K-POP – THE GAMECHANGER

K-pop, the South Korean music industry, this is name which has been ringing in the heads of music lovers from the recent years.

K-pop or should I say Korean Pop has taken Korea in top 10 in the music market. Not only Korea has achieved a successful acceptance from all over the world through their amazing dramas but also the music they produce has been making a chaos over the world.

BTS (internal screaming), yeah we all have heard this name, right? BTS is one of the K-POP groups who made Korean music more popular in the western countries. BTS is the only group which brings in nearly 5 billion dollars to the Korean’s economy.

Shocking, right?

Well, they didn’t have an easy life tho. Working from a very young age, being a trainee who trains day to night, dedicated solely to dance, rap and singing, all these things are not easy to master. But BTS and all other K-pop groups did that and the results of their hard work can be seen by the love of the fans from different corners of the world.

Even though people can not speak Korean but they surely do enjoy their music. It is proven that music has no language and barrier.

But How did it start?

How did K-POP become a billion dollar industry?

The beginning of K-POP was accelerated in 1990s. The music at that was not like the Korean music we hear today. Trot music used to be popular during that timeline of music. A group was formed and called to be Seo Taiji and boys.

Seo Taiji and boys were formed from the breakup of a metal band called Sinawe. While Sinawe was metal,

Seo Taiji and boys went in a totally different route and introduced Korea to hip-hop. While Seo Taiji and boys was heavily inspired by the American hip-hop.

They turned around and made it their own . But when Seo Taiji and boys debuted, they weren’t met with praise.

Actually, they were met with criticism.

The older and previous generation saw this music as deteriorating the minds of the youth. Yet Seo Taiji and boys were able to succeed by being the highest selling group of their generation with over 8 million albums sold and regarded as legends in Korean music history.

So the beginning of K-pop wasn’t all bright and cheerful as many of us know what it is today. But in order to break the chains of Conservative Korea. Seo Taiji had to be the to pave the way for the first K-pop idol group, which was H.O.T.

H.O.T. was the first look at the real vision of a K-pop group created by Lee Soo-man , the founder of SM Entertainment which is one of the three biggest K-pop companies in Korea. H.O.T. had a brighter image than their predecessors , producing a more pop sound,

choreography and catchy songs. Unlike Seo Taiji and boys, H.O.T. was beloved by the public when they

debuted. They went on to be quite successful and led to the creation of more first generation K-pop idol groups like G.O.D and S.E.S. .

While the first generation was inspired by American pop, the second generation had to create something new and which they did too.

This is where we see Big Bang, Girls Generation, 2ne1, SHINee, Wonder Girls, BoA. When someone would ask K-pop fans today what caught them into K-pop, most will respond with one of these groups. The second generation of K-pop became the most influential and known by many as the the GOLDEN ERA of K-pop.

BoA was a solo artist who was known to do it all dancing, singing and the looks.

She was a top Idol even at a young age. Wonder Girls would be the first to break ground in America coming from JYP entertainment which is the another company from the big three. Wonder Girls adapted and created an English version of their breakout hit “nobody”.

They were even performing on US television and going on tour with the Jonas Brothers.

YouTube is an undeniable reason K-pop made it to people’s ears. Groups like BIGBANG, 2ne1 and girls generation would have music videos that surpassed millions of views in a day.

Steam was building up and on the verge of bursting in the form of one song “GANGNAM STYLE”. Everyone has caught wind of a viral video by PSY a solo artist in Korea.

His new song Gangnam style found overnight success.

For some reason, people were intrigued by a comedic odd yet catchy song. Most people didn’t know PSY

was a singer in Korea for years before Gangnam style.

He was considered one of the top performers in the country, but no one knew who he was internationally.

Gangnam style was meant to just be a new song by PSY but it grew out of control becoming the most viewed video on YouTube at the time with 800 million views and out today with over 3 billion views, with this PSY was all over the world radio, TV even New Year’s Eve shows.

