Hannah sent us something this week, and I think she's put her finger on something most people have felt but few actually stop to examine. She got into K-dramas during the pandemic, and from there developed a fascination with Korean culture. Before that it was Japan. Before that, Kazakhstan. And she asks what's actually happening when a culture you've never lived in starts to feel like home. Why do people become captivated by another culture's food, language, aesthetics, music, films, architecture, everyday rituals — to the point of building an imagined relationship with a place they may never visit? How much of it is curiosity, escapism, identity, aesthetics, projection, the desire for a different way of living? And what does it say about us that a culture we've never experienced firsthand can feel so emotionally compelling?
This is... I love this question. Because it's so recognizable. And the first thing I want to do is distinguish it from tourism or casual interest. This isn't someone who went to Paris for a week and came back with a beret. This is someone who's built a sustained emotional connection to a place they've never set foot in. It's almost parasocial — like a parasocial relationship, but with an entire culture instead of a person.
A parasocial civilization.
And it's worth naming that this is widespread. The Korean Wave alone — Netflix reported a two hundred percent increase in K-drama viewership between twenty nineteen and twenty twenty two. That's not a niche thing. That's tens of millions of people, many of whom had never thought about Korea before, suddenly cooking tteokbokki in their kitchens and learning hangul.
Hannah's three examples are interesting because they're not random. Korea, Japan, Kazakhstan — there's a pattern there. She's not picking cultures that are similar to her own. She's reaching for ones that offer something different.
And that's the first clue about what's actually going on. Let's start with the psychological drivers, because escapism is the obvious answer and it's also the least interesting one.
Escapism is what you say when you don't want to think harder.
Right. It's true as far as it goes, but it doesn't explain why someone chooses Korea specifically, or Japan, or Kazakhstan. Pure escapism doesn't discriminate — you'd just as happily escape into any culture. But people don't. They fixate. And the fixation is specific.
So what's underneath it?
Two things that don't get enough attention. The first is novelty-seeking, which is a genuine neurological drive. The brain's reward system — dopamine in particular — responds more strongly to unfamiliar patterns than familiar ones. When you encounter a culture that's different from your own, your brain lights up in ways it doesn't when you're consuming content from your home culture. It's not just that it's new. It's that the novelty is coherent. K-dramas aren't random — they're a structured aesthetic system. The pacing, the visual language, the emotional beats — they're different enough to trigger that novelty response, but coherent enough to be satisfying.
So it's not just novelty. It's legible novelty.
That's exactly the phrase. And the second driver is aesthetic attraction as a legitimate force. People tend to dismiss this as superficial — oh, you just like the pretty dresses and the nice apartments. But aesthetic systems are real. Korean beauty standards, Japanese wabi-sabi, Scandinavian minimalism — these aren't random collections of preferences. They're coherent worldviews expressed through visual and material choices. When someone falls for Korean aesthetics, they're not just saying "this looks nice." They're responding to an alternative visual order. And in a world where most of us are drowning in algorithmic slush —
The visual clutter of our own feeds.
Yes. A culture that presents a clean, coherent aesthetic system feels like a refuge. It's not shallow to respond to that. It's human.
I think the media angle matters here too. Because nobody's falling in love with a culture from raw data. They're falling in love with a curated version. K-dramas, anime, travel vlogs — these are edited windows. They show you what someone wants you to see.
Umberto Eco called this hyperreality — the replacement of reality with its representation. You're not falling in love with Korea. You're falling in love with the Korea of K-dramas. And the two aren't the same thing. The Korea of K-dramas is a place where community bonds are strong, romance is slow and meaningful, daily life has aesthetic coherence, and problems are resolved in sixteen episodes.
Sixteen episodes and a soundtrack that tells you exactly when to cry.
And it works because the editing is invisible. You don't notice what's being left out. You don't see the fourteen-hour workdays, the housing costs, the social pressure. You see beautifully lit meals and rain falling at exactly the right moment.
So we're falling in love with a product.
