They seem like isolated phenomena, but Bong Joon Ho’s 2020 Oscar for Best Film Parasite, the viral phenomenon of the Netflix Round 6 series, and the pop avalanche called BTS are part of a cultural upheaval that is sweeping South Korea at the center of world pop culture.
As the world’s political magnetic pole leaves the United States towards the East, it is neither traditional Chinese culture nor the frenzy of pop produced in Japan that emerge as a language willing to dominate the world – but the rise of Korean culture .
There is even a term to designate this new moment, which again has nothing – the cultural phenomenon Hallyu, which can be translated as “Korean wave”, had its seeds sown in the last decade of the last century.
But the year 2021 is fundamental in this turning point. The word “hallyu” itself was introduced into the Oxford English dictionary this year, as was 25 other terms.
Words like banchan, dongchimi, galbi, kimbap and samgyeopsal refer to dishes or ingredients in the increasingly popular Korean cuisine.
But terms like skinship (very close physical contact between relatives, family or friends), trot (a genre of pop music), oppa (a term for a girl’s older brother), mukbang (videos in which people eat a lot of food while talk to spectators) and PC Bang (networked computers that can be rented to customers, like the old Internet cafes in Brazil) show that this domain goes far beyond the kitchen.
South Korea’s political and economic leap is a very recent phenomenon and shows the rise of one of the poorest countries in the world, when the Korean War ended in the 1950s, becoming one of the main global players in this century.
South Korea’s industrialization process advances mainly in the 1990s, when, with heavy government investments, the country becomes, alongside Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan, one of the so-called four Asian Tigers, countries with developing economies that began to change the face of the Orient.
The 1997 economic crisis hit these countries, but the Korean government took out loans from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to strengthen companies called “chaebol” – large family corporations that bet on different areas of products and services.
It was during this period that brands such as Samsung, Hyundai, LG, SK, among others, began to dominate local markets, gradually reaching countries such as China, Japan, Hong Kong, Thailand, Brunei, Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Taiwan and Vietnam.
The role of the peasants’ son who became the country’s main political agent, Kim Dae-jung, who presided over South Korea from 1998 to 2003 (he even won the 2000 Nobel Peace Prize), was crucial for this new moment.
He, who has been imprisoned several times in his political life, emerged in the late 1990s as a visionary who considered the possibility of the country becoming an international political influence.
Investment in infrastructure was essential and Dae-jung bet on transforming South Korea into an internet-connected country. Early in the 21st century, the country became one of the first to offer broadband on a massive scale to its entire population, something unthinkable 20 years earlier, when the country did not even have running water for its population.
In addition to allowing travel abroad, the president also banned censorship on controversial topics. The combination of these two measures has given rise to a generation of new artists. These, in turn, were funded by the chaebol themselves, who invested, based on Dae-jung’s own guidance, in culture.
The inspiration was the North American culture and how brands from that country managed to pave the way for their politics and economy to influence the planet.
From Coca-Cola to Levi’s jeans to Apple computers, Hollywood movies, Marlboro cigarettes and pop music were central to expanding America’s influence in the rest of the world. And that’s how South Korea began its cultural domination of the planet.
First there were the TV series, which started out being successful in neighboring countries, but which little by little arrived in the West.
South Korea’s cuisine and cosmetics industry was also crucial to this expansion – the very concept of skincare has exploded globally thanks to Korean companies.
But it was pop music that broke the ultimate barriers.
With the letter K as a differential – K-Pop came to designate music made in the country -, the way in which music was made on an industrial scale entered a production model that created boy bands and girl groups that little by little came out of what it was apparently exotic to become simply popular.
Just four artists that rose between the first and second decade of this century, Bang, Super Junior, PSY and Girls’ Generation – have sold more than 200 million records worldwide.
PSY specifically starred in the first YouTube video to surpass the site’s first billion views in 2013 with the picturesque “Gangnam Style” video.
2021, therefore, only saw the consolidation of a wave that promises to keep growing. We no longer refer, for example, to the group BTS as the biggest K-Pop band in the world – they are the biggest pop group in the world, with phenomenal numbers.
The group formed by V, Suga, Jin, Jungkook, RM, Jimin and J-Hope surpassed 11 billion plays on the Korean streaming service MelOn.
At the same time, one of its members (V) reached 10 million fans on Instagram and the group had three in the top 10 songs in the US (“Butter” at the top, “Dynamite” at second and “Permission To Dance” fifth).
This equated them with giant American artists like Ariana Grande and Drake. In addition, BTS recorded a single, “My Universe”, with English group Coldplay.
2021 marked the year they embraced English in their music. The hit “Butter”, for example, was heard 11 million times the day it was released. And this in a year when the group only released songs – and didn’t release any albums.
For 2022, the climb should continue dizzying. After online shows and a series of in-person performances in the United States, BTS is getting ready to resume shows in March of next year, which should mark, as the group announced earlier this month, a “new chapter” in its story.
In addition to speculation about a new album, there is also talk of a tour around the world (which would start in the South Korean capital, Seoul, and which could even come to Brazil).
Bong Joon Ho, in turn, is preparing two films: one of horror, spoken in Korean, as Parasite; and another, in English (like their previous hits Okja and The Express of Tomorrow), which would be about a real event that took place in 2016.
He is also expected to produce a derivative and westernized series of Parasite as a series for HBO. Meanwhile, Netflix makes a mystery about the second season of Round 6 and hunts for other productions in the country to include in its catalogue.
Apparently, 2021 was just the beginning of the Korean invasion…
Reference: CNN Brasil
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