Hallyu and the Korean Wave

“A couple years ago I had never even heard about any Korean television series, nowadays all of my favorite shows are from South Korea.”  Said Laura Mirelle Pierce, a Brazilian student from DePaul University in Chicago.

Laura’s statement might feel familiar. Recently, an increasing number of people have started consuming Korean culture in different shapes and forms.

This flood of content Made in Korea has a name: Hallyu, or Korean Wave. Before becoming a global phenomenon, the Korean Wave had to first conquer Asia. Starting in the late 90’s and early 2000’s, Korean Dramas became increasingly more popular in countries like China and Japan. 

During the 2010’s PSY’s “Oppa Gangnam Style” helped to skyrocket the medium into a worldwide sensation, and it hasn’t slowed down ever since, with K-POP groups like BTS quickly following it and taking over the world by storm. According to Korea.net: “The total number of members who have joined Hallyu-related organizations in all countries around the world have reached nearly 100 million.” Said organizations include things such as K-POP fan groups, for example. 

TV-Dramas and Movies have also seen an huge increase in popularity; dramas like “Crash Landing Onto You” and “Squid Game” were just a few of the shows that led to Netflix announcing that they plan to invest $2.5 billion dollars in South Korea over the next four years.

While Korean cinema has always been of the utmost quality, with classics r like “Oldboy”, “Mother” and “Memories of Murder” releasing in the early 2000’s, it wasn’t until the late 2010’s that the industry really made a bang, with “Parasite” winning the Oscars in 2019 and other pictures such as “Burning”, “Decision to Leave” and “The Handmaiden” leaving a positive impact on viewers. In 2023 it was Celine Song’s “Past Lives” turn to make an impact to critics and viewers alike.

Although K-POP, K-Dramas and Korean Cinema are by far the most famous forms of entertainment coming from South Korea, this cultural pandemic has expanded to many different areas, such as E-Sports, Culinary and Fashion. It all a big impact in the current generation of young adults and teenagers, as mentioned by Enzo Tagliati, a Morningside student from Sweden:

“K-pop Idols have become more like influencers almost, on TikTok feeds you’re starting to see people use them as inspiration for outfits, beauty standards and all sorts of growing influence when it comes to young adults’ lifestyles.”

Oliver Melander, also from Sweden, is a senior whose fashion sense has made a strong impact among Morningside’s Soccer team, stated:

“Personally, I have gotten massively into Korean fashion lately. The Korean Street fashion is greatly influenced by shapes and postures, something which is becoming increasingly trendy in western fashion. The ability to play with shapes and enhance certain features is something which Korean fashion has been doing for a long time.” – “In a sense Korean street wear has been ahead of its time! If one wants to look trendy and fashionable in present day Northern Europe, one can never go wrong with Korean brands!”

The Korean Wave has showed absolutely no signs of slowing down, and recently, words such as “Hallyu” have been officially added to English dictionaries. 

Morningside welcomes Dr. Olu Menjay, newly appointed president of William V.S. Tubman University in Liberia

This is surely to be considered news as is not everyday you receive a visit from someone from another country, specially a president of another university.

The potential audience for this article is probably people interested in investing in Morningside in whatever way, and looking to know more about what type of external relations and partnerships the university has. It also interests nursing students and people studying agriculture, as the article mentions future partnerships in those areas.

They gain knowledge about possible future partnerships and global contacts that Morningside may provide, while also giving some background on Dr. Mosley’s years as a student.

Morningside shows it is willing to expand its relations with other institutions even further, reaching even other countries. The article may also prove beneficial to attract future investor or students that have interest in the areas mentioned.

Hallyu and the Korean Wave

In recent years, it is likely that you have stumbled upon some sort of Korean entertainment, be that music, tv shows, movies and etc…

This Uproar of content Made In Korea has a name: Hallyu, or, Korean Wave. Before becoming a global phenomenon, the Korean Wave had to first conquer Asia; starting in the late 90’s and early 2000’s, Korean Dramas became increasingly more popular in countries like China and Japan.

During the 2010’s PSY’s “Oppa Gangnam Style” helped to skyrocket the medium into a worldwide sensation, and it hasn’t slowed down ever since, with K-POP groups like BTS quickly following it and taking over the world by storm. According to Korea.net: “The total number of members who have joined Hallyu-related organizations in all countries around the world have reached nearly 100 million.” Said organizations include things such as K-POP fan groups, for example.

TV-Dramas and Movies have also seen an huge increase in popularity; dramas like “Crash Landing Onto You” and “Squid Game” were just a few of the shows that led to Netflix announcing that they plan to invest $2.5 billion dollars in South Korea over the next four years.

