2002 South Korea MNT
129 · 2026-07-02 · medium
It goes on and on, as long as you've got the money. Yesterday was the third anniversary of our international internet indie-pop radio station. To celebrate this milestone, the inventor of Shirtdoku and I did a three-hour live broadcast for an audience of 150-or-so Australians, South Americans, and members of a secretive group chat I can't join because I'm "not a girl." The central concept: songs from the decade prior to The Oceanic's debut on July 1, 2023. An hour in, the opposing energies that have shaped the station were on full display, because we'd both understood the assignment differently. "So," I said after her first ten-track set, "only K-Pop, huh." If you have a Cancer-Leo cusp in your life, you're aware that this is the kind of comment you keep to yourself. No verbal response at all, she calmly put on a Japanese art-pop song that makes me cry like a bitch every time. Then it was right back to wall-to-wall K-Pop that I've mostly never heard of. Objecting to this kind of business would make me a hypocrite, since it's exactly the kind of thing that got me blacklisted and exiled a decade-plus ago at Chicago's CHIRP Radio – the original birthplace of the DJ White Velvet alter-ego. Anyway, basketball. In 2018, when I started working for the KBL, K-Pop had long since passed me by. It's a culture with rapid-fire five-year generations, a system engineered to age you out immediately and get you paying top won for X-anniversary nostalgia concerts. The Hallyu Wave moves fast; stop paying attention for a minute and it's all over for you. One personal example, of many: In 2014, I saw BTS perform at a Seoul street fair with a handful of other barely-interesteds. Four years later, they were selling out the Rose Bowl. Meanwhile, there I was at Korean Basketball League games doing halftime stats, and the halftime entertainment would be some nugu girlgroup (English translation: whodat) called something like Rocket Punch or BVNDIT or Hol1day. I do recall clearly that the KBL was working with the national federation to get fans hyped for the upcoming FIBA World Cup. There was this whole advertising campaign centered around the graying stars from the "Taegeuk Dream Team" that won the 2002 Asian Games. It's one of basketball's great unknown underdog stories, so it's one of the 40 Scenes From The Ball Game. Beating the Philippines in the semis was already South Korea's biggest basketball upset ever, but there was more in store less than 48 hours later. In the title game against China, a team led by recent NBA No. 1 draft pick Yao Ming, they pulled out of a 13-point fourth-quarter hole to force overtime. Seventeen years later, every adult in the country knew the sequence of the next eleven baskets by heart, especially the final line: KOR 104, CHN 102 (OT). Kim Joo-sung and Seo Jang-hoon went on television to remind Koreans of the national glory available in international hoop tournaments; they'd give words of encouragement, then they'd raise a fist and say fighting!. The 2019 Taegeuk Warriors ended up winning a single pool-play game against Ivory Coast, and that was it. Nobody was paying attention, nobody cared. When Korea Republic half-hosted the 2002 FIFA World Cup and the Red Devils made a historic run to the semifinals, it officially became a footsoccer nation. Beating Yao Ming was the last big basketball moment before the window closed forever. In 2019, there was still plenty of leftover pride from knocking holders Germany out of the 2018 FIFA World Cup with a pair of stoppage-time stunners. I'm thinking about all of this here in 2026, obviously, because eliminating Die Mannschaft isn't such a big deal anymore and because there's a presidential investigation into South Korea's World Cup crashout. Remembering either of the great 2002 teams means you're either middle-aged or half-dead; the whole world's moved on. Sic transit gloria mundi, as 19th Century popgirl Emily Dickinson once put it. No everglow ever lasts. In conclusion, all I can say is that sport is one giant disappointment machine, and the only true joy in life comes from running a pirate radio station with your best friend.