Death of the author is a thing.
Whatever meaning you derive from a piece of art personally is just as valid as the intended meaning
this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2025
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Don’t worry. The sculptor made sure you can’t misinterpret their work.
Pack it up, "artists," the solution to viewer interpretation has been found.
no more fucking poem analysis Mr. English teacher. There’s a P.S. that does it for us.
Funny that you mention this. I replied to another comment about how Gangnam Style is satire about the hyper-wealthy. However, the meaning derived by all of the audiences outside of South Korea was 'haha dancing man likes horses and yoga women'.
No no no.
In school in higher education we had to interpret poems.
I am definitely sure, that neither the author's opinion or my opinion are relevant. It is only the teacher's opinion that is relevant.
(Do I need the /s?)
Be me, a literal reading scifi fan in 11th grade English having to read Jane Eyre and find all the damn symbolism. When all I saw was a 19th century romance novel. Blech.
Fortunately in English classes (I learned English at school) we read Macbeth. There's a lot of layers to Shakespeare - for example a lot of allusions which you'll only understand when you know about the time it was written in. And our English teacher dragged in a native speaker to help out with conversation, who was a student living in my town.
In German (my native language) however, we were presented a poem without not enough context about the author and had to answer "what's the meaning of this". Most of the German teachers I had were boring, lazy or both.
Your literature problem - I had that in German, Thomas Mann's "Der Tod in Venedig". Yeah, I as a teenager was so eager to read about the homoerotic thoughts of an older man traveling to Venice and lusting about a young boy. Yes, of course it's symbolic but - fuuuuck me, really? Do I need to read that.
Mark Twain has written an essay about the "awful German Language" (I don't agree). Amongst other things he complained about long sentences.
Ha! He know NOTHING! He had not seen the works of Thomas Mann. Thomas Mann must have been hugely intelligent. He managed to write a single sentence that is too long for a single fucking book page. With a random number of subclauses in between. Exploiting all the cleartext encryption mechanisms the German language allows! With the most boring content a teenager in the height of puberty can not relate to.
I still have a visceral hate for Thomas Mann. In my 40s I thought I'd give that book another chance. Nope. Still hate it.
Ah, soon I'm 40 years past school and I still get PTSD about it.
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I was going to comment the same. The best art is where each person can derive their own meaning. Even better when you find new significance every time you see it.
Loss.
Except that
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"Gangnam Style" (Korean: 강남스타일; pronounced [kaŋ.nam sɯ.tʰa.il]) is a K-pop song by South Korean singer Psy, released on July 15, 2012,
Gangham style is over a decade old
Lol I was in middle school, I remember everyone trying to do the dance, we were all confused about why it was popular but also super into it, 9gag, vine, ifunny, joined reddit then, simpler times, hopeful future
This is one of those times where I'm not surprised at all. I think I'd have guessed it's older than that.
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There's also little speaker next to it that plays Gangnam Style on repeat 24/7
So that one speaker took over for the entire world when we were done playing it 24/7, collectively?
That's kind of inspiring. You go little speaker! ☺️
I remember the dude showing me Gangnam style. I remember Gangnam style hitting the billion views as the first video ever. And it did that in 6 months. Good times.
Not to mention the fact youtube had to raise their viewcount integer, I believe, from 32 bit to 64 bit
🎵hey, sexy lady🎵
Sometimes you have to embrace Death Of The Artist and just enjoy things for what they are, rather than what they were intended to be. If you stand around thinking about the historical context of the Arc de Triomphe or the Great Wall of China or the Hoover Dam, you're going to have a bad time.
Empty Head. No Thoughts. Just be at peace and enjoy what is.
There was a particular statue of two pairs of arms hugging representing MLK Jr and his wife Corretta that inspired the exact opposite feelings, apparently, as many onlookers mistakenly thought it was something more obscene.
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Someone told me that Oppa means 'Uncle', but in the particular district of Gangnam the word Oppa/Uncle also means Pimp.
So it's basically a song based on a pretty bad pun. I'll protect you like an uncle, and by Uncle I mean Pimp.
EDIT: English speakers likely would do better with the translation as 'Ill be like a Father to you, a real Las Vegas Pimp Daddy (where Daddy is a word that means Father but has more Pimp connotations, and Las Vegas being famous for legalized prostitution).
It's definitely debauchery. But we likely have memorials to Austin Powers and other such pop culture icons, so it's understandable.
I don’t speak Korean but most sources I could find say Oppa means ‘older brother’ but also women call their boyfriend oppa. Also Gangnam is one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Seoul. Oppa Gangnam Style would mean Gangnam boyfriend or rich boyfriend or sugar daddy.
Thanks for the clarification.
It could be 10+ years of me misremembering the explanation. The person who told me this was Korean, so it seems more likely that I misremembered than them explaining it wrong.
You're pretty much there. Oppa is literally 'older brother' but is generally used towards a man who is older but within the same age-hierarchy bracket. It is a term exclusively used by women, except for when men are referring to themselves in the 3rd person from the perspective of women. As mentioned, women often call their boyfriend/husband oppa in casual environments.
The lyrics of the chorus is "오빤 강남 스타일" ("Oppan Gangnam Style") where the 'n' after 'oppa' is like a contraction of "오빠는" ('Oppa nun' / "Oppa is"). Gangnam is a neighborhood in Seoul where literal 1%ers live. So he's basically letting the women know he's a wealthy/noteworthy/powerful guy, since he is 'Gangnam Style'.
In truth, the way he describes himself and the women he chases are caricatures of South Korean wealth, materialism, and high-class identity. The video starts with him pretending to be at a beach, when the camera pans out it's actually a sandlot for a playground. More examples of his phony elegance show up across the video, such as dancing on a tour bus and singing in a toilet stall. The lyrics of the song flaunt the lavish lives of the hyper-wealthy, while the imagery points out how trashy and narcissistic that kind of lifestyle can be.
Sorry for the rant, I just remember a lot of stuff I learned about it while writing a report in high school. I hope someone learned something :P
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Heeey, sexy ladies
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