'Squid Game,' BTS and what may surprise you about Korean culture

From Netflix's "Squid Game" to BTS, Korean content and stars are grabbing headlines in Western media, but they don't always reflect the tastes of their home country.

As a Korean American, it’s crazy to see how Korean pop culture has exploded in popularity in the U.S. in recent years. Today, it’s not uncommon to see Korean content and stars grabbing headlines in Western media, whether it’s “Squid Game” being greenlit for a second season or K-pop superstars BTS releasing their latest album “Proof” to commemorate the group’s ninth anniversary.   

But with global demand for Korean pop culture at an all-time high, it feels like South Korea is kind of losing control over its cultural narrative.

This dichotomy between “K-culture” and “Korean culture” is probably being further reinforced by mainstream English-language news outlets

Just a decade ago, I was fruitlessly seeking opportunities to write about K-pop; today, I’m frequently turning down requests from various editors and publicists asking me to write an article about a new K-pop idol group — that is, photogenic boy or girl bands that perform the kind of dance music that many of us have now come to associate with K-pop. I never thought I’d see the day when I’d actually get tired of people asking me to write about the topic, but it seems that just when much of the Korean public and the Korean diaspora have moved on from K-pop due to the surfeit of idol groups (about 200 to 400 of them have debuted in the past decade, and over 50 are debuting in this year alone), the rest of the world is clamoring for it.

As I’ve written before, the type of Korean cultural content that’s popular in South Korea — whether that’s music, films or TV shows — often tends to be very different from the kind that’s popular abroad. Until “Parasite” came along, Korean films that were a hit with many international audiences were box-office flops in South Korea, and vice versa. 

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/squid-game-bts-what-may-surprise-you-korean-culture-rcna33354

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