Hallyu

Hallyu, or the Korean Wave, has become a global cultural phenomenon. Its growing popularity around the world is indicative of the rise in Asian cultural power. Before entering the markets beyond East Asia, South Korean popular culture was first transmitted in China in the 1990s. Korean popular music, or K-pop, has been a key genre in Hallyu. By employing archival research and case studies, and unveiling rarely considered materials and practices, this dissertation analyzes the constant transmission of K-pop in China in the past two decades, contemporary K-pop fan practices in China, and Chinese K-pop idols’ multiple identity presentations to answer the research question—why is K-pop popular in China. I propose a periodization of K-pop in China based on the different media environment in China after K-pop’s initial entrance into the Chinese market in 1996. Thus, I looked at K-pop in China in the analog media period (1996-2004), the pre-mobile internet period (2005-2011), and the mobile internet period (2012-present). The dissertation first examines the history of K-pop in China. Secondly, the current study uses the Chinese fandom of the male idol group GOT7 as a case study to examine contemporary Chinese K-pop fan practices from the perspectives of fan consumption and fan production. Along with the categorizations of fan consumption and fan production, I postulate that fan labor has become an indispensable part in the operation of the K-pop industry, transforming it into an alternative creative industry. Lastly, I examine the multiple identity presentations of Chinese K-pop idols by looking at the case of GOT7’s Hong Kong-born Chinese member Jackson as well as the political and fandom controversies engendered by such presentations. The dissertation potentially sheds new light on Hallyu studies, Korean studies, and the studies of transnational cultural flows. It also brings new insight to fandom studies and cultural industry studies. It is my hope that the exploration of Chinese K-pop idols will also foster a rethinking of Chua Beng Huat’s (2001, 2012) Pop Culture China in cultural studies, and spark new discussions in celebrity studies.

Resumen Cada vez es más frecuente ver que el fenómeno cultural surcoreano denominado Hallyu tiene presencia en agendas académicas y mediáticas. A su alrededor se ha creado una sugerente cultura que ha derivado en una amplia oferta de contenidos y en el interés por teorizar al respecto de su origen, configuración e impacto, desde diversos campos del estudio social. De forma directa y evidente, el Hallyu es un terreno fértil para la comunicación a nivel profesional y académico, ya que se relaciona con la industria de entretenimiento, medios y audiencias. Consolidar el concepto de kmedia como categoría de análisis construida desde la comunicación y el periodismo, aportará formalidad al trabajo de profesionales especializados en el tópico y será referente obligado para los interesados en el tema.

Культура страны - основа создания туристского продукта, его продвижения на туристских рынках, ключевой элемент туристского бренда. Изучение влияния «корейской волны» и развития Халлю-туризма показывает, что не только традиционная, но и современная массовая культура может стать основой создания туристского продукта и привлекать значительное число туристов. Ее использование позволяет иностранным туристам лучше понять жизнь страны, обеспечивая привлекательный имидж Кореи на международном туристском рынке и экономическое развитие туристской индустрии страны.

National culture is the basis for tourism product arrangement, national tourism marketing and key element for national branding. The study of the "Korean wave" and Hallyu tourism influence shows that not only traditional but also modern mass culture can serve as a foundation for new tourism products and become attractive for a large number of tourists. Its application gives foreign tourists the opportunity to experience the life of the country, providing the positive image of Korea at global tourism market and economic benefits for its tourism industry.

Since the late 1990s, Hallyu has grown not only as a global cultural phenomenon but also as a prominent academic subject in international academia. In the context of such an accumulation of research, this article aims to explore the geography of Hallyu studies published in English. We collected 217 academic articles on Hallyu published in international journals from 2000 to 2016 from the Web of Science, extracted data such as author, journal, and keywords from each article, and structured them into the form of knowledge networks. The results show how the field of Hallyu studies is structured, revealing what kind of concepts and theories are employed and how academic agents such as journals and authors are interconnected. In addition, by comparing our findings to another meta-analysis on Hallyu studies in Korean academia, this article discusses what similarities and differences are found between domestic and foreign academia and suggests that two academia have been developed in a close relationship. Our findings will provide critical knowledge on the current status of international Hallyu studies and give insights on its future direction.

