"As You Wish" as a Model for Motif-Based Visual Capitalism

WJSN, or their English name: Cosmic Girls, is a K-Pop girl group which is centered by a reoccurring space motif. As a group created by Starship Entertainment, the use of this theme is also a reference to their company itself, further rendering the girls as representatives. In “As You Wish”, the entire music video is set either in space itself, or in a fantasy set (often with the moon or stars visible). Due to the fact that K-Pop is “driven by image” (Epstein with Turnbull 2014: 316), these sets are used to further promote the “visual” of the group, and further lay claim that any other group, primarily those made up of woman, who would use such a motif would risk being seen by fans as copying WJSN, or would minimally have the effect of creating a mental call-back to WJSN. A music video such as WJSN’s “As You Wish” showcases that K-Pop music videos at their core are a means to sell the group to the public, as well as their merchandise, by adhering to the allure of artificial and enticing visuals, reoccurring motifs, and intertextuality, and artists may claim certain motifs as their own visual capital, rendering any other media which uses these motifs as patients in the act of referencing them.

While all music videos serve the purpose of promoting an artist and their music in a multimedia platform, " K-pop companies have produced internationally appealing music products through the global division of labor—active recruiting of, and collaboration with, international composers, producers, and choreographers while assembling these components into idol music packages” (Yoon, 2019: 182), which has led to formulaic and visual-based videos as opposed to heavy story telling. Excluding the use of allegorical symbols, such as the switchboard-based call center for wishes, where the girls can receive the wishes of their fans and make them true, the music video relies almost entirely on cuts of the choreography and close-ups of members. This simplistic videography highlights the girls’ “conventional femininity, which prioritizes submissiveness, fragility, pureness, and cuteness” (Lin and Rudolf: 2017, 31) while removing any narrative aside from the backing lyrics, in which the girls promise to fulfill any wishes and desires the listener may have. When not appearing alone, the girls are stylized in very uniform fashion which “adds power and impact to the choreography while diminishing the remnants of individualism” (Maliangkay 2015: 94). This further sets the girls up to be “dollified” (Lin and Rudolf: 2017, 33), as marketable characters. The music video also makes repeated references to previous videos released by the group. During the video, two members wrap their pinkie fingers around the others’, as a promise, which was a visual also used in another highly popular music video of theirs, “Save Me Save You”, which also casts the members into roles which can have repeated quirks or actions.

Ultimately, it is due to the fact that they are able to adhere to the repeated visuals and standards of Korean beauty that WJSN can have successful music videos that serve no true plot other than to bait fans to see ties between the music videos, increasing the views, and therefor royalities, on both. They have monopolized on a space motif and a fantasied visual of marketable characters in a social market. This market can capitalize on the visual beauty of the girls, and the love of the fans, to fulfill Starship Entertainment’s wish for more commercial commodity.

Epstein, Stephen with James Turnbull. “Girls’ Generation? Gender, (Dis)Empowerment, and K-Pop.” The Korean Popular Culture Reader, edited by Choe Young-min and Kim

Kyung-hyun. 314–36. Durham and London: Duke Univeristy Press, 2014.

Lin, Xi, and Robert Rudolf. “Does K-Pop Reinforce Gender Inequalities? Empirical Evidence from a New Data Set.” Asian Women 33, no. 4 (2017): 27–54.

Yoon, Kyong. “Transnational Fandom in the Making: K-Pop Fans in Vancouver.” International Communication Gazette 81, no. 2 (March 2019): 176–92.

“[MV] 우주소녀 (WJSN) - 이루리 (As You Wish),” YouTube video, “starshipTV,” November 19, 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Q9G6R2hKIQ.