Netflix Effect: Why Western Women Are Coming to South Korea for Love

There was something intriguing about young Westerners staying at youth hostels in Seoul, said researcher Min Joo Lee. Unlike her Asian counterparts, whom she saw squeezing into as many tourist spots and shops as possible during her stays in the South Korean capital, these women — mostly in their 20s — seemed uninterested in the usual tourist trails.

Instead, for most of their days, they stayed inside their hostel, sleeping or watching Korean TV shows – venturing out only after dark.

They caught the eye of Lee, who researches Korea’s gender and race politics as a postdoctoral fellow at Indiana University Bloomington, because she was in town to find out what influence the growing international profile of Korean pop culture was having on tourism.

After visiting eight hostels and interviewing 123 women, mostly from North America and Europe, Lee came to the conclusion that many were drawn to the country by what she calls the “Netflix effect.”

Successful Korean television shows like “Crash Landing on You” and “Goblin” were outselling men with handsome faces and chiseled bodies like their stars Hyun Bin and Gong Yoo. They were offering a glimpse into a world where men were romantic and patient, an antithesis to what women saw as the sex-obsessed dating culture of their home countries.

The appeal of Korean men

The women Lee interviewed were fascinated by the Korean men who were portrayed on TV as being in touch with their emotions and willing to embrace their “effeminate sides,” Lee said.

They considered Korean men cultured and romantic while complaining that men in their home countries often neglected their appearances and had one-sided minds.

Grace Thornton, a 25-year-old gardener from the UK, traveled to Seoul in 2021 after watching the K-drama “Crash Landing on You” on Netflix.

She was impressed by how the men on the show didn’t mock or call out to women in the street, as they do in her home country. In her eyes, Korean men are “gentleman, polite, charming, romantic, fairytale-like, chivalrous, respectful.” She said that she also helps Korean men to dress up and get dressed up.

“(English men in comparison) are kind of drunk, holding a beer, holding a dead fish,” she said – a reference to what she said was the prevalence of fishing photos on British male dating app profiles.

And the appeal isn’t entirely about men.

As Thornton says: “In England I am very common and I am like everybody else. In Korea, I’m different, exciting and foreign. People pay attention to me. I felt special.”

International couples’ and professional boyfriends

The popularity of Korean television shows with global audiences has coincided with a steady increase in the number of female tourists in South Korea.
In 2005, 2.3 million women visited the country – compared to 2.9 million men, according to government figures. In 2019 – the last year before the coronavirus wreaked havoc on tourism – nearly 10 million women visited the country, compared to just 6.7 million men.

At the same time, there has been an explosion in social media content centered around couples with Korean men with women from abroad.

On YouTube, the hashtag “#Gukjecouple” (“#international couple”) has become a genre spanning 2,500 channels and 34,000 videos, the most popular of which features a Korean man with an American or European partner. Sometimes these videos feature couples playing with each other, playing with cultural differences, and sometimes they simply depict couples going about their everyday lives.

Among the proponents of the genre is Heo Jin-woo, a Korean YouTuber based in Seoul who once ran a channel dedicated to videos in which he pretends to be the viewer’s boyfriend.

The videos showed him acting like he was on a video call with a lover, asking viewers how their day was or inviting them to dinner at the new Italian restaurant in town. He spoke in sleepy, soothing tones with a slight Korean accent and peppered his speech with occasional Korean phrases.
According to Heo, the channel has amassed 14,000 followers, mostly foreign women in their 20s who were interested in Korean culture, but he closed the channel after meeting his girlfriend Harriet, who is from the UK.

Instead, the duo created an “international couple” channel titled “Jin and Hattie.”

The channel mainly consists of videos where they “play” with each other based on misunderstandings and differences in their cultures.
A video, titled “Pranking Jealously on My Korean Boyfriend,” shows Harriet wearing short dresses in front of Heo, who asks her to dress more modestly.

“Don’t forget to wear your ring,” he says before Harriet cracks the joke and they hug. The comments below the video – mostly from English-speaking female fans – praise the respect Heo has for his now-wife.

Since its launch in February 2020, the channel has gained 70,000 subscribers a month, according to analytics service Socialblade, and now has 1.7 million subscribers. Although the couple says the channel was never meant to be a business, their channels across multiple platforms have over 3.5 million subscribers combined.

money roulette

Hugh Gwon, a YouTube channel management consultant, is one of the original creators of “international couple” content. He said couples channel creators with more than one million subscribers can earn between 30 and 50 million won ($23,000 to $38,000) for each sponsored video.

But the value of gender goes beyond dollar signs — it’s also about helping couples adjust to cultural differences. Gwon and his Australian wife Nichola have a blog called “My Korean Husband” that discusses intercultural marriage and reflects on how attitudes towards these relationships are changing.

Nichola says the image of Korean men has transformed since meeting her husband 10 years ago in Sydney. Back then, she got used to hearing prejudiced comments, such as colleagues saying that her husband was handsome “for an Asian”.

When she Googled “Korean husband” after their engagement, most of the results were horror stories of Southeast Asian migrant wives married to abusive Korean men. Today, the search yields pictures of Korean celebrities and their blog, along with a Quora link to an anonymous user asking how to find a Korean husband.

She says the best “international couples” channels promote cultural understanding, but warns that some are just selling looks and costumes. The reality, she says, is that women who are serious about settling down with a Korean husband must recognize that there will be cultural differences to adjust to, such as living in a society known for long working hours and patriarchal gender norms.

“(At first) you’re going to the Han River on picnics, and it’s all wonderful and you feel like you’re in a K-drama, but then what is the reality of actually having a family in Korea?” she said.

‘A Temporary Pleasure’

Unfortunately, some women discover upon their arrival that the men they meet are not as perfect as the ones portrayed on screen.

Mina, a 20-year-old student from Morocco, said K-pop and Korean TV shows influenced her decision to come to the southern city of Busan in 2021.
The men she saw on TV were described as “rich, good-looking, respectful men who protect you,” she said.

But during her nights out, she was groped in a bar and offered sex by strangers on the street. She felt that some Korean men tended to believe that foreign women are more open to casual sex than local women.

“We are a temporary pleasure,” she said, adding, “Men are men, humans are the same everywhere.” Since then, she has lost the pleasure of Korean TV shows and no longer wants to date Korean men.

Quandra Moore, a 27-year-old English teacher from Washington, came to Seoul in 2017 and looked for a partner through dating apps and at nightclubs. But she was also disappointed. She encountered racist attitudes – being rejected by someone who told her to “go back to Africa” – and found that many men seemed only interested in sex.

In her experience, Korean men treated foreign women differently. “Why can’t we have dinner first? It’s so gross. They know Korean women will not tolerate this,” she said.

It’s a point Lee, the researcher, echoed, saying that some men felt they could mistreat foreign women with impunity because, as foreigners, they were limited to smaller social circles.

Yet such is the appeal that even those who have bad experiences are not always put off. Some women who returned home disappointed told Lee that they felt it was their fault that they hadn’t found the ideal man and would come back and try harder next time.

“They clearly see that not all Korean men are (perfect), but they just need an alternative to the disappointing dating market in their home countries,” she said.

“They really can’t let it go because they expect the ideal dating relationships to exist somewhere in the world,” she said.