Naver Say Naver Again...

Hey, for the first time, the Korean Internet world seems to have noticed my presence. Very exciting. And rather unexpected.

If I may explain... On Friday, I will be giving a presentation at Kyung Hee University, as part of some seminar and other things in a day of Hallyu (the Korean Wave). The university asked us presenters to write a little paper, basically going over what we will talk about at the seminar. No big deal, was happy to do it.

But apparently the university gave out copies of our papers to the local press... trying to stir up interest in their event, I guess. In any event, this morning I started getting phone calls from some friends and acquaintances in the entertainment industry, asking about the mean things I had written.

My first response was "Huh?"... partly because it takes a while for my brain to get moving in the morning, and partly because I had not expected the press to take an interest in my little paper. But mostly because I wrote a fairly positive story about the local entertainment biz.

So I hit the Internet and found a couple of stories. The worst was definitely the Segye Ilbo, who totally misunderstood what I wrote. And (surprise, surprise) did not bother contacting me. Niiiice. Very professional. Granted, I gave my paper a cheeky little title ("The Zombie Wave"), but not for any special reason... because I could not think of a decent title and because I was just joking around.

In any event, where there is news, there is a Naver discussion (Thanks to the Marmot for pointing it out to me). As of 11pm, there were over 1,200 comments... Rather remarkable, especially for little old me. It was mostly the usual Naver mix of complaining, joking and what not, but I was surprised how many people seemed sympathetic to what I said (even though much of it was taken out of context).

FYI, for any Naver or Newsis or other folk dropping by, my presentation is mostly about how the Korean Wave and Korean pop culture has been perceived by the Western media. It is much more a critique of Western journalism in Korea than it is an analysis of Korean pop culture.

FYI2, I am not American. I write for American magazines, but I am not American. Not that there is anything wrong with that...

PS: Hi Mikstipe. Nice blog... and thanks for the kind words.