What's Behind All The BIG KOREAN POP CULTURE ENERGY

Culture Study Podcast

Arts, Society & Culture

4.5 • 789 Ratings

🗓️ 10 December 2025

⏱️ 73 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sometimes I wish I could just have the intro paragraph to an episode be GAAHHHHHHH THIS ONE WAS SO FUN! So this is my version of that: telling you that I wish it could be that, and then also telling you that we go deep on so many components of the global spread (and embrace) of Korean pop culture. We go into the calculated political elements, the uncanny elision of North Korean stories, and why so many of the Korean narratives resonating with American audiences are ones crafted by Korean-Americans. This is a really effusive and loving episode that also manages to have some very real talk about why kids dressing up as characters from K-Pop Demon Hunters is not yellow face. IT'S SO GOOD, and I know we're gonna have a great discussion about it. ALSO GUESS WHAT, WE HAVE VERY GOOD EPISODES TRANSCRIPTS NOW! They come out within 24 hours of the pod, so you just have to be a little patient and then come back and click here. We pay an actual human for help with these, so thank you for either being a paid subscriber or listening to the ads that make this model possible! If you're a paid subscriber and haven't yet set up your subscriber RSS feed in your podcast player, here's the EXTREMELY easy how-to .And if you're having any other issues with your Patreon subscription — please get in touch! Email me at annehelenpetersen @ gmail OR submit a request to Patreon Support. Thank you for making the switch with us — the podcast in particular is much more at home here!Thanks to the Sponsors of Today's Episode! Stop putting off those doctors appointments and go to Zocdoc.com/CULTURE to find and instantly book a top-rated doctor today.Head to Graza.co/CULTURESTUDY and use code CULTURESTUDY to get 10% off your order and get cooking this holiday season with some fresh, delicious olive oil!Visit moshlife.com/CULTURE to save 20% off plus FREE shipping on the best sellers trial pack or the new plant-based trial pack.Go to shopremi.com/CULTURE and use code CULTURE to receive 55% off your new nightguard PLUS a free foam gift.Show Notes:GO LISTEN TO BIG KOREAN ENERGY!!! And then go find out a lot more about The Mash-Up AmericansSubscribe to The Mash-Up Americans newsletter for updates Really cannot recommend Episode 1 highly enough — it puzzle pieces so well with what we talk about for each of these questions A good secondary listen: our episode with Elise Hu about the Sephora Teen Freakout and my interview with Elise re: her book on K-Beauty We also reference this episode on The Irishification of Pop Culture with Caroline O'Donoghue REP SWEATSTHE KOREAN VEGAN!R.O. Kwon's appearance on Big Korean EnergySusan Choi's Flashlight, Min Jin Lee's Pachinko, Lisa See's Island of Sea Women I try to remember the name of Kim Ji-Young, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo We're currently looking for your questions for future episodes about:Questions About How to Respond When People Ask/React To the Knowledge That You're Not Having Kids'90s Movie SoundtracksHow we think about the morality of money and taxes — who should pay taxes, who shouldn't, who "deserves" money, who doesn't, how we came to decide that religious organizations shouldn't pay taxes (and how that belief is changing), SO MUCHHow to process all the STUFF accumulated from relatives (we have a really helpful organizer with a bunch of mental health training for this one!) The State of The CHAIN RESTAURANT — and chain restaurant supply chain!!! (I'm so excited for this one) Anything you need advice or want musings on for the AAA segment. You can ask about anything, it’s literally the name of the segmentAs always, you can submit your questions (and ideas for future eps) hereFor this week’s discussion: What's your favorite manifestation of BIG KOREAN ENERGY right now?

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey everyone. So Melanie and I have just a few more recordings left before the end of the year.
0:05.0	So help us go out with a bang and submit your questions. We have one episode that is about all of
0:10.6	the questions that you get and the conversations you have when people find out that you don't have
0:17.3	kids or don't want kids or have no plans to have kids? And the other episode is about
0:22.8	the sociology of names. So what do specific names and general trends and names say about our
0:28.6	culture in this moment? That one's going to be amazing. Also, we need to freshen our collection
0:34.2	of potential ask-and-anything questions. This is a tricky time of year,
0:38.0	as you'll hear in today's Ask-An- Anything. So I know you have some quandaries you want to share
0:42.6	and get advice on. So you can submit all of those questions at tiny URL.com slash culture
0:49.0	study pod or look in the show notes for a link. Can't wait to hear from you.
0:58.9	Thank you. This is the Culture Study podcast, and I'm Anne Helen Peterson.
1:02.5	I'm Amy Choi, and I am a writer, an editor. I live in New York City, far away from Ann, but I'm so excited to be here, and I am the co-founder
1:12.8	and editorial director and the host of the Mashup Americans. Can you tell us a little bit about
1:17.7	what the Mashup Americans has covered? Because I think it's like such a fantastic concept.
1:22.8	Yes. Thank you. So we started in 2013, and the Mashup Americans, you know, today we would say it is an independent media company and a creative studio. And all of our storytelling, whether it is original work, our podcast, our newsletter, our essays and pieces on our website, or work that we make for clients with our studio, whether that is working with
1:45.4	Rees Witherspoon and Hello Sunshine or Peloton or HBO and Netflix is all about telling
1:52.3	American stories and having conversations that really frame any topic that we're kind of tackling
2:00.1	through the lens of what it means to be American today,
2:02.7	looking at hyphen identities, immigrant culture, and really trying to, in all of our work,
2:09.7	center storytelling and on marginalized voices that typically are not and remain still in 2025, not central to the American conversation,
2:20.4	and are really the voices leading the future.
2:23.8	And this new season of the mashup Americans is called Big Korean Energy.
	...

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