Celebrity (2023)

This is about Social Media and the ‘New Money Celebrities’ and a thrilling ride.

The 12 episode Korean Drama ‘Celebrity’ is ready to binge. This Korean Drama is a commentary on the lives of the rich and famous, but with new school money garnered from the digital media platforms, “Internet Celebrities”. Celebrity is about how anyone can become “famous” overnight, with the right knowledge of how Internet tools work. Becoming a Top Influencer in our modern age, the new Celebrity is based on accumulating high numbers of organic or invested followers. One surrounds themselves with the rich and Kardashian. Other Korean Dramas have tried to explore the “snoop appeal” of the digital media celeb, but they were not that interesting to me. ‘Celebrity’ reaches a high level of entertainment. It is about a girl is not trying to be like the Glam Snobs. She is just trying to reach a level of success to get her brand known. Along the way, you get a backseat look into the world of the media influencer and the Media Influencing business. There is an excellent posse of women (Social Media Influencers) you will love to hate, who tear down each other as only women can, as they seek to gain ‘Best Celebrity’ status. The one flaw for me for this Korean drama is that is had an unnecessary level of cursing and we did not get a kind translator to edit this out. Great storyline and storytelling, with a throbbingly, smoking OST.


Quote: “Revenge is a dish best served cold”. Heroine of ‘Celebrity’.


NOTE: I finally get what the word Chaebol means, by looking at the Korean Drama Celebrity. Watch for the “taking off the shoes” scene and the excellent explanations of living that lifestyle. That scene explains what a Chaebol is for me.


Celebrity stars Park Gyu-young (Dali and the Cocky Prince) and Kang Min-hyuk (K-pop Idol from CNBLUE and KDrama The Heirs)

Lire davantage

Good message but frustrating to watch.

This is another hard to rate drama for me.

In terms of enjoyment, probably 6 stars. In terms of the message that I think the drama was trying to show, probably 8 stars.

Heres why:

Enjoyment - I didn’t like the FL. I found her to be a bit of a hypocritical character. She came across as pretentious, on one hand carrying herself like she's above the instagram girls and standing proud/not being ashamed of the fact that she's not rich or doesn't care about being famous (which I loved), but then on the other hand, she found her own online success by lowkey mooching off of the instagram girls' popularity and making decisions that keep putting her in that circle of "friends" despite the fact that she oh so wasn't interested in being famous 🙄. Idk, her actions just didn't align with her words and personality so she just rubbed me the wrong way. Also I just found it hard to believe the amount of hold the influencers in this drama had over the entire public. Like come on...

Message - For all the reasons above and more, I feel like this captures exactly what message the drama is trying to send. Regular people like A-Ri can all of a sudden find themselves in a similar situation and be swept away by the money, pretty clothes, popular "insider" cliques, sponsorships, fancy parties etcetera and lose themselves to chasing internet fame. I liked how it showed a normal person's fall into the internet fame ecosystem and how people can get so obsessed with seeking likes and the thin rope these influencers walk with their "fans"/followers.

So I'm a bit torn about this because I didn't enjoy the drama cos it was fruatrating to watch, but I also saw the message it was trying to send which made it easier to understand why the FL was written the way she was. And at the end, she does come back to her senses and serves her revenge well which was good to see.

The acting from FL was a bit stiff at times, and I wasn't a big fan of the couple pairing between A-Ri and JunKyung (but they looked pretty together, so my eyes were happy 😅). But if you're looking to escape and watch something that's far from the reality you might be living then you can give this a try.

Lire davantage

Overall well executed but missed crucial parts

Overall the series suprised me with a few twists. Its not usually my genre and i thought about dropping it but the story continued and made curious on how it will all end. If you dont enjoy drama and girl fights, this one is not for you. Each episode contains female "influencers" dissing each other and trying to ruin each others careers and life. The acting was exceptional, marked by unexpected and intense violent outbursts. Each character had its personality, likeable or not. For a little too much personally and storywise there it couldve been more interesting rather than "oh look what she posted". What really bothered me the whole time while watching the relationship between the main character seo ari and Han Jun-kyung. The was a lot of silence between them and most scenes were them just looking at each other. The few scenes they shared were lacking in conversation and interaction, which were almost entirely absent. It couldve been done great and wouldve added so much to the story but they did a miserable job. I dont know what producer or skriptwriter thought a relationship looks like this but it doesn't.