This essay discusses how the 2016 South Korean television drama Descendants of the Sun attempts to distance the representation of the soldier from the necropolitical.  Although various filming techniques and intradiegetic elements attempt to disengage the soldier figure from historical representations that continually emphasize the right to kill, Descendants ultimately demonstrates that the discourse of world peace itself is inherently violent.  By promoting global humanitarianism, Descendants fails to provide a critical lens through which viewers can reflect on participation in a cosmopolitan ethos that depends on the continual renewal of neoimperial relationships.

Keywords: Descendants of the Sun, Necropolitics, Korean television dramas, Representation of soldiers, Militarism

Kore yönetim kültürünün incelenmesi karşımıza ilginç benzerlikler ve farklılıklar çıkarmaktadır. Bilinen tarihin en eski dönemlerinde Türkler ve Koreliler çok yakın coğrafyalarda yaşamıştır ve bundan dolayı kök kültürlerinde ilgi çekici benzerlikler göze çarpmaktadır. Göçebeliğinin gelişmesiyle gitgide daha uzaklara açılan Türk kültürü ve yerleştiği yerde gitgide daha derin kök salan Kore kültürü izledikleri farklı yollar ve bulundukları coğrafyalardaki etkileşimlerle dikkat çekici süreçlerden geçerek bugünlere gelmişlerdir. Kültürel olarak sahip olduğumuz bu bağlantılar Kore kültürüne bakarken klasik bir batı yaklaşımının ötesine geçebilme şansını bize sunmaktadır.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkE5_OF925I

Mass media y medios en red, ahora son canales complementarios para la difusión del Hallyu. Seguidores de todo el mundo requieren accesibilidad a contenidos e información especializada, que les permita estar al tanto de cada detalle del grupo de kpop que siguen, del kdrama que están viendo, o saber, dónde pueden comprar los productos de kbeauty que les interesan. Por todo lo anterior y frente al escenario actual constituido por: medios en red especializados en el tema, aumento de seguidores del fenómeno y una crisis de creatividad en los contenidos de entretenimiento producidos en Occidente, es que surge la necesidad de configurar una categoría de estudio y análisis del fenómeno Hallyu, a la que llamo kmedia. Mi intención es presentar un acercamiento a la construcción teórica del término y ponerla a consideración de la academia, para  validar su uso e incorporación al marco teórico de los estudios sobre el Hallyu.

This paper analyzes the reasons for the global popularity of the Korean boy band BTS that has been at the center of the growing popularity of Korean pop music or K-pop. To address this issue more comprehensively, this paper utilizes a framework derived from a business approach which has been so far little attempted. In contrast from existing studies that focus on fandom and its activities, this paper argues that instead of egocentric strategies, sophisticated consumer-oriented strategies by utilizing internationalization and digitization are the key to its global popularity, which have helped BTS and their managing company Big Hit Entertainment to overcome all the disadvantages they faced before while reinforcing exiting advantages and creating new ones. By doing so, BTS has gained their global success and become Korea’s top boy band.

Popular culture texts not only entertain us, they shape our understanding of the world and our place in it. This article explores the contradictions and effects of the use of imagined and real Korean settings and traditional iconography in recent videos from Korean hip hop artists with a particularly close reading of the rapper Beenzino’s mid-2016 offering ‘January’, additionally informed by Drunken Tiger’s ‘Mantra’, MC Mong’s ‘Fame’ and Agust D’s ‘Daechwita’. The videos each utilize settings that signify Koreanness and feature significant symbols of Korea. I investigate what symbols and icons are used to take a foreign genre and imbue it with Koreanness within the music video frame. I find that these videos circulate and re-circulate a limited number of icons of Korea, because the images are meant not to portray pre-modern Korea in its complexity, but traditional Korea both as a symbol of national pride and as a (domestic and international) tourist destination wherein the palace is a backdrop and you wear a hanbok to create a visually striking Instagram post. Operating as the king of the music video’s world, the hip hop artist maintains his artistic independence through challenging tradition with
juxtaposed elements of the present day.

