In the crowded dining hall of Korea University, Mi-rae (Im Soo-hyang) is pushed by Chan-woo (Oh Hee-joon) for rejecting his feelings. She trips in slow motion and graciously lands on Kyung-seok (Cha Eun-woo) avoiding an embarrassing fall. The background score plays:
Something in your eyes
Tell me who I am
Something in my highs
Whenever you바카라re near.
This scene from My ID is Gangnam Beauty (2018) captures the idea of a typical Korean drama. The rom-coms were a craze worldwide. Until 2021. The release and global success of the Netflix television series Squid Game altered the compartmentalisation of K-dramas바카라that they are rom-coms catering primarily to female audience바카라forever.
Squid Game is based on traditional Korean games with death as a consequence of losing. 바카라Its raw themes of inequality and survival struck a chord worldwide, while its distinctly Korean backdrop made it stand out,바카라 says Guydeuk Yeon, director, Centre for Korean Studies, Christ University, Bengaluru. 바카라The show proved that K-dramas could tackle heavy, universal issues without losing their cultural identity. Its success opened doors for other K-dramas to find international platforms and audiences,바카라 he adds.
Inspired by Netflix바카라s success, other major platforms started not only streaming but also creating original K-dramas. The popular releases of 2024 show how the diversification of genre is maintained. Marry My Husband is a do-over revenge tragedy and time-travel fiction starring Park Min-young, who witnesses her husband cheating on her with her best friend right before her death. She is sent back in time to before she was married, with the hope of changing her fate. Death바카라s Game is a mystery thriller featuring Parasite (2019) fame Park So-dam in the role of Death itself. Light Shop is a mystery horror that follows a group of strangers coping with tragic past experiences. Each of them is mysteriously brought to a light shop that connects the dead and the living.
The Global Appeal of K-Dramas
The popularisation of K-dramas on international platforms is not a solitary phenomenon. In the US, their distribution and circulation dates back to the 1970s. Anthropologist Kyeyoung Park in her book The Korean American Dream: Immigrants and Small Business in New York City (1997) traced how greengrocers바카라fruit and vegetable businesses바카라rented VHS tapes lacking subtitles, keeping K-dramas within the Korean community.
By 1983, Korean Broadcasting System (KBS), the national broadcaster of South Korea, established a TV station in Los Angeles. In the book Hallyu 2.0: The Korean Wave in the Age of Social Media (2015), Sangjoon Lee and Abé Markus Nornes explain that K-dramas spread beyond the diaspora community in America with the establishment of YA Entertainment in 2003, the first distributor outside of the Korean diaspora media.
By the time these systems were fully established in the West, K-dramas had begun gaining popularity across Asia from the early 2000s. The star-crossed lovers바카라 tale Winter Sonata (2002) became a major hit in Japan. The 바카라Korea Herald바카라 reported that when the actor from the drama Bae Yong-joon visited Japan in 2004, 6,000 women had gathered at the Tokyo airport to catch a glimpse of him. Full House (2004), starring K-pop star Rain and The Glory (2022-2023) fame Song Hye-kyo, and Coffee Prince (2007), featuring Train to Busan (2016) actor Gong Yoo also found widespread acclaim in Taiwan, Singapore and China.
Jewel in the Palace (2003), an inspiring story of the first female royal physician of the Joseon dynasty, travelled to India as Ghar ka Chirag in 2007. The show aired on DD National, broadcasting once a week.
While K-dramas gained traction in the US and Asia through distribution and adaptations, their emotional appeal among women became the defining feature of their global rise. 바카라K-dramas appeal to me because they are an escape from the jarring reality of being a woman today,바카라 says Eva Paraskevi, an avid K-drama watcher from Greece. 바카라In real life, I have to second-guess every interaction I have with a man, even with the ones that I am close with. Sometimes I just want to see a story about two people falling in love where the woman isn바카라t the object, and the men are just dependable and respectable. I don바카라t even really want to call it the female gaze because it바카라s just asking for the bare minimum,바카라 she adds.
The Korean Wave & 바카라Flower Boys바카라
The Hallyu (Korean) wave may have peaked over recent years, but the term was coined in 1999 by journalists at Beijing Youth Daily바카라 the most widely circulated metropolitan newspaper in Beijing. The seed of globalisation was sown further back in 1992, believes J. E. Hoare, historian and professor at SOAS University of London. He explains South Korea바카라s investment in cultural industries by offering subsidies and tax incentives to ensure high production values, expanding global distribution networks and tourism campaigns were 바카라all part of the 바카라globalisation바카라 programme under President Kim Yong-sam, whose aim was to get the Republic of Korea to diversify from its traditional dependence on heavy industry, such as ship and car manufacturing바카라.
