Euny Hong

Fantastic Four: First Steps resuscitates one of Marvel’s most doomed IPs. Is it clobbering time for Marvel again? Fantastic Four: First Steps attempts to breathe new life into the super quartet.

always a pleasure and honor to join Steve and @thehighsign.bsky.social on the Culture Gabfest, this time to talk the new Fantastic Four, Netflix's K-Pop Demon Hunters (w/ an assist from @euny.bsky.social!), and *that* South Park episode:

"As an Asian who sings disturbingly white songs like Neil Diamond’s “Cherry, Cherry” at Asian karaoke; who speaks French with a German accent, German with a French accent, and Korean with an American accent, I feel seen." Best line in the Sunday NYTimes! Thx, @euny.bsky.social, for my morning laugh.

10 years ago, I was seated next to Diane Ladd on a plane from Boston to Austin for SXSW. I had no idea who she was but she had a golden aura. She introduced herself. She guessed that I was a Sagittarius and said, "Sagittarians get physically sick when they're being lied to." RIP #dianeladd

A special thanks to NYT Opinion editor @thiscarlswanson.bsky.social for his vast, vast improvement of the piece!

Opinion | ‘KPop Demon Hunters’ Is My Kind of Globalism

So I seem to write a lot about Kpop for someone who does not like Kpop. My latest for @nytimes.com www.nytimes.com/2025/08/16/o...

3 vampire movies: Love at First Bite, Interview with a Vampire, Bela Lugosi's Dracula ftw

Opinion | Watching South Korean TV Won’t Make You Want to Have a Baby

Birthrates are falling — nowhere more dramatically than in South Korea. @euny.bsky.social, who knows a bit about South Korean pop culture, says one reason is evident in TV's popular K-dramas — if you know where to look [gift link]:

www.nytimes.com/2025/06/19/o...

YouTube video by The Unusual Suspect Eminem - LOSE YOURSELF (Sung by 331 Movies!)

Some dude made a video of #Eminem's "Lose yourself" in the form of 331 movie clips stitched together. I mean this is a massive triumph of eidetic memory and FinalCut Pro. www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYta...

Opinion | Watching South Korean TV Won’t Make You Want to Have a Baby

My latest for @nytopinion.nytimes.com: I never recommend K-Dramas but this is an emergency, guys. They hold the answers to why Korea has the world's lowest fertility rate. TV is the new books. Thanks for the usual editing magic @sternbergh.bsky.social (Gift article) www.nytimes.com/2025/06/19/o...

Yes, I heard. No, I haven't seen it. No, I don't care that Darren Criss is not Korean.

@maybehappyending.bsky.social #Maybehappyending #DarrenCriss #Tonys

There you are! I was wondering if anyone I knew was on here. I have not been using this platform enough but I'm going to start.

(or as many as it takes to cover the first black band you crocheted). Final step: Insert press credentials into band. Gain access everywhere. Your plush animal journalist will never not be taken seriously again.

Make second ribbon around the first ribbon so that there will be a place to stick the press card. You do this by using yarn colour 2 (black, here) and picking up stitches from the bottom of the ribbon, and crocheting in rounds straight up for 5 rows

Keep going in this fashion for about 6 more rounds. Shape by simply smooshing the top of the crown and pinching it in the front and back. I have sewn the pinched bits together but you don't have to do this.

Switch to 2nd yarn color (black) for the ribbon around the drown. Keep crocheting 5 or so more rounds with the 2nd yarn color. Switch back to the 1st yarn color and increase by crocheting st 2st for another round; you will now have 108 stitches.

When you have about 10 rounds, or 54 stitches in the outermost round (7cm diameter, approx), stop increasing the circle size and keep crocheting for about 10 more rounds.

Use two different-coloured yarns; one for the hat and one for the ribbon around het crown. Yarn color 1 (grey, here): Round 1: Cast on a magic circle with 6 stitches. For r2, crochet 2 stitches in each loop. for r3, st, 2st, repeat. r4: st, st, 2st. Keep increasing till you have 54 stitches.

You have to know basic crochet to follow this pattern. This is for a plush kitty 20cm long, 17cm high, with a head circumference of 8cm. I used acrylic worsted-weight yarn. I recommond acrylic over wool or cotton; acrylic is easiest to shape as a final product.

Is your plush animal having trouble being taken seriously as a journalist? Then do what I did and crochet them an old-timey fedora with a band around the crown to prominently display their press credentials. #Crochet instructions in comments. @amigrumi #eunyhong #journalistlife

This week on the podcast: @euny.bsky.social is here to chat genre-bending, K-pop, and the last 5 songs of the first #Eurovision semifinal!

this was a delightful conversation, DEFINITELY check this one out, folks.

Riding the Korean Wave | Los Angeles Review of Books Oliver Wang interviews Euny Hong about her expanded edition of “The Birth of Korean Cool: How One Nation Is Conquering the World Through Pop Culture.”

Thank you Oliver Wang for interviewing me for the @LAReviewofBooks about the new 2nd edition of The Birth of Korean Cool. Your wicked smaht questions made me also seem smaht. @owang.bsky.social bsky.app/profile/lare... lareviewofbooks.org/article/ridi... #hallyu #eunyhong #theBirthOfKoreanCool

Euny Hong about to take the deep K-pop dive

Next up: @euny.bsky.social with her paper “K-Poppenheimer’s Deadly Toy: How the South Korean Government
Manufactured the K-Pop Industry from Scratch” #PopCon2025

The Birth of Korean Cool: How One Nation Is Conquering the World Through Pop Culture (Expanded Edition)|Paperback A revised edition of this celebrated cultural history features a new afterword and three new chapters focusing on the global K-pop phenomenon BTS, as well as the Academy Award–winning film Paras...

@barnesandnoble.com www.barnesandnoble.com/w/1118481612

The Birth of Korean Cool: How One Nation Is Conquering the World Through Pop Culture (Expanded Edition) The Birth of Korean Cool: How One Nation Is Conquering the World Through Pop Culture (Expanded Edition) [Hong, Euny] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The Birth of Korean Cool: How One Nation Is Conquering the World Through Pop Culture (Expanded Edition)

Amazon: www.amazon.com/dp/1250353270/

No joke, today is pub day for the new expanded edition of The Birth of Korean Cool! New chapters on #BTS #Parasite #SquidGame. First pubbed in 2014. I predicted the #KoreanWave and I WAS RIGHT. Buy your copy today!
@PicadorUSA

I was a very little kid when I saw Superman. Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor marked perhaps the first time I actually understood what the hell the grown-ups meant when they said someone was a good actor. Is this, or is this not, one of the greatest re-interpretations of an iconic character of all time?

ICYMI The city of Paris officially closed its Twitter account. “The goal of this account was for everyone interested in Paris to stay informed. This became complicated, then impossible.” @paris.fr

The women in your business are not ruining things with their female energy, Mark. They're adopting male energy, because *someone* has to bring it when you're in the room.

Han Kang: Once vilified for 'daring' to air South Korea's 'dirty laundry', now a national treasure

Me talking about Han Kang's Nobel Prize win for @FRANCE24's @FrancoisF24. Because every day is Throwback Thursday when, like me, one is bad at social media. Look familiar @mitrakalita ? @HanKangOfficial
www.france24.com/en/video/202...

Inaccurate Movie Summaries, part 17: Flow. Flow is a remake of that Twilight Zone episode with Burgess Meredith, "Time Enough at Last," where the world ends and the loner thinks life is rad and then finds out what's really important. Friends. Lasik surgery. Whatever.