Squid Game, Blackpink, K-pop and K-drama make South Korea a cultural superpower

Evan Barringer was 14 years old when he stumbled upon Full House, a South Korean romance in which two strangers are forced to share a house.

Sitting at home in Memphis, he began playing on the assumption that it was an Asian remake of a beloved American sitcom from the 1980s. It's not until the third episode that he realizes that they have nothing in common except a name. But he was hooked.

This accidental choice changed his life. Twelve years later, he is an English teacher in South Korea – and he says he loves it here: “I got to try all the food I saw in K-dramas, and I got to see a lot of Korean food.” – Concert pop artists whose lyrics are used to study the Korean language.

When Evan discovered Full House in 2012, South Korean entertainment was a flash in the world's eye. Psy's Gangnam Style was the most popular K-pop song at the time.

Today, there are an estimated 220 million Korean entertainment fans around the world – four times the population of South Korea. Squid Game, the most popular show ever on Netflix, has just returned for its long-awaited second season.

How did we get here?

Experts say the so-called Korean Wave swept the world, when live-streaming success met American-inspired production value. Korean entertainment – ​​from pop music and lighthearted dramas to hit songs based on universal themes – was ready for it.

BTS and Blackpink are now household names on the global pop circuit. From Dubai to India to Singapore, people are swooning over exhilarating K-dramas. Overseas sales of all this Korean content — including video games — are now worth billions.

Last month, after poet and novelist Han Kang, 53, won the Nobel Prize for her literature, online boards were filled with memes referring to the “triumph of culture” in South Korea — a reference to the popular video game series “Civilization.”

There were jokes about how the country was fulfilling the dream of founding father Kim Koo, who famously wrote that he wished Korea would become a nation of culture rather than a nation of power.

As it turns out, this moment has been years in the making.

After the military dictatorship in South Korea ended in 1987, censorship was relaxed and several television channels were launched. A generation of creatives quickly emerged who grew up with a love of Hollywood and hip-hop, says Hye Seung-chung, an assistant professor of Korean film studies at the University at Buffalo.

Around the same time, South Korea grew rapidly wealthy, benefiting from booming automobile and electronics exports. Money from conglomerates, or small companies as they are known, poured into film and television production, giving it a Hollywood-like sheen.

They own much of the industry, from production to cinemas. So they were willing to spend on filmmaking without worrying about losses, says Professor Chung.

Meanwhile, K-pop became a local rage in the mid-1990s, leading to the success of groups like HOT and Shinhwa.

This inspired agencies to replicate Japan's harsh artist management system.

Young talents are discovered, often in their teens, and signed to long-term contracts in which they become “perfect” artists, with squeaky clean images and over-managed public personas. As the regime took control, he transformed K-Pop, creating more and more idols.

By the 2000s, Korean television shows and K-pop music had achieved great success in East and Southeast Asia. But it was live streaming that took them out into the world and into the lives of anyone with a smartphone.

That's when the recommendation engine took over – it was essential in motivating fans of Korean culture, taking them from one show to another, covering different genres and even different platforms.

Evan says he's bothered by the 16-hour episodes of Full House. He loved the way it took to build the romance, from the banter and bickering to the attraction, unlike the American shows he knew.

“I was fascinated by every cultural difference I saw — and I noticed they didn't wear shoes at home,” he recalls. So he embraced Netflix's suggestions for more Korean comedies. He soon found himself listening to show soundtracks, and was drawn to K-pop.

He has now started watching variety shows, a type of reality TV show where comedians go through a series of challenges together.

As they work on recommendations, fans are immersed in a world that seems strange yet familiar — a world that ultimately includes kimchi jjiji, a spicy kimchi soup, and kalguksu, a seafood and kelp broth.

When Mary Jade first visited South Korea, she went in search of a bowl of kimchi jjigae, as she had seen the stars do on screen many times.

“I was crying (as I ate it).” “It was very hot,” she says. “I thought, 'Why did you ask for this? They eat it up at every show.'

Marie, an aspiring French actress, now lives in Seoul. Originally a fan of K-pop, she then discovered K-dramas and learned the Korean language. She has starred in a few cameo roles as well. “I got lucky and I absolutely love it,” she says.

For Mary, food was a big part of the appeal because she had seen a variety of it in K-dramas. She says seeing how the characters build relationships around food was familiar to her, having grown up in the French countryside in Burgundy.

But there's also the promise of romance, which drew Marie Namur to South Korea from her native Belgium. She started watching K-dramas on a whim, after visiting South Korea, but says she continued because she was “pretty attracted to all these beautiful Korean men.”

“(It's) impossible love stories between a very rich guy and a usually poor girl, and you know, the guy is there to save her and he's really selling you a dream.”

But Korean women are the ones writing most of these shows – so it's their imagination or fantasies that capture the attention (and hearts) of other women around the world.

In Seoul, Mary said she was “treated like a lady,” something that had not happened “in a very long time,” but her “dating experience was not quite what she expected.”

“I don't want to be a housewife. I want to keep working. I want to be free. I want to go to clubs with my girlfriends if I want to, even though I'm married or in a relationship, and a lot of guys here don't want that.”

Professor Chung says international fans often seek out an alternative universe due to disillusionment with their own community.

The raw romances, with handsome, caring, chivalrous heroes, appeal to a female audience turned away from what they see as over-sexualized American entertainment. As social inequality became a stronger theme in Korean films and shows – such as Parasite and Squid Game – they attracted global viewers disillusioned with capitalism and the widening wealth divide in their countries.

Striving for a global audience has also brought challenges. The increasing use of English words in K-pop has led to some criticism.

There is now a greater spotlight on the less glamorous side of the industry. For example, stars face enormous pressure to be perfect, and the demands of a highly competitive industry. The creators behind the popular shows have alleged that they have been exploited and complained that they did not receive fair compensation.

However, it's great to see the world taking an interest in Korea, says Professor Chung. I grew up in repressive South Korea, when critics of the government were regularly threatened or even killed. I escaped to American films.

When she played “Parasite” at her small American town cinema, she saw on the faces of other moviegoers the same awe she felt as a child watching Hollywood movies: “It's a wonderful feeling that our love is back.”