K-Pop has become a global phenomenon and has become a source of pride for South Koreans. The industry has created hit songs that have even reached the top of Billboard’s Top 100 and featured Korean artists in large events such as The Grammy’s and Coachella. However, the K-Pop industry is still rooted in old, patriarchal, Confucian values that persist in South Korean society today. In this society Korean women are still expected to be subservient and submissive to men, and this message is perpetuated throughout K-Pop lyrics.

For example in Taeyang’s hit song “Only Look At Me”, Taeyang sings “even if I cheat, don’t you ever cheat”. The greater implication of this lyric is that while he, a man, is allowed to see other girls, the woman is not to look at other men and only pine for him. This is not something new. In Song Ruozhao’s Analects for Women, the Confucian scholar states that wives should not be familiar with men outside her husband and family otherwise it would be infidelity and improper. The gender hierarchies of then and now have not shifted much. The only thing that’s really changed is the language which I feel has only become more vulgar.

This K-Confucian generator mixes up words found in Confucian writings and K-Pop songs to create a new lyric or adage that women are supposed to live by. It highlights that there is no real difference between the two and only enforces what women are supposed to be both physically and as a person.