Chloë
It was 2013, and I was working for the Grateful Dead channel at SiriusXM. I was in the office at all hours of the day and night, six days a week, doing any of the various and sundry normal and abnormal things a music industry intern does. Sometimes I’d run into Marky Ramone making late-night coffee from the cheap Kering machine in the break room; sometimes, if it was quiet, my boss would give me the corporate card with the directive to “buy the most expensive burgers in Midtown” to quell our munchies. But, of the many memories I have of my time working in the Manhattan offices of SiriusXM, there’s one that has stood out to me the most through the years.
It was a quiet morning when a dapper Korean man and his entourage walked through our Rock’n’Roll High School-esque open offices. I asked a colleague who it was. “That horse dance guy is trying to start his own channel here,” he replied.
He was referring to Psy, whose hit “Gangnam Style” had taken the world by storm.
At the time, we agreed that the idea of an entire channel dedicated to K-pop seemed presumptuous.
We were very, very, wrong.
To understand the importance K-pop holds in the context of global affairs, let us first rewind to the midst of the 17th century, where Louis XIV, tyrannical king and marketing genius, remade – and in doing so, made – France. Perhaps this statement rings a bell. If it didn’t, let me refresh your memory.
The Sun King, as he branded himself, holds the record as the longest reigning monarch in Europe. For 72 years, from the time he was four years old, the fourteenth King Louis crafted France to mold to his absolute power. He waged countless wars, losing several of them; sired dozens of children, with his wife and maîtresses-en-titre; and, most compellingly, shaped much of French culture as we know it today, making France the world’s leading holder of “soft power” for over three hundred years.
Louis XIV famously (over) spent constructing the “golden cage” of Versailles – in which he’d force members of the nobility to live, including those who kidnapped him as a young child and attempted to overthrow his rule during the Fronde – as a means of displaying the glory of his land. Versailles became the royal home, the seat of his government, a display of power, and above all a showroom demonstrating the great aesthetic achievements of French arts, architecture, and culture. Louis XIV was the springboard from which so much of France’s cultural might later originated.
The Russian court of the 18th century spoke French, as it was then considered to be the language of intellect (this was, by then, the heyday of the Enlightenment); Queen Victoria of England prioritized the revival of Spitalfields silks in part to divert imports of the textile from France, where they were considered to be superior. The explosion of the cotton industry in the United States – which was only able to explode due to the enslaved people who harvested and farmed said cotton on plantations – was directly linked to the the lightweight robe de gaulle that Marie Antoinette made trendy after she infamously wore one in a portrait by Elizabeth Vigée le Brun.
Much of the stereotypes, clichés and trappings of the imagination when it comes to France and the French are examples of soft power. Although the French are not known for their military might*, they dominate the world in several areas, many of which touch a lot of us daily. Ballet and formalized etiquette originated at Louis XIV’s Versailles; but in addition to that, French food, wine, perfume, and more are still considered today to be the global benchmark. Perhaps most notable of an example is haute couture – fashion! – which was also an industry championed by Louis XIV. It is no coincidence that one of the richest men in the world (and by some estimates, the richest man in the world) is Frenchman Bernard Arnault, the CEO of LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy), the luxury fashion conglomerate. *A very politically incorrect joke goes like this: a Frenchman lists a gun for sale online. Condition: dropped once, never fired.
I’ve been awed to see iconic sites like the Opéra Garnier and the Louvre wrapped in advertisements for various luxury brands. While there’s an entirely different essay to write about the transformation of historic sites into billboards, what I find particularly interesting is the fact that many of these advertisements feature K-pop idols who many of these brands have signed as global ambassadors. Seeing as these idols come ready-made with large, rabid fan bases and excellent media training, it’s simply good business.
Extremely simply put, South Korea has been growing its presence internationally via its nurturing of soft power. Following a devastating financial crisis and the end of military-ruled government, by the late 1990s K-dramas (T.V. shows) and K-pop (music) were on the rise as cultural exports. The term hallyu, meaning “Korean Wave”, refers to this phenomenon. By the early and mid-2010s, with the rise of social media, Korean culture’s popularity burst into the Western world. Today, the two biggest music groups in the world are K-pop: BTS and Blackpink. And I wholeheartedly believe that this is no coincidence.
In 2020, during one of the many pre-vaccine Covid-19 waves that kept us indoors, I did what I usually did to pass time in lockdown: got stoned and fired up my Netflix account. One evening, I selected the documentary about Blackpink, Light Up the Sky, and was fascinated by the interplay between the story told in the film and the intent behind it. The documentary is manicured; the members of Blackpink each get due time devoted to each of their stories, but ultimately it is a story about how strenuous – if not brutal – the K-pop system can be. While the members of the group recount the immense challenges – the subtext being these challenges were more like traumas, most of which stemmed from their treatment at the hands of their label (YG) – they overcame while training as teenagers, they conclude that the effort was worth it. The climax of the film is their 2019 Coachella performance, which was the first by a Korean girl group at the iconic American music festival.
