When Sohee Kim, junior in LAS, returned to her home country of South Korea this summer, she stayed in a hotel located in the district known as “Gangnam.” While in Korea, she constantly heard a song by the 34-year-old Korean pop singer PSY. It was everywhere.

A few days later, Jaewoo Kim, a soon-to-be University freshman, attended a PSY concert. According to Kim, the venue had no official seating areas; everyone in the crowd stood on their feet throughout the show. For the finale, PSY performed his single “Gangnam Style” during which the crowd motioned the “horse-riding” dance that the song has become so popular for.

Neither student had any idea back then that PSY and his “Gangnam Style” video would become an international sensation, especially in the U.S.

PSY also did not seem to anticipate the success of his video, which received a Guinness World Record for most likes on YouTube last month. In a September interview with the music station Fuse, he admitted that his “Gangnam Style” video was initially targeted to the Korean audience. He seldom checked the number of views his video received on YouTube, until one day his company told him there were comments written in multiple languages. PSY added during the interview that he began to notice the number of viewers increase by millions per day. Within 60 days, he was performing in the U.S.

As the “Gangnam Style” craze gained momentum, Sohee Kim began translating the lyrics for her friends on campus. The line “Oppan Gangnam Style” means “older brother has/is Gangnam Style,” Kim said.

She explained to them that Gangnam is an affluent district in Seoul, a place where young people gather and lead in social trends and fashion. Kim also taught her friends the horse-riding move, something they were more interested to learn.

With the “Gangnam Style” video reaching “viral” status, some fans even created their own parodies.

Laura Zehner, a fifth year student in ACES, joined a flash mob that performed “Gangnam Style” in September near the missing Alma Mater pedestal. The event attracted more than 100 students to “freak people out in a socially acceptable way,” Zehner said.

The crowd of spectators erupted into cheers and laughter when it came time for the famous horse-riding move. Zehner noted that some even began to participate in the dance. A video clip of the performance was then uploaded to YouTube and has since received more than 70,000 views so far.

Media and celebrities catch on

Before people on campus were learning the dance, the rest of the country was already putting a spotlight on PSY.

Along with Fuse, other major media outlets began to take notice of PSY. Through social media, members of the entertainment industry began to popularize this Korean pop singer they had previously never heard of.

British singer Robbie Williams was among the first notable pop stars to introduce “Gangnam Style.” “Try watching this and not smiling I dare you,” Williams wrote in a blog post this July. His praises were followed by more positive statements including a tweet in July by T-Pain that said, “Words cannot even describe how amazing this video is.”

Britney Spears also expressed excitement about the Gangnam Style choreography. During an appearance she made on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in September, Spears had the opportunity to learn the dance from PSY himself.

PSY’s popularity eventually landed him performances on Saturday Night Live and MTV’s pre-Video Music Award concert.

“I went to VMA last week. I saw a lot of celebrities sitting down there. I was like ‘wow look at him,’ ‘look at her.’ But meanwhile they were saying the same thing,” PSY said during his interview with Fuse.

Chang Dae Ham, assistant professor in advertising, interpreted PSY’s success as the “people’s success.” Mass media is no longer the authority on what information is worth consuming, he said. People now have a say in the content that interests them. When this content is then endorsed by celebrities, it will reach a “tipping point” where mass media has to stay on top of these trends, or risk losing viewers.

In this case, when “Gangnam Style” received more than 20 million hits on YouTube, CNN and The Wall Street Journal decided to step in.

Professor Ham also believes there is more to the story rather than the dance and the craze it accompanied. He has known PSY’s music for a long time and credited him for being distinct from most Korean pop stars.

“K-pop is about visual, not the lyrics, but PSY still wished to shed light on the materialistic lifestyle in Gangnam. He mocked those living in Gangnam, who think themselves as social elite and enjoy the most abundant materials in life,” Ham said. “When people speak of Gangnam, it’s usually not addressed in a respectful tone, but sarcastically, they still want to be part of Gangnam.”

The irony also, is that PSY is from Gangnam.

Xing can be reached at [email protected].