The Olympics Closing Ceremonies: A paean to cultural inauthenticity

The Olympic Closing Ceremonies entertainment began with a 13 year old kid playing US rock style electric guitar. One of the big acts is Lady Gaga-seque K-Pop, meaning a combination of US and world pop styles with techno, often video game styles. Another is a boy band largely indistinguishable musically and stylistically from boy bands around the world which use the Western pop/disco/etc. genres. If you can find much ‘authentically Korean’ in any of that … but wait, you see I hate cultural authenticity. The tomato came from the New World and isn’t Italian. Jazz came out of Sousa bands marrying ragged march time marrying black and white traditions. K-Pop is gloriously inauthentic.