This paper explores on the neoliberalization of the South Korea’s popular cultural industry, which includes mass media like film, television dramas, and popular music. South Korea has aggressively developed this industry through a variety of neoliberal policies to compete successfully within globalization (eg the Hallyu Wave).

Over the past couple decades, much ado has been made over Korean pop  cultural forms receiving attention and critical acclaim outside of Korea. Both the  pop culture products and the nationalist, media sensation around them have been  lumped together and called a “Korean Wave” (hallyu), and coalesced into a  “discursive formation” that makes obvious its place in the Korean national  project and the culture industry. But as an actual form of truly popular culture,  the “K” in the dominant examples of everything from K-POP to K-Cinema, and  K-Everything becomes an increasingly meaningless signifier. This paper  considers the singularly successful case of Korean street fashion, which has  managed to gain worldwide recognition without (indeed, despite) the presence of  state or culture industry actors. The paper explains how and why this form of  truly ground-up, organically-formed popular culture came to be so successful  within the international field before considering the ramifications of a closer look  at a truly unique formation of community, consumption, and identity that started  in the streets of Seoul. It also argues that street fashion is uniquely interesting in being successful without the major support of other institutions and culture  industry actor and has come to constitute an important part of the hallyu  phenomenon, yet actually does not resemble other forms of hallyu in terms of  origin, execution, or path of critical reception.

지난 20년간 한국의 팝 문화는 해외에서 많은 관심과 비판을 받았고 그 결과  이와 관련해 여러 현상들이 발생했다. 한국의 문화 상품 결과물들, 민족주의자  와 미디어의 센세이션은 한국 팝 문화를 통칭해 ‘한류’로 부르고 한국의 국가정  책이나 문화 산업에서 중요한 위치를 차지하게 만들었다. 하지만, 진정한 팝 문  화의 실질적인 형태로 볼 때, ‘K-POP’이나 ‘K-Cinema’와 같이 모든 것에 ‘K’를  붙이는 것은 점점 의미 없는 기표가 되고 있다. 이 논문은 한국의 길거리 패션  을 다루는데, 한국의 길거리 패션이 정부나 문화 산업 종사자의 역할 없이 전  세계적인 성공을 거두었다는 점에 주목한다. 특히 서울의 거리에서 시작된 독  특한 공동체와 소비 형태, 정체성의 형성이 국제 문화의 장에서 어떻게 그리고  왜 그렇게 성공적일 수 있는지를 설명할 것이다. 또한 이 논문은, 길거리 패션  이 아무런 제도적 지원 없이 성공한 한류의 새로운 현상이라는 점, 그럼에도  그 기원이나 실행, 비판적 수용에서 기존의 한류와 전혀 다른 모습을 보였다는  것을 제시한다.

Call for Papers
The Korean Peninsula and the Middle East at 60:
History, Economy, and Culture
International Symposium
22–24 May 2022
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

The year 2022 marks 60 years of diplomatic relations between South Korea and Jordan, Iran, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and Israel. Likewise, North Korea has developed strong political ties and military and economic cooperation with the Middle Eastern countries over the past six decades. In light of this milestone, the conference aims to provide a complex account of the various historical, economic, and cultural aspects of Korea–Middle East relations, which have been dominated by Cold War politics from the start. We seek to facilitate interdisciplinary research on the multiple connections, meanings, and discourses that have shaped the position and actions of both South Korea and North Korea in the Middle East and vice versa.