PSY without knowing it opened the first window for K-pop with times dying down a

A second wave was on the horizon in the form of groups NCT 127, Monsta X, Black pink and of course BTS .

While PSY opened a window, BTS kicked down the front door.

BTS origins were a humble one, coming from BIGHIT entertainment.

They were practically unknown at debut. Similarly debuting with a hip-hop style like Seo Taiji but BTS was able to explode in Korea with lyrics that spoke to the youth and music that spoke to everyone. BTS made the history as the first K-pop group to attend and be nominated at the Billboard Music Awards in 2019 and then made history the same night as they won social artists of the year.

BTS couldn’t be stopped, breaking music video views, record number of streams and a lot more first for a K-pop act including selling out stadiums.

BTS performed for over 1 million fans on the latest tour as people are, more importantly, companies saw the numbers and support BTS.

This led them finding interest in the next group that is BLACKPINK. BLACKPINK was the first K=pop group which performed in Coachella in 2019 when they perform.

Why is K-pop a billion-dollar industry?

Well, there are a number of factors.

One is Tourism.

K-pop is so beloved by fans that many of them dream of the day to make the pilgrimage to Korea.

It isn’t just to see if they can find their favourite idol on the streets, many fall in love with the music first.

Another thing is, if you sit with a person down and have them watch a music video.

The first thing they’ll say is “wow“.

This music video itself is amazing.

The color, dancing, outfits, the effects. One thing that many people admire is attention to detail.

It is something people are missing in other music videos. Likewise the physical album sales are in a decline across the world except Korea.

Why?

Well in K-pop, an album is much more than just a CD, a K-pop album will come with a CD, of course, but also random photo cards of a member from that group and a poster. K-pop is able to market and advertise everything to a max, they will sell anything from shirts, hats, cups, bag, stickers, pants, figures and even trash cans.

Groups have their own lightsticks.

Lightsticks are these devices that light up and sync to others at a concert and flashed with the rhythm of the music.

It is designed with the group’s colors which makes a fan to be more involved. It’s truly an amazing device.

There is just something special about K-pop . To put it simply , K-pop was able to utilize each and every technology and opportunity to grow.

K-pop is able to be more than a music.

It’s a niche community where people looking for something different and can learn a whole new culture a music where so much time effort and dedication are invested.

That’s why K-pop is a billion-dollar industry and will continue to expand to infinity in the upcoming future.

Emile Durkheim

David Emile Durkheim(15 April 1858-15 November 1917) was a French sociologist. He played a great role in development of sociology as an academic discipline. He played a great role during the period of enlightenment. He inherited the conservative tradition. Durkheim legitimized sociology in France,his work ultimately became a dominant force in the development of sociology in general and of sociological theory in particular.

He was politically liberal and feared social disorders. He viewed social disorders as an unnecessary part of modern world and stated that social reforms can be used to reduce them.

Major works:

1.The Rules of Sociological Method

He stated that the main aim of sociology is to study social facts. Social facts are the ways if thinking,acting and feeling which are external,coercive and outside individuals. He reasoned that if he could link individual behavior to social facts then it would become easy to understand sociology as an academic discipline. Durkheim differentiated between two types of social facts, ie, material social facts and non material social facts. Material facts include bureaucracy, governance and economy etc whereas non material facts include religion, culture, ethics etc. Durkheim mainly focused on the study of non material social facts.

2. The Divison of Labour in the Society.

In this work, Durkheim basically focused on the comparative analysis of what held old and modern societies together. He stated that primitive societies were held together by non material social facts or strongly held common morality or what he called collective conscience. But as the world grew so did the complexities and this resulted in the weakening of collective conscience. The initial bond in the modern world was an detailed division of labour which held people together in dependency relationship but the modern division of labour brought with it several pathologies and proved to be an insufficient technique of holding the society together. Durkheim did not favour a revolution to solve these problems instead he suggested a variety of reforms that could patch up the modern system and keep it stable.