Lire davantage

?????

The drama was stressing me out but the cast was chef’s kiss ;’) Just not enough romance for me…
It was nice to finally see FL standing up for herself tho, that’s rare in k dramas :’D Also I wasn’t expecting ML’s ex gf to be the greenest flag in the show ?!?! I love her :>>
______________________________________________________

Some quotes from “Celebrity”:

“What we eat, wear, and buy. Our hobbies and the houses we live in. Who we meet and what we enjoy. Nowadays, we take a lot of selfies, too, don’t we? We all live in a world like this. Me, me, me!” – Seo Ari

“Connecting with each other. What do you think all that is? The act of sharing thoughts and feelings in order to understand another human being or something like that? Nope, that’s wrong. A human can never understand another human being. One can only misunderstand each other.” – Seo Ari

“Sadly, as we continue to watch all those things overflowing in our lives, we will find ourselves pondering like this, ‘Everyone is buying it. Maybe I should buy one for myself as well. Everyone is doing it. Maybe I should try it myself at least once.’ We will compare ourselves with others thinking, ‘What if I fall behind alone?'” – Seo Ari

“Since this is the world we live in. A world where the smallest can be abused, and with it, someone can be brutally crushed. Power through authority, power through name, or power through anonymity.” – Seo Ari

Lire davantage

A drama of hypocrisy

- It has a good story and the plot is pretty consistent as well as the acting.
- The romance is like a side plot course the main focus is about influencers which honestly made the whole story even better than cliche kdramas.
- There are some pretty annoying characters and sometimes that annoying character can be the FL but I found this to be more relatable.
- i love how the characters prove you wrong of your expectations
- the FL can be so naive sometimes but then her payback really is just as big lol. She doesn’t hold back.
- it’s a good binge

Lire davantage

A critique of social media with a cinderella spin on it with glitz and glamour

Following an highly popular influencer's path rising to complete stardom status is a good storyline. We get the cinderella type of feeling towards the main character who builds an career out of nothing but sheer willpower and struggles. Yet, when I think back on the story, it felt lacking in various aspects where it could have benefitted from fleshing out of the competetive hostile influencer-storyline.

As we follow two different timelines (the past and the present, which can be distinguished by the changing format on the screen) each time that the present seems somewhat stagnant, they slam something highly dramatic to get the story moving forward. The writers truly went all in on the dramatics and I did enjoy that alot! In the 12 episodes released, we get an fast paced story with some truly drama-worthy plotpoints and interesting directions.

The most lacking part in all honesty is the romance. It feels like the writers and the director had the vision for a "chic" main couple with intense chemistry that would show the love between the main leads so much that there would be no need to flesh out their dialogue and scenes. Maybe the romance scenes got chopped in the editing process and therefore feels lacking? We get the gist that there is romance, but I never felt an genuine romance that would spark the drama needed for the big plotpoints that are presented towards the latter part of the show. Male lead is smitten with the female lead, but I felt like we missed seeing them on actual dates and enjoying each others company.

The ending was...special. It does feel like the drama tried to convey a message about social media presence and the negative impact hateful comments can have on individuals as well as society in general. I was fine with the ending UNTIL the very last minutes when we get an out of the blue cameo by actor Lee Junho. Is it forshadowing a possible second season? Is it just Netflix trying to put an easter egg surprise since his highly anticipated drama King the Land was gonna be released soon after this drama? WHY was that cameo necessary for the story?

This is a drama that I really recommend to watch if you're in the mood for something that looks really nice and centers around social media/fashion, an almost detective-style storyline that fastpacingly goes back and forth in time to reveal more details and context to what is going on. I binged this in 2 days when I just wanted to watch something without expectations, and overall had a good time!

Lire davantage