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Origin

This is a street-interview format: approach a pedestrian wearing earphones, ask what they are listening to, play a few seconds of it, move on to the next person. The format was not invented in Korea — "What Song Are You Listening To" videos, in which passersby in various countries are asked the same question, have been popular internationally for over a decade.

The channel that represents the format in Korea is Wasong. According to Namuwiki's account, Wasong's very first video was a street-question video, filmed in Sinchon. The channel is run by a woman and a man together, who also appear on camera.

Spread

YouTube Shorts was the decisive condition. Each exchange lasts ten to twenty seconds, which fits short-form exactly, and the structure — swipe and there is another person — keeps viewers going.

The appeal is not music recommendation but incongruity. A person in a suit listening to an anime theme, or any gap between appearance and taste, is where the laugh comes from. Another cited factor is that content featuring ordinary people rather than celebrities had become scarce.

By March 21st, 2023, Newsis was running an interview feature on Wasong — the format had become a genre. It then subdivided by location (Noryangjin Station, Hongdae, subway line 1, gyms, university campuses), and several universities adopted it on their official YouTube channels.

Derivatives

Its most famous derivative is the "NewJeans' Hype Boy" meme. In 2022, while NewJeans' "Hype Boy" was everywhere, a video appeared in which the respondent answered with the song title and performed its choreography on the spot; the question later fell away entirely, leaving an answer that barges into any context. The content format came first, in other words, and an individual meme split off from it.

How it is used

• As content for genuinely discovering songs and sharing taste
• As a spectator sport built on the gap between how people look and what they listen to
• As a format universities and institutions use to introduce their members
• As the background needed to explain the "Hype Boy" joke of answering an unasked question

Sources

• Namuwiki, "Wasong" — that the first video was already a street-question video filmed in Sinchon, the two-person operation, and the spread through Shorts
• Newsis, "'What are you listening to?' — the fun of glimpsing other people's taste: Wasong [interview]" (March 21st, 2023) — the channel interview and the note that the format has been popular abroad for over a decade
• Kyunghyang Shinmun, "Asked for directions, answered 'Hype Boy'" (January 30th, 2023) — how it branched into location-specific series, the scale of individual channels, and the derivative meme