The release of ‘Gangnam Style’ release by Psy back in 2012 started a wave that spread from South Korea to all over the world. You’d be hard pressed to find people today who’ve never heard that song. People had memorised the dance moves, memorised the lyrics, played it for parties, events, even weddings, and Goa is no exception.
Once the hype died down, Korean music was almost forgotten in our small state until the popularity of BTS picked it back up and this time, for good. The band, made up of seven members at the time of their debut with album ‘2 Cool for Skool’, but was received particularly well. The group was originally heavier on hip-hop and rap but as they got more popular, the style of music changed to fit the audience.
BTS has since broken several records and made it into Billboards constantly, been compared to the Beatles with their influence and have won many awards for their performances. And as we all know, good things come in pairs and the hype of K-Pop was accompanied by the now widely consumed K-Dramas.
“I got into K-pop around 2018 or 2019 and they were already pretty popular back then. Someone I knew was into BTS and sent me a bunch of pictures. This was around the same time I came across a parody video of one of their songs ‘Idol’. I took a step back when I realised I was getting too obsessed,” says Merlyn De Souza, having recently completed her undergraduate course at St Xavier’s College, Mapusa. Most people who became fans of K-pop idols at the time were either high school or college students. She adds, “I recently got back into them around when ‘Dynamite’ came out but their popularity definitely increased when their English songs released.”
“Reels are what got me into K-Drama. I started with ‘What’s wrong with Secretary Kim’. It was really different compared to western shows but I absolutely loved it. I started maybe a year ago and I’ve already watched over 20 K-dramas. I mostly go for the romance, comedy or slice of life k-dramas,” Merlyn continues. “Recently especially, the amounts of people who like these things have increased. I’m surprised by how many people I found in my own class. Before, you’d find one to two people. Netflix also really boosted its success. ‘Hometown Cha Cha Cha’ and ‘Business Proposal’ were huge and they’re both Netflix original series.”
“I started hearing about it back in 2020 during lockdown. I found some stuff on Youtube and got interested. I think it really got popular this year though. BTS is especially popular. Their songs are played in shows and advertisements. Recently for the FIFA world cup, BTS singer Jungkook sang the opening song ‘Dreamers’, and it’s still popular,” says Areeba Shah, a 21-year old from Mapusa. “Korean Ramen is everywhere now too. Dramas showcase it a lot so it’s just the food that everyone wants to have.”
The impact of the Korean wave started further back than during the pandemic though, stretching all the way to 2008. Michelle Gracias, a 24-year-old NOC engineer from Bainguinim comments, “I found out about it back when I was in school. I watched a concert on a channel called Animax on TV and talked about it with my friends. Then, my friend in school got into it as well and looked up on more songs and we listened together. We were mostly into SHINee, but it was not too popular back then.” As an older fan, she also remarks, “To be frank, K-pop is now overhyped too much and it doesn’t feel the same as back in 2008.”
Groups like SHINee, Super Junior, BIGBANG and Girls Generation had made its own impact (thought not quite so significant as BTS) in the world at the time and set the ball rolling back then. BTS has also admitted to having been influenced by BIGBANG for their style in music which eventually led to their massive popularity today.
“I used to watch C-dramas, and I suddenly came across a K-drama in 2020. I think it was ‘What’s wrong with Secretary Kim?’ Since then, I’ve been hooked. I heard about K-pop because of the Blackpink-Selena collab for ‘Ice Cream’ in August 2020. I started listening to their songs and eventually moved onto the rest of the K-pop world,” says Wilma Fernandes, a 20 year-old from Siolim. “I do think it’s popular but not too much, considering in both my friend groups of 5, it’s just 2 or 3 who watch them. The hype is very much apparent in Goa though. Everything overall is very appealing about it.”
K-Drama has paved way for many people to become more open-minded about the content they consume and the viewership of both C-Drama (Chinese Drama) and J-Drama (Japanese Drama) have also been increasing as of late. Perhaps new waves will keep washing upon the shores but it’s not a bad thing by any means. Perhaps this is just another way of getting to know about countries other than our known and hopefully, more countries will find themselves been learned about by the youth due to the fickle nature of trends.