(Insert Interview #1)

While Korean cinema has always been of the utmost quality, with classics r like “Oldboy”, “Mother” and “Memories of Murder” releasing in the early 2000’s, it wasn’t until the late 2010’s that the industry really made a bang, with “Parasite” winning the Oscars in 2019 and other pictures such as “Burning”, “Decision To Leave” and “The Handmaiden” leaving a positive impact on viewers. In 2023 it was Celine Songs “Past Lives” turn to make an impact to critics and viewers alike.

(Insert Interview #2)

Although K-POP, K-Dramas and Korean Cinema are by far the most famous forms of entertainment coming from South Korea, this cultural pandemic has expanded to many different areas, such as E-Sports, Culinary and Fashion.

(Insert Interview #3/Anecdote)

Its influence showed absolutely no signs of slowing down, and recently, words such as “Hallyu” have been officially added to english dictionaries.

Stuart Scott “Don’t give up, don’t ever give up”

ESPN sportscaster Stuart Scott won the Jimmy V Perseverance award and delivered an inspiring speech.

Scott, who has been battling breast cancer since 2007, is known for his hip hop style of broadcasting and use of catchphrases. Born in Chicago, he joined ESPN in 1993 and is a staple of their programming since then.

During his speech, Scott talked about his journey battling cancer and how it affected him, being a public a figure and all; he quoted Jim Valvano, an all time basketball college coach, saying: “But I listened to what Jim Valvano said 21 years ago. The most poignant seven words ever uttered in any speech anywhere. “Don’t give up, don’t ever give up”. Those great people didn’t.” Scott also said that, the fight against cancer is not won based if you survived or not, but it is won by how you live with it.

He then added: “So, live. Live. Fight like hell. And when you get too tired to fight then lay down and rest and let somebody else fight for you.”

Scott’s path has been full of hardships and difficulties, but he remained strong, and to remain strong has nothing to do with looking though on the outside, but with facing your problems directly and trying to live side-by-side with them, and that requires help from everybody.

Lastly, he declared his love for his two daughters, who climbed on to the stage and hugged their father,

The Salvation Army Calls On Donors To Help Their Neighbors in Need This Giving Tuesday. (This title is absurdly long).

The first thing I have to say is not about just the article but about the website itself, and it is that every single news article sounds so uninteresting, it took me so long to find one which was even slightly of interest… But I digress.

The article itself is… fine… I guess… It doesn’t do anything wrong I suppose, but it also doesn’t help it’s cause, it feels like it’s trying to attract some robots to donate, it just slapped some a bunch of numbers in my face and called it a day, it made no effort whatsoever to make me interested in donating, and what annoys me is that you can do so much, show me an inspiring story of someone that benefited from the salvation army, be creative.

I guess that’s my biggest problem with PR News in general, I don’t care for or have sympathy for big companies at all, they feel alienated from day to day society, and almost every time they make regular news it’s due to some controversy or problem.

This whole newspaper just feels like one big advertisement, and a bunch of rich companies buffing their own egos, talking about things that aren’t interesting at all and ultimately, really boring to read.

In the end I suppose that I’m thankful for the existence of something like the PRNewswire existence, because if I had to read this sort of news on regular newspapers I don’t think I would read them at all.

It’s not exactly an object but I think it is valid.

Ladybugs are kind of disgusting.

A small little ladybug has been living in my room for almost a week now. She doesn’t fly much, so I don’t really mind, and I always pictured lady bugs as cute insects.

There are three of my little friends now, they’re multiplying. I found what appeared to be a ladybug carcass on the floor, it was sort of transparent with an orangish color, I threw it away, so I can’t describe it very well.

I approached one of my little dotted friends, and to my surprise, he didn’t have any dots at all, in fact he was also more orange than red, and a horrendous tail thing was coming out is back, almost as if a fish was stuck inside the bug, and only its tail was visible from the outside, like a poorly digested meal.

I then took a closer look, as I thought that maybe my bad sight was getting on my way. And would you look at that! On top of what I assumed to be its white infinity shaped head lied a black M!

I had been bamboozled, these are not ladybugs, these are Asian lady beetles! I grabbed my ocean dark blue flip flops, and *crunch*, a satisfying little sound came off the first one, like when you break a dry autumn leaf that has fallen off its tree… *crunch* again, two are gone… Oh, it seems like I lost the third one… what a shame, hopefully it’s not plotting a breathtaking revenge against me…

Oh no, wait! I found it, and would you look at that? There were four.

Nepal to ban TikTok over hate content.

The platform with over a billion users worldwide is set to face another blow as Nepal joins the list of countries that have publicly expressed concerns over the app.

The concerns of Nepal are different however, while most major countries have taken action against the Chinese app due to worries over security and data breach problems, Nepal officials stated that TikTok is brimming with content that incite religious hate, violence and sexual abuse.

