"You know about Gangnam Style, right?" asked the senior South Korean Google exec, when I found myself in Seoul two weeks ago – her first question. But, while the huge viral success of Psy's hit has created a whole genre of jockey-based dance moves, Gangnam is a place, too.
It's the Mayfair of Seoul, the high-rise district of the city just south of the river. Although it does feature one large and rather beautiful temple, Bongeun, for the most part, Gangnam is an upmarket shopping area, home to the enormous underground COEX mall (where part of the video was filmed) and the nearby boutique-lined streets of Apgujeong-dong. To see the historic Seoul, you have to cross the river, but that's not the point of Gangnam.
The point of Gangnam is to be seen there, and the streets are full of young, well-dressed teens mingling with the super-rich of the city. Seoul is the capital of Korea; Gangnam is, as Psy says, the capital of Seoul. It's so expensive that it accounts for almost 10% of the land value of the entire country.
The Gangnam Style phenomenon has shone a western light on K-pop too, the genre of slick, mass-produced teen-idol boy and girl bands that dominate the south-east Asian music scene. You might not have heard of it before Psy, but K-pop videos were viewed more than two billion times in 2011. The future of British pop may include acts such as A Pink and B2ST too.
Only the very wealthy can afford to live in Gangnam – not the kids in the latest styles who hang around its huge malls. As Psy says: "People who are actually from Gangnam never proclaim that they are."
Gangnam Style videos - the best so far, by Rosie Swash
Political dissident, anti-corruption activist and arranger of sunflowers – you'd be forgiven for thinking an evening at Ai Wei Wei's house was less than a barrel of LOLs. But the Chinese artist revealed his funny bone when he offered his own take on Psy's work, called Grass Mud Horse Style (a subversive phrase of defiance against the state in China), even waving around a pair of handcuffs in reference to his arrest in 2011. By far the best sendup of the bunch.
Less a parody, more of an "am-I-dreaming-oh-God-no-this-is-real-life" moment for the UN secretary general. "I cannot even imitate your moves," Ban Ki-Moon told Psy, before doing just that. There was a lot of laughter, but there's also the vague look of, "What's actually happening?" in Ban Ki-Moon's eye.
Say what you want about public-school pupils but they take their extracurricular activities seriously. Psy's lyrics were swapped for ones that detail the daily toil of an Etonian, including chapel, chambers and drinking £100 bottles of Moët. If the last bit is true, then someone should tell them that's a pretty big mark-up.
The mayor of London declined to do the riding-a-horsey dance when he made reference to Psy's viral hit in his Tory conference speech, though he did joke about doing said dance with David Cameron, thus gifting us yet another Gangnam-style spinoff. Unfortunately for Boris, any chance of sounding "down with the kids" is slightly ruined by his bellowing enunciation of the song as "Gang. Nam. Style" (18 seconds in).
Umm, are we allowed to like this one? They seem as if they're enjoying it, but are the Filipino inmates voluntary participants of organised dances in the prison yard? They've done Thriller and They Don't Care About Us, both of which brought them the kind of international fame and press coverage that we haven't seen the likes of since, well, Gangnam Style, so it was inevitable that Psy's moves would make their way to the Cebu correctional facility. It's viral hit meets viral hit, all for the amusement of the gawping visitors and bored office workers around the world. Ha. Um …
The original hardly needs introduction but Korean pop got more than its day in the sun when Psy, currently on his sixth album, went viral with his music video sendup of the wealthy Seoul district. In between dozing on a beach with a tiny dancing child, Psy wanders through stables, faces snow machines, blows things up and even interrupts a yoga class, all the while doing the now infamous horse-riding dance and chanting "sexy lady". Did I mention that this has been viewed more than 530 million times on YouTube?
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