Global megahits can succeed despite hyperlocal untranslatable content

Evidence

In 2012, Psy recorded “Gangnam Style” as a satirical dance-rap track mocking the ostentatious new-money culture of Seoul’s affluent Gangnam district. The video was a chaotic mix of mild hip-hop parody, Korean pop culture in-jokes, celebrity cameos, and absurdist humor—complete with a silly horse-riding dance and a slow-motion rage scream at a woman’s raised buttocks in a yoga pose. Aside from the phrase “Hey, sexy lady,” the lyrics were entirely in Korean, and even in translation, they required a deep familiarity with Seoul’s socioeconomic dynamics to pick up on the nuanced class commentary. All in all, it was not a song designed for global domination. — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 297

Categorization

• SEED: Angle: the most globally-consumed artifact can be the most locally encoded — flattens the assumption that monoculture requires universally legible content.
• QUESTION: Does this undercut part of Marx’s flattening thesis — that locals can scale globally while remaining opaque?