While the North Korean-Middle Eastern partnership is largely taken for granted as a “natural” one, despite its ideological divisions, South Korea has promoted diplomatic relations with most countries in the Middle East as part of a wider economic strategy, starting with a “Middle East construction boom” in the 1970s. Both North and South Korea’s relationships with the countries of the Middle East have altered over time in response to their growing global presence and desire for more influence in world affairs. Moreover, since the late 1990s, the appeal of South Korean popular culture, or Hallyu, has reached youth communities across the Middle East. Enthusiasm over Korean TV dramas, movies, K-pop, and fashion in this region adds a layer of connection between the two edges of the Asian continent.

We invite scholars from the humanities and the social sciences to rethink these complex relationships between the Korean peninsula and the Middle East. Individual papers and panel proposals on relations between South and North Korea and the Middle East may include (but are not limited to) the following themes:

    (1) historical, contemporary, and future challenges and opportunities for the Korean peninsula in the Middle East in both regional and global perspectives.
    (2) economic collaboration between the Korean peninsula and the Middle East.
    (3) Korean popular culture in the Middle East.
    (4) South Korea’s cultural diplomacy and “soft power” in Middle Eastern countries.
    (5) lessons to be learned from conflict management in the Korean Peninsula to the Middle East (and the other way around)

Individual presenters may submit an abstract of 300 words and a one-paragraph bio. For panel proposals, please submit a one-page proposal and bios of the speakers.  Write to Dr. Irina Lyan (irina.lyan@mail.huji.ac.il) by February 20, 2022.

Successful applicants will be notified by February 28, 2022, and will be asked to submit a full paper (5,500–7,000 words total) by May 1, 2022, to pursue a publication in a journal special issue.

Accommodations: all conference participants will be offered full accommodation at the university lodge for the duration of the conference. The organizers plan to host a post-conference tour in the Old City of Jerusalem free of charge for conference participants.
Covid-19 notice: We are planning to hold the conference in person in Jerusalem. However, we will be monitoring the ongoing pandemic and will pivot to a hybrid or virtual format if necessary.

Conference Organizers: Dr. Irina Lyan, Prof. Nissim Otmazgin, and Prof. Galia Press-Barnathan, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
For questions regarding the conference, please contact Dr. Lyan at irina.lyan@mail.huji.ac.il

This conference is supported by the 2022 Korean Studies Grant Program of the Academy of Korean Studies (AKS-2022-C-016), the Leonard Davis Institute for International Relations, the Louis Frieberg Center for East Asian Studies, and the International Office at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

The Department of Asian Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem is the oldest in Israel and is one of the largest departments in the Faculty of Humanities, home to over 300 students specializing in Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Indian and Indonesian Studies. The department is noted for its excellence in research and teaching, and it maintains an environment of cooperation between students and faculty in a wide array of extracurricular activities (http://en.asia.huji.ac.il).

There are voices in France advocating for a Korean-type screen quota system, seen as a key ingredient in Korean films’ success, and voices in Korea advocating for a French-type subsidy regime in Korea, perceived as needed in order to achieve further take-off of the Korean movie industry. This paper shows that the Korean screen quota has been irrelevant to the Korean success and that the French skyrocketing and huge subsidies have done nothing for improving the attractiveness of French movies in France. The paper concludes by suggesting that in-depth analysis of the policies pursued by the two countries is a good way to avoid a too costly trial-and-error process when designing policies related to cultural industries and to culture.

A través de la identificación de la imagen lésbico-gay dentro del contexto de la producción audiovisual de la industria del pop coreano podemos dar cuenta de los avances que se hacen por visibilizar ciertas experiencias de vida, y por otro lado de cómo se aprovecha esta imagen para atraer audiencias diversas desde un punto de vista de negocios (queerbaiting, fan service, etc).

