AI, Afro-Korean Youtube romances, and the interplay between love and sex

I have previously stated on this blog that I watch lots of YouTube videos. Just now, my brain craves constant stimulation or cheap dopamine so I often just keep scrolling from vid to vid. This is not a good thing, but it is reflective of my current circumstances, and I am not going to beat myself up overly about it, at least not in this post! That said, I have to admit that I have noticed that it has made my mind less sharp – a LOT less sharp, and I often find it hard to concentrate or focus. But that is by the by.  I am working towards circumstances which would make it easier for me to tear myself away from YouTube, and give my brain and body adequate rest.

So in the course of all my YouTube viewing, I have somehow stumbled into the surreal world of Afro-Korean romances. Let’s backtrack a little. I am sure that most people know that social media and YouTube especially are increasingly full of these AI generated videos which many people perjoratively refer to as “AI slop”. Now I am a long-term eco/social justice warrior. One of the subblogs on this domain name is actually about social justice. At the time of writing this post I have removed that subblog for the sake of some blog admin, and I do need to put it back even while thinking of a better long term format for a social justice blog. Many people will know that AI is very destructive in environmental terms because it uses lots of electricity AND lots of water. And yet my guilty, unavoidable secret is that I absolutely love generative AI, despite its environmental costs. Yes, yes I do! I’m never going to use it to generate writing content on this blog. However I have other platforms where I boldly and unapologetically use AI. Never for the sake of deceiving people, and hopefully in a way that could not sincerely be called “slop” (although some people seem to automatically regard anything AI generated as “slop”). For instance, I personally hate those fake animal videos, because obviously they give a false impression of what animals can do. I do not consider myself particularly gullible but I have been taken in countless times by those fake videos. One humorous example springs to mind: someone created a video of an adult giraffe giving a piggy back ride to a baby giraffe – and guess who believed it?! In fact, my first mindblown thought was  – wow, can giraffes do that?! Short answer is no, no they can’t – not in reality! Additionally, there are obviously so many other ways that these technologies could be abused to cause harm or distress to others, especially when some people are gullible enough to believe anything online – I mean even more gullible than me! I definitely agree that the deceptive uses of AI should be reined in.

So that is my general attitude to AI. I also quite like those AI music covers. Some of them are AMAZING. I am going to pause here and find one particular AI reggae cover of Michael Jackson’s Smooth Criminal. I am not the biggest MJ fan. We were not really allowed to listen to his music or indeed any non-Christian music in my household while growing up, although we of course knew who he was, and it was played so much on TV that we were able to absorb it without specifically listening to it. Please believe me though when I tell you that this cover is AMAZING.  And everyone agrees. Wow! Listening to it, it is hard to remember that this is not actually the original rendition of the song. Sadly, the original video that I watched has been made private. However, I did happen to find a “reaction” video which plays the content of the original video here:

Less excitingly, this was the first time I truly heard the lyrics, and the song describes a violent crime, in case anyone else is unaware. So if you are going to watch the video, please be aware of that.

You know, so many people start off with the idea that AI is soulless. But when they actually listen to it, or watch it, then opinions shift. In the comments of this and so many AI music covers, I saw comments similar to the following “Well I NEVER listen to AI.  But this…” I predict that in a few years, as AI gets better and better, most people are not going to care whether or not something is AI generated.  Many people say that artists, musicians and writers are going to be affected by AI – and undoubtedly they are. And yet many artists, musicians and writers are happily finding creative ways to use this exact same technology to promote or enhance their craft. This is another example: some musicians have been creating X song in the style of Y historical genre videos.  And I know that they used AI to do it. So they will have fed the idea into AI, which would then spit out the song, or the musical notation or whatever. So the actual musicians would then sing the AI generated songs, or play the music themselves, and record themselves doing so. That way, because it is recorded from human musicians, who are visibly playing or singing, it disguises the fact that the underlying thing was actually AI generated. In one particular video’s thumbnail, someone claimed “AI cannot do this!” And I thought – wow, such a lie! Check out an example below:

Which finally brings us to the topic of Afro-Korean romances – actually not quite!  So I started off by listening to YouTube reddit posts, where people read out posts posted to the “Am I the *hole” subbreddit, or AITA. It has long been suspected that many of the posts posted to AITA are fake.  Furthermore, on YouTube, in a bid to get constant  content or unique stories, some channels clearly make up their own stories altogether, and still tag them as “reddit”. Some don’t even hide it but clearly state that all their stories are made up. And then from that it was a short jump to watching AI generated revenge stories. A common trope in these stories is that a Black woman, typically, goes into a store or a restaurant, airplane etc, then gets racially mistreated by the staff. Little, however, do they know, that this unassuming woman is actually owner of said establishment, or so filthy rich that she can casually buy said establishment. She then gets her revenge by firing the person responsible. Or “My husband divorced me, little knowing that I had just gained a huge inheritance!” Yeah, I’m sure that anyone who spends any significant amount of time on YouTube will be familiar with these stories.

