Rose's APT. and Korea's "Apateu" Culture
52% of South Koreans live in "Apateu." Apateu is part and parcel of modern Korean life.
Apateu, Apateu. Rosé and Bruno Mars have really hit it out the park! The song “APT.,,” released on October 18th, has taken the global music industry by storm in the past two weeks. It has topped multiple charts, and the music video now boasts over 220 million views on YouTube. Many netizens have called “APT.” as the “Gangnam Style of the 2020s,” drawing a parallel between the immense virality of the two songs.
The editors initially had a different topic in mind for today’s episode, but we decided to write about APT. because we thought it would be an excellent way to end this month’s discussion on language. Without further do, let’s find out why a Japanese linguist thinks APT. became a global hit and how the word apateu made its way into the everyday lives of Koreans.
“Apateu” as a Killer Hook
Part of APT.’s success has been attributed to its addictive, powerful hook that was derived from a Korean drinking game called “apateu.” In an interview with Hankuk Ilbo, Noma Hideki, a professor of Korean linguistics at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, has pointed to the two plosives “ㅍ[p]” and “ㅌ[t]” in the word apateu as the factor behind the song’s addictiveness. Having researched the linguistic aspects of K-pop for a long time, professor Hideki sees APT. as a great example of how Korean collides with English, maximizing the charm of the Korean language itself. For those of you who do not speak Korean as a native language, how was it like listening to the song for the first time? For us editors, listening to the song created a similar sentiment to watching Squid Game in that both took inspiration from everyday Korean game(s) extremely familiar to us and made it into a global hit.
“Apateu” in Korean popular culture
The popularity of Rosé’s APT. has unexpectedly brought back to life the 1982 hit by Yoon Soo Il also titled “Apateu.” In an interview with Dong-A Ilbo, Yoon has expressed both gratitude and praise for Rosé, while reflecting on the public reception of his two songs “Apateu” and “Areumdawo (아름다워; beautiful)” that have both been rediscovered by Korea’s Gen Z.
In the interview, Yoon has said: “I am a lucky person. Thanks to Rosé’s song, people are showing interest in my song from 40 years ago. The ‘Apateu’ I created was occasionally heard in the playground, so the public may be familiar with it, but it is primarily a song that is thought of as a cheering song. However, when the apartment boom was just starting in our country, and there weren't many of them, it was rare for apartments to be built near the reed forests in downtown Seoul. The lyrics also mention it, and it's a song about 'your lonely apartment.' I created this song with a certain lyrical and emotional intention, but ironically, it has become a song that is sung to elevate the atmosphere in places like playgrounds and company gatherings (hwoe-sik), which is not what I intended. It seems that the fate of a song is often determined in a way that differs from the original creator's intent.”
As many Korean netizens immediately recalled Yoon Soo Il’s “Apateu” after listening to Rosé’s APT., a mash-up of the two songs have also gone viral on YouTube. As one of the top comments write, somebody had to do it.
But the two songs, while one is inspired by a Korean drinking game and the other is mainly used as a cheering song at various sports events and gatherings, both tell us about how ingrained “apateu” is in contemporary Korean culture. As of 2024, 52.5% of South Koreans live in “apateu,” which is a huge number if we consider that it was only in the 1980s that modern apartment buildings were constructed in Korea. In fact, the “apartment boom” has a lot to do with Seoul-centrism (which we focused on last week!) and the need for efficient, large-scale housing for the ever-growing number of residents in Seoul following Korea’s industrialization.
We hope that the next time you see an endless spread of apartment buildings in Korea’s cities, you will not only remember the two songs on apateu but also the poignant history those buildings contain behind their clean-cut, rectangular facades.