Nepal’s minister for communication and information technology stated: “Our social social harmony, family structure and family relations are being disturbed by social media” and that “The decision to ban TikTok will be effective immediately”

The country has 2.2 million active users on the app, who will now find themselves cut off from the platform.

Over in South Korea, President Yoon Suk Yeol has intensified his attack on ‘fake news’

Since his election last year, the South Korean President has intensified his fight against what he considers ‘fake news’, with journalists and newsrooms being subjected to police raids and criminal investigations.

His crackdown escalated when officials targeted an independent newspaper in September, for a report published before the elections, leading for prosecutors to raiding homes and offices, something not that common in recent South Korean history.

Mr. Yoon commented on the fact in September, telling his staff that: “If we don’t stop the spread of fake news, it will threaten free democracy and the market economy built on it”.

This aggressive approach has been a topic of discussion in South Korea, with many expressing concern over the President actions, accusing him of using the fight against disinformation as a smokescreen to suppress freedom of speech.

“It is dangerous to leave it to the government to decide what fake news is”, said Pae Jung Kun, a journalism professor.

South Korea has a deep and long history of fighting against oppressive governments, and this episode brings concerns of the past into new light.

Australian Biologist Johannes Fritz is once again taking it to the skies to prevent his beloved birds, the Bald Ibis. from going extinct.

The Ibis, who faced extinction before, were taught a new flying route south 19 years ago by Mr. Fritz himself, who built a small flying machine and trained the birds to follow it, leading them through a journey that started on Austria and ended in Italy, until eventually they would do it themselves.

The plan worked; until recently that is, when global warming made it so that the route became an icy death trap for the birds, that’s when knew he had to spring into action once more, saying: “Two or three years, and they’d be extinct again”.

Now a team of researchers is working to teach a new migration path to the Ibis once more, as they’ll fly west to France, then south to the Mediterranean before tracing the coast on their way to Andalusia. This new route is about 2,500 miles, three times longer that the previous one and is expected to take six-weeks, four more than the trip to Tuscany in Italy.

Mr. Fritz said that the risks are “necessary” and that “It’s not much of a job, but my life’s purpose”

I stumbled upon Natan when entering the cafeteria earlier today, I was running late so I couldn’t afford him the time of a full fledged conversation, as I approach his table he’s preparing to leave, dressed in all black with a black backpack too boost, my friend now look like he is ready to work a 8h shift as a delivery guy for doordash in a major city.

He rastly walks past and throws me a slight nod of the head, signaling he saw me, I quickly turn back and ask:

“Midnight breakfast tomorrow at ten?”

He turns back, looks at me for a second, and nods.

I now had successfully schedule something to do tomorrow night, and I didn’t even need to waste more than a phrase.

One Year After Tragedy, a Subdued Halloween in Itaewon

In recent days I remember reading at least three other articles about last year’s tragedy in Itaewon, so where exactly does this one sets itself appart?

Well, for starters, this article text consists of three short paragraphs, it gives you the basics of what happened in Itaewon and nothing else, sticking to the absolute bare minimum.

This is probably made in purpose, as the article really shines in another aspect; its photojournalism.

The rest of the article is composed of 15 pictures that really tell you what happened and what changed for this years halloween. While the other articles I read on the subject described really well the situation, this one showed me, through Mr. Chang W. Lee lens I was able to really capture how halloween in the district this year were carried out.

You can see the empty streets of what normally seems like an agitated neighborhood, the huge amount of police officers in an attempt to prevent past mistakes, and the suffering of those who lost someone in last years tragedy.

The use of photography in this article is really impressive and it sparked my interest in Mr. Lee’s work.

He flies with birds to prevent an extinction, it’s not his first time.

Originally reported by Denise Hubry from the New York Times, Australian Biologist Johannes Fritz is once again taking it to the skies to prevent his beloved birds, the Bald Ibis. from going extinct.

The Ibis, who faced extinction before, were taught a new flying route south 19 years ago by Mr. Fritz himself, who built a small flying machine and trained the birds to follow it, leading them through a journey that started on Austria and ended in Italy, until eventually they would do it themselves.

The plan worked; until recently that is, when global warming made it so that the route became an icy death trap for the birds, that’s when knew he had to spring into action once more, saying: “Two or three years, and they’d be extinct again”.

Now a team of researchers is working to teach a new migration path to the Ibis once more, as they’ll fly west to France, then south to the Mediterranean before tracing the coast on their way to Andalusia. This new route is about 2,500 miles, three times longer that the previous one and is expected to take six-weeks, four more than the trip to Tuscany in Italy.

Mr. Fritz said that the risks are “necessary” and that “It’s not much of a job, but my life’s purpose”.