Seo Tai-jis betrayal

By Jason Lim

I actually remember watching Seo Tai-ji and the Boys’ debut TV appearance back in the early 1990s. I recall that it was a sort of a competition between new musical acts, with Seo Tai-ji and the Boys taking home the second prize with their song, “I know!”

I also remember the judges’ somewhat disparaging comments afterwards, with Seo taking it all with a bittersweet smile that seemed to say, “I know better than you.” Which turned out to be true. There is a Korean adage that you can tell the future health of a tree by the look of its sprout.

Well, Seo’s sprout was surely healthy. Soon after their debut TV appearance, Seo Tai-ji and the Boys shot to the top of the charts and turned the Korean pop scene upside down and inside out for the next few years, becoming the closest thing to the Beatles that Korea would probably ever have. Even their breakup a few years later resembled the Beatle’s in its suddenness and finality.

And mystery. Despite his nice boy-next-door good looks, Seo was always a bit mysterious, aloof, and seemingly puzzled by the craziness surrounding his meteoric rise into a living legend status.

He certainly was the accidental celebrity, all the more ironic since he was the biggest celebrity of them all. He was closer to a genius mad scientist cooking up the elixir of life in his secret lab than the run-of-the-mill talking head celebrity who would sell their mother for an extra second of face time on camera.

He didn’t want us to know him. And we loved him for it. And now we feel betrayed. Why? Because, it turns out, he was actually a person who had human needs. He had been married. Even worse, he was divorced!

Wait. Actually that isn’t why we feel betrayed. We feel betrayed that he didn’t tell us about it. He didn’t tell us ― his closest 20 million fans ― that he had fallen in love, gotten married, realized that his real passion was music, and gotten divorced.

He didn’t hold a press conference before his marriage about how he had fallen in love in a fateful encounter somewhere over the rainbow. He didn’t invite the cameras into his extravagant wedding in some Gangnam hotel and gave us a chance to marvel at the number of his celebrity guests.

He didn’t make a huge show of asking for donations to his favorite charity instead of wedding gifts. He didn’t even give us a glimpse of his wondrous honeymoon in some exotic island, showing his fans how happy he was.

How dare he? How dare he not make a spectacle of himself? How dare he not expose his innermost feelings and invite us into his personal space so that we could continue to indulge in our illusion that we are somehow personally connected with him. That we somehow knew him.

How dare he? How dare he deny us the pleasure of living vicariously through his fairy tale life and making judgments on his most important life choices, nodding in approval when everything seems well but really wanting to tsk tsk at his choices when the inevitable downturn came.

Wasn’t that his job as a celebrity? Hasn’t he seen what Lindsey Lohan has been doing for her fans? Where is the sense of professional sacrifice for his loyal fans? Cutting-edge music is one thing. But deny us the pleasure of rubbernecking a burning wreck alongside the road? Now, that truly is a betrayal.

And now that everything has hit the fan, he isn’t even coming out say how this all happened. Don’t we ― his fans ― deserve the truth about his personal life? Doesn’t he owe the Korean people a public confession? We won’t be satisfied until we see a Jimmy Swaggart moment from Seo. Just hold the blubber, though.

Admittedly, his heretofore unknown marriage and divorce have nothing to do with his music. But we are concerned and want to make sure that Seo is doing well. Sure, it’s all about our concern for our musical hero that’s driving our demand to know the truth. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Our morbid curiosity is actually all based on our altruistic concern. It really has nothing to do with an overblown sense of expectation.

Wait, didn’t I say that we loved Seo exactly because he didn’t want us to know him? Well, yes. But that was for others not as close to him as we 20 million fans are. Surely he owed us some sneak preview at least.

But that’s OK. We will get over this. Even this betrayal is just a passing beep. Seo’s genius will overwhelm us again, and we will remember that he is actually a musician. Can’t wait till next year when he plans to come out with his 20th anniversary album. Anybody know where I can download it for free?

Jason Lim is a Washington, D.C.-based consultant in organizational leadership, culture, and change management. He has been writing for The Korea Times since 2006. He can be reached at jasonlim@msn.com and on Facebook.com/jasonlim2000.