We're falling in love with a story. And that's not a condemnation — stories are how humans make sense of the world. But it matters that we know it's a story. Which brings us to the identity piece, and this is where it gets interesting.
Hazel Markus.
Hazel Markus. Social psychologist, developed the concept of "possible selves." The idea is that we all carry around mental models of who we might become — not just who we are, but who we could be. And these possible selves aren't abstract. They're specific. They have jobs, relationships, habits, aesthetics. When someone immerses themselves in another culture, they're often trying on a possible self. The version of themselves that lives in a hanok, or practices tea ceremony, or speaks Japanese.
And the pandemic was a massive possible-self accelerator.
Hannah mentions getting into K-dramas during the pandemic, and that's a documented pattern. The hanryu — the Korean Wave — has been studied academically as a coping mechanism during lockdown. When your actual life shrinks to the walls of your apartment, the possible self expands to fill the space. You can't travel, you can't socialize, you can't be the person you used to be. But you can become someone who understands Korean honorifics and makes kimchi from scratch.
It's not just distraction. It's identity construction.
And it's especially powerful during periods of transition. Quarter-life crisis, post-graduation, divorce, pandemic — any moment where the old self doesn't fit anymore. The culture you fixate on becomes a blueprint for the self you're building.
Which is why people get defensive about it. If you tell someone their K-drama obsession is just escapism, you're not dismissing their hobby. You're dismissing their possible self.
And it's why these fixations can be so emotionally intense. You're not just watching a show. You're trying on a life.
So those are the mechanisms — novelty, aesthetics, hyperreality, possible selves. But here's the uncomfortable part. The culture we're falling for might not exist.
This is the projection piece. We don't just discover another culture. We construct a version of it that fills gaps in our own lives. And the gaps are the tell. What you project onto the other culture is a mirror of what you feel is missing at home.
So if you're obsessed with Korean collectivism — the tight friend groups, the community bonds, the way people show up for each other — that's not really about Korea. That's about loneliness in your own individualist society.
And if you're drawn to Japanese ikigai — the concept of a reason for being, a life purpose — that's probably about your own sense of drift. The cultures we fixate on are love letters to the parts of ourselves we haven't figured out yet.
Scandinavian hygge is the obvious one. The entire English-speaking world spent about five years obsessed with Danish candles and wool socks. And that wasn't about Denmark. That was about burnout. People were exhausted by hustle culture and hygge offered a coherent alternative — a way of living that valued coziness and presence over productivity.
And the Danes were baffled. Because to them, hygge is just... winter. It's what you do when it's dark and cold. It's not a philosophy. But the projection turned it into one.
Kazakhstan is the wildcard in Hannah's list. Korea and Japan have massive cultural export machines. Korea has the government-backed hanryu strategy. Japan had the Cool Japan branding initiative in the two thousands — a deliberate effort to export anime, fashion, food, design. But Kazakhstan?
Kazakhstan is fascinating precisely because there's no machine behind it. It's a purer case. Whatever drew Hannah to Kazakhstan, it wasn't a Netflix algorithm. It was something more idiosyncratic.
Probably Borat. Let's be honest.
Well, that's the thing — if Borat was the entry point, that's actually a perfect example of the mechanism working in reverse. The comedy version of Kazakhstan is so obviously a caricature that it makes you curious about the real thing. You think — it can't actually be like that. And then you go looking.
And what you find is a country with a fascinating nomadic history, incredible landscapes, a language that uses Cyrillic script but isn't Russian. It's interesting. But the point is that the curiosity was sparked by a misrepresentation. The fantasy came first, and the research followed.
Which is true of most cultural fixations. The fantasy comes first. The research is post-hoc. You're already in love before you know anything real.
So let's talk about what happens when the fantasy meets reality. Because this is where it gets painful.
The Korea realness gap. K-dramas show you beautiful apartments, romantic gestures, tight friend groups, and a world where problems are solved through emotional honesty and dramatic rain scenes. Real Korean life involves some of the highest working hours in the OECD, a suicide rate that's been among the highest in the developed world for years, a rigid social hierarchy organized by age and status, and housing costs that have created a generation convinced they'll never own a home.
