Following the Pyongyang nuclear test which North Korea claims it carried out this week, South Korea chose to retaliate in an interesting way. Instead of using weapons or violence, they are utilizing gigantic speakers to blast propaganda and K-pop across the most heavily militarized border on earth.
While many people would automatically assume they are playing the global smash hit Gangnam Style by Psy, South Korea has chosen a different song, which is quite darkly sarcastic. South Korea’s psychological operations command apparently has a very dry sense of humor, as they’ve been blasting ‘BANG BANG BANG’ by the massively famous K-Pop boy group BIGBANG.
South Korea’s DJing set is the second to come across the demilitarized zone recently. Last August they used 11 speakers to blast a combination of K-pop and propaganda at the North. This propaganda included messages which promoted the lifestyle and ideals of South Korea, and also messages which welcomed any and all North Korean defectors. North Korea’s state run news agency called this “anti-Pyongyang psychological warfare.” The country also threatened to start a war if the South did not turn off the speakers.
South Korea has responded to the North’s acts of war with similarly flippant K-pop DJ sessions before. In 2010, when the North sank a warship, the South replied with the K-pop song “Hit Your Heart” performed by the girl group 4Minute.
The lyrics in the song,
“baby, you’re kidding me? I do what I want and I do it my way,”
were meant to criticize the North’s tyrannical control over the speech of its citizens. North Korea was so enraged by this that they issued yet another threat, saying that they would turn Seoul “into a sea of flames” if it didn’t stop the musical assault.
South Korea’s recently reactivated speakers will no doubt drive the North to similar threats. While the North also has its own speakers on its side of the DMZ, the South’s are far more technologically advanced, which makes the mixture of K-pop and propaganda they blast inescapable.
Featured image via DispatchLive
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