The first episode of Made in Korea, a new six-part BBC documentary on a group of British youths attempting to break into the K-Pop market, features a scene that is quite revealing. A panel of judges, including industry mogul Hee Jun Yoon, watched the five guys during an audition as they leaped and twirled their little Gen-Z hearts out. Yoon ridiculed their performance in that class pantomime villain way. “The level of choreo is so basic. It's nursery school level.” She wouldn’t even bother coming to judge it if their next performance was that bad. Yoon sternly informs the boys that “hard work is needed.”
Yoon is the creative visionary behind some of South Korea’s biggest K-pop bands. South Korean culture has swept the globe in recent years. Its influence is so phenomenal it even has its own name: Hallyu. This cultural tsunami, which roughly translates to ‘Korean Wave’ has hit the British coast.
By now, unless you’ve spent the last ten years with your eyes closed and your fingers in your ears, you’ve probably felt the effects of this wave. In 2021, hallyu and twenty-five other Korean words—such as bulgogi, which are thin grilled or stir-fried slices of beef or pork—were added to the Oxford English Dictionary. The next year, a nine-month-long exhibition featuring Hallyu was held at the London Victoria and Albert Museum. From K-pop t-shirts and posters to the first commercial MP3 player, the four rooms showcased a variety of contemporary Korean cultural ephemera.
It’s likely that you have embraced this cultural movement even if you are unaware of its name. Perhaps you watched the Oscar-winning movie Parasite, or maybe you were one of the millions of people who spent their days binge-watching Squid Game on Netflix during lockdown. Hallyu has now officially gone mainstream, as evidenced by the BBC’s airing of Made in Korea. Hallyu has become “the world’s biggest, fastest, cultural paradigm shift in modern history,” according to Euny Hong.
As crazy as it sounds, dinosaurs are credited with helping to create hallyu. Specifically, Steven Spielberg’s monster movie from 1993, Jurassic Park. Kim Young-Sam, the president of South Korea at the time, received a report. According to the calculations, the blockbuster movie’s export revenue was roughly equal to the 1.5 million Hyundai vehicles that were sold overseas in that same year. The cultural sector started to receive significant capital investments from Kim’s government. The total revenue from Hallyu exports in 2023 was $14 billion.
Even though the Jurassic Park theory may be able to explain the origins of Hallyu, it would take another two decades before it put South Korea on the map. And it arrived in the jolly rotund shape of a Korean singer in his thirties. Psy released Gangnam style in 2012. A camp Butlins-style dance routine that was featured in the song went viral. It may be the Gen Z equivalent of agadoo, but it was the first video to receive one billion views on YouTube.
Yoon seems like the Korean equivalent of Simon Cowell for a reason. She is well-versed in the requirements for success, having worked in the music industry for more than 20 years. Hallyu has been shaped by a number of values, including dedication, a strong work ethic, and fierce ambition. With the exception of its people, the small Asian nation has no natural resources, so an inordinate amount of time and money is spent on self-development. Koreans tend to be meticulous people. Members of BTS are renowned for dedicating fifteen hours a day to practicing their routines.
Of course, not everyone makes it. Failure is the logical antithesis of success. South Korea has the highest suicide rate in the developed world. Roughly forty South Koreans commit suicide every day. The country also has more alcoholics than any other country. But young, aspirational Koreans will always be driven to better themselves, even in the absence of wealth and fame.
How long will the Hallyu wave last? I do not know. Its effect, however, will reverberate for a very long time throughout the entertainment and cultural industries, much like a stone hitting water.