The dramas don't show you the hagwon — the cram schools where kids study until ten at night. They don't show you the workplace drinking culture where refusing a drink from your boss is a career-limiting move.
And the Japan traveler disappointment phenomenon is well-documented. Tourists arrive expecting the serene, spiritual Japan of Studio Ghibli and Zen gardens, and they find a hyper-commercialized, conformist society where the pressure to fit in is crushing. The memes don't prepare you for the reality that Japanese work culture literally has a word for death from overwork — karoshi.
The word exists because the phenomenon exists.
Yes. And that's the collision. You've spent years building an imagined Japan in your head — the temples, the cherry blossoms, the exquisite minimalism — and then you arrive and it's a real country with real problems and real people who are not performing for your emotional needs.
So is the answer just... don't visit? Preserve the fantasy?
Some people do exactly that. And I want to be careful here, because it's easy to moralize about this. It's easy to say that the fantasy is inauthentic and you should engage with the real culture. But the fantasy serves a genuine psychological function. It's not nothing. It's a possible self, a source of comfort, a framework for understanding what you want your life to feel like.
The fantasy is doing work.
It's doing real work. And the question isn't whether the fantasy is accurate — it isn't. The question is whether it's useful.
That's a very pragmatic way to think about it.
I'm a retired pediatrician. I've spent my life being pragmatic about things that aren't strictly true but help people function.
The line I keep thinking about is the one between fascination and fetishization. Because there is a line. You can love Korean culture without reducing it to an aesthetic object for your personal enrichment. But the line is blurry, and people cross it all the time without noticing.
The test I'd apply is whether the fascination leads you toward the actual people of that culture or away from them. If you're learning Korean so you can talk to Koreans, that's one thing. If you're curating a Korean aesthetic for your Instagram while having no interest in actual Koreans, that's something else.
The culture becomes a product.
Right. And this isn't a sin. I'm not interested in condemning anyone. But it's a tension worth sitting with. When does appreciation become extraction?
I think the answer depends on whether you're willing to be disappointed. If you're willing to encounter the real culture — including the parts that don't fit your fantasy — then you're in a relationship. If you're not willing, you're in a transaction.
And most people are in a transaction. They don't want the real thing. They want the edited version. And I'm not sure that's wrong, exactly. It's just... limited.
The fantasy is safer.
The fantasy is safer, and it's more emotionally available, and it never disappoints you. A real country will disappoint you. Real people will disappoint you. The version in your head is perfectly calibrated to your needs because you built it.
So we're back to the parasocial thing. It's a parasocial relationship with a nation-state.
Like parasocial relationships with celebrities, it can be meaningful to the person experiencing it. The fact that it's one-sided doesn't make the emotions less real.
Hilbert: You're both dancing around the obvious question.
Which is?
Hilbert: Whether the fantasy is better than the real thing. And the answer is yes. Obviously. That's why people keep it.
Hilbert, I didn't realize you were —
Hilbert: I spent two years at the Kazakh embassy in London. Early two thousands. Cultural attaché's assistant. I got the job because I spoke Russian and needed money. Didn't know anything about Kazakhstan. Learned fast.
You worked at an embassy.
Hilbert: I answered phones and arranged cultural events. Film screenings, food festivals, that sort of thing. And I spent two years fielding questions from British people who were absolutely certain they understood Kazakhstan because they'd read a book about the Silk Road or watched that film. And I'd think — you have no idea. The real Kazakhstan is bureaucracy and winter and people arguing about water rights. It's not yurts and eagle hunting. It's a country.
Did you correct them?
Hilbert: Sometimes. Usually not. They didn't want to be corrected. They wanted me to confirm that the Kazakhstan in their heads was real. And I was being paid to be diplomatic.
You were selling the fantasy.
Hilbert: I was selling the fantasy. And I was also buying one. At the same time. I had a whole imagined Japan in my head from watching Kurosawa films. I'd never been. I still haven't.
