The singer's relationship is not the first time such a controversy has unfolded among K-pop fans in South Korea and Japan - with agencies reportedly keen to market their stars as being romantically obtainable.
“Wanting to have sex with someone else who is attractive” is “a normal human emotion,” as the commenter above you acknowledged. I don’t think anyone would deny that there’s a fundamental biological mechanism at work there.
Being outraged that a performer you’ve never met (who has no personal obligation to you) is in a relationship, and then having your outrage justified by an apology? That’s not the same. That’s not just biology. That’s culture. It’s the result of taking the “biological reason” - or “normal human emotion” - and wringing it through a targeted marketing campaign and culture of idolatry designed to cultivate unhealthy parasocial relationships for the sole purpose of extracting profit.
Humans are capable of having a serious crush on a prominent person they’ve never met. And the system exploits this. The stars themselves are not innocent of this either. They know how they are perceived and they like the money, and some like the (normal) attention. This goes for both male and female stars.
In the end, they are the ones getting dressed up and going on stage to move their bodies for the pleasure of the crowd. There are plenty of other ways to make money in a capitalist system. You can’t blame capitalism. The stars chose the life.
I’ve never studied it, so I’m curious if this phenomenon occurs in true Marxist/Leninist societies, which many people see as the opposite of capitalism. Surely stars still exist? Money still exists in those societies and surely people spend it on entertainers.
Changing the system won’t stop it. The only way to stop producers and entertainers from exploiting base human emotions is to outlaw exploiting base human emotions, and man… any government with the absolute power to do that is going to be dystopian. But, hey, ads would be outlawed!
The “victims” themselves—the lonely guys at home being brainwashed into falling in love with a star—are also not blameless since they allowed themselves to be put in that position by consuming that kind of media.
People are barely evolved apes. We won’t figure this shit out for another million years of evolution. We have emotions. Everyone exploits them and allows themselves to be exploited. Plenty of blame to go around.
I’m just high and rambling. Don’t take anything I said too seriously, because I don’t believe any of it with any real conviction.
™Whatever the hell that means.
(I don’t know how to type a dagger on my phone, so I hope you liked my footnote mark. It kinda felt appropriate. Almost don’t even need the footnote.)
Hyper capitalist emotional exploitation.
Take a normal human emotion, feed it through a system optimized to wring out profit, this is what is left.
Yes clearly there are no biological reasons why a person would want to have sex with someone else who is attractive
I’m not sure I follow your meaning.
“Wanting to have sex with someone else who is attractive” is “a normal human emotion,” as the commenter above you acknowledged. I don’t think anyone would deny that there’s a fundamental biological mechanism at work there.
Being outraged that a performer you’ve never met (who has no personal obligation to you) is in a relationship, and then having your outrage justified by an apology? That’s not the same. That’s not just biology. That’s culture. It’s the result of taking the “biological reason” - or “normal human emotion” - and wringing it through a targeted marketing campaign and culture of idolatry designed to cultivate unhealthy parasocial relationships for the sole purpose of extracting profit.
Humans are capable of having a serious crush on a prominent person they’ve never met. And the system exploits this. The stars themselves are not innocent of this either. They know how they are perceived and they like the money, and some like the (normal) attention. This goes for both male and female stars.
In the end, they are the ones getting dressed up and going on stage to move their bodies for the pleasure of the crowd. There are plenty of other ways to make money in a capitalist system. You can’t blame capitalism. The stars chose the life.
I’ve never studied it, so I’m curious if this phenomenon occurs in true Marxist/Leninist societies, which many people see as the opposite of capitalism. Surely stars still exist? Money still exists in those societies and surely people spend it on entertainers.
Changing the system won’t stop it. The only way to stop producers and entertainers from exploiting base human emotions is to outlaw exploiting base human emotions, and man… any government with the absolute power to do that is going to be dystopian. But, hey, ads would be outlawed!
The “victims” themselves—the lonely guys at home being brainwashed into falling in love with a star—are also not blameless since they allowed themselves to be put in that position by consuming that kind of media.
People are barely evolved apes. We won’t figure this shit out for another million years of evolution. We have emotions. Everyone exploits them and allows themselves to be exploited. Plenty of blame to go around.
I’m just high and rambling. Don’t take anything I said too seriously, because I don’t believe any of it with any real conviction.
™Whatever the hell that means.
(I don’t know how to type a dagger on my phone, so I hope you liked my footnote mark. It kinda felt appropriate. Almost don’t even need the footnote.)