South Korea (hereafter "Korea") is a supreme cultural appropriation machine and CL is its prophet. CL, née Lee Chaelin (hereafter, CL), is a master of appropriating African-American culture with apparent impunity, on two levels. First, on the basic level at which the term "cultural appropriation" is often tossed around in public discourse on hip hop and rap music as performed by non-black actors. Modes of signification themselves are being appropriated, as opposed to mere semiotic symbols and other concrete bits of hip hop-ricana. This article will take CL's video work as a point of departure and metonymic symbol for semiotic trends in Korean hip hop. Focused through the prism of Korea’s unique experience with postcoloniality and comfort with the remixing of signs, symbols,and texts from a variety of sources, the Korean cultural appropriation machine has become unmatched at producing pop cultural products that look enough like the real thing to be recognisable and hence easily digestible yet new enough to spark interest in its novelty. And this is true both at home to a Korean audience with increasingly global sensibilities and a global audience that is coming into greater contact with products from the former periphery. This is why K-POP has become such a powerfully
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influential and distinct genre so quickly and why KHIP-HOP has become so relatively successful in being able to “hang” in conversation with an African-American zone of pop culture production that heavily penalises the “inauthentic” and actors who appropriate without attribution. KHIP-HOP “speaks the lingo” of its originators fluently, even as it has successfully added its own appropriative modes to its existing vocabulary.

Good storytelling is at the heart of BTS as both a brand and a band. Modern brands know that story is no longer an option, but a requirement for keeping audiences engaged. With their consistent and creative reliance on story, BTS has transformed the K-Pop landscape, providing a framework for others in the industry that relies on open-structure narratives, sincerity, and active audience engagement, among other components. To investigate BTS’s storytelling strategies, this article breaks down how stories permeate BTS’s content, from music and videos to the Bangtan Universe and documentary films. The importance of transmedia storytelling and participatory audiences is also examined. The analysis resulted in a proposed framework that suggests the following components: 1) story as central to the brand; 2) authenticity and sincerity; 3) idol participation in creative output; 4) use of transmedia storytelling and story gaps; 5) intertextuality and cohesion; 6) opportunities for audience engagement; and 7) dedicated creative staff. Utilizing this framework can help K-Pop groups elevate their brands, better use storytelling elements, and gain larger, more engaged audiences.

Abstract: The Korean Wave is taking over the world, achieving great success in areas such as music and cinematography, and making Korean culture increasingly attractive. Culture being a crucial resource of soft power, which in turn serves as a powerful tool in international relations, the South Korean government is trying to take advantage of its improved national image and international influence. This analysis provides an overview of the relationship between the Korean government and the Korean Wave, how the perception of Korea has changed thanks to its cultural outflow, and how the government tries to use this to its advantage.

This paper analyzes the reasons for the global popularity of the Korean boy band BTS that has been at the center of the growing popularity of Korean pop music or K-pop. To address this issue more comprehensively, this paper utilizes a framework derived from a business approach which has been so far little attempted. In contrast from existing studies that focus on fandom and its activities, this paper argues that instead of egocentric strategies, sophisticated consumer-oriented strategies by utilizing internationalization and digitization are the key to its global popularity, which have helped BTS and their managing company Big Hit Entertainment to overcome all the disadvantages they faced before while reinforcing exiting advantages and creating new ones. By doing so, BTS has gained their global success and become Korea's top boy band.

This article aims to understand the appearance of hallyu in the countries of South America (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela). Other countries (Guyana and Suriname) and territories (Falkland Islands, South Georgian Islands, South Sandwich Islands and French Guiana) will not be discussed due to the lack of information about this phenomenon in these regions. After understanding the appearance of hallyu in these countries, it will be possible to analyze the differences and similarities of the phenomenon among the various nations. The study of this subject is relevant because
it is an attempt to understand the impact that a culture that is so  different can have on the peoples of South America. To arrive at a conclusion, it was necessary to divide the article into different parts: first, an understanding of the term hallyu and its initial appearance, and second, the understanding of hallyu in South America and its development in each country for which information is available. Due to the immense amount of information, only the most important points connected with the purpose of the article will be emphasized.

