How Ok-pop lastly broke by way of within the U.S.

It is Netflix’s largest film of all time, with 314 million views and counting. Its soundtrack hit No. 1 on Billboard’s album chart and is the primary to ever have 4 songs hit the highest 10 of the Billboard Sizzling 100 concurrently. It was the No. 1 on the field workplace and made $18 million in a single weekend, despite the fact that it was nonetheless obtainable to look at at dwelling. Youngsters are rewatching it and re-creating its hottest appears. Dad and mom are watching it out of curiosity and loving it.

Not often has an authentic film infiltrated popular culture like KPop Demon Hunters. It’s onerous to overstate simply how huge this film is. However nobody needs to be stunned.

The sugary bubble gum pop music, vibrant visuals and infectious choreography that permeate the film are all fairly typical of Ok-pop, a style made up of largely South Korean boy and woman teams with thousands and thousands of notoriously intense followers throughout the globe.

Earlier than the Netflix movie’s success, it appeared Ok-pop was simply ready for a mainstream streaming service to take an opportunity and promote it to a broader viewers of individuals hesitant to strive one thing new. Now, it’s clear that it’s a powerhouse style that’s nestled its approach into popular culture simply as a lot as nation, rap or Latin music.

Followers made Ok-pop mainstream

Ok-pop is what persons are hungry for, and the executives raking in money proper now have its followers, who’ve lengthy evangelized for the style, to thank for that.

Rochelle Kelly is one among them.

“Ok-pop going mainstream from my expertise actually was due to how engaged fandoms have been on-line,” Kelly, a 27-year-old from New Jersey, tells Yahoo. “It is a huge international neighborhood with a ardour in contrast to anything.”

Although Psy’s 2012 international hit “Gangnam Model” was the primary predominately non-English Ok-pop tune to develop into a cultural drive, he wasn’t in a position to mobilize lasting followers as a lot as swoonworthy Ok-pop boy and woman bands have been. Stacy Jones, CEO of influencer advertising and marketing firm Hollywood Branded, tells Yahoo that BTS pioneered the “infrastructure” of fan assist that many teams copy now. The seven-member boy band was the primary Ok-pop group to interrupt out within the U.S., rapidly and assuredly incomes the widespread enthusiasm of worldwide younger girls identical to the Beatles.

Kelly has been a superfan of the style since she was in highschool in 2011, when she used a number of units to present BTS music movies as many streams as potential and improve her probability of getting live performance tickets. She stayed up till 2 a.m. to look at livestreams and was a part of a bunch on Tumblr that mobilized to win her favourite teams awards and improve their acclaim and identify recognition within the U.S.

This pattern amongst followers continues to today: They proceed to voluntarily mobilize on X and Reddit to forcefully launch their favourite artists into the mainstream.

In response to Luminate’s 2025 midyear music trade report, Ok-pop followers overindex in on-line neighborhood areas like Discord, Reddit, WhatsApp and Twitch, which all “allow deeper fan engagement.”

That neighborhood is, in itself, compelling to individuals like Kelly — but it surely’s the high-quality visuals that hold her and so many different followers coming again for extra. It’s all a part of a machine, engineered by firms to emulate perfection to churn out vigorous choreography, trendsetting trend and lovely idols.

Bands want followers

The connection between Ok-pop bands and their fandoms is symbiotic. Bands create content material for followers, then followers create content material for them, making their work much more standard. That’s obligatory for Ok-pop teams to make the essential pivot out of Korean popular culture and firmly into the U.S., the place there are merely extra individuals obtainable to develop into followers and maintain their careers.

A cultural shift within the U.S. got here first for BTS in 2017, when the group’s followers, referred to as Military, efficiently infiltrated the web voting system for the Billboard Music Awards to earn the band the High Social Artist award. Serona Elton, interim vice dean and chair of the music trade program on the Frost Faculty of Music on the College of Miami, tells Yahoo that the feat earned BTS on the spot credibility on social media, which led to collaborations with English-speaking artists like Halsey, Steve Aoki and Coldplay, additional introducing them to the mainstream. Since then, the band has solely been on an upward trajectory.

Six of their albums have hit No. 1 and eight of their music movies have exceeded one billion views on YouTube.

