The “pop” in POP GOES KOREA (and Korea Pop Wars), of course, is a reference to pop culture, or “popular culture”. Well, over the weekend, the man who apparently came up with the term “popular culture” passed away. His name was Ray Browne, and he was a professor at Bowling Green State University (in Ohio).

Amusingly, he claimed that his first use of the term in 1967 was a mistake. He was originally using the term “people’s culture”, as well as terms like “everyday culture” and “democratic culture”.

On the other hand, “pop art” was apparently coined in 1954 by John McHale. So maybe that was my real point of reference, I just did not know it.

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In other news, Edward Chun, the guy who wrote about Korean pop music for MTV Iggy a couple of months ago, just turned up on Gawker of all places. Edward is now in journalism school at Columbia, and for a project on journalism ethics, he and some students put together a presentation in the form of hiphop verse, using Jay-Z’s Empire State of Mind. I found it quite amusing, in a goofy sort of way. Worth a watch, if you have not see it already. But what would Drunken Tiger think?