Seoul Mafia, web star, with her fun and hilarious diary, takes us to discover many faces of Korea!
Come and find out what he tells us in the pages of It's all the fault of K-pop, published by De Agostini.
INFORMATION SHEET:
Title: It's all K-pop's fault (cob diary of an Italian in Korea)
Author: Seoul Mafia
Publisher: De Agostini
Type: Diary
Release date: November 10, 2020
Order link: https://amzn.to/3lJw8eN
PLOT:
When Marco comes across the first K-pop music video on YouTube it's love at first sight. As an insecure kid bullied by his classmates, he finally finds the motivation he was looking for to let his true self emerge. The music, the clothes, the choreography and the interplanetary brashness of the singers transport him to a world where he feels accepted, one in which a boy with pink hair can dance, and not only is he not insulted, but he is even idolized! And so, here comes the definitive enlightenment: Marco will leave his small town in Brianza to fly to Seoul – a chaotic and crazy megalopolis with over 10 million inhabitants – and become a true idol, a pop star who performs in front of thousands of people. He soon finds himself trapped in a training academy for aspiring K-pop stars, which turns out to be a real nightmare, with rehearsals from midnight to six in the morning, chosen by the manager to bring a touch… exotic to the group. Here begins the incredible adventures of Marco Ferrara, aka Seoul Mafia, today an undisputed celebrity in Korea and on the Web, who in this book reveals all the background to Asian entertainment and the most absurd curiosities about the most loved culture of the moment. From aesthetic standards to the strangest food and the rules for k-courtship, from places to visit to words to learn, a book full of emotions and laughter, to take with you also as a guide for your trip.
REVIEW:
I don't remember how many years ago I started following Seoul Mafia videos on YouTube; it was the time when I didn't find a lot of information and news about Korea, but my love for the East began to overflow the borders of Japan.
From the videos to the book published by De Agostini the step was immediate. I found the same hilarious and contagious sympathy that Seoul Mafia transmits in its videos. The same personalized lexicon that makes his videos hilarious literally flew into the pages. While I was reading, I felt like I was catapulted into a Seoul Mafia video and I even thought I heard his voice.
GIVE VIDEOS TO THE BOOK
Reading her diary was an incredible journey, into a world that I was learning to know, of which many mechanisms were not yet very clear to me, especially the one linked to k-pop and celebrities. A world that is at times harsh, ruthless, full of rules to adapt to if you want to become someone.
"He's handsome, but with that mole on his cheek he seems a little too Mr. Bean" he said to my manager as if I were a can of tuna in the supermarket, incapable of understanding or wanting
Seoul Mafia – It's all K-pop's fault
WHAT IS IT TALKING ABOUT?
Many things read in the book are certainly nothing new, as Marco has already told us about them on his YouTube channel, but I must say that reading them in black and white in the common thread traced by his personal diary, since he left and landed in Korea, had a completely different effect.
The things he told, with his usual style, on paper took a form that struck me the most. The unbridled search for this symmetry in the face with the consequent very high demand for cosmetic surgery in different age groups becomes an almost alarming phenomenon.
What he then says about his training as a K-pop dancer was twice as shocking, I went from thinking it as worse than a military draft to considering it a real kidnapping…
WHY READ IT?
If you are wondering why read a diary of something that has already been widely discussed by him in another form, the answer is simple. If you follow Marco, the book is like a pleasant dive back into memories, enriched by many ideas and advice on Korean culture. It also offers the point of view of Marco who with extreme sincerity tells, without hiding, the mistakes he made when he thought he would start and get to the top straight away. The road has been long and full of failures and victories.
The beauty of the diary is that Marco starts from his personal experience to go much further, to tell us about Korea, its people and its culture. A country that is light years ahead technologically speaking, yet is still not very "tolerant" on some aspects. It shows us that behind the bright lights there is also a lot of darkness, which does not make Korea less beautiful, but simply more real and human, because in real life there are no totally perfect and heavenly countries.
What I liked about the diary is that Marco, with his effervescent and direct style, the same as his live broadcasts, manages to talk about important and profound themes (bullying, homophobia, racism, fame, self-acceptance) in a light-hearted way, but without ever trivializing them.
The book is graphically full of images, photos, colours. They make it appealing to a young audience, but I, who remain young inside, also found it perfect for my age!
Congratulations to Marco for his work!
For Kotaᆯia, thanks toKorean Cultural Institute, we had the pleasure of interviewing him live and he told us about his novel and his experience in Korea. You can't understand my emotion at finally seeing him in the flesh, I felt like I had realized an impossible dream.
The interview will be released soon on our YouTube channel. Stay tuned!
Fabiana Andreozzi
Photo credit: Fabiana Andreozzi