Witness of Change in Thai Gender Ideology: The Social Media Fight on Songs Wib Wub and Puk Gorn
Paper Presentation
27 August 2021
10:00 - 10:30 hrs (GMT+7)
Presenter
Sarupong Sutprasert
Faculty of Fine and Applied Arts, Thammasat University
Host
Apinporn Chaiwanichsiri
Thai pop songs have contained sexist content for years, and many of them are popular. The audience’s voice of disagreement is not loud or clear enough, though social media has been widely used to directly contact the music makers for many yeaIn late 2019 and early 2020, 2 Thai hip-hop songs, Wib Wub and Puk Gorwe were launched and reached high popularity. Later, the ban of these 2 songs spread throughout Twitter for their s xist content. The ban has run after the global movement of #MeToo and the Thai youth’s flash mob on gender equality. There are 2 events alongside this ban – the movement against rape scenes in Thai TV series and the attempt to move forward the status of Thai LGBTQ+ lives with the Y series.
The ban of these 2 songs and other events have reflected the changing trend of gender ideology in Thailand. The connection to the global mindset through social media takes part in this movement, and the use of social media is a tool for gaining power to move society.