Beauty between Empires: Global Feminisms, Plastic Surgery, and the Trouble with Self-Esteem

Since 2012, when Korean rapper PSY’s “Gangnam Style” dominated US airwaves, television, and computer screens, the popularity of K-pop has created renewed interest among American media outlets and netizens in the topic of South Korean (hereafter Korea or Korean) plastic surgery consumption. The Atlantic featured a story on “The K-Pop Plastic Surgery Connection,” while Bloomberg News published on medical tourism in Korea: “Gangnam Style Nip and Tuck Draws Tourists to the Beauty Belt.”¹ Buzzfeed’s story was more provocative, if strangely Eurocentric, asking, “When Does Plastic Surgery Become Racial Transformation?”² And most recently a New Yorker piece asks, “Why Is Seoul