Can you believe 2020 is finally almost over? It’s been a tough year, and the K-pop girl group Blackpink is one of the reasons I’ve been able to stay (mostly) sane in 2020. Which is why I’m happy that the world’s biggest girl group is using K-pop for good and encouraging climate action in your area.
On Dec. 9, Blackpink posted a video (https://youtu.be/jj4Io6PC68s) on YouTube and their official Twitter account. In this video, BlackPink members Jisoo, Jennie, Rosé, and Lisa urged their fans, known as Blinks, to join them in their journey to learn more about climate change ahead of next year’s COP26 (https://ukcop26.org/), the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties hosted by the United Kingdom.
s you might know, K-pop fans—and I’m one them—are among the most active social media users. K-pop fans are known for regularly trending topics on Twitter, streaming tirelessly on YouTube and Spotify, and mobilizing online votes for their idols. This online clout has even translated into political activism (https://time.com/5866955/k-pop-political/), as numerous publications have reported.
So having a K-pop group as popular as Blackpink calling for climate action in your area is huge.
“This is our planet. This is our future. Climate change affects us all,” Lisa (https://digitallifeasia.com/2020/11/29/lisa-on-penshoppe-tv-k-pop-star-wows-filipino-blinks/), who happens to be my bias, by the way, said in the video.
Apart from their massive popularity, what makes the Blackpink video effective is that they are candidly admitting they are not experts. Instead of telling fans what to do, they are inviting Blinks to join them in this journey so that together, they can learn more about the issues.
“We’re not experts, and we’re not fully aware of all the issues. But we do care about our planet, and we want to learn more,” Rosé said.
And you know what? It works.
Blinks are so proud that their idols are tackling climate change, and are doing what they can to promote the video and do their own form of climate action. They are not just making the hashtags trend, but also posting about the things they are doing to help the environment. Like planting trees using GCash Forest (https://www.gcash.com/gforest/), which is one of the things I love most about GCash.
Speaking of planting trees, the search engine Ecosia, which I’ve written about before for TessDrive (https://tessdrive.com/technology-for-good-5-simple-ways-to-do-good-online/), has also taken notice of the efforts of Blinks.
Ecosia posted on Twitter (https://twitter.com/Ecosia/status/1337372003100209154) to greet all the Blinks that are following them.
“A warm welcome to the @BLACKPINK fans following us. We’re the search engine that plants trees, using profits from ad clicks to plant trees where they’re needed most (count around 45 searches for one tree). We have an app and extensions for desktop ecosia.co/blackpink,” Ecosia tweeted.
Ecosia even created a Blackpink page (http://ecosia.co/blackpink) on its site and included the #ClimateActionInYourArea hashtag. And Blinks have been happy to discover they can plant trees by searching the Web, and are encouraging fellow Blinks to use Ecosia.
This is the power of K-pop. This is the power of technology for good.
As we prepare to say goodbye (good riddance?) to 2020, let’s remind ourselves that no matter how bad things get, we can still choose to do good.