#kpopinus

In Catching the K-Pop Wave: Globality in the Production, Distribution, and Consumption of South Korean Popular Music, Sarah Leung explores the growth of the K-Pop phenomenon in the US and other countries. This article explains the production of Korean culture, but specifically looks at how K-Pop groups are created, produced, and managed. Leung wants to discover “the ways in which a small niche of cultural production has managed to gain such a widespread popularity and global appeal”(4). She conducts quantitative research to determine what countries were streaming K-Pop music videos on YouTube. Her research demonstrates music videos are more popular in countries such as the United States, Japan, Peru, Chili compared to countries like India, Russia, Algeria, and Egypt. Finding these demographics were easier than comparing sales statistics because most people have access to YouTube. If Leung were to look at music sales, she would have to take into consideration the accessibility to the albums internationally, and the amount of illegal downloads that occur. Leung finds that most K-Pop groups have a large international popularity due to their ability to relate to fans in other countries. This connection is achieved because most groups have a few members from countries other than Korea, and members are also able to speak multiple languages. When looking for members to create a group, companies often have specific qualifications. Besides having good looks and the ability to sing and dance, companies also look  for members from countries other than Korea. This automatically gives the group a connection to that specific country. These groups are also able to relate and connect with fans based on their music and performance. The article goes into depth about how “the industry actively seeks to make K-Pop stylistically acceptable to global audiences through that reinforcement of ‘strangeness’ with a certain amount of familiarity”(44). The “familiarity” mentioned is often created through dance performances, videos with universal themes, and even having English lyrics mixed into songs. This article demonstrates the production of famous K-Pop idol groups. Using quantitative research methods as well as other published articles, Sarah Leung was able to come to the conclusion that the industry has learned to take advantage of the growth of technology and mass media to promote K-Pop groups internationally. Creating songs and videos with universal themes, and recognizable English lyrics, is crucial to connecting with fans on a global scale.

K-Pop Amino is “a lovely app where you can share your love for K-Pop with people from all over the world!” This particular post explains the differences between two ‘different’ groups of Exo. One group performs their songs in Korean, reaching out more to Korean fans. The other group performs their songs in Mandarin, reaching out more to Chinese fans.