Hallyu Wave Say What?

By Susan Egbert

There is a debate in the K-pop community that is going on about which groups actually influenced the “hallyu wave” the most.  If you don’t know what K-pop is, it stands for Korean pop and there are multiple artists making headlines in U.S. news these days.  The term “hallyu wave” is also noted as “Korean wave”, which means the exporting of Korean culture to the world and making it popular. 

South Korea first tried the Japanese market to see how they would do. This would be an advantage to Korea as it was nearby, and a decent gauge as to how they could go into other markets.  This was in the early 2000s as Japanese culture was flooded in the U.S. The first few K-pop groups to go over to Japan were groups like TVXQ, Girl’s Generation, Super Junior, Kara and others. These groups are generally referred to as the second generation of K-pop. Japan's market was very open to having Korean groups over as the group won multiple awards and made it to Japan’s Oricon Billboard charts.

Now you may wonder how K-pop got into America. The answer is that there were some groups that have been trying to get into the U.S. market. However, it was not until BTS and Blackpink debuted that K-pop’s popularity was raised exponentially. 

The world knows about Blackpink and their major success was being the first Korean group to perform at Coachella.

(Getty Images)

The first few groups that were trying to make into the U.S. market were Wonder girls, 2NE1, and Big Bang -- these were the groups trying to make their mark first. Although they were able to get some presence in the U.S., it was not like the almost immediate success that groups were experiencing in Japan. A couple of factors could go into this. One could be that the Americans thought that it was too “exotic” and something that does not really make it enjoyable. Another factor is that there is a vast diversity in the U.S. music market that it’s hard to appeal to a lot of people at once.

I have followed K-pop since 2007, so I am intrigued as to how BTS was able to make it into the market. Honestly, I avoided them for a while because people who were new K-pop fans only listened to BTS.  However, when I started listening to them, I started realizing the appeal behind them. This seven member boy group did not even start big but was able to reach out to a larger audience after a change of music style. They were also able to be personable with their U.S. fans as some of the members were able to speak english. Blackpink experienced fame internationally due to their successful debut under YG entertainment (one of the largest entertainment agencies). Due to the aggressive marketing, the world knows about Blackpink and their major success was being the first Korean group to perform at Coachella.

I hope that this brought some awareness of the history of how K-pop got to the U.S. There are plenty of artists to follow if you haven’t followed them already. 

You can follow Susan on Twitter @sbegbert94.