It all started about a decade ago, in 2012. When, suddenly, in the summer of that year, "Gangnam Style" by the South Korean musician PSY came to us. This particular song made an absolutely unprecedented crazy trajectory: after being nailed for months at the top of the South Korean charts, then it paralyzed the British, American, Scandinavian and German charts, until December 21, 2012, it became the The first online video of all time to reach a billion views on the Internet.
The phrase "Gangnam Style", a Korean neologism referring to a specific Asian lifestyle, which is connected to the Gangnam district of Seoul, has since influenced popular culture so much worldwide that it has been a source of parody videos and online memes. , while also inspiring dozens of dance mobs (dance groups) in Paris, Rome, and Milan, with tens of thousands of participants each dancing in the streets.
The song then spread to politics, as its distinctive dance moves were tested by many political leaders, including former British Prime Minister David Cameron, former US President Barack Obama, and former United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. , who described it (a little too much, is the truth) as "a force for world peace".
"Gangnam Style", in turn, if it did not give birth, at least to a large extent grew a huge musical wave, what in the process was called "K-pop", short for "Korean Pop". "K-pop idols" began to spring up one after another and enjoy success not only in Asia but all over the world.
Assisted by colorful stylistic choices, sticky musical rhythms and imaginative choreography, the last five years we have witnessed a real explosion of K-Pop songs with the main representatives of BTS, a male band consisting of RM, Jin, Suga, J-Hope, Jimin, V and Jungkook and which became famous in 2015 with the single "I need u". Next to them, there are EXO, a boy band that has released songs in various languages, consisting of nine members: Xiumin, Suho, Lay, Baekhyun, Chen, Chanyeol, DO, Kai and Sehun but also the young Blackpink who are now and officially the most popular female pop group in the world, as evidenced by their historic appearance at the American festival Coachella in 2019.
According to research by Nielsen Music, it has recently been observed that the consumption of Korean music has doubled in America from 2018 until today. In addition, data from Spotify showed that listening to Korean pop has increased by about 65% annually from 2015 to date, a percentage that between 2017-2018 rose to 86% in Apple Music measurements.
K-drama and K-cinema
Over the past three years, global interest in cinema and television has shifted to South Korea, shifting the global cultural balance in cinema, with Hollywood and popular platforms such as Netflix bowing to their scripts. South Korean creators and directors.
A year and a half ago, South Korean Bong Joon Ho's "Parasites" made history at the 2020 Oscars, winning Best Picture.
It was the first foreign language film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, while at the same time winning the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay.
The Golden Globe-winning director himself, who also won the Best Foreign Language Film award there, had emphatically stated that "you here in Hollywood, once you get over the subtitles, then you will enter a world of many amazing films."
The "Parasites" won because they masterfully deal with economic inequalities and class antagonisms in modern-day South Korea, using as their protagonists a family of four trying to survive in one of the less privileged areas of present-day Seoul.
Until this year came, like a delicious icing on this already interesting cultural "cake", "Squid Game", the South Korean series of nine episodes which is a new "phenomenon" and has climbed to the top of Netflix in 90 countries, among them Greece but even America, on the subject of hundreds of people who are recruited after a strange process, claiming an untold amount of money playing children's games and paying for their defeat with their own lives.
However, according to the international media, a key role in the spread of modern South Korean pop culture was played mainly by social media, with K-pop stars having many millions of followers on Instagram and so many other views on YouTube.
In conclusion, there is probably no greater compliment to the prevalence of Korean culture around the world than the fact that last year the Harvard Business School touched on this issue with an extensive case study.
A case study that in the future may have to be read by the cultural representatives of many more countries.
newsbeast.gr