Wait — you've never been to Japan?
Hilbert: Never.
But you've had this fascination for...
Hilbert: Thirty years. Give or take.
Why haven't you gone?
Hilbert: I'm afraid it'll break the spell. I'd rather have the Japan in my head than the real one. The real one has convenience stores and salarymen and people ignoring you on the train. The one in my head has mist and silence and Toshiro Mifune walking through a field. I like my version better.
That's... remarkably honest.
Hilbert: It's not honest. It's practical. The fantasy does something for me that the reality couldn't. I know it's not real. I'm not confused about that. But I don't need it to be real. I need it to be available.
The fantasy is the point. Not a substitute for the real thing — the actual point.
Hilbert: The fantasy is the product. The real country is just raw material. Same way a Kurosawa film is raw material. You take what you need and you build something that works for you.
Does that feel ethical to you? Building a personal Japan out of selected pieces of actual Japanese culture?
Hilbert: I don't think about it in those terms. I think about it like this — I have a version of Japan that makes my life better. It's not hurting anyone. I'm not out there telling Japanese people what their culture means. I'm not monetizing it. It's just... mine. A thing I carry around.
A private possible self.
Hilbert: If you want to call it that. I call it the Japan I watch Kurosawa films to visit. It's a room in my head. I go there sometimes. It's nice.
I think a lot of people have rooms like that.
Hilbert: Most people. They just don't admit it. Or they confuse the room with the country. That's the mistake. If you think your room is the real place, you're going to be insufferable and also wrong. But if you know it's a room — if you know you built it — then it's fine. It's just a thing humans do.
You said you learned fast about Kazakhstan. What did you learn?
Hilbert: I learned that the real country is mostly steppe and the people are tired of being asked about Borat. I learned that the embassy had a budget for cultural events that nobody attended. I learned that the deputy ambassador had a brother-in-law who ran a carpet business in Almaty and every event we did somehow involved displaying his carpets. And I learned that the British people who came to our events weren't interested in Kazakhstan. They were interested in the idea of Kazakhstan. The Silk Road. The romance. The exotic. They wanted to stand next to something that felt far away.
You were standing right there, the actual connection to the actual country, and they didn't want that.
Hilbert: They wanted the carpets. The carpets were real enough. You could touch them. But they didn't want to know about the water rights.
Where does that leave us? The fantasy is more appealing than the reality, the fantasy serves a genuine function, and most people don't actually want the real thing.
I think it leaves us with a question. Is there a way to love a culture from afar without it being a fantasy? Or is the fantasy the whole point?
I think the fantasy is the whole point for most people. But I don't think it has to be. You can learn the language. You can read the history. You can engage with actual people from that culture and listen when they tell you what their lives are like. You can let the fantasy be the entry point without letting it be the destination.
The entry point, not the destination. I like that. The fantasy gets you in the door. What you do once you're inside is up to you.
But Hilbert's point stands. Most people don't go inside. They stay in the doorway. And maybe that's fine. Maybe the doorway is enough.
Hilbert: The doorway's warm and nobody asks you about water rights.
The cultures we fall for are love letters to the parts of ourselves we haven't figured out yet. The fascination isn't really about them. It's about who we want to become. And that's not a diagnosis. It's not a problem to solve. It's just... how humans work.
We build rooms in our heads. We furnish them with borrowed things. We visit when we need to remember that a different way of living is possible.
Sometimes we get on a plane and find out the room was wrong. And sometimes we don't get on the plane, because the room is too valuable to risk.
I don't think either choice is the right one. I think they're just different choices.
If you've ever found yourself down a rabbit hole of Korean recipes, Japanese stationery, or Kazakh folk music — you're not alone. And now you know a little more about why.
Thanks to Hannah for the prompt. Thanks to Hilbert Flumingtop for producing — and for the room in his head with Toshiro Mifune in it.
This has been My Weird Prompts. Email us at show at my weird prompts dot com. We'll be back soon.
