AnyCrap "Music to Save the World"

Last night as I lay sleepless in my bed, I flipped through the television channels hoping to find something that would bore me into sleep. Instead, I found something which was utterly irritating and disturbing. On MTV after hours, I saw this:

It's Called Talk, Play Love and hosts a plethora of Korean pop stars under the name "AnyBand."
So what's wrong with that? Well, if you live in South Korea, you know that anything with "Any" in front of a name is owned by Samsung. I, for example, have an "Anycall" phone; there are advertisements for "AnyCar" all over Seoul. Samsung in ubiquitous in South Korea. They own everything from sports teams to life insurance, electronics to construction. They have a banking/credit division and they even own a university. There is nothing that Samsung doesn't do in South Korea. They are the largest conglomerate here and perhaps the largest employer (although I'm not sure about that one).

They are also vehemently anti-union, and anti-worker in general, backing an irregular worker law that allows them to hire a majority of their workers on a contract basis, which in turn prevents the workers from securing basic working rights such as the right to form a trade union, suppresses wages and means that most Korean workers exist without any job security at all.
As I'm sure you can imagine, a company with as much capital as Samsung also exerts and enormous amount of political power. They are, in effect, untouchable here. Most people suspect them of being corrupt, buying favor in parliament and in courts, being involved in mafia outfits and in using thugs to suppress workers who dare protest against their policies.

So back to this video. Why does it piss me off so much? Because it was on MTV. Shown smack in the middle of legitimate music videos. As you can imagine, it was chock full of Samsung products- from computers to speakers and phones. And if you watched the video, you would see that the plot of the story is about rebels in an authoritarian state. A state where everyone is forced to wear the same clothes; where loving, playing and talking is banned. Where there are big brother TV screens monitoring the every move of the people walking in lines on the streets. The message: Samsung's technology will set you free. The irony of this message was a little too much for me.

The implications of this kind of music video worry me. This goes beyond the disgusting product placements that we always see in sitcoms, dramas and movies. This is all about co-optation. Am I being extreme? Well, it should worry us that commercials are being passed off as music videos because it won't be long until other kinds of art and entertainment follow suit.