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Of course Slumdog Millionaire won a lot of Oscars and in 2012 Gangam Style was extremely popular.
It seems to me that although African American and Latin cultures have managed to get a strong presence in the west, Asian culture has often been underrated and such. Of course a while back it was Martial Arts, Ninjas, and Samurais. Anime was going strong too.
Yet it seems to me that Asian pop culture hasn't found its niche and reached out to Westerners as strongly yet.
Do you think that eventually Asian pop culture will get such a strong following in USA, Western Europe, and Canada to the point that Asian artists are highly loved and respected by the younger generation in those countries?
Hard to say. I think Japanese culture was on the verge of breaking through into the mainstream in the US back in the 80s/90s, but I think its embrace of kawaii (sp?) really undercuts that. Excessively cute products don't tend to appeal to men in the West, and they really don't have that much of an appeal to adult Western women either.
Sushi, ramen, and quite a lot of our modern electronics and culture started in Japan (though bewilderingly and perhaps thankfully for our competitiveness they fell short in software).
Japanese technological accomplishments generally revolve around refining, streamlining, and improving existing technology more than actually creating really breakthrough ideas. As such it is pretty well illegal to do this with non-open source software since the code is owned by someone else. At the same time Japanese society focuses strongly on obeying the rules. Hackers in the Western sense are very rare in Japan (for quite a long time no Japanese company had ever lost work time due to the activities of a Japanese hacker). While generally illegal many if not most young hackers in the West do so to test their skills instead of any driving malicious intent, and the practice they get pays off as many go on to legitimate careers in software where they already have years more of experience than their Japanese counterparts.
Even in video games where Japanese software is second to none the main selling point is that the games are often focused on the Japanese market first and thus are often very in different than terms of theme or gameplay than games developed by Westerners for Westerners.
What do you mean by one way street ? We have seen a mixture of a lot if not all at this point. If anything people are recycling so much old material. I do believe the 'good ole days' are behind us in the sense that we will probably never see any new 'sound' coming out any time soon. The days of the Swingers are long gone--was fresh and unheard of back then. Rap was under ground and exclusive back in the 80s/90s now it seems to be every where. Pop music was good some time ago. Metal is dead--no one is hard rock these days. We will never see the days of Jazz again--altho it would be interesting to see it come back. But no it has never been a one way street. Trend to trend but it comes and goes.
What I meant with "one way street" is that the West sends out stuff, but hardly much from the rest of the world's products gets into, and directly and heavily exposed in the West....
But I totally disagree with the idea that "metal is dead" - the pundits have said that many, many times (starting with the grunge-era) but there are still many, many bands from around the world playing the music. True they may not garner the mainstream attention (or radio airplay) they got in the late 1980s, nor do they make the killer records that bands like Metallica, Black Sabbath, Pantera, Slayer, Iron Maiden, or Guns N' Roses had in their peak days, but believe me they are still around. Just go look at the internet sites, blogs, and magazines if you want to hear the latest metal news these days. In short, you just have to go look around (definitely past the mainstream) for it!
Last edited by mrconfusion87; 01-18-2013 at 11:41 AM..
Hard to say. I think Japanese culture was on the verge of breaking through into the mainstream in the US back in the 80s/90s, but I think its embrace of kawaii (sp?) really undercuts that. Excessively cute products don't tend to appeal to men in the West, and they really don't have that much of an appeal to adult Western women either.
I tend to notice that alot of Japanese pop culture does have a following. However, it seems to be popular under
1) People under age 15, or
2) Certain segments of the college-age population.
Back in the late 1990s, I remember Pokemon coming out. I noticed it was mainly popular among the middle schools kids and elementary school kids. When I got to high school, stuff like Naruto and other things in Japanese pop culture, became more of a fringe culture. It was mainly like a few students who liked it, and some of those kids were often deemed as "weird".
There is a following up Japanese pop culture. And from what I've heard, it's more popular in the USA than it is in Japan. However, it doesn't have the same kind of following as other forms of pop culture. When Michael Jackson was alive, and especially back in the 1980s, everyone loved Michael Jackson. There was no "fringe culture" associated with Michael Jackson. You go the world over today, everyone loves Michael Jackson. Japanese pop culture, on the other hand, is more of a niche market. People who are into that culture are called Otaku. Japanese pop culture has popularity, but it's niche specific, among Otaku.
Japanese pop culture has had the last 40 years to break into the US market....still nothing
I dont expect anything from them
though I do expect big things to come out of korean pop culture...they are more suited to mainstream...and they are really popular amongst asian-americans
Japanese pop culture has had the last 40 years to break into the US market....still nothing
I dont expect anything from them
though I do expect big things to come out of korean pop culture...they are more suited to mainstream...and they are really popular amongst asian-americans
It has a popularity in the USA market. It's just more of a "niche" market.
J-pop and K-pop already has long before gangnam style. Bollywood will take a while since the world mad at India right now.
Out of curiosity, why is the world mad at India? Bollywood flicks are watched in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and East Africa because they are "family friendly;" but I doubt they'll ever in become popular in the West(I personally can't bring myself to watch them),even if the world stops being mad at India. lol
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Japanese culture may be niche in the US but it has fans the world over, and in some countries like Brazil and France is more popular than you would imagine. Finally, I hope, we'll see a rival to America pop culture. I just hope it starts becoming more original and reflects something innately Japanese, a bit like Indian pop music combines modern beats with Indian instrumentation/styles.
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