PSY performs on American Music Awards, and racist haters come out on Twitter

PSY, the Korean pop sensation whose viral hit video, “Gangnam Style,” has been viewed alomst 800 million times on YouTube (that’s the official video, never mind the countless other users’ uploads and all the spoofs and tributes), closed out the American Music Awards on Nov. 18. In a savvy, surprising and ultimately, ironic, collaboration, the 35-year-old PSY (real name: Park Jae-sang) was joined for a mashup of his hit with MC Hammer’s “2 Legit 2 Quit” (above) and brought the house down, with celebs and fans (Hammer too) mimicking his horsey-cowboy dance moves.

Within minutes, blowback flew out over Twitter. Most of the messages were gut reactions to the irony of a song sung mostly in Korean being featured on the “American” Music Awards. Here’s one example: “Seriously psy is closing the show?? It’s called the AMERICAN music awards not the Korean..” and “I’m pretty sure this is called the American Music Awards #gobacktoAsia.” (Okay, the “gobacktoAsia” hashtag is pretty offensive — I’ve had that yelled at me in the past.)

The fact that the tweeters didn’t catch the awesomeness of the irony and only expressed their xenophobia and ignorance was disappointing but not surprising.

Some of the tweets, though, were flatout racist, like “Why is chink PSY at the American music awards he doesn’t make American music what is going on” and “are you kidding this chink is on the AMA’s? #sad #keywordAMERICAN.” You can see a sampling of offensive tweets at the Public Shaming Tumblr blog.
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“Gangnam Style” artist PSY signed to US deal: Will he be the 1st Korean superstar here, or a one-hit wonder?

Scooter Braun, the management guru behind Justin Bieber and Carly Rae Jepsen, today announced he’s signed Korean rap artist Park Jae-Sang, better-known as PSY, the dude with the huge viral video hit, “Gangnam Style” (see above).

The goofy, annoying techno-dance thumper with the horsey-straddling giddyup choreography is unavoidable — with more than 107 million views as of this writing, it’s become a meme with a life of its own. There’s a pretty fun (slightly less annoying) mashup of the song with bits by LMFAO, Far East Movement (featuring Dev), Offspring and Bloodhound Gang titled “Like a Bad White Guy Party Gangnam Style” (see below).

The song’s video was choreographed by PSY, whose name is a reference to “psycho” for his outsized personality. The “Gangnam” in the song refers to the high-toned part of Seoul, where he probably hangs out — Park is a star in Korea.

No doubt the song will now become a megahit with the backing of a US pop music label. There’s a general buzz around Korean pop music, or Kpop, these days, so PSY benefits from that spotlight.
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