The blossoming of these strategies was seen with Boys Over Flowers in 2009. The show is based on the Japanese manga of the same name, which had already been adapted in Japan and Taiwan. However, the Korean adaptation coincided with the birth of the legal streaming website DramaFever. Around the same time, Viki, another platform was also launched. The platforms may have accelerated the show바카라s popularity, but it was the introduction of kkonminam (Flower Boys) that truly set the show apart.
As the opening theme, 바카라Almost Paradise바카라, plays. Four men appear바카라Gu Jun-pyo (Lee Min-ho), with permed hair, accessorised with neckties, bow ties, and scarves; Yoon Ji-hoo (Kim Hyun-joong), with brown, straightened hair and a soft-spoken demeanour; So Yi-jung (Kim Bum), a skilled potter and well-dressed like the rest; and finally, Song Woo-bin (Kim Joon), leaner than the others and farthest from the rugged look that women were used to seeing on screen.
바카라The 바카라flower boy바카라 concept describes men who are stunningly handsome, polished, and have a gentle, softer masculinity. It바카라s a refreshing contrast to the rugged, traditional male archetypes,바카라 explains Yeon. 바카라When Boys Over Flowers brought this idea into the spotlight, it quickly became a trend in K-dramas and K-pop, making it a hallmark of Korean entertainment. The appeal lies in this mix of charm, sensitivity, and charisma, which feels fresh and relatable to modern audiences,바카라 he adds.
Prolonged Close-Ups and Slo-Mos
The emphasis on emotional appeal also connects to another key feature of K-dramas바카라the use of 바카라affective interludes,바카라 as theorised by Steve Choe, an associate professor in the School of Cinema at San Francisco State University, and a K-drama expert. These are moments in the drama that boldly showcase a private emotion, such as nostalgia, romance, despair, gratitude, or bliss while prompting viewers to feel something바카라such as sympathy, outrage, joy, or even cringe바카라making them memorable and ultimately hooking the audience.
In Weightlifting Fairy Kim Bok-joo (2016), when Kim Bok-joo (Lee Sung-kyung) and Jung Joon-hyung (Nam Joo-hyuk) shared romantic moments such as their date in the amusement park, where Jung slipped his hand into Kim바카라s pocket so they could hold hands while watching the fireworks at play, the close-up shot of Jung바카라s smiling face in contrast to Kim바카라s surprised and slightly embarrassed face forces the viewer to feel something with the characters. This is then doubled with 바카라Dreaming바카라 playing as the background score. This same background score also plays, when Jung confesses that he likes Kim and kisses her. Now, anytime somebody plays this music, the viewer is taken back to the romantic moments of the show specifically.
Similarly, in Goblin (2016), when Kim Shin (Gong Yoo) and Wang Yeo (Lee Dong-wook) go to rescue Ji Eun-tak (Kim Go-eun) in Episode 2, both supernatural creatures, with their tall and strong builds, are shown walking in slow motion while 바카라Round and Round바카라 plays in the background. This scene is referred to within the show in Episode 10 by Ji, who calls their walk 바카라very cool바카라, leading Kim and Wang to recreate it to experience it for themselves again, thereby imprinting the emotions that the audience felt, with the added layer of humour. Now, this scene lives rent-free in people바카라s minds.
The BTS Craze
Goblin (2016) is considered a Korean wave in itself, as the popularity of the show helped K-dramas continue to gain a larger audience. The year 2018 was a pivotal moment for K-dramas바카라the streaming platform DramaFever shut down, and at the same time, Netflix created its first original K-drama, Mr. Sunshine, forever opening K-drama to a new era of accessibility.
The same year also marked the golden era of K-Pop, with BTS becoming the first South Korean group to grace the cover of TIME magazine after topping the American Billboard music charts and selling out stadiums in the US. They were also invited to the UN General Assembly for the launch of Generation Unlimited, a partnership to get every young person into quality education, training, or employment by 2030.
This blending of their popularity with social work highlights what sets them apart as a K-pop group. The boy band has an underdog story and does not belong to the 바카라Big 3바카라 entertainment agencies바카라SM, YG, and JYP. Their songs addressed mental health challenges, societal pressure, and the rigidity surrounding traditional career expectations: Okay, the boring same day, every day just repeats/Adults and parents cram us with dreams stuck in place/The No. 1 dream job, a government employee?/The dream wasn바카라t forced, a relief pitcher in the bottom of the ninth.
