K-pop is defined by catchy music, synchronized dances, and devoted fans

Hallyu, or 'Korean wave' is the phenomenal expansion of Korean culture around the world

Described as a sort of “soft power,” South Korea managed to dominate the world with tools like “Squid Game,” “Parasite,” or BTS instead of military force. Skincare, music, movies, television, and food are just some industries that have boomed and grown in popularity in recent years.

K-pop is one of South Korea's biggest exports

Writer Vivian Yoon could never have imagined that the music she secretly loved as a kid growing up in Los Angeles’ Koreatown would become the phenomenon it is today. In this 14-part podcast, Yoon takes the deepest dive into the history of K-pop, a surprising journey that passes through the 1992 LA riots and a hip-hop club in Seoul once frequented by Black American GIs.

An introduction to becoming a K-pop superfan

K-pop is not a genre but rather an ever-evolving industry. This resource breaks down the different eras of K-pop. Learn how the first generation, with bands like H.O.T., evolved into today’s fourth generation, where idols can train and debut outside South Korea. Find new groups to listen to, and appreciate the diversity of the different groups’ sounds.

The South Korean government invests in K-pop

While it can feel like K-pop's popularity appeared in the West out of nowhere, there have been longstanding efforts to make it take off in countries around the world. The Korean government invested in its culture for a more powerful future during a financial crisis in Asia. From building huge auditoriums to refining hologram technology, South Korea's Ministry of Culture has devoted huge sums to ensure the success of K-pop.

The hypercompetitive world of becoming a K-pop star

K-pop, a global $8B industry, rose from its 1990s regional roots to worldwide fame thanks to hits like “Gangnam Style.” Trainees endure years of intense training in performance and media skills, with only 4% to 5% debuting.

How K-pop conquered the world

How did Korean musical acts go from unpopular and at times maligned to filling arenas and creating one of the most viral music videos of all time? This 25-minute audio documentary from BBC World Service explains how social networks, plastic surgery, and government tax breaks helped turn K-pop into the multibillion-dollar global juggernaut we know today.

K-pop increased the visibility of Asians in American media

Yale sociologist Grace Kao speaks about the massive cultural impacts the world has received from K-pop’s success. The academic talks about the genres K-pop borrows from, the visibility that groups like BTS gave to the Asian community in the media. The resource also features an intro playlist curated by Kao for those interested in getting into the music.

South Koreans appear to be losing interest in K-pop

K-pop fandoms don’t seem to be losing steam in the US, but apparently, South Korean fans are less interested in their domestic music industry. A number of factors could be contributing to this dwindling passion, such as scandals with idols, BTS’ hiatus, and less dependency on media after COVID-19. Currently, there’s no panic that the industry is dying, but there is increasing concern that the future will not be quite as bright as the past.

Listening to K-pop in North Korea is punishable by execution

As far as we know, North Koreans are instead listening to music that serves as public service announcements or some catchy electronic music for dancing.

Trot: Korea's melancholic pop that came before K-pop

Following the end of the Japanese occupation, Koreans shared their complex emotions through a musical genre called trot. Blending sorrowful lyrics with upbeat music, trot was used to dance the pain away after a difficult period.

Seo Taiji and the Boys are considered the first 'true' K-pop idols

This article explains how the success of a rebellious '90s boy band inclined an industry to capitalize on that success and meticulously craft new generations of stars. While BTS exhibits major talent and charm, their rise may partially result from a formula for mass appeal that music executives cultivated.

PSY—GANGNAM STYLE

One of the first K-pop songs to reach a critical mass of fans in markets far outside of South Korea was 'Gangnam Style'—a lighthearted, catchy track from Korean rapper Psy that soon had fans around the world trying out the music video’s signature horse-riding dance. The video for the song, which was uploaded to YouTube in July 2012, was also the first on the platform to reach 1 billion views.

There are roughly 7,000 Korean restaurants in the US

A generation ago, the average American had never heard of kimchi or bulgogi, but these days, Korean cuisine is booming in the United States. And it’s no accident. This one-minute explainer video from Morning Brew reveals what role the government played in boosting the popularity of Korean food abroad, and what it all has to do with foreign debt and soap operas.

Blackpink are the most followed female group on Spotify

The widespread popularity of the four-piece girl group Blackpink has built a large community of fans—called Blink—and proven the success of unconventional marketing strategies. Instead of producing a wealth of content and new material, Blackpink releases albums slowly, building tension for their fans. During their musical breaks, the women continue to build on their icon status, working with luxury brands like Chanel or even guest-starring in major American TV shows like “The Idol.”

Netflix's 'KPop Demon Hunters' is the streamer's most-watched original movie

The 2025 film, which combines K-pop music and Korean mythology, became a big hit on the streaming platform. It was equally successful in its limited theatrical release, shooting to the top of the box office rankings.

The 1980s neo-pop movement put pop art back in the zeitgeist

Pop art’s legacy is perhaps best exemplified in its longevity. Long after the end of pop art’s classical phase, a neo-pop revival ushered in a new cohort of artists like Murakami, Hirst, and Koons who brought pop once again to the top. To this day, contemporary pop artists—young and seasoned—command high prices on the open market.

Experts don’t believe upbeat tunes, called ‘recession pop,’ are legitimate recession indicators

Social media users have begun deeming pop music by the likes of Kesha and Katy Perry a “recession indicator” as they try to predict the next economic downturn.