3. Suicide

Durkheim adopted a very scientific approach in investigating the matter of suicide. He stated that suicide was not committed only by psychological or personal reasons but it also involved various social as well as economic reasons. Suicide was not a doing of an individual but it had collective efforts of various elements. Rather than focusing on individuality of suicide he focused on the rate of suicide and incidence. He noticed that suicide rates were different among different caste,class,sex,society, ethnicity etc. Thus he proved that suicide is affected by various other reasons including psychological factors.

4.The Elementary Forms of Religious Life

Durkheim examined primitive society in order to find the roots of religion and he found out that society was the source of religion. Society defined certain things as religious and others as profane. He also studied totemism. Durkheim concluded that society and religion were same, religion was the way society expressed itself in the form of non material social facts.

Emile Durkheim’s works contributed a lot in development of sociology, he cleared the initially vague facts and matters. He also set up a journal devoted to sociology named L’annèe Sociologique, this made sociological understanding more easy. Sociologists and the students of sociology will forever be grateful to him for his enormous and intricate contributions

Basics Of Interior Designing

What is interior designing:

Interior designers work closely with architects, civil engineers, mechanical engineers, and construction laborers and helpers to determine how interior spaces will function, look, and be furnished. Interior designers read blueprints and must be aware of building codes and inspection regulations.
Although some sketches or drawings may be freehand, most interior designers use computer-aided design (CAD) software for the majority of their drawings. Throughout the design process, interior designers often use building information modeling (BIM) software to create three-dimensional visualizations that include construction elements such as walls or roofs.
Many designers specialize in particular types of buildings, such as homes, hospitals, or hotels; specific rooms, such as bathrooms or kitchens; or a specific style. Some designers work for home-furnishings stores, providing design services to help customers choose materials and furnishings.
Some interior designers produce designs, plans, and drawings for construction and installation. These may include construction and demolition plans, electrical layouts, and plans needed for building permits. Interior designers may draft the preliminary design into documents that could be as simple as sketches, or as inclusive as construction documents with schedules and attachments.

The following are examples of types of interior designers:

Corporate designers create interior designs for professional workplaces from small office settings to large-scale corporations within high-rise buildings. They focus on creating spaces that are efficient, functional, and safe for employees. They may incorporate design elements that reflect a company’s brand in their designs.
Healthcare designers use the evidence-based design process in designing and renovating healthcare centers, clinics, doctors’ offices, hospitals, and residential care facilities. They specialize in making design decisions based on credible research to achieve the best possible outcomes for patients, residents, and the facility.
Kitchen and bath designers specialize in kitchens and bathrooms and have expert knowledge of the variety of cabinets, fixtures, appliances, plumbing, and electrical solutions for these rooms.
Sustainable designers use strategies to improve energy and water efficiencies and indoor air quality, and they specify environmentally preferable products, such as bamboo and cork for floors. They may obtain certification in Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) from the U.S. Green Building Council. Such certification indicates expertise in designing buildings and spaces with sustainable practices in mind.
Universal designers renovate spaces in order to make them more accessible. Often, these designs are used to renovate spaces for elderly people and people with special needs; however, universal designs can benefit anyone. For example, an entranceway without steps may be necessary for someone in a wheelchair, but it is also helpful for someone pushing a baby stroller.

2) What is the role of a designer:

Interior designers typically do the following:

Search for and bid on new projects
Determine the client’s goals and requirements for the project
Consider how the space will be used and how people will move through the space
Sketch preliminary design plans, including electrical and partition layouts
Specify materials and furnishings, such as lighting, furniture, wall finishes, flooring, and plumbing fixtures
Create a timeline for the interior design project and estimate project costs
Place orders for materials and oversee the installation of the design elements
Oversee construction and coordinate with general building contractors to implement the plans and specifications for the project
Visit the site after the project is complete, to ensure that the client is satisfied

3) What is the design process:

Interior Design Process

The design process is the road map to realizing our vision for each of our clients, in a planned, organized, and coordinated documentation of all design elements, selections, and decisions made along the way. It ensures the contractor thoroughly understands the design plan and specifications.