Their goodwill and social messaging aside, BTS operated with curated public personas typical of K-pop groups. Each of the members has a strikingly different personality from the others바카라Suga is the grumpy one, RM is the brains of the group, and Jin is the goofy one. This 바카라authentic바카라 self is shared regularly with their community of fans, called ARMY, via apps like Weverse and V-Live, where they post updates or go live for audience members to join and interact via comments.
K-Pop and the Flip Side
The creation of K-pop groups goes back to the 1997 IMF crisis when the government began investing in cultural exports as a strategy for economic recovery, focusing on the Hallyu wave.
The SM Entertainment Group created H.O.T., which is now known as the first K-pop idol group. Moon Hee-joon, Jang Woo-hyuk, Tony Ahn, Kangta and Lee Jae-won were selected based on their diverse personalities after they had gone through rigorous training. Their debut single, 바카라Candy바카라, was a massive hit, leading them to perform alongside Michael Jackson in Seoul. This formula for creating K-pop groups was then mimicked across the industry due to the boy band바카라s success.
The origins of K-pop as a musical genre, however, go further back to Seo Taiji and Boys, who debuted in 1992. Korea had just democratised in 1987, coming out of an almost decade-long authoritarian rule by President Chun Doo-hwan.
Yeon believes the 1980s democratisation then led to 바카라creative freedom flourishing and cultural industries thriving.바카라 Unlike the curated idol groups that followed, Seo Taiji and Boys revolutionised Korean pop music by blending it with American hip-hop. They paired this new sound with choreography and a rebellious, anti-establishment image: It got bigger and bigger/The anger that blamed this society/Eventually turned into hatred/Truths disappeared, at the tip of my tongue.
Hoare attributes the early American influence in K-pop바카라and the subsequent fascination with its Americanisation바카라to South Korea바카라s history as a military colony until 1945. He explains: 바카라There were US military bases all over the country, which played a major cultural role. It was not until the late 1990s that popular Japanese culture was widely accepted again. Older generations, educated in Japanese, could read and speak the language, but younger people had little exposure to it.바카라
Rain, BoA and Se7en were hailed as ambassadors of Korean culture. All three of them moved to the US between 2006 and 2009 to break into the market, with Rain finding the most luck. Forbes reported, 바카라In 2006, Rain staged the biggest US concerts for Korean artists at the time, sang in Pepsi바카라s ads for the FIFA World Cup in Germany, sold over one million albums across Asia, and joined the TIME 100 list as one of the most influential people in the world.바카라 In hopes of replicating the same kind of fame, Girls바카라 Generation and Wonder Girls also moved to the US from 2009 to 2012 but did not succeed.
In 2012, PSY led the second wave of K-pop to the world before BTS. The comical and easy-to-follow galloping dance, paired with the catchy hook of 바카라Oppa Gangnam Style바카라, achieved what his predecessors could not바카라all while staying in Korea바카라thanks to the music video was bizarre yet hilarious바카라perfect for sharing on social media, which skyrocketed its reach across cultures and languages바카라.
There바카라s, however, a flip side to the entire sensationalism. From recruiting talent to training them, giving them a platform and making them into a craze, artists often go through a lot mentally and emotionally.
The entertainment agencies hold auditions to recruit talent, with some people joining these companies as early as the age of 12 or 13. They are rigorously trained in singing, dancing, and rapping, with a lucky few being selected to debut as a K-pop group바카라and sometimes, if they are very lucky, as soloists.
The industry has been accused of establishing rigid contracts for artists that dictate their public behaviour. Most of them are not allowed to date publicly. This is how 바카라idols바카라바카라K-pop artists are referred to as idols in South Korea바카라are built in the K-pop industry.
While K-pop dazzles the world with its perfection, it often comes at the cost of its artists, as seen in the deaths of idols like Moon Bin of Astro, Sulli of f(x), Goo Hara of Kara, and Jonghyun of Shinee who ended their lives. The picture-perfect shiny exterior, the rehearsed dance moves and the pleasant public appearances make you question the emptiness of groups that show to the world they live, laugh and love together. In contrast, K-dramas offer emotional depth and relatability, creating a space for audiences to connect with stories that feel human and heartfelt. This duality within the Hallyu wave underscores the complexities of the entertainment industry, leaving us to consider not just what we consume, but the humanity behind the art that moves us.
