What We Learned From PSY's Reddit AMA

While Reddit is mostly getting press for its seedier side, AMAs are still a place for the President of the United States and international pop stars and meme sensations like South Korean rapper PSY to tell us about themselves.

While Reddit is mostly getting press for its seedier side, AMAs are still a place for the President of the United States and international pop stars and meme sensations like South Korean rapper PSY to tell us about themselves.

PSY has done a slew of media appearances in the last few months, from Good Morning America to The Ellen Show to Saturday Night Live. He's appeared everywhere, but it's almost always only for a few seconds. He gallops on stage and does the "Gangnam Style' dance and moves on. He occasionally sticks around to answer a few questions, but he's usually just as quickly off galloping off stage right.

So what did we learn about him from Reddit's hive of brilliant question askers? Well, not much of substance. If you came looking for a meditation on PSY as a character or 'Gangnam Style' as a social critique, you came to the wrong place. He answered questions like who his biggest inspiration is (Freddie Mercury), which celebrity he'd most like to meet (Tom Cruise), who he might dress up as for Halloween (Ryan Seacrest suggested Taylor Swift), or if he would rather fight one horse-sized duck or a hundred duck-sized horses (a hundred duck-sized horses). He's always telling interviewers how he was a bad student at Berklee and how he didn't like the snow in Boston.  Redditors wanted to know what race he plays with in Starcraft, because he's South Korean and the game is really popular there, but he said he doesn't play games. Sorry, battlenet crowd. He wants to collaborate with Justin Bieber and he dropped a 'Call Me Maybe' reference, which, OK. Meeting Ban Ki-Moon was cooler than being No. 2 on the Billboard charts. His favorite "spoof" video was the Ohio University Marching Band's. Sorry, Ai Weiwei.

There was one amusing anecdote PSY passed along. Someone asked how long it took to film the elevator part of the 'Gangnam Style' video. You know, this part:

His answer:

that was ad libbed. nong chul is the name of the elevator guy and he is very famous comedian in korea. that is a very popular dirty move he has been doing for 6 years and i asked him to do it in my video. if i am underneath, it would be dirtier!

we only did 2-3 takes and everyone on the video set was crying from laughing. definitely my favorite scene in the video.

Oh, and The Atlantic was totally wrong. 'Gangnam Style' was "just FUN!"