The South Korean government has heavily invested in its entertainment industry, so much so that when the members of BTS were facing the years of their mandatory military service, there were national concerns that the lack of activity would have consequences for the country’s economy. This is a tinfoil-hat theory on my part, but I believe that Blackpink’s music in particular (especially the early material, which they more than likely had little to no artistic control over) was perhaps encouraged to take a militaristic theme by the powers-that-be. State involvement in pop culture is nothing new (see: Marvel, or the notorious “Yvan eht nioj” song from The Simpsons). South Korea is a country which requires all young men to serve a minimum of two years in its military. Presenting the public with a group of four young women, all possessing otherworldly beauty, and who are impossibly cool, singing lyrics such as “Make ‘em whistle like a missile/ bomb, bomb”; “Hit them with that ddu-ddu-du” (with matching finger gun choreography); or the song “Kill This Love”, which has heavy military imagery, would certainly do the trick.
Blackpink is four mononymous women: Jisoo, Jennie, Rosé, and Lisa. (For what it’s worth, my bias is “bad girl” Jennie, but I find all of them quite endearing).
Look up a list of their accomplishments and you’ll see an endless list of firsts and mosts. All four women have become global ambassadors to luxury French fashion brands (Jisoo for Dior, Jennie for Chanel, Rosé for Saint Laurent, and Lisa for Louis Vuitton). All four of them have served as excellent emissaries of K-culture, which, in their case, is powerful, engaging, and cool. Their style, whether on stage or at the airport, is always chic and infinitely more eye-catching than the red-carpet high glamour we see of Hollywood stars; they each have released solo music, which topped charts internationally. It is not uncommon to see clothes they wear or products they endorse sell out in a matter of minutes. And, in Jisoo and Lisa’s cases, their solo works were strong statements of national pride. Jisoo’s promotions featured her dressed in traditional adornment, while Lisa, who is from Thailand, wore a headdress called a chada in her first solo video. (Thailand is another example of a government successfully cultivating soft power, via their genius gastrodiplomacy program).
Soft power was on no fuller display than when Blackpink made their 2023 return to Coachella, this time, as headliners, the first ever of Asian descent. The numbers are eye popping. An estimated 125,000 festival goers showed up to the main stage for their set, while 250 million globally tuned in online. Their entrance outfits were modernized hanboks, or ancestral robes; the set, a neon hanok, a traditional Korean house. They spoke both Korean and English, and the crowd went wild. Hallyu here is less a wave, and more an ocean.
All the while, although the figures are just under what they were at their peak in 2019, the number of international tourists visiting South Korea continue to rise each month. K-pop was the most cited reason for visiting South Korea by tourists in 2023.
In 2024, upon the expiration of their contracts, all four women left YG, three of them becoming self-managed in their solo endeavors. Much of their efforts indicate that they intend to continue conquering the international entertainment market as individuals.
Recently, I read an article about RM, one of the members of BTS, who has become a formidable art collector. Before he enlisted, whenever he would post photos to his Instagram page from museums and galleries around the world, they’d be flooded with his fans the next day. His reputation as a champion of Korean art and philanthropist has grown immensely; he donated roughly $72,000 to LACMA to preserve and repair a Joseon-era hwalot wedding gown dated c.1900. He also revealed a desire to publish a catalogue of Korean art with the express purpose of using it to “promote the beauty of Korean paintings to the world.”
I will make this last story as vague as possible – I don’t want any crazed K-pop fans coming after myself or my friend. But a peek into their social media a few years ago, to me, is exemplary of the efficacy of soft power in the modern age.
This friend sometimes works with a member of Blackpink. They’ve told me they rarely, if ever, have had the opportunity to chat without an audience of managers and handlers, something which doesn’t surprise me, seeing as a different friend who works at one of the most respected media outlets in the world once told me that an in-depth K-pop exposé has been killed more than once. It is a machine which relies on absolute discretion at all times and precision in public messaging.
My friend was amused when I asked them what it was like to work with a member of the world’s biggest girl group, and then said: “You know, I can never tell if it’s her or her management when she DMs me.”
We opened up the messages and scrolled through. Many of them were formal bordering on goofy (think: “how do you do?” instead of “hi”), but overall, neither of us could really tell if there was simply a language barrier at play or something else going on.
However, I did see one message which made me think it was, indeed, the member of Blackpink herself and not her label.
It was January, so my friend had asked the K-pop star what her plans for the upcoming year were. The response?
“World domination.”
She wasn’t exaggerating.
Louis XIV would have been proud.
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If you’d like to get in touch with me with any questions or comments; or if there are subjects you’d like to see explored, don’t hesitate to send me a message. My email lines are open at bonjour@chloecassens.com.
À très bientôt,
Chloë Helen America Cassens
Fascinating!