A doe-eyed girl smiled whimsically at me, emerging like an angelic ray of light out of a lush hanging garden, but it was a huge Samsung flat screen, and I was standing in the crowded Hapjeong subway station. The LCD lights glowed bright, flinging their electric claws into my head. I was still dazed by the heavy fog that always covers my mornings; I imagine that’s the best time for these product fantasies to penetrate my subconscious. The train arrived, and I left my love affair, only to stare dreamily at more advertisements plastered with glassy-eyed girls. The magazines. The back of bus seats. The commercials littered between World Cup game. Kimchi containers. Milk. Vacuums. (not deoderant). More videos on Youtube. Occasionally real people in the street. Doubletake. Really? These eyes that look like they’ve been doused with icing, or the tear duct was punctured and its contents smothered the eyeball with a thick coating of clear lip gloss, and the ball itself — Why is it so circular and big?   

I’m convinced that a certain population of Korean women a la mode wear these globular contacts, which are either themselves glossy or some kind of eye drop is also used for lubrication. The affect is, well, similar to the aesthetic of a doll, or akin to the fantasies constructed vividly in Japanese anime. I’ve provided loose evidence in the form of the above video, last year’s K-Pop summer hit from Girls’ Generation (소녀시대 뮤직비디오), “Gee”. Pause is at 1:01:73.

The general aesthetic in summation: round eyes of a doll, the fashion and lightheartedness of animate mannequins, and the sad erotica of a sparkling tear-drop coating the eye like Narcissus’ reflection pool. It’s not all so superficial though. Didn’t some perverted and cruel Czech author say, The best way into a woman’s heart is through her sadness?  

Did you know that South Korea has a huge suicide rate? Watching K-Pop is not the only way to fight afflictions of quiet, hyper-industrial desperation.