Hien and Now: Recent Episodes
Hien
Take a trip down media memory lane with your host host in this culture POPcast as she reminisce on past moments in pop culture that has shaped and influenced her perspective. From bad fashion trends to boy band frenzy, laugh and look back on different pop culture topics with Hien and her weekly guest.
Leaving our One Direction days behind us, my guest and I finally talked about how we became friends and that is through our love for K-Pop and more specifically K-Pop group SEVENTEEN. Is fangirling a phase? It was certainly not for both Bella and I. In this episode, we talked about the rise of K-Pop in the West, the hardships of both POC artists and fans to be recognized in the media and anecdotes about how life of a fangirl made us happier. Stay until the end for a special segment where we share our current favorite K-Pop pick!
Fangirling or "fun"girling as we say it is something that has been a part of mine and my special guest's life in the crucial adolescent years of our lives. Although we met and became friends as adults, we found out that we had the same experience of liking the same groups and participating in fan culture growing up. One of those quintessential groups that has shaped our childhood was One Direction. On this episode of Hien and Now, we talk about that "One Thing" or several things that made the British band so popular and what drew us to them. We touch on the rise of twitter thanks to fandom culture, parasocial relationships, the misogynistic views of fangirls and more!
As a kid growing up in Vietnam, you'd be surprise to hear that I actually have an extensive knowledge on Western pop culture. It was my gateway to developing a perspective on the world; whether it's a rose-colored one or not, and was powerful enough to help me learn a new language and inspire me into the career path that I'm currently working towards in college.
For me, pop culture started with the shows I would watch as a kid on one of the three English-speaking channels that were available on cable and it would lead to an entire spider web of other subtopics within pop culture that would then be a part of my identity growing up.
In this episode, I share why pop culture plays such a huge role in my life and how it does.