Have you ever been Hongdae? People around there seem to enjoy their own culture. That culture is usually called 'Independent culture'. Then, change the question. Have you every experienced indie culture? You might say 'No' or 'I don't know.'. But I'm sure you have. If you have seen 'Show me the money' or if you have heard music of '10cm', you have experienced Korean indie culture even though you never realized.
People consider 'Independent culture' as an alternative of recent commercialized culture. Korean indpendent culture has been popular as we know through the success of 워낭소리 or 장기하와 얼굴들 which are an indie film and an indie band in Korea. However, the interest toward those kind of culture does not raise constantly. Only few famous symbols of indie culture are treated fairly and do what they want to do. It is hard to believe that 1,453 indie music albums were released from 1996 to 2007. Most of people know only 2 or 3 famous albums.
Throught this statistics, we can notice that indie scene system doesn't work well. I found the problem is started with wrong communication toward the public. Thus, I want to talk about 'Does current Korean indie culture communicate with the public well?'. I want to find the specific problems and help resolve matters.
Pop culture means commercialism culture that is mass producted by mass media and reproducted by many culture recipient. Thanks to technological advance and stabilization of living, mass culture became a culture that anyone can enjoy. This situation makes current flood of culture. Pop culture is always exposure by media and what people learn is pop culture itself. However, there is a nonmainstream culture in Korean society. It is 'Independent culture'. It is also a kind of pop culture. It just has different characteristic because it is not based on commercial viability or mass appeal. Then why indie culture is nonmainstream? It is not because indie culture is lowbrow or worthless. It is because of lack of communication with the public. Value of the indie cultureㅡartistic complexity or creativityㅡlost its light in front of the universality of mass media. We have to share value of the indie culture with the public. In other words, we should help their communication. This research is not to blame mass culture. To find problems of Korean current indie culture scene and to help communication with the public is purpose of this research.
It is hard to distinguish main stream culture and indie culture. However, there is a certain wall between two of themㅡin terms of fame, pay, or reactions of the pulbic. I'll prove that current indie scene has problems through comparing two cultures. There are some reasons to support my idea. They can be distinguished into two partsㅡthe problem of the indie scene and the problem of the public. Three reasons are lack of PR, lack of professional work force, and bias of the public. First and
second one are originated in its own scene, and last problem is originated in the public rather than the scene.
First, lack of public relations interrupt the communication between current Korean indie scene and the public. This one influences to last one because it is related closely. PR or marketing is core strategy to compete with other culture resources. Many indie culture directors do not aware importance of marketing because they believe the public will recognize compexity of indie culture someday as long as they create nice contents. However, it is hard to compete with main stream culture that always uses attractive PR skills. The public is easy to be attracted by another culture contents rather than boring and dull indie culture. Main stream culture never gives time to examine if indie culture is good or not. Not only because of directors' unawareness, it is caused by lack of money. Without huge capital, this scene cannot afford huge cost of marketing. As a result, indie culture loses opportunity to display its attraction to people.
Second, lack of professional work force also contributes to problems of Korean indie scene. In Korean indie culture scene, directors are who didn't get any professional education of directing culture or art. Art management is not popular in Korea. Furthermore, for INDIE culture, it is hard to find someone wanting to learn how to work on it. As a result of less professional education of art and culture, there isn't enough work force to improve Korean indie scene. Moreover, there is a bias that culture or art practician do not earn enough money. It makes people hard to strive to concentrate on the work. Lack of work force also makes lack of creativity. So it is important to realize the reality of current indie scene and enhance it.
Lastly, bias of the public also makes the bad communication between current Korean indie scene and the public. Middle of the political and ideological changes, Korean indie culture grew up around Hongdae during 1990s. Hongdae(Hong ik Univerisity) is famous for a college of fine arts. Because of this, there is a freewheeling atmosphere around it. This atmosphere contributed to the formation of Korean indie scene around Hongdae. However, because this scene is too concetrated around there, people misunderstood it as a culture of alcohol, drug or adult entertainment. Also, this bias makes gab between users of indie culture and non-users. It worsens the lack of communications between them and it really makes the schene isolated.
Other people might say indie culture is improving and the public already awares it as a new, interesting culture and uses it a lot. They may support their idea through introducing how many people like indie musician 장기하와 얼굴들 or how many people watch indie film 워낭소리. I partially agree with that because we cannot deny that it is growing. They also point out that indien culture has maniacs. I also agree with that idea.
However, compring to main stream culture such as K-Pop, it is too slow to say it is growing well. We need to see the reality objectively. Also, maniacs are maniacs. Do you call fans of PSY or Bigbang as MANIACS? Becasue indie culture seems strange and odd, you call them maiacs. For these reasons, I do not believe current indie scene is communicating with the pulbic well. It should change.
Korea is called culturally powerful nation. However, I think attention of people is concentrated on main one. Whether it is because main culture maks more money or it is more interesting, I think we should support indie culture and improve it as a another product for our nation. It will not only help poor artists worring their future, but also help our nation worring its unlimited main stream culture. We should aware the current reality which is desparately hard to maintain life as an indie artist. My father, who is a performance director, met many indie artists. One of the indie label CEO has no car and no house even though he is CEO of the company. Also, an indie musician who has a few famous songs can only eat lamen for almost 6 months because he had no money. The rich also seems to be getting richer, and the poor also seems to be getting poorer in culture scene. Main stream culture gets bigger and bigger as if it is unlimited. Indie culture gets no chances to show its attraction. We should change the way of communication through resolving the three problems I suggested. People have to remind that it is important to excavate new source of culture and to make good environment for young and gifted indie artists.
