Think of the following examples.  ① Daiso ② Gangnam Style ③ MuhanDojun(infinite challenge) ④ Lee Malneon Webtoon.  What image do you get in your mind? Could you find any common ground in these? If the letter ‘B’ came into your thought, you’ve got the correct answer.  ‘B’ is something lower than ‘A’ and we were taught that A is always the best.  However, these days, paradoxically ‘B’ has changed this thought and become the main code of our cluture.

In Love with B, Not A
People in Korea always thought things that are ranked A were the best.  Koreans even had a traditional saying “Cheap is BijiTuk (tofu residue pancake which was considered inferior in the past)” meaning you get what you pay for.  Yet, today, people have fallen in love with B, not A.  If one wants to follow the main trend of culture, the answer is B.  Where culture is, there is always ‘B.’  In the past, products that were expensive and posh were admired, but now people prefer B products like those of Daiso’s.  On average, customers using Daiso are 300,000 per day, and the average Korean buys 6 products from Daiso.  Daiso’s growth rate from 2005 to 2011 was 44.7%.¹ These days, people want B products that have cheaper prices and practicality with the same functions as A.  These products are also called “Cheap-Chic” products.  This expresses the style of B culture well, since B culture is also cheap, but also chic.  Cheap-Chic products are also popular in the market of real estate.  Rather than
big and impractical houses, it is a trend to buy a smaller apartment or multiplex housing studio in Korea.  B style is the main stream in entertainment, too.  Before, idols’ identical group dances and tight-laced movies and programs were loved by the public.  But now, things that are more cheesy and unpredictable are gaining popularity.  Currently, singer PSY’s song ‘Gangnam Style’ is hot throughout the world.  He is a singer who loves the culture of B.  PSY said, “To be truthful, I love B.  I love the moment when I’m making B culture and I believe that I am born to be B.”²  ‘Gangnam Style’ recorded over 300 million clicks on YouTube and scored 2nd place on the Billboard
chart in the USA.  Other than him, so called Gagasu (Gagmen + Singer) such as UV, ‘Brave guys,’ and Hyungdonee and Daejunee made a big hit.  B style continues its good fight in the field of books, too.  In the past, erotic writings were considered as taboo.  These books were ranked as B and were shamed by people. 

Yet, according to the Interpark online bookstore, from August 2012, the lascivious novel ‘Fifty Shades of Gray’ ranked the first place
in Korea’s eBook market.³  Another erotic book ‘Eungyo’ ranked first in June, 2012.  The place that books ranked A kept is now moving to B. All the fields where culture exists, B syndrome is happening every moment.  The public no longer wants well-made, but rather things with a style that lack something.  It’s B Style.

Classy or Cheesy

Before the 1980s, it was hard to find any B culture in Korea.  For B culture to rise, it needs a middle class who can produce and accept it.  But back then, Korea was in democratization and did not have apt environment for B culture.  B culture started to spread in earnest after 2000 in Korea.  The way people defined B culture at the initial stage was opposite to posh A culture.  It was thought dowdy, cheesy, violent, and suggestive.  B culture had similar meaning as Kitsh culture, which meant for the culture lacking something such as cost of producing, quality, and so on.  As the word Kitch’s origin came from German word meaning ‘collecting rubbish,’ B culture was considered as shallow and vulgar.  B culture was only spotted by minorities.  Past Koreans counted Otaku and Hippie culture as typical B style cultures.  If B culture in the past was inferior to A culture in every way, now its meaning is being defined completely differently.  B culture these days still pursues lightness to seriousness and fun to deep message.  However, nowadays, B has alike quality with A.  The wrapper might seem ‘Cheesy’ but the content underneath is ‘Classy.’ Only the outer appearance is B style.  The public culture critic Jung Dukhyeun said, “In the past, B culture definitely had lower quality to A culture.  But, current B culture only has the style of B on the outside and inside, it
has A quality.” ⁴  B cultures still prefer fun to a serious message.  Yet, B in the modern days also conveys deep meanings to the public between humor.  For example, MuhanDojun (infinite challenge) is loved by public because of its sarcastic gags.  One of its episodes, ‘TV War,’ was about competition of TV channels between the members satire sub-standard channels obsessed with audience ratings.  Also, Gagasu Hyungdonee and Daejunee’s song ‘Olympic Expressway’ opines, “Olympic Expressway is blocked.  So are my life and yours and ours.” Brave guys sing in their song, “Get 300 thousand won by delivering milk, 600 thousand won for part-time job in convenience store.  But tuition fee for university is 20 million won.” Moreover, the B culture in the old days was defined completely opposite from classy A culture.  Today, B and A culture are not counterparts, but have mutual exchanges.  Public music critic Sung Giwan said, “These days, B parodies A culture and A learns wild energy from B culture.  They are always mutually exchanging and are complimentary to each other.” ⁵  Now, B culture is not inferior to A.  B culture is breaking new ground in culture that only B can make, which is unique and distinctive.