This paper unravels dynamic interactions between Korean popular culture and its fans in the United States, focusing on how cultural hybridity of the Korean Wave un/consciously facilitates soft power, and what sociocultural implications it might yield in global/international contexts. Employing various theoretical frameworks of globalization, critical/cultural media studies, hybridity, soft power, and fan studies, I take a qualitative methodological approach of what I call a reversed media ethnography: Examining the contraflow of Korean media culture on U.S. fans. I employ various qualitative and interpretive techniques including grounded theory to analyze the rich corpus of data I collected over a period of two years to examine the nature of transcultural media and fans of the Korean Wave in the United States. Overall, the findings of this paper suggest that the complex layers of hybridity embedded in Korean popular culture creates complicated webs of transculturality. The Korean Wave exemplifies strategically well-balanced cultural hybridity that arouses a certain feeling of affinity: Emotional proximity. Korean popular culture evokes continuous negotiations of identities and generates nonthreatening wholesome content that comfortably appeals to American fans with various ethnic, racial, social, and cultural backgrounds. The notion of uri-ness (we-ness in English), collective unity and solidarity, embedded in Korean popular culture and its fandom culture works as one of the multifaceted soft power in the eyes of American fans that leads to an alternative post-Western soft power. This study contends that it is not the so-called hybridized Korean popular culture per se that makes it transcultural, and global to some extent, but the often under-recognized vital agents in the global sphere: Legions of fans.

Since the Korean Wave phenomenon started in 1997, Hallyu has undergone many changes. Geographically, while Asia has been the largest cultural market for the Korean cultural industries, other parts of society, including North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America have gradually admitted Korean popular culture. The components of the Korean Wave have also greatly expanded. Hallyu originally implied the exports of a few cultural products, such as television dramas, popular music, and films; however, Korea has recently developed and exported K-pop, digital games and smartphone technologies as well as relevant youth culture. Meanwhile, industrial and technological contexts of the Korean Wave have changed significantly during the last 20 years. The role of social media in the Korean Wave’s transnationalization in recent years is especially intriguing because fans around the world can easily access social media to enjoy K-pop, digital games, and films. The changes in the nature and appearance of the Korean Wave, conceptual and theoretical shifts in the studies of the Korean Wave, and the influences of the development of media technologies on the Korean Wave are all very significant. This book aims to provide a better understanding of Hallyu's theoretical and institutional history on one hand, and new features of the Korean Wave on the other hand.

This study aims to conduct an exploratory case study on Hallyu or the Korean Wave as an example of Korea's cultural public diplomacy in comparative contexts of China and Japan. Hallyu, which signifies popularity of Korean media products (K-Pop music, Korean TV dramas, and Korean movies) among foreign publics, can be considered as part of Korea's public diplomacy for two reasons: 1) Hallyu contributes to winning the favor of the public overseas for Korea; 2) the Korean government is involved in promoting Hallyu through collaboration with non-state actors. The Hallyu phenomenon was not limited to one country, and as many other public diplomacy initiatives show, developments of Hallyu revealed distinct characteristics according to different countries. The causes of different Hallyu developments in China and Japan were found to be stemming from a combination of factors-ranging from political structure, domestic media environment, historical relations with Korea, and public opinion. However, anti-Hallyu movements in the two countries shared one main triggering factor: that the popularity of Korean cultural media products became too large an influential force so as to be perceived as a threat. Therefore, the findings indicate that sustainability of Hallyu depends on 1) employment of specific context-based strategies according to different countries, and 2) consideration of mutual interests to go beyond pursuit of Korea's national interests.