BTS disbanded briefly on the peak of their fame to finish South Korea’s obligatory army service requirement and work on solo initiatives, however is now poised for a large comeback. Jones says BTS’ reunion in 2026 “will possible be one of many largest cultural reset moments in latest reminiscence.”

Loads of extremely gifted and visually gorgeous teams by no means ascend to the success of BTS. Nonetheless, members of these teams are referred to as idols. Ok. Kim, CEO of a PR agency that works with Ok-pop teams within the U.S. and South Korea, tells Yahoo that Individuals nonetheless miss out on the “numerous idol teams that debut in Korea,” solely getting a extremely curated number of the best-of-the-best performers. That will increase the strain for each present idols and people hoping to develop into them.

Idols and evangelism within the Ok-pop machine

Huntr/x from KPop Demon Hunters is a fictional woman group, however is comprised of real-life singers with expertise in Ok-pop. Even singing as animated characters, the group has efficiently damaged out like different present chart mainstays like Twice, Katseye, Stray Youngsters, TXT and New Denims — to not point out all of the bands who’ve a number of members with profitable solo careers, together with Blackpink’s Rosé, whose collaboration with Bruno Mars grew to become the primary Ok-pop tune to dominate High 40 radio by main Billboard’s Pop Airplay chart. “Golden” from KPop Demon Hunters is nearing the highest of the chart as effectively.

Although followers of the fictional, animated band have an intense fandom, the actors and singers who gave them an onscreen voice have been in a position to keep away from among the depth that real-life woman group performers endure.

In Ok-pop, “artists are typically ‘employed’ reasonably than found, after which skilled over years to behave just like the idols the style wants them to be,” Elton says. “They develop into characters that followers are drawn to. This paradigm of idol worship aligns very effectively with behaviors that happen on social media platforms between celebrities (idols) and their followers (worshipers) – it’s a match made in heaven.”

It mirrors faith. “Followers develop into evangelists for his or her favourite Ok-pop artist amongst their mates, serving to broaden the artist’s fan base exponentially,” Elton continues.

A Ok-pop fan since 2019, 27-year-old content material creator Christel tells Yahoo that she’s felt the style develop into extra westernized typically because it began going mainstream. Teams are releasing extra songs in English, and despite the fact that they’re abandoning a few of their Korean tradition, they’re additionally being free of the extraordinary guidelines and sweetness conventions that maintain them to an ordinary of near-holiness.

“They’re in a position to be edgier and extra self-expressive … it’s 100% drastically completely different from what Ok-pop was,” she says. That innovation retains followers coming again for extra, growing its recognition within the U.S.

Fandom past borders and screens

The followers behind screens and glued to streaming providers have efficiently made Ok-pop right into a real-life, mainstream style. Angel Vicioso, chief of playlists at TouchTunes, a contemporary jukebox app that enables followers to pay to play sure songs aloud in public, tells Yahoo that BTS and Blackpink are taking off on TouchTunes alongside main artists like Morgan Wallen and Beyoncé.

“[K-pop’s] success displays a mix of catchy tunes and a web based neighborhood that’s extra engaged and international than ever,” Vicioso says.

Followers aren’t simply streaming music, both — they’re shopping for bodily albums, merch and live performance tickets.

The starvation for extra Ok-pop content material has turned these bands into extra than simply teams of performers — they’re trendsetters throughout magnificence, life-style and trend. In response to Google Tendencies, KPop Demon Hunters impressed the top-trending nail design, coiffure tutorial and cosplay in July. Michele Y. Smith, CEO of Seattle’s Museum of Pop Tradition, tells Yahoo that idols “affect from a number of entry factors … they usually’re simply getting began.”

The style’s largest idols have begun transcending musical efficiency and merch gross sales to dabble in careers exterior of music, reserving modeling gigs and massive roles on exhibits like The White Lotus and Squid Recreation.

This isn’t simply the story of how Ok-pop grew to become mainstream. It’s possible a playbook on how different worldwide genres can transcend borders sooner or later utilizing high-quality visuals and engaged fandoms. Ok-pop artists usually are not simply setting music developments, they’re shaping the way forward for the entire leisure trade.