Growing up with K-pop

[sadude]

I came across this article the other day - Growing up with K-pop: Two friends tell the story of their friendship through every generation of K-pop.

Sharing here because while it's a personal telling, it's actually a great history of K-pop and its popularity surge. It breaks up K-pop into 5 different generations, and includes some amazing stats:

Until around 2012, K-pop expanded at a pace that felt possible to keep up with. The industry was carefully managed by a handful of labels, and only a few groups debuted each year. From 1992 to 2002, often referred to as K-pop's first generation, just 33 groups debuted.
The second generation of K-pop (roughly 2003-2011) marked a shift from the industry's earlier restraint. 81 new acts emerged in just over 9 years, including generation-defining groups like Girls' Generation and BIGBANG. [...]

What had once been a carefully gated system became a full-blown explosion in K-pop's third generation (roughly 2012-2017) [...]. In just six years, 327 groups debuted, and the annual numbers rose at a staggering pace: 40 new acts in 2012, 60 by 2014, and 86 in 2017. [...]

I must have felt this on some level, because the early 2010s was when my attachment to K-pop began to fade.

^ Spot on for me as well, wow.

[Shoujo Q]

Yeah I felt the same way. It got to a point where new groups were coming out every week and disbanding just as quickly.

It got to a point where I’d find a group, fall in love with their music and then after a year or two they just stopped everything and disbanded.

They trained these kids for years just for a burst of fame and if they didn’t make it they dumped them.

I think I really got turned off by realizing how bad the Kpop system was to their talents.

It really drove it home after the deaths in Kara and Shinee.

While I’ll still occasionally listen to Kpop songs it just doesn’t grab me as much as it once did. A lot of it just comes off as very fake and manufactured now. It’s lost its sparkle.

[Ap2000]

I wish the article went more in depth about their personal relationship in light of Kpop, considering the title. But it was still a nice overview and despite being a white dude from Austria, I understood their sentiments. Nobody I knew back then listened to Kpop, not even my friends who studied Japanese with me. Around 2010 or so that changed and especially the boy bands became more popular in the west.

I started listening to Kpop in 2008 and I think I stopped actively following shortly after Twice debuted (2015). That was the last thing I remember watching. Not the show, but the MV for Like Ooh-Ahh, which despite the stupid title is a very fun and catchy pop song. Over a decade ago. Why are you making me feel old, sadude?

As with things I used to listen to nearly daily, like Morning Musume, Metallica or System of a down, I still listen to Kpop every now and then, but only the songs from back then. The only artist I still somewhat follow is Taeyeon, since she is the best Kpop idol of all time!

I'm a bit surprised they didn't mention both Parasite and Squid Game, since they had such a huge impact in the west, but I guess that can be seen as part of the "K-culture" they mention.

I remember watching Psy teach the “Gangnam Style” dance to Britney Spears on Ellen and getting chills. There was something thrilling about watching the world finally catch up to what we already knew. Korean music wasn’t just “foreign.” It was fun, silly, catchy, and unmissable.

I had a similar experience, being over at a friend's flat, we were having some drinks and somehow Gangnam Style came on on TV or Youtube. They all liked it, because it was damn catchy, and I told them about what the song actually is about.