Two decades in the making: here’s how K-pop rises from small waves to global glory

Lee explains that “western pop, J-pop and Canto-pop were the three biggest influences on the early days of K-pop.” Western pop was widely accessible through radio broadcasts and concerts featuring overseas artists. Hong Kong’s Canto-pop stars such as Chelsia Chan, Leslie Cheung and Alan Tam were incredibly popular in South Korea as they also sang in English. “Everyone in my generation knows Chelsia Chan’s [1977 release] One Summer Night, which was a mega hit in South Korea. It was our graduation anthem.” He adds that Canto-pop stars’ friendliness and versatility—that they could sing, act and dance—added to their appeal. As for J-pop, it was officially banned until 1999 due to Japan’s complicated history with Korea, but music fans managed to find underground sources, also adding to the intrigue.

The flourishing of overseas music in South Korea prompted people like Lee Soo Man, who would later establish the K-pop empire SM Entertainment, to start creating the country’s own pop. In Lee Soo Man: King of K-Pop, a documentary released on Prime Video in May last year, Lee talks about how, when he was a 27-year-old singer, he attended American singer Leif Garrett’s 1980 concert in South Korea. “People were jumping, screaming, shouting his name. How come they don’t shout like that for me? How come we know all these songs from other countries?” the singer says in the documentary. “I started thinking about our artists and how they aren’t well-known outside Korea. It would be so nice if I can be the first to make the world know Korean songs.”

He set up SM Studio in 1989, which evolved into SM Entertainment in 1995. The company developed rigorous training systems to produce polished idol groups—the formula that gave birth to acts like HOT, SES, Super Junior, Girls’ Generation and TVXQ. He wasn’t the only one: singer-songwriter JY Park founded JYP Entertainment in 1997, which produced Stray Kids; music executive and former boy band member Yang Hyun-suk founded YG Entertainment in 1996, which produced Bigbang; and record producer and music executive Bang Si-hyuk set up Big Hit Entertainment in 2005 (now Hybe), which created BTS. These talent incubators combined American production precision with Japanese fan engagement strategies. Jeong says, “The trainees practise for hours daily, learning not only to sing and dance but also to speak English or Japanese, to present themselves as global artists.”

Read more: 5 most defining career moments of Blackpink’s Jennie

But success would take time, effort—and patience. The biggest problem that K-pop artists faced in the late Nineties and Noughties was the intense competition from already established pop groups worldwide. China’s market, for instance, was dominated by Mando-pop stars. As for the west, “[JYP’s and SM’s] initial idea was to bring young, pretty, slim Korean women to the US, thinking that they would [appeal to] mainstream American male audiences, but they completely misunderstood US culture,” says Lee. “I was teaching in the US back then, and I asked my male students what they thought about Girls’ Generation. They all [dismissively] said they looked like [primary] school students.”

The first K-pop star to really make it in the west was rapper and singer-songwriter Park Jae-sang, who was signed to YG Entertainment from 2010 to 2018; you probably know him as Psy. In 2012, he released Gangnam Style, a bombastic satire of Seoul’s elite lifestyle, which went viral on YouTube. “Psy was not originally aiming for global fame, but social media had arrived at just the right moment,” Lee explains. “Before Gangnam Style, K-pop artists were targeting physical album sales and radio airplay.” That didn’t get them very far.

What’s more, the rapper fit into the American stereotype of an Asian man that made him more “acceptable” to the western audience at the time. “He looked short and very quirky, like the type of Asian comedians who were social media stars,” says Lee. His 110 horse-riding dance fast became a cultural meme, and the track was the first Korean-language song to top the
charts in multiple western countries.

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With Psy’s overseas success, from the mid-2010s, K-pop agencies began working more with American and European producers, tailoring music composition, choreography, music video visuals and even fashion styles to maximise global resonance. “Initially, they targeted non-white audiences, such as Asian Americans and Latin Americans; and later the mainstream white audience,” says Lee. It also helps that the backgrounds of K-pop bands have diversified, reflecting the wider Asian diaspora: Stray Kids’ Felix is Korean Australian; Blackswan’s Sriya is Indian; Jackson Wang is Chinese and Katseye is made up of multinational members.

But while the producers built the machinery, the phenomenon could not have existed without the fans. “K-pop’s secret sauce,” Jeong says, “is the authenticity and intimacy it creates between artists and fans.” She explains how technology and emotion work hand in hand: “From livestreams to fan apps that simulate one-on-one chats with idols, [K-pop] fans feel intimately connected. They know it’s an illusion, but they cherish that sense of closeness. Taylor Swift doesn’t tell you to sleep well. But K-pop idols do.”

The internet has also had a massive impact on how the two parties interact. In the 1990s, fans made their own merchandise by hand and ran small online forums; by the 2010s, fandom had become digital, global and highly organised. Jeong says: “Fans don’t just consume; they perform labour: voting for their idols [in singing contests], buying albums in bulk [to boost sales], promoting them online so that their idols stand out in and outcompete the ‘jungle’ of K-pop groups. When these K-pop stars win, they congratulate not only themselves but also their fans and phrase it as something they did together, that it’s a collective effort.”