PROGRAMMING:

This is our design exploration and brainstorming phase. The starting line for any interior design project. During this phase, we learn everything about YOU. Your lifestyle, your preferences, likes and dislikes, your needs, goals, and wishes for your new space. It’s important for us to see through your eyes if we want to create something you love.

Throughout the programming process we:
• Discuss your project in detail, document all areas involved,
• Discuss your style preferences and ideas. ( We encourage you to gather tear sheets from a magazine or online sources to better communicate your ideas.)
• Conduct a site visit to measure, photograph and record existing conditions.
• Establish a preliminary budget
• Obtain, if available, a set of architectural plans from you or your architect.

SPACE PLANS & DESIGN CONCEPT:

Space planning is a prerequisite of any well-designed space. We meet and talk many times throughout this phase of the project. Meetings are held with clients to discuss various elements of the design.

Throughout this phase we:
• Establish interior design concept and overall creative direction.
• Create sketches and gather tear sheets to communicate and clarify design intent.
• Create preliminary floor plans
• Select the finishes we will be using.

DESIGN DEVELOPMENT:

During the design development phase, the approved design concept is refined and developed into more detailed drawings to include:
• Floorplans
• Elevations
• Reflected ceiling plans
• Selection of materials and finishes
• Furniture Plans
• Selection of furniture and furnishings

FINAL DESIGN AND SPECIFICATIONS PHASE:

Once the design plans have been approved, we will start preparing final design drawings and specifications.

This phase includes:
• Making all required changes or revisions to drawings
• Generating final drawings with all specifications
• Creating all material and finishing schedules.

CONSTRUCTION AND INSTALLATION:

The final stage of the project. After all of the planning, sketching, and meetings, we finally begin construction and remodeling work on the space! We turn our concepts and pictures into the real thing. This phase of the design project can vary in length depending on the extent of the work needed.

Throughout this phase, we:
• Review drawings with the builder or general contractor that we choose
• Review all orders with clients. If required, we place orders on their behalf
• Visit job sites periodically to address any problems arising, answer any questions related to design or drawings, and ensure that the construction is proceeding in general conformity with the approved design drawings,
• Schedule and coordinate delivery and installation of wallpapers, window treatments, area rugs/carpeting, furniture, accessories, and artwork.

The beginning of Art: Visual arts history

Expressing oneself through art seems a universal human impulse, while the style of that expression is one of the distinguishing marks of a culture. As difficult as it to define, art typically involves a skilled, imaginative creator, whose creation is pleasing to the senses and often symbolically significant or useful. Art can be verbal, as in poetry, storytelling or literature or can take the form of music and dance. The oldest stories, passed down orally may be lost to us now, but thanks to writing, tales such as the epic of Gilgamesh or the Lliad entered the record and still hold meaning today. Visual art dates back 30,000 years, when Paleolithic humans decorated themselves with beads and shells. Then as now, skilled artisans often mixed aesthetic effect with symbolic meaning.

In an existence that centered on hunting, ancient Australians carved animal and bird tracks into their rocks. Early cave artists in Lascaux, France, painted or engraved more than 2,000 real and mythical animals. Ancient Africans created stirring masks, highly stylized depictions of animals and spirits that allow the wearer to embody the spiritual power of those beings. Even when creating tools or kitchen items, people seem unable to resist decorating or shaping them for beauty. Ancient hunters carved the ivory handles of their knives. Ming dynasty ceramists embellished plates with graceful dragons. Modern pueblo Indians incorporates traditional motifs in to their carved and painted pots. The western fine arts tradition values beauty and message. Once heavily influenced by Christianity and classical mythology, painting and sculptures has more recently moved toward personal expression and abstraction.