South Korea is separated from North Korea by a demilitarized zone

There’s a lot of symbolism going on in the South Korean flag: a red-and-blue yin-yang represents the harmony created by opposing forces, and the white background represents peace and purity. The four black trigrams symbolize the four elements. The CIA World Factbook has more info on this country of 52 million, including where it ranks globally on obesity rates, energy consumption, and more.

How to eat Korean food

If you don’t know your banchan from your bibimbap, Chef Seoyoung Jung offers a quick breakdown of the anatomy of a typical Korean meal. She also gives some useful do's and don'ts for Korean mealtimes, including why you should always place your rice bowl to the left of the soup bowl (and never pick it up while you’re eating)

Hip-hop is both a music and a culture

While the word is often used to describe the popular genre, it’s historically been used to describe the culture that sprang up around the music in 1970s New York, including breakdancing and graffiti.

Taylor Swift's one-note melody increases her relatability

Despite music’s variety, a few musical elements have been scientifically proven to make a song compelling to listeners. Swift's one-note melody helps her songs mimic the cadence of speech, assisting in her storytelling and accessible image.

The classic girl group sound arrived with doo-wop

Doo-wop was a vocal-based pop music popular in the ‘50s that coincided with the rise of early rock ‘n’ roll. The mid-tempo, harmony-heavy songs about teenage life provided the template for the girl group sound, which arrived at the end of the decade.

Koji Kondo composed the game’s iconic soundtrack with a limited palette of sounds

The game’s soundtrack and effects were limited by the Nintendo Entertainment System’s 8-bit hardware, which had significantly fewer sounds than a typical synthesizer. That didn’t stop Kondo from writing some of the most recognizable video game music in history.

Why patterns in art are so pleasing

Repeated visual cues like shapes or lines derive from the brain's innate compulsion to identify faces, places, bodies, and more. With repeated shapes, the brain seeks out resolution to the subtle variations between them. See examples in art and music.

How Eurovision became a part of queer culture

Academic Matt Weaver analyzes how the Eurovision Song Contest's camp aesthetics, inclusive mission, and international stage have attracted a sizeable gay following and how that audience is sometimes at odds with the political positions of the contest's competing nations.

Hear 50 years of iconic hip-hop samples, the genre's foundational looped tracks

Fast-casual restaurant Chili's is experiencing a resurgence, with its parent company recently reporting a nearly 32% increase in sales, thanks to passionate Gen Z fans on TikTok.

A pickleball's loud 'pop' sound can reach 120 decibels, which is equivalent to a hammer hitting a nail

'Shogun,' a 1980s TV series, helped popularize sushi in the US by stimulating an American interest in Japanese culture.

Memecoins are a type of cryptocurrency—a form of digital currency with a wide variety of uses—created around popular 'memes,' or viral internet jokes.

Netflix profits when you're not watching, and its movies are designed that way—read a detail-rich critical essay exposing lesser-known Netflix takes

Mid-century modern graphic designers, known for their bright colors and bold lines in advertising, also found success with children's books.

Massive blooms of microscopic plankton called dinoflagellates produce the neon blue light seen in glowing tides.

Prince's sexually explicit 1984 track 'Darling Nikki' attracted the ire of the Parents Music Resource Center, an advocacy group that inspired the Parental Advisory sticker, even though the song ends with a Christian message.

'Saturday Night Fever,' the 1977 film that introduced disco to the mainstream, was based on a fabricated magazine story.

Learn how to read a prospectus, the juicy document that any company must file with the SEC before going public.

This site reaches millions of visitors who are tired of AI chatbots and seeking human connection. Pretend to be an AI chatbot and ask questions, provide answers, and draw for people in real time.

In preparation for this weekend's Eurovision finale, which is something like the World Cup of pop music, here's a young Céline Dion performing (for Switzerland?) at the 1988 competition.

SpongeBob exemplifies Aristotle's philosophy for living well because he understands that happiness doesn't come from external factors like money, recognition, or power.

In 2026, Finland was named the world's happiest country for the ninth consecutive year based on its wealth, social safety network, and high life expectancy, among other factors.

Sony set the standard for cylinder-shaped batteries when it repurposed manufacturing equipment used to make rolls of magnetic recording tape.

Some Pokémon have been named after real and fictional organisms, while some real-world species have been named after Pokémon, such as Chilicola charizard and Binburrum zapdos.

Browse a detailed visual analysis of over 200,000 similes—comparisons that often use 'like' or 'as'—from popular fiction to see how frequently writers the same idiomatic expressions.

Crows are believed to have intelligence on par with a seven-year-old child and demonstrate complex behaviors, from problem-solving with tools to recognizing human faces.

According to the physics of black holes, our 4D reality may be a hologram—a projection of information coded on a 2D surface on the edge of the universe.

The word 'jazz' evolved from 'jasm,' 19th-century American slang for 'energy'

Art theft is the third-largest source of criminal revenues worldwide, thanks in part to the subjective nature of valuing a work of art.

Shooting stars, or meteors, are fragments of asteroids and comets that burn up as they enter Earth's atmosphere, creating streaks in the sky called meteor showers.

The hormonal disorder PCOS was renamed PMOS in 2026, a move designed to improve care and research by shifting the focus to the hormonal causes of this condition that affects 1 in 8 women.

US consumers collectively owe more than $1T to credit card companies—almost as much as they owe in auto loans.