K-POP AND THE CULTURE BEHIND IT

By Siyeon Park

Kpop is a type of music from Korea, which mostly consists of young singers, usually in groups, singing and dancing to various songs. The singers of this kind of music are referred to as ‘kpop idols’, and they are very talented and attractive. The unique concepts and performances of each group vary from artist to artist, resulting in myriads of extraordinary groups, each with their own talents.

Kpop culture has spread worldwide, and the industry now has millions of fans all over the world. Fans of kpop try their best to support their favorite artists and collect merchandise the idols release, resulting in a culture with unique features that cannot be found anywhere else.

A boy group who recently came back with a new album ‘Minisode 2: Thursday’s Child’, TOMORROW X TOGETHER.

The biggest and most known part of this culture would be streaming. This is when fans play their artist’s music on repeat to get a better score on music shows and charts when artists have a ‘comeback’, referring to coming back with a new song or album.  There are many specific rules to streaming, which could confuse those who are new to the culture. Some oppose this method of supporting artists, as they believe that music was created to be enjoyed, and people should not have to listen to music hundreds of times just to allow artists to perform better on music charts and shows. However, most fans stream songs and music videos in order to allow artists to be satisfied with their overall achievements.

Another well-known culture of kpop fans is photocard trading. When kpop artists release physical albums, they usually come with printed out photos about the size of a credit card, known as photocards. Photocards are seen as the most important part of an album, as they sell for high prices, sometimes over 100 dollars. Photocards have different values according to which member the card is of and what album it is from, and people tend to trade or sell photocards in order to collect the ones they want. Some fans even try to ‘dragon ball’ photocards of their favorite member, which means they would collect all the photocards released of a certain artist or group.

There are several other unique cultures that became a part of everyday life for kpop, such as buying albums for a chance to meet your favorite idols at fan sign events and having group chats where one would join just to share and download photos of idols. Cultures of the industry may be hard to understand for those who are not familiar with kpop, but it allows kpop fans to interact with other fans who share the same interests, as well as the artists.

One of the most well-known boy groups Bangtan Sonyeondan, also known as BTS.

All of these features are what makes up the k-pop culture. They mostly consist of ways to support the idols and collect their merchandise. Once one gets to know about all these parts of kpop culture, it would definitely be difficult to get out of it again. The culture is overall interesting, as well as enjoyable to participate in, which is probably the reason it spread abroad so fastly. The number of fans are increasing even at the moment, and the number will definitely be increasing even in the future.