No More in the Shades, Lightening B
B culture used to stay in the shade but it has arisen to the light.  Finally, B culture is in the mainstream of modern culture.  Then what made people crave B so that it could rise to the top?  Our society today accepts diverse culture and individuality.  If the past public pursued and concentrated only on the premium and mainstream A culture, now they prefer more diversity.  In this atmosphere, the public is fed up with serious and conventional A.  Park Yuna, Division of Business Administration ’12 said, “A culture is always stereotyped and identical.  This doesn’t draw any interest to me since there is lots of fresh and diverse B style.  Because B cultural products have somewhat similar quality to A, there is no reason that I should choose A.” B culture is arousing the public’s enthusiasm with original and novel ideas.  With the development in technology of producing, B cultural products have as high a quality as A and this B style that is more practical and diverse than A has brought about the golden age of B.  Contemporaries’ stress increased due to crisis of employment and economy.  The number of melancholias mounted over twice as
much in the last 10 years.⁶  In this severe stress and competition, people hesitate to show their inside frankly.  And B culture is being a window for people to take off their suppressed feelings.  B style scratches itchy parts of society’s mainstream, and it helps people to vent their hidden desire.  By B culture, the public shouts in joy, feels sympathy together, and forgets the pressure and reality for a moment. 

One Webtoon series from Lee Malneon satires a modern office workers’ labor intensity.  This series is about an office worker who borrows sleep from a sleep bank to not take a nap due to continuous working night overtime.  He borrows too many sleeps and the interest keeps increasing.  Finally, he sleeps forever since he couldn’t afford to pay back his borrowed sleep.  Although this was a ridiculous set-up, people felt sympathy and relieved.  The cartoonist of this comic, Lee Byunggun said, “These days, there are too many well-made cartoons.  Our society asks for high specifications and it’s really tough to live.  Stress of being perfect is generating resistance toward well-made things.  I think that’s why people crave light cartoons.” B culture is healing people who are hardened by a tough world.  B style talks about blue society, but also does not lose wit and humor.  This stimulates the public’s feelings, gains sympathy, and it is one reason B Style is loved today.  With only a smart phone, anyone can enjoy diverse music, videos, and writing anywhere at anytime.  B style has an apt structure for this period of mobile.  B style treats human beings’ primitive instincts frankly.  Jung Taeyeon, Professor of psychology at Joongang University said, “People have a tendency to pursue moral and premium life.  However, in the society where these needs are hard to be achieved, they concentrate more on primitive instincts.” ⁷  Likewise, people in today’s tough atmosphere want to satisfy their needs in their unconscious.  And through the development of IT infrastructure, people have become available to satisfy these
needs by B culture anonymously.  As a result, explosive response of loving cultural products of B has come from the customers. A full time homemaker Ahn Suyeon (44) said, “If the book ‘Fifty Shades of Gray’ was published in the past, I wouldn’t have bought it because I would have been ashamed. However, these days, because I can buy, read and share opinions about it anonymously on the smart phone, I was able to purchase the cultural product of B.” Other than this product, many other cultural products of B are craved by people on-line.  On the Internet, people are sharing opinions and communicating frankly about B culture.  There are endless reasons as to why B culture is gaining popularity.  Some say it’s because of Korea’s income polarization that made people form resistance toward A culture.  Whatever the reason, one thing is definite: B culture is now no longer a subculture, but has become the protagonist of the field.

 

Can Brownie the Doll Be a Singer?
B style culture is now settled in the hub of our society.  B culture takes an important role of relieving people’s repressed feelings.  However, B culture is revealing its negative influence too.  B culture was featured by its honesty, but its meaning has started to change.  Freedom of expression was turned up as swear words.  In movies and programs, swearing and abuse fill the whole running time and the public takes that as natural.  Also, too much honesty has caused a distorted sense on sex.  Along with the period of smart phones, excessively sexual contents approach minors wearing the mask of B style.  Moreover, modern B culture has a tendency to not see the main essence of B culture and be biased commercially.  Thinking only about gaining profit, meaningless B culture products without any social criticism are produced randomly. 

Currently, KBS program Gag Concert’s prop doll Brownie released an album disguised as B culture.  In addition, some cultural products of B don’t even know what they are criticizing and just making up stimulating words for fun and to gain people’s interest.  Where should this changing culture B head? For B to regain its positive energy, producers and consumers of B must look back into the prior and main root of culture B.  B was the driving force of a fatigued society not only for its humor but also its sarcastic wit.  Yet, today, thoughtless criticism abounds.  TV critic Ha Jageun said, “The society is becoming frivolous due to wrong thoughts regarding B style.  Before the satire of a particular target, they should strive to understand it first.”⁸  Also, they should set a boundary as to how far frankness can be accepted.  Too much frankness can cause quality deterioration.  Broadcaster Kim Gura was criticized for his thoughtless sayings.  His humor did not scratch the public’s itch, neither was it a gag that was sarcastic to point out social problems.  It was just full of words that belittled, scorned, and made fun of the others.  Therefore, he was kicked out off the air for a while.  Likewise, producers and the consumers should always think about the boundary between being frank and ridiculing.  Do not take it in as it was meant to be that way.  Always wonder and think back about what’s really important.  Now the mainstream of culture is B style.  Are we heading for the right way?

1 Go Heejung, “Daiso’s Sales Accounts Records 5.8 Times of Increase,” Medical Today, February 7, 2011
2 Park Soyoung, “Born to Be B,” Sports Seoul, September 25, 2012
3 Kim Seongook, “Fifty Shades of Gray On the Top,” Money Today, September 27, 2012
4 Kim Bumjin, “Golden Age of B,” Mknews, September 3, 2012
5 Jung Yoonsu and Sung Giwan, “Korea’s B Ranked Culture seen by the Public Culture Critics,” The Heralds Economy, August 24, 2012
6 Kim Hunju, “Why B Culture is Rising,” Daily Economy, September3, 2012
7 Same as footnote 6
8 Park Kyungeun and Park Eunkyung, “Addicted to Simulative TV Culture,” Kyunghyang News, July 10, 2012