My problem with the Gangnam Style Phenomenon

I take issue with the popularity of Psy and the Gangnam Style video. I love the video itself. It's a great parody of the problematics with materialism within Korean pop culture. However, I feel like the many people who love it don't get that it's a parody. That they are laughing AT Psy, and not WITH him, as he intended. Psy, in his Asianness and his non-"hotness" in socially constructed masculine terms, is not a threat to American/Western masculinity. And hence, is more accepting - popular even. Like how William Hung was popular.

Helen Lee talks of it through the lens of what we're doing with our time, what's worth watching. As happy as I was to see a critical perspective on this, I sort of wish she went more into the idea that the hysteria over Gangnam Style has some deep implications about our conceptions of racialized masculinity and femininity, rather than simply taking mainly the perspective on mass consumption (although, that seems to just be her point). I mean, she's SO close in taking it to that greater depth and giving it a closer, more critical reading. Historically, Asian American men have been effeminized in mainstream culture. The Gangnam Style phenomenon, without the understanding that it is, in fact, a parody, allows uninformed viewers to perpetuate the stereotype of the laughable, clown-like caricature of the Asian man. It seems a disheartening step back in the progress we've made, especially given how incredibly popular this phenomenon has become. 

There's a difference between learning a dance out of admiration (as in the case of Britney Spears), and learning a dance in order to mock it. I can't help but feel that the Gangnam Style phenomenon is the latter.

(Thanks to Francesca for the Unimpressed McKayla meme)