Society. Spaces. Screens

Abstract

In the early 1990s, Korean pop music, also known as K-pop, began expanding its fandom beyond national borders, initially spreading across various parts of Southeast and East Asia before achieving global popularity by the 2010s. K-pop is the most prominent element of the Korean Wave, or Hallyu, which refers to the global phenomenon of South Korean popular culture sweeping through nations around the world. The United States is no exception to the Korean Wave. For instance, the K-drama “Squid Game” hit the U.S. in 2021 and became the biggest show ever on Netflix. Given this popularity, this study examines why so many people are fascinated by Korean popular culture and the impacts K-pop and K-drama may have on people’s worldviews. It also aims to understand the consumption of K-pop and K-drama in the context of racial hierarchy in the United States and ongoing social activism challenging the racial status quo. The “perpetual foreigner” and “model minority” myths have been powerful ideologies that marginalize Asians as “others” and function to divide them from Black and Latinx people. Do people who enjoy K-pop and K-dramas tend to engage in less negative stereotyping of Asians? Are they more concerned about anti-Asian hate incidents and more likely to engage in the #StopAAPIHate social activism? This study answers these questions through analyzing 21 in-depth interviews, with most participants (18) being people of color.