K-pop As A Subculture And Its Influence On The World
Korean pop music is a worldwide movement that emerged in South Korea in the beginning of the 21st century that shaped contemporary agriculture music film and TV in a major international light. Although South Korean culture and customs go back a long way in a modern era of music and lifestyle, American influence and thousands of years seek to overrule the old traditions. Therefore, the big question is how South Korea was influenced by globalization?
The Korean pop or K-pop music is a common South Korean song genre. K-pop may have returned back to the early 1990s, but it has become famous since the 2000s. Yet all began in 1992 with the boy group 'Seo taiji and boys,' who differed from Korean culture in their way of dressing and rapping, yet their message was obviously korean that no one saw anything of this nature, they were also recognized as the President of culture. Therefore, after Seo taiji and people, the three largest entertainment companies are 'SM Entertainment, JYP and YG Entertainment'. The most famous bands and individual singers in Asia, especially in Japan at the beginning of the 2000s, were launched by these companies. However, in 2012 because of the huge popularity in the 'Gagman style' of PSY the wave in Korea became a worldwide phenomenon. K-pop has a different and unique culture, particularly among fans. Every band and singer have its own fandom names and special meaning, for instance a girl band called' Red Velvet' their fandom name is ' ReVeulv' because Red Velvet love their fans. It's pronounced' Re-Ve-Love.'. Also, the importance of light sticks something you don’t see it in any other pop culture. It is common in K-pop culture, in which it has considered a symbolic figure, and represents fans ' love and support. Many fandoms do that to show their appreciation and their interest, for instance advertise and promote their favorite artists in one of the biggest screens in Time square in New York during birthdays or combacks for a week that costs about $30,000.
The origins of modern Korean music can be credited all the way back to 1885, when a preacher named Henry Appenzeller began teaching schoolchildren American and British traditional songs, replacing the original English lyrics with Korean ones. Such songs, known as changega, were compiled and outlawed by the Japanese during their Korean rule from 1910 to 1945, while many changga's lyrics condemned the colonial oppressors of Korea.
K-Pop is a government-funded, deliberate initiative aimed at growing South Korea's global influence. Make it highly political. For example, in 2016 north korea set off a nuclear blast in North Korea's “Punggye-ri” nuclear test site. however, south korea responded by blasting Korean pop music until 2018 they stopped when the inter-Korean summit took place on the South Korean side of the Joint Security Area.This also has a major part to play in South Korea's economy, which has captured people around the world's interest not just in music, but in the country's culture and traditions. Especially after the financial crisis faced in 1998 by South Korea, which resulted in a 7% loss in Gross National Product (GNP), because of how powerful K-pop's influence people began learning more about the country's culture, food, and language, some people even moved to South Korea to pursue their education or become a singer.
Consequently, K-pop has thrived not only in Asia but in other parts of the world such as America, Latin America and Europe. The influence of this topic has allowed most Korean bands to release songs in English and have been invited to American talk shows, television shows and music awards in which attracted lots of people. In addition, Korea's major label like SM Entertainment, YG, and JYP have maintained collaboration with Western and latin artists like Steve Aoki, Dua lipa, Leslie grace and etc. K-pop has gone from being a small genre to a $5 billion global industry because of those labels and the way they managed K-pop to be recognized worldwide. K-pop has also reached the middle east with its success. In April 2018 several celebrities had a concert in Dubai on the most successful SM entertainment concerts known as the 'SMtown World Tour' due to their immense success. Moreover, Korean tv programs had opportunities to film in UAE.
In conclusion, Korean pop music has a wide presence in a subculture. As we all know, music is universal and people all over the world related to K-Pop do not even understand the language, even though the music itself is in Korean. Thus, by growing the economy and the number of visitors, South Korea has benefited from this. Hence, the big 3 companies which are “SM Entertainment, YG, and JYP” are private sectors but play part of the economy in the country. The number of fans is increasing also lots of people as we said before travel to south Korea because of the pop culture and dramas. Lastly, Korean pop music has a strong impact to the globe just like the American pop culture.
