Is It Possible to Make “Russian K-pop”? Nationality and Boundaries of Music Genre in the Online Discussion of Russian-speaking Users

Abstract

The article is devoted to the cultural meanings behind the appeal to nationality in the online discussion about the boundaries of the musical genre “K-pop”. The material for the research was the comments of Russian-speaking users on the video clip of the first Russian K-pop group. It was found that such national identity-based rhetoric constructs very stable, but at the same time mobile and flexible boundaries for the genre. This contradiction is determined by the fact that the frame of national identity is not central to these discussions, yet it has historically shaped discussions of K-pop as a genre. Russian-speaking Internet users interact with K-pop and borrow elements of this discourse. They then use it from the perspective of media consumers of contemporary transnational pop culture. In the case of the first “Russian K-pop” group, this national discourse appears as a convenient tool for encoding a situation of external threat to an emotionally significant cultural product.