And then a few weeks ago, I made the mistake of watching a billionaire romance on YouTube. Now is probably a good time to remind everyone that I am completely committed to a life of simplicity – and yes, I request that same mindset in my husband too. I do not personally aspire to living a billionaire lifestyle in my own life at all. And yet I listened to the story for the same reason that I write fairy tales describing opulent palaces and princesses bedecked with jewels – as a means of escapism.  The story itself was quite well written, although it was clearly AI generated. I decided it was good enough for me to share it on Facebook. In fact, I share so much AI generated stuff on Facebook that people might think I am trying to convert them to the religion of AI! And yes, I also shared the MJ AI cover!

Well after listening to that one romance more AI generated stories have been suggested to me, and specifically over the last week or so I have decidedly fallen into the rabbit hole of AI generated “quick fiction”. Who knew that there are so many Black women billionaires or Black women CEOs/company owners/company founders or black women whose mothers are secretly trillionaires?! Yes, that’s trillionaire with a T! And then there are the white male billionaires who all seem to have beautiful black maids or personal assistants in their lives, who they duly fall hopelessly in love with.  I’ve watched so many billionaire stories and seen so many billionaire video titles that when the odd story comes up featuring a mere millionaire I almost feel a sense of pity for the character. What?  Only a millionaire?!
I’ve also flicked through a few Regency romances where the dukes seem to be the equivalent of modern day billionaires
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But the real revelation for me, which as I write this is still only a few days old, has been the world of Afro-Korean romances. If you have never stumbled across the world of AI generated stories on YouTube, then it might be hard to imagine just how many channels there are. And because AI generated content can be generated so quickly, they all have dozens of videos. And yet the whole genre is clearly still quite new. I looked through 2 channels and in both cases their oldest videos were posted “a month ago” in YouTube-speak, which can mean up to two months ago in the real world. In the hundreds of Afro-Korean titles I have browsed, all but about ten of them feature a beautiful Black or African woman who eventually gets together with a Korean man. And not just any Korean man, but specifically a Korean mafia boss. Honestly, it has been nothing short of a revelation to discover just how big the mafia scene is in South Korea, usually Seoul!

And in every single video I have seen, without fail, the woman is Black, and the man is Korean. Never the other way around. Furthermore, the combination is always Afro-Korean. Not Afro-Chinese, not Afro-Japanese, Vietnamese, Cambodian or even Indian.
Which leads me to ask the question why?! I’m guessing that there must have been something seismic that happened in culture which has influenced YouTube offerings. Perhaps there has been a very popular Kdrama that has featured a Korean mafia boss and a beautiful Black woman.  I don’t watch TV myself, not least because I am always on YouTube instead. I don’t have Netflix. However, from hovering on YouTube I have been able to find out that many Black women watch Kdramas. Additionally, I believe that Black culture is currently considered quite trendy in Korea because of hip-hop’s influence on K-pop.  So perhaps installing a Black woman as the heroine of a Kdrama romance was a sure-fire way to get a hit. However it happened, and whatever the reasons behind it, there are so many of these stories on YouTube. And please believe me that people are watching these videos.

Intriguingly, I have noticed a distinct difference between these Afro-Korean romances and other romances on YouTube, even other romances featuring Black women. The Afro-Korean romances can often be more explicitly sexual, going into detail about body parts even in video titles, whereas  the other romances tend to be more romantic, talking about feelings. This might be because the male protagonists are not the respectable men of other romance genres, but rather straight-talking violent mafia dons who are not afraid to be explicit about and ruthlessly chase their dark desires – no pun intended! – the same way they ruthlessly chase everything else in their lives.  Channels on YouTube make their money by getting as many people as possible to engage with their videos for as long as possible.  So they tend to pad it out so much (for the sake of increasing view time) that the actual spice is lost in the padding. Furthermore, YouTube has strict guidelines against pornography and nudity so you know that content will never actually broach that line – but it will all the same do its best to tiptoe as close to it as possible. So in practice, the spicy action promised in the titles does not always bear out in the actual video content.  There was one particular video that I watched that the title promised something specific. On watching the video, that entire section was cut out. I was half asleep when listening to it, so I scrolled back and relistened, but it was definitely not there.  I initially thought that they must have made a mistake in editing. However as I am writing this, I am guessing that that particular section fell foul of YouTube’s guidelines and they were forced to remove it. To be honest it was a little spicy, so I don’t particularly want to share here what it was, as I don’t want to admit that I clicked on that title!  Not the worst one either, if – ahem – I am to be perfectly honest.

