Blogpost 2: "WHY is K-Pop so popular?"

In my first blog post, I mentioned that I was a K-Pop fan right? Whenever people find out, they'd immediately ask me "What's there to like in K-Pop?" Someone posted a similar question at Yahoo! Answers Singapore and most of the answers say that they like it because of its catchy tunes, colorful styles and music video themes, cool dance steps, and of course, the good-looking idols

Zoe Chace listed in her report in Planet Money (a blog under the non-profit media organization NPR) the reasons how Korean Pop music became a worldwide success. She said that South Korea has been preparing for the moment where K-Pop would break through the international market since 20 years ago. They've been recruiting, training, debuting, and sending young people on tours around Asia to introduce K-Pop.

Like in Aura Dione's song America, "If you make it in america you can make it anywhere". Here are the three reasons that helped K-Pop get a shot at making it in America: First, they decided to produce pop music as they produce cars. Industrializing and exporting it. They “manufacture” idols through rigorous training from singing to dancing, to learning a new language. Second, record companies changed how songs are debuted. Instead of the radio, they would release it on television making it easier to remember since you can watch it. The third one is through the internet. They could reach out more to their fans since most of their target market is on the internet.

YouTube became an effective way for the worldwide spread of South Korean pop music. Originally, companies posted on the site for the local fans but with the help of the statistics provided by Google, the record labels realized that the videos have views that come from other countries. With this they decided to cultivate their pop music and culture more and export it.

Since South Korea is a fairly small country, they counted mostly on their automobile and electronic exports in order to increase their country's income. For them, K-Pop or the entire Korean wave serves as the bridge that could connect them to more consumers worldwide.