Seoul – Shekinah Yawra had no different possibility however to spend the night time at a South Korean jjimjilbang, a 24-hour bathhouse, after each lodge close to central Seoul bought out in late March.
However sleep was secondary for the 32-year-old Filipino who had made her method to Seoul’s Gwanghwamun Sq. at 7am to safe a spot in a crowd that metropolis officers estimated would develop to a whole bunch of 1000’s.
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All this was for a glimpse on the seven-member Ok-pop supergroup BTS, who returned to the stage on March 21 after virtually 4 years away from the limelight for his or her staggered, obligatory army service.
Although she didn’t safe considered one of 22,000 free tickets for BTS’s first return live performance within the sq., Yawra was nonetheless ecstatic to face on the sidelines and watch the live performance reside on a giant display screen arrange for the event.
“All of us got here only for this,” she instructed Al Jazeera, recounting how associates had flown in from the Philippines for a single night time to catch the live performance.
Worldwide, greater than 18.4 million viewers tuned in for the Netflix livestream of the live performance.
With an estimated 30 million fans worldwide – who discuss with themselves because the BTS ARMY – the Ok-pop group is probably the most seen image of “Hallyu”, or the “Korean Wave”, and the worldwide surge of curiosity in South Korean in style tradition and the monetary revenues being generated because of this.
In late March, BTS’s tenth studio album, Arirang, topped the charts in america, Japan and the UK, the world’s three largest music markets. The group’s upcoming world tour is anticipated to generate more than $1.4bn in income throughout greater than 80 reveals in 23 international locations.
Domestically, inbound vacationer numbers for the primary 18 days of March rose 32.7 p.c from the earlier month, based on Ministry of Justice knowledge, because the return live performance approached and lodge costs surged throughout central Seoul amid the demand for rooms.
Within the week main as much as the live performance, gross sales of BTS merchandise – from BTS glow sticks to blankets – surged 430 p.c on the Shinsegae Obligation Free retail outlet in central Seoul, the corporate mentioned.
Over the live performance weekend, revenues additionally rose 30 p.c on the metropolis’s Lotte Division Retailer and 48 p.c at Shinsegae total, in contrast with the identical March weekend a 12 months earlier, in 2025.
Way back to 2022, the Korea Tradition and Tourism Institute (KCTI) – a government-sponsored suppose tank and analysis organisation – estimated {that a} single BTS live performance in Seoul may generate as much as 1.2 trillion gained ($798m) in total financial influence.
KCTI researcher Yang Ji-hoon instructed Al Jazeera {that a} pattern research of the group on the BTS comeback occasion at Gwanghwamun Sq. highlighted the distinctiveness of fandom-driven tourism. Greater than half of these on the live performance have been overseas guests and lots of required long-haul journey to attend.
“In Europe and america, journey tends to be concentrated inside its personal areas,” Yang mentioned.
“So, for individuals to beat such journey obstacles and are available to South Korea, it normally requires extra than simply peculiar motivation or typical spending – it’s not one thing that occurs simply,” he mentioned.
Ok-pop’s transition to the worldwide mainstream
The size of BTS’s return to the leisure world displays a broader state-backed technique.
When music promoter Hybe requested Seoul metropolis help for the Gwanghwamun sq. comeback live performance, authorities accredited it on public-interest grounds, treating the occasion as a showcase of nationwide cultural affect.
Virtually befitting an official occasion, greater than 10,000 state personnel have been deployed for safety, logistics and crowd management.
In response to knowledge retrieved by South Korean publication Sisain, by means of a public data disclosure request to the Seoul authorities, near 130 million gained ($87,400) of metropolis funds have been spent as a part of logistics for the comeback live performance.
South Korean authorities help for BTS has a precedent.
As members of the boyband approached South Korea’s obligatory army service age, policymakers debated particular exemptions for members of BTS, which was estimated to have generated $4.65bn annually to the nation’s economic system.
After BTS’s forthcoming concert events in Mexico Metropolis bought out in simply 37 minutes, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum urged South Korea’s President Lee Jae Myung to “carry the acclaimed Ok-pop artists extra typically”, noting practically a million followers in Mexico had tried to safe 150,000 tickets.
South Korea’s cultural affect can be extending past music.
South Korea’s cosmetics exports surpassed $11bn final 12 months, based on international accountancy agency PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), overtaking France in cosmetics shipments to the US, whereas South Korean meals and agricultural exports reached a document $13.6bn, based on knowledge from the Ministry of Agriculture, Meals and Rural Affairs.
KCTI researcher Yang described the rising curiosity as a part of “transition to the worldwide mainstream”, the place South Korean merchandise are internationally recognised and content material output is measured towards worldwide benchmarks such because the Billboard charts and the Academy Awards.
He additionally warned that structural reform is now important to maintain tempo with the wave of curiosity in South Korea.
“Because the industries develop in scale, they have to additionally evolve in its underlying methods, infrastructure, and workforce,” he mentioned.