Let us now talk about the interplay between love and sex. This is related to these spicy Afro-Korean dramas and spicy stuff generally in this way:  I have been trying to understand this interplay for myself for such a long time. It is the kind of thing that might become very obvious in practice. However, because I am a Christian I am not supposed to be getting any practice and if I am to be perfectly honest I should not really be watching any spicy stories either. But I am so eager to know as it will influence the way I think towards and plan towards this aspect of my marriage. So then with these stories, people often seem to realise that they are in love, or declare their love for one another after a passionate night together. So they always make it seem as if love arises from sex. I know that that cannot possibly be true in real life because of the experiences of countless women which they readily share online. However, I have not been able to state what the reality is.

So this is the way it occurred to me. This might be extremely obvious to other people but it has taken me this long to work it out. Depending on how strong your libido is, your sexuality is there as a constant.  Many people cultivate sexual fantasies, or watch or read pornographic content. The kind of sexual fantasies or pornographic content you seek out might indicate the type of sexual expression you might seek out if not constrained by practical, real life considerations. In the privacy of your imagination, you don’t need to worry about whatever people might think, or care about satisfying your partner.  The mere fact that someone regularly cultivates sexual fantasies might indicate that their libido is there, waiting for an appropriate chance to be expressed. So the point I am making with this is that the sexuality itself does not arise from love, because the sexuality is there as a constant regardless. It is not a true constant because it undoubtedly fluctuates in intensity etc. However the fact that it is there will be for most people the constant, whatever its intensity at any given time.

What love does create is a safe environment for sexuality to be expressed, or rather for mutual sexual expression to be requested. Because we are constrained by practical considerations, then we cannot give ourselves wholly to sexual gratification in real life the same way we might be able to do in fantasies, we cannot just take what we want the same way we might do in fantasies, the same way a mafia boss might do in reality. All the same, we can still be vulnerable with our partners, we can hopefully expect that our partners are going to seek to cater to our needs within reason while we equally seek to cater to theirs, we can hopefully expect to feel safe.

I have spoken here of “love”. However, the phrase that actually occurred to me was emotional intimacy. What actually occurred to me was that when you cultivate deep emotional intimacy with someone, then that creates an atmosphere where you feel safe with them, and you can seek out physical closeness and being alone with them as an analogy for the emotional intimacy. If you are emotionally intimate with someone then that naturally lends itself to expressing that intimacy via hugs and touching. I know that all of this is extremely obvious but believe me I have to spell it out in my mind to get it straight.  It is in that environment of physical proximity, feeling emotionally safe with someone, touching them, that we  can afford to make ourselves sufficiently vulnerable to ask someone whether they would be so kind as to help us to scratch that itch! I believe that making love is very different from seeking sexual gratification. Seeking sexual gratification is about fulfilling our own needs, whereas making love is about mutually serving your partner and the relationship. Christians will often say (that) “love is a decision”. Well making love is definitely a decision, whereas seeking gratification is often driven by biological needs. This is what makes sense to me just now, but who knows, in practice, I might turn out to be very wrong!

Additionally, I imagine that many times people will not come right out and ask verbally, but will rather “ask” one another these intimate questions via touch or eye contact.  A kiss can be a question. A caress can be a request. And this is what being emotionally intimate with one another means, that you learn to understand one another, you learn to read one another’s cues. But as I write this it occurs to me, possibly reoccurs to me, that this is a language, and you don’t necessarily start off being fluent, but you have to patiently learn one another.

Looking ahead to marriage, understanding this will hopefully help in the following ways:
1. Knowing yourself, and knowing what you are looking forward to, and being able to express that both to yourself and to potential spouses
2. Working out what type of spouse might be a good match for  you sexually/maritally.
3.  Taking some time to consider how to cultivate deep emotional intimacy.

If it seems to be that easy, then why do so many people end up with sexless marriages? Undoubtedly that is often due to physiological changes, plus simply being tired thanks to the demands of modern life. Additionally this is obviously an embarrassing subject to discuss, so perhaps many people don’t take the time to truly know themselves, or are too embarrassed to look into it and perhaps too couples are too embarrassed to discuss it between themselves. Specifically as Christians we might never discuss it at all before marriage (or even after the wedding), and just trust that “God is in control”. Here’s the thing: God IS in control. However, what makes sense to me is to discuss it. This is one of the issues that consistently causes friction in marriages. Marriage is often about having hard conversations, telling one another unflattering things in kind ways. If you don’t have this hard conversation upfront, you might all the same have to have it later…after it has caused lots of pain and mutual frustration.

I don’t want to be naive enough to think that I have got all the answers before marriage, on this or any other aspect of marital life. I know that no matter how much I think, read, research, evaluate, consider, seek to  know myself, watch insta-YouTube content, all the same marriage will be full of surprises, some welcome, some less so. All the same I will seek to know myself as much as I can. I will also seek to communicate who I am to my future husband in a way that will be safe, and hopefully not stir up premarital sexual temptation between us so that there will hopefully be no doubt or confusion between us on this.