This dynamic has even shifted traditional academic ideas about celebrity and how we contextualise it. “Scholars used to call it a parasocial relationship, referring to the way in which audiences form imaginary relationships with media figures,” Jeong says. “It used to be one-way, but now it’s asymmetrical two-way communication: fans influence companies, companies respond to fans. It’s a loop.”

The impact of K-pop stretches well beyond music. From beauty standards to geopolitics, it has reshaped how not just South Korea but the whole of Asia is seen around the world. CNN senior investigative correspondent Kyung Lah, who produced the documentary K-pop: A Star is Born, has observed this transformation first-hand, saying the influence of K-pop has challenged racial perceptions in the west. “It’s an evolution and global domination of all things Korean, whether it’s K-beauty, K-music or K-food—it’s ubiquitous,” she tells Tatler. “When I was growing up in Chicago, being Asian wasn’t cool. But Gangnam Style changed something. Suddenly, white kids were learning Korean words and dance moves.” She adds that her own daughter “wrote me a letter saying she was proud to have eyes like mine. In a million years, I would never have thought that. As a Korean American mother, it’s so beautiful to see that young kids can see themselves being reflected in modern global culture and be really proud of that.”

Lee agrees that this cultural shift has been transformative. “The image of the Korean man in the west was terrible,” he says, recalling stereotypes of wife-beating, child-abusing, dog-eating or aggression. “Now, it’s BTS: polite, creative global citizens.” The K-pop wave has bolstered South Korea’s national image, turning the country from being viewed as an industrial manufacturer into a cultural trendsetter. Exports in cosmetics, fashion and gaming have soared alongside the music, revitalising tourism and fuelling national pride.

But the glossy surface hides harsh realities. For the documentary, Lah embedded with VVS, a group of aspiring trainees, for two and a half weeks, just before they debuted in April last year. The young hopefuls trained for 12 to 16 hours a day, often at the expense of school and a social life. “I knew all about the starvation diet, the number of hours, [being discovered] when you’re a child; but I didn’t quite click what you give up, which is basically your future,” she says. “You decide to drop out of school when you’re 12 or 13 to chase this K-pop dream. What happens if you fail? The Blackpinks of the world are less than one per cent, so that’s 99 per cent of these children who end up with no education, no stardom and no source of income. What does that
mean in Asia, especially if you are a young woman?”

Those who do succeed are in thrall to the management company, who pour money into dance lessons, vocal lessons, language lessons and media training; naturally, as Jeong explains, the company feels protective. “If a star, who made his debut at 20 years old, gets into an accident and his career is cut short, the company loses their investment.” The strict control over almost every aspect of an idol’s life, from diet and decorum to personal image, she says, is an insurance policy. “They want to make sure these K-pop stars are a long-living product that doesn’t just perform but also earns profit for the company for a long time.”

And it’s not just pressure from the management—K-pop artists are often under immense stress to meet fan expectations. “Idols are never truly off the clock,” Jeong says. “Fans expect messages every day, livestreams, updates.” And when these aren’t met, the backlash can be intense. Think Karina of Aespa, who had to issue a handwritten apology for dating actor Lee Jae-wook after fans rented trucks with LED panels showing the words “Is the love from your fans not enough?” and parked them outside SM Entertainment headquarters, threatening to boycott the band’s albums and concerts; or Hyuna, formerly of Wonder Girls, whose agency dropped her after she and fellow K-pop artist E’Dawn announced their relationship on Instagram without Hyuna’s agency’s permission. In both cases, reports suggest fans felt “betrayed” and “disillusioned” when they realised their imagined versions of the stars were false.

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Despite the many criticisms, K-pop and its impact on the economy and culture show no sign of slowing. According to the South Korean government body Creative Content Agency, the industry generated over 1.2 trillion South Korean won (US$816 million) in overseas revenue in 2023. And K-pop-related tourism is contributing to the boom. Landmarks that appear in K-Pop Demon Hunters, such as Seoul’s Gyeongbok Palace and the National Museum of Korea reported record attendance after the film’s success. “There used to be lots of Asian tourists,” says Lee, who occasionally returns to his home country. “But last summer, I noticed white young women and white families visiting these landmarks to learn about our history.” His observation suggests how K-pop introduces a greater global interest in Korean culture and history beyond just the craze for the pop culture element. The museum’s merchandise featuring traditional Korean motifs that appeared in the film—the tiger, magpie and traditional hat, known as a gat—sold out.

K-pop shows no signs of turning down the volume, in either sense. Jeong says that companies are already experimenting with the direction the future could take: virtual performers, hearing-impaired idols, and even “furry” cosplay groups. “K-pop is expanding possibilities—not just for music, not just for Koreans, but for all kinds of genres and art forms all over the world,” she says. “It’s hybridised, globalised and yet can be localised,” she says. “It’s not just a musical genre; it’s a production style. [The ‘K’ in] K-pop doesn’t just stand for Korea anymore.”

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