20 years of Hallyu, achievements and future strategies.
The Korean Wave, which started in China and Southeast Asia, is expanding beyond Asia to the global market.
Early Korean Wave criticism and apocalypse were excessive rain.
Now, the genre of Hallyu is also diversifying from dramas and K-pop to movies and webtoons.
This article looks back on the footsteps and meanings of the Korean Wave over the past 20 years,
and presents future strategies based on the achievements and limitations of the past.
The meaning of 20 years of Hallyu.
As BTS' popularity grew day by day in 2019, BTS appeared at Ed Sullivan Theater,
the Beatles' U.S. debut venue, and set up a Beatles homage stage on CBS TV's popular talk and verifier program,
The Late Show. At the home of pop, BTS declared to the world that BTS is the icon of the era following the Beatles.
In the early days of the Korean Wave,
BTS' Beatles homage stage can be said to be a symbol of the success of the Korean Wave
because they were cynically criticized, "Is Korean popular music the Beatles?"
Twenty years have passed since the "Korean Wave" became known to the world.
The Korean Wave began when "What Is Love" and "Star in My Heart" attracted millions of viewers in Asia, and
"Clone" and HOT changed the fashion style of teenagers in the region.
However, in the early days, most of them were pessimistic about the Korean Wave.
Criticism continued, "The Korean Wave will soon follow in the footsteps of Hong Kong movies,"
"Isn't it too much fuss over what will end soon?"
"How does low-quality popular culture such as sewage waste represent our culture?"
"It's not our culture that copied Japanese and Western cheap popular culture."
These critics underestimated the fact that Korean content's overseas expansion was a desperate struggle to live.
A representative of a famous agency said, "Our entry into the world was made because we could no longer endure in Korea.
"We had no choice but to go abroad to make a living," he explained his motivation for entering the world.
It can be said that the current Korean Wave is the result of someone helping or not advancing overseas because of good conditions,
but seeking overseas expansion to survive the cultural content industry in the poor domestic situation at the time.
This is not the only thing. When big hits such as "Winter Sonata" and "Daejanggeum" came out,
the media criticized the success of the Korean Wave, but if the boom subsided even a little,
"Look at it," and "It was a bubble that would eventually turn off easily."
However, interestingly, the Korean Wave took a leap forward every time a crisis hit.
Immediately after "Winter Sonata" and "Daejanggeum," when "The Korean Wave is Now Over,"
there was a K-pop boom in Japan, centered on Kara and Girls' Generation.
K-pop, who thought it had achieved its goal by entering the Japanese music market,
began to enter the West, which was considered impossible,
with the success of SM Town performances in France and the emergence of Psy.
When it was thought that the core content of the Korean Wave was focused on K-pop,
killer content such as "My Love from the Star" and "Descendants of the Sun" appeared in dramas
that had been quiet for a while. And Hallyu content, which has been lulled since then,
is now emerging as a global market beyond Asia. In K-pop, BTS and BLACKPINK,
as well as OTT such as Netflix, <Crash Landing on You>, <Itaewon Class>,
and <Seungriho> are penetrating into the world's home theaters,
and <Parasite> and <Minari> are becoming world-class topics in the movie market.
Every success of killer contents is vivid in my memory from the beginning of the Korean Wave to the present,
and it is surprising that the Korean Wave apocalypse and criticism have been constantly raised in the meantime.
It is now meaningless to say when the end of the Korean Wave is.
Asia, the Korean Wave, the anti-Korean Wave.
The Korean Wave in 2021 targets the global market, but its start was in Asian countries,
including Taiwan and China, and the Asian market still has the highest proportion.
Market potential in Southeast Asia and South Asia, centered on India, is also rapidly increasing,
so the future value of these regions cannot be ignored.
As seen in China's rapid growth of the content industry in line with economic growth,
rapid economic growth in Asian countries is promoting the demand for content,
and the demand for Korean content in this region is expected to continue to increase.
Until now, cultural similarities in the Asian region have become the basis
for easy understanding and acceptance of the Korean Wave.
However, as the Korean Wave has established itself as a subculture for Asian youth,
concerns about domestic youth immersed in foreign cultures have also emerged as antipathy to the Korean Wave.
Criticism was also great from local intellectuals who were hurt by their cultural pride when they saw
their fans blindly following the Korean Wave.
Recently, some idols' understanding of local culture and
inappropriate behavior have hurt Korea's national image as well as the Korean Wave.
Asia is the region where Korean pop culture is most loved,
the place with the largest number of Hallyu fans, and the largest market for Hallyu.
Continuous love in Asia, the starting point of the Korean Wave,
is an essential requirement for the development of the Korean Wave,
and this requires a smooth relationship with Asian countries and a sufficient understanding of their culture.
In other words, it is necessary to respect the countries that accept and consume
our popular culture and to be careful not to go against their important cultural codes.
The achievements of the Korean Wave.
The primary achievement of the Korean Wave is the amount of overseas exports of cultural content products.
