Black & Fat: The KPop Nightmare -- Part 1 - "It's The Culture" Bullshit

Part 1 of my essay on fatphobia and colorism within the context of consuming k-pop! Free preview before the spice line!`

I doubt anyone actually wants me to unpack the history of fat phobia and colorism in the k-pop industry. But even if you did, that’s not what I’m going to do, because that’s not really what I’m interested in. 

I’m also not going to tell you to stop consuming k-pop (obviously) but my goal is to free you in a way. To give you a context and a framework for consuming anything if you have a marginalized identity because you deserve happiness, even if it’s the imperfect kind. You can take part in culture without the burden of having to fix it. 

I come to this essay as an idol nightmare - fat and black. Not ambiguously so, either. I’m a fat, black bitch and proud of it — finally. I say finally because it was a long journey. My mom (bless her) put me on my first diet when I was 12 years old. I’ve spent most of my life hating myself in a way most black and fat women do. Well, I WASTED most of my life hating myself, I’ll say that. 

And so the k-pop fat phobia and colorism problem feel uniquely personal and specifically cruel. K-pop is fantasy, but that shit shows up even here. 

The worst part of this is if you experience it, someone is bound to talk you out of it. “It’s the culture,” they say. The patriarchal desire to protect men even when they are doing harm to us is also alive and well in k-pop. Hate that for us, too.

Anyway, the “it’s the culture” argument drives me bananas because, like I said, I spent most of my life hating myself. That wasn’t something that happened in a vacuum. It’s our culture. You feel it even now as celebrities throw Ozempic parties and heroine chic and low-rise jeans return with a vengeance.

It would be wild for me to even pick an example of our society being colorist, a land with such a rich racist history, so I won’t even try.

Koreans are not unique, not even in this, and it’s invalidating t to say that the Korean culture is unique in its obsession with body type and skin tone. 

Not only is it invalidating to those of us who deal with it here but for Koreans who are suffering under this oppressive framework themselves.