“Moderately than focusing solely on direct monetary help, future governmental insurance policies ought to transfer towards strengthening foundational circumstances – comparable to bettering labour environments, addressing unfair practices, constructing related infrastructure, and establishing extra sturdy statistical and knowledge methods,” he mentioned.
Politicians look like paying consideration.
Throughout his election marketing campaign final 12 months, President Lee framed the subsequent part of cultural growth as “Hallyu (Korean Wave) 4.0”, with guarantees to develop the sector right into a 300 trillion gained ($203bn) trade with 50 trillion gained ($34bn) in exports.
According to this imaginative and prescient, the federal government set the funds to bolster “Ok-content”, help the “pure” arts sector and strengthen the general culture-related fields at a document 9.6 trillion gained ($6.5bn) — reflecting the president’s view of the cultural sector as a strategic nationwide trade moderately than merely a shopper market.
South Korea’s technique seems to be paying off.
South Korea now ranks eleventh globally in “smooth energy”, based on Model Finance’s International Comfortable Energy Index, inserting the nation as each “influential in arts and leisure” and “merchandise and types the world loves”, simply behind the US, France, the UK and Japan.
The darker aspect of Ok-pop: Stress to grow to be an ideal idol
Amid its international success, the darker aspect of the Ok-culture trade has obtained extra scrutiny.
Mega-promoter Hybe has been embroiled in a protracted dispute with Ok-pop’s New Denims, a band thought-about to be a possible inheritor to BTS and their all-female colleagues Blackpink. The extremely public authorized dispute that began in 2024 highlights trade tensions over artistic management and artist autonomy.
Because the early 2000s, Ok-pop has additionally grappled with the legacy of “slave contracts”, or extremely restrictive agreements limiting artists’ freedom. Though reforms by the Truthful Commerce Fee have improved protections for performers, contractual obligations within the Ok-pop trade are exacting on new performers and their strict work routines have lengthy been documented.
From their trainee years, aspiring idols endure gruelling schedules that contain lengthy workdays and little sleep.
Many high stars typically face contractual restrictions on socialising, utilizing their telephones or relationship. They’re additionally usually restricted in what they’ll say publicly, counting on agency-managed messaging to speak with followers and the media.
Whereas the rise of social media and different on-line platforms has opened new avenues for extra direct expression and interplay lately, considerations over burnout and despair have continued to shadow the trade, with a number of high-profile stars taking their very own lives.
Magnificence requirements related to the Ok-culture style have additionally grow to be one other flashpoint for controversy.
A 2024 report by South Korean economic system information web site Uppity discovered 98 p.c of 1,283 respondents born between 1980 and 2000 considered bodily look as among the many most fascinating “social capital” a person can possess.
Practically 40 p.c of respondents within the survey had undergone beauty procedures, whereas greater than 90 p.c held impartial or optimistic attitudes relating to present process medical procedures to reinforce magnificence.
In response to the Worldwide Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgical procedure, South Korea has the world’s highest price of procedures, with 8.9 per 1,000 individuals in contrast with 5.91 per 1,000 individuals within the US and simply 2.13 per 1,000 in neighbouring Japan.
Yoo Seung-chul, a professor of media research at Ewha Womans College in Seoul, mentioned that Ok-culture has strengthened the normalising of magnificence as a big metric of non-public and social worth.
“Ok-culture has strengthened methods and buildings round self-expression,” Yoo instructed Al Jazeera.
“With the rise of webtoons that incorporate themes like cosmetic surgery, there was a noticeable discount within the stigma in the direction of going beneath the knife amongst youthful audiences of their teenagers and early twenties,” Yoo mentioned, explaining that in style cosmetic surgery platforms comparable to Unni have additional normalised the pattern by connecting individuals to clinics and critiques of those clinics and their surgeons.
On the similar time, globalisation has reshaped the Ok-culture trade itself. Many new Ok-pop acts now embody worldwide members to broaden attraction.
Hybe has expanded this technique by means of its US subsidiary, Hybe America, producing globally oriented teams like Katseye, which solely has one South Korean member in its six-member lady group.
The shift has prompted debate.
Even BTS’s newest album Arirang – a nod to South Korea’s most iconic people track – has divided followers over its use of English lyrics and overseas producers.
“Ok-content is being designed with international audiences in thoughts from the outset. In movie, there was a noticeable rise in genres like horror and science fiction, that are simpler to export internationally,” Yoo mentioned.
“This international orientation can be mirrored in Ok-pop businesses recruiting overseas members for idol teams,” he mentioned.
However worldwide audiences don’t all the time favor extremely globalised variations of Korean content material, Yoo mentioned, including, actually, that many are drawn to Ok-pop’s “sense of locality”.
As audiences more and more search authenticity, Yoo argues the trade faces a defining problem.
“Industries and corporations want to determine methods to protect a way of native identification whereas successfully advertising and marketing to international audiences,” Yoo added.
“Placing that stability will likely be essential in shaping the subsequent part of Korea’s cultural exports.”