Content exports surged from only about $570 million in 2000 to $9.6154 billion in 2018. In particular,
the export amount of broadcasting content and popular music, which are classified as core Hallyu contents,
is more prominent. Broadcasting exports,
which were only $13 million in 2000, grew nearly 40 times to $500 million in 2018,
and music contents, which were only about $8 million in 2000, surpassed broadcasting content exports in 2018.
Despite the significant growth in exports of Korean Wave content,
the share of the country's total exports is still very small.
In 2017, when the Korean Wave began to expand to the global market,
the proportion of exports of broadcasting contents was 0.087% of the total exports,
0.079% of music exports, and films were lower,
accounting for only 0.007%. Exports of cultural content products are relatively very small.
But let's think about it the other way around.
Even if each genre's exports are less than 0.1% of Korea's total exports,
Hallyu has planted a Korean cultural image around the world,
increased the value of Korean brands, and promoted exports to other industries such as cosmetics,
fashion, and tourism.
Is it necessary to evaluate the value of Hallyu simply as an "export amount"? In the case of popular cultural content,
it is necessary to pay attention to the creation of various values due to
the ripple effect rather than the amount of exports it generates directly.
Hallyu has created a new national brand by applying culture to the image of Korea.
The image of Korea, which was limited to the Korean War and economic development,
has changed. As Hallyu stars become trendsets in global fashion, Korean culture is emerging as a "hip" culture.
Hallyu fans learn Korean, study Korean history, and come to Korea for sightseeing.
With the increasing number of young people around the world who know and understand Korea,
they will become Korea's big assets in the international community in the future.
In addition, the image of Korea formed in this way will expand the ripple effect of Korean popular culture while adding premium.
When it comes to Korean products in the past, the practice of discounting them is changing.
Future Strategy of Hallyu: Challenges to be Solved
Unlike its splendid appearance, the Korean cultural content industry still has many poor parts.
Despite the rapid growth of the Korean Wave,
cultural content companies that lead the Korean Wave are still smaller and less stable than global content companies.
Imagine a big hit without BTS. If someone from BTS goes to the military, Big Hit's fate can also be dangerous.
This is the current status of leading Hallyu companies.
On the other hand, in terms of corporate culture,
the poor working environment, human rights violations of workers,
and mental health problems of popular cultural artists and trainees remain unresolved.
If a Hallyu star commits suicide or a human rights violation problem occurs for idols,
it may hinder the growth of the Hallyu beyond personal misfortune.
Foreign competitors and countries that are wary of the Korean Wave have a strong critical view of the Korean cultural industry system,
so they are closely watching the human rights and mental health issues of popular cultural artists,
which could hamper the Korean Wave at any time.
In the future, it is urgent to improve the working environment problems of cultural industry workers and the safety net of workers.
Policy support is also needed to strengthen the foundation of the Korean Wave industry.
However, due to the nature of the cultural industry that grows in a sense of freedom,
the government's market intervention or direct support for companies should be minimized.
Therefore, the government needs to actively build infrastructure, which is the basis of the industry,
rather than directly supporting content companies or content production.
For example, even if K-pop is sweeping the world, we do not have a proper Arena-class concert hall yet.
There is also no memorial hall or museum to enjoy and experience dramas,
which are the main characters of the Korean Wave.
Even if he won the award at a famous European film festival and won the Academy Award,
the film museum is poor.
Hallyu fans abroad complain that there is no suitable place to enjoy and experience
the Korean Wave even if they visit Korea because they are fascinated by Korean dramas, movies,
and K-pop.
Despite the fact that drama museums, K-pop museums, and film museums
themselves are the historical sites of our popular culture and can be an attractive tourism infrastructure
for foreigners to experience the Korean Wave in person,
we have neglected to prepare for this preparation. Despite the urgency of the project,
it is regrettable that national popular cultural infrastructure projects have not yet been able to make
their first debut due to competition and conflict among local governments seeking to attract it.
The environment of the global cultural industry surrounding the Korean Wave is changing rapidly from day to day.
Due to the consumption of content based on the OTT platform,
the division of genres between movies and dramas is blurred,
and the boundaries between countries in content distribution are also blurred.
Meanwhile, technologies surrounding content such as AR, VR, and Metabus are creating new types of content.
Short-form content along with series content is also a trend.
If our cultural industry has created the Korean Wave by adapting well to the rapidly changing global industrial environment so far,
we must lead the change in order to continue the Korean Wave.
To do this, support for the advancement of the content industry to lead change must also be strengthened.
Despite numerous criticisms over the past 20 years,
the Korean Wave has survived the battlefield of the global content market and has reached its current position.
In order for the Korean Wave to continue to grow on the international stage in the future,
it must be supported by some of the policies proposed above,
respect and recognition for the achievements of the Korean Wave so far, and love for Korean popular culture.
And we should stop thinking about when the Korean Wave will end and work together to find the answer to "how to develop the Korean Wave."