Humans have probably been molding clay- one of the most widely available materials in the world- since the earliest times. The era of ceramics began, however, only after the discovery of that very high heat renders clay hard enough to be impervious to water. As societies grew more complex and settled, the need for ways to store water, food, and other commodities increased. In Japan, the Jomon people were making ceramics as early as 11,000 B.C. by about the seventh millennium B.C.; kilns were in use in the Middle East and china, achieving temperatures above 1832°F. Mesopotamians were the first to develop true glazes, through the art of glazing arguably reached its highest expression in the celadon and three color glazes of the medieval china. In the new world, although potters never reached the heights of technology seen elsewhere, Moche, Maya, Aztec, and Puebloan artists created a diversity of expressive figurines and glazed vessels.

When Spanish nobleman Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola described the paintings he discovered in a cave in Altamira, contemporizes declared the whole thing a modern fraud. Subsequent finds confirmed the validity of his claims and proved that Paleolithic people were skilled artists. Early artists used stone tools to engrave shapes into walls. They used pigments from hematite, manganese dioxide, and evergreens to achieve red, yelled, brown, and black colors. Brushes were made from feathers, leaves, and animal hair. Artists also used blowpipes to spray paint around hands and stencils.

The end…

Juvenile Delinquency: Causes and Prevention

Juvenile delinquency is an act wherein a minor commits a crime or involves themselves in any immoral or anti social activities. Such minors are called juveniles or juvenile delinquents. This term not only involves legal facts but it also involves moral,social as well psychological issues. Juvenile detention centers and courts etc are included in the juvenile legal system. With the help of data and statistics it is clearly portrayed that the rate of crimes committed by minors is increasing at a sharp rate so it becomes important to understand the causes and prevention of juvenile delinquency.

Causes of juvenile delinquency:
A behavioural study conducted by psychologists on juveniles tells that minors commit crimes because their mind tells them to do so and in doing that they feel satisfied and contented.
Another factor leading to minor crimes is a dysfunctional family. As it is known that family plays the greatest role in anyone’s life and it not only affects how people behave in society but it also determines how people view and analyse life. In some cases children feel neglected when they have working parents and this isolation leads them into doing wrongful acts. Sometimes families collectively fail in passing on the values,ethics and morals of life to their kids making them hostile and toxic. Sometimes being in bad company or being in touch with inappropriate people also leads to juvenile delinquency. For example,being in touch with smugglers motivates kids to commit such crimes. Unnecessary ostracism is also contributing in juvenile crimes. For instance when a child is ridiculed for belonging to a particular or so called community,they might start feeling criminal instincts in them. And apart from all these things the major factor promoting juvenile delinquency in wide spread poverty,income gap and economic inequality. When a economically poor child commits a crime like theft for the first time there is a moral element involved in the act, he knows it’s wrong and might as well promises himself not to do such thing again but the next day also,he has to fight for survival so he chooses the easier path and slowly and gradually it becomes his habit and his system gets conditioned to it. Mental health and psychological factors also affect the rates of juvenile delinquency.

Prevention of juvenile delinquency:-Education is the major prevention mechanism of juvenile delinquency. There are various programs which teach children about the ills of drugs,gangs,weapons etc. There various programs focusing the needs of parents educating them how to raise children,how to provide healthy space to them etc. Education provides an opportunity to people of all age to open up. Recreational activities also surprisingly prevent juvenile crimes. These activities build up stronger communities and they spread positive and optimistic thoughts in children’s lives. These actives may include singing,dancing,acting etc. Various socially concerned organizations carry out parent-child interaction training programs,the objective of these programs is to provide a safe and desirable space to parent and children so that they can work things out. Prevention of ruthless bullying and making children feel safe is also a good way to reducing crimes committed by children. Apart from these,the legal systems of various countries are trying to deal with the problem of juvenile delinquency.

Although it is true that minors must be given a second chance but if not handled carefully and intricately, juvenile delinquency can become humanity’s worst nightmare.