Pink cultural diplomacy: How K-culture heals a tense world
Lee Kyung-hwa
The whole world has been swept away by a wave of pink. In July, The Guardian wrote, “BLACKPINK, the first Asian and first female group to headline Coachella — one of North America’s biggest music festivals — has fired the opening salvo in their conquest of the world.”
Similarly, Netflix’s "Squid Game" transformed a nostalgic Korean childhood game. “The Mugunghwa flower has bloomed” — Korea's version of Red Light, Green Light — became a brutal survival challenge.
While a giant pink doll calls out, “The Mugunghwa flower …” players remain safe and can move. But as soon as she finishes with “has bloomed” and turns her head, any detected movement results in immediate gunfire. The game continues in this intense cycle until the players reach the finish line. In short, to survive, one must know exactly when to run and when to stop. This chilling reinterpretation of innocent play as brutal reality is more than spectacle. It becomes a metaphor for a world governed by unspoken rules, heightened tensions and the aesthetics of stillness.
It is a world where only those who sprint at full speed, stop at the right moment and endure the pressure survive. Doesn’t that feel familiar these days? The international community today seems to be playing a similar game, where you must “run well and not move” to survive.
From nuclear threats in the Middle East to the climate crisis, Trump’s tariff demands and immigration crackdowns, the world has lost its sense of direction. Politically, economically and environmentally stressed, the world is caught in a cycle of anxiety and tension. Humanity today seems to be living in a state of chronic indigestion.
So, what do we need in times like these? When people are physically unwell, they instinctively seek relief, something to soothe the stomach. For Americans, that might be the pink remedy known as Pepto-Bismol. Today, we are in urgent need of a cultural antacid — something to soothe our emotional and psychological unease. Interestingly, the answer is found in Korean culture. It has emerged as the new face of cultural diplomacy.
Last May, the Busan Content Market and Cannes International Series Festival collaborated to host CANNESERIES X BUSAN. Usually held in Cannes, France, the event brought one of its most symbolic elements to Busan: the pink carpet. Whereas the red carpet has traditionally symbolized power and prestige, the pink carpet of Canneseries evokes warmth, sensitivity and comfort. It embodies the emotional resonance and healing aesthetics of K-culture.
Pink is not just a color or a visual accessory. It’s a cultural remedy, gently embracing emotional instability and trauma. While many associate pink with cuteness or femininity, its meaning runs deeper. Pink can challenge seriousness, dismantle authority and even take on radical political undertones.
In Nazi Germany, the color was used as a badge to persecute homosexuals. Today, it’s reinterpreted as a symbol of resistance and liberation in the LGBTQ+ movement. In contemporary art, pink expresses playfulness, self-expression and decentralization. Beyond its visual appeal, it’s a layered symbol that conveys powerful social messages.
Even in philosophy and art theory, pink is not just a color. Feminist theorist Judith Butler saw the act of wearing pink as a kind of "gender performativity,” a political action that can challenge and dismantle identity norms. Pink is not inherent — it’s a social construct. As such, wearing or using pink becomes a form of social resistance.
Pink stimulates the senses and contains diverse semiotic meanings. It can evoke physicality like skin, innocence and childhood, or even eroticism. Queer theory embraces pink as a playful disruption of binaries. The philosophy of pink is not just about color, it’s a cultural discourse tool for thinking about humanity, society, power, identity and existence.
This symbolic power of pink aligns naturally with the emotional world of hallyu, or the global spread of Korean culture, and K-dramas. Rooted in Korean sentiment, vitality and the aesthetics of empathy, K-dramas delicately portray complex emotions. Even amid violent realities, they offer warm consolation and hope, presenting narratives of “emotional survival” that resonate globally. K-dramas are more than content, they’re a tool of cultural diplomacy that fosters empathy and healing. They are a space for global collaboration and cultural diplomacy.
In contrast, U.S. foreign policy under the current administration has shifted away from value- and empathy-based soft power toward a more pragmatic approach, prioritizing economic benefits, conservative values and security interests. This shift has intensified the world’s fatigue. In an era where diplomacy feels more like cold transaction than warm communication, the role of culture has never been more necessary.
Korea, through its cultural power, is reaching out to soothe the weary hearts of people around the globe. In this unstable and uncertain era, pink is no longer a childish color, it’s a question: “What kind of world do we dream of?” K-culture is the most human answer to that question — the sharing and realizing of dreams as collective reality. Pink is the color of that zeitgeist of healing and resistance, empathy and play, traversing the boundaries of reality and imagination.
In an age where communication is broken and cooperation is crumbling, cultural diplomacy might be our last survival game. On the pink carpet, we are learning once again with a sense of joyful vitality how to survive in a "run well and not move" game.
Lee Kyung-hwa (khl@namjunepaikcfoundation.org), a graduate of Harvard University Graduate School of Design, is the international director of the Nam June Paik Cultural Foundation.