This chapter offers an insight into medial solutions with the help of which BTS stabilizes its position in the musical hierarchy. All of them namely, analyzed from both medial and performative perspective, take part in motivating an emotional reaction among the recipients, contributing to their continuous support for the group. Examining the creative and economic outcomes of such communicative interdependence crystallized during the live show, the chapter discusses their significance for K-pop and the music industry in general. The main difference between a concert and a show, especially visible in the case of the BTS' Speak Yourself Tour, lies precisely in this gradual overshadowing of the actual musical content by the emotionally and aesthetically supported engagement of the audience. The performative strategies, such as the realization of Emotional Memory Impact,  are mandatory to complete the encounter, using extra-musical elements to stabilize the intermedially created image.

Resumen:
Con el creciente acercamiento de culturas, producto de la globalización, el K-pop ha logrado
estratégicamente impactar en diversos lugares del mundo, lugares remotos, lugares lejanos a su
lugar de origen: Seúl, Corea del Sur. Esta industria perteneciente a la Ola Coreana (Hallyu), es
ahora una gran influyente en la cultura pop global, por medio de sus canciones, bailes y
performances, es un llamativo producto cultural coreano que nos ha atrapado a millones de fans
alrededor del mundo. Colombia no es la excepción, la constante influencia de la cultura pop en
la juventud del país hace que se fije la atención en esta puesta en escena, generando aficiones,
pasiones y sentimientos en las personas que se convierten en fans de este tipo de música. Las y
los fans impulsadas por estas emociones, son creadoras de comunidad, la cual se convierte en
el lugar seguro y común para compartir en torno a estas pasiones. Al estar conectados en la
comunidad, baile (dance covers), canto (vocal covers), gestión de comunidad (fandoms), redes
de compra-venta (WTS, WTT), el objetivo de este proyecto es describir las relaciones, lazos y
experiencias que se presentan en la comunidad de fans del K-pop en Colombia. Este trabajo es
entonces una apuesta autoetnográfica donde expongo mi experiencia como fan de K-pop desde
la comunidad K-pop en Colombia , hasta las memorias de una visita a Corea durante la
pandemia por COVID-19, acompañado por un breve análisis desde una perspectiva feminista y
de género.
Palabras Clave: K-pop, Hallyu, Fans, Comunidad, K-pop en Colombia.

Abstract:
Due to the growing rapprochement of cultures, as a consequence of globalization, K-pop has
impacted diverse places in the world strategically, remote places far away from its
origin place: Seoul, South Korea. Belonging to the Korean Wave (Hallyu), this industry is
nowadays a big influencer in pop culture through songs, dances, and performances, becoming
then a flamboyant cultural product. K-pop has caught the attention of millions of fans around
the world and makes us part of it; Colombia is not an exception, the influence of pop culture in
the young people of the country have focused the attention on this scene, creating hobbies,
passions and feelings through people who become K-pop fans. Fans who are driven by these
emotions are community creators, and this community would become a shared and safe place
to share all-around passions. When they’re connected through community, fans share dancing
(dance cover), singing (vocal cover), community management (fandoms), merch exchange
networks (WTS, WTT), therefore the objective of this project is to describe relationships,
boundaries, and experiences that are created in the Colombian K-pop fans community. Then,
this project is an authoetnographic desire, where I present my experience as a K-pop fan
belonging to the fan community of Colombia, and the memories of a trip to South Korea during the
pandemic, all of this description matching a short analysis from feminist and gender
perspective.
Key Words: K-pop, Hallyu, Fans, Community, K-pop in Colombia

This paper seeks to explain the phenomenon of the Korean Wave, as well as its history of development and its progress in evolution. The Korean Wave (termed “Hallyu”) comprises a series of pop culture mediums including music, movies, and television shows that convey South Korean social values and are used as mechanisms of soft power towards countries in surrounding regions and overseas. Generally, the Hallyu style is more readily appreciated by countries that are already familiar with the Buddhist and Confucian principles integral to South Korean culture, and these countries often prefer South Korean influence over historically aggressive military and soft power dominance by other Western nations. South Korea’s use of pop culture as soft power improves the country’s ability to gain trust, notoriety, and preference in trade internationally that transforms into dynamic political and economic strength.