The Rise of K-Pop and BTS: A Global Phenomenon
Why would a film production company write about pop music? Because K-Pop is the clearest case study of how Korean content learned to travel. The questions a producer asks about a series – who is the audience, in which language, through which channels – were answered in Korean pop music early on. And the latest chapter of the story took place on a streaming platform.
The chart that moved
For a long time, the high-water mark for a Korean artist on the US singles chart was PSY. Gangnam Style went viral in 2012 and peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100. The only Asian artist to have reached number one before was the Japanese singer Kyu Sakamoto, with Sukiyaki, in 1963.
BTS climbed step by step. Fake Love reached number ten in 2018, Boy With Luv, recorded with the American singer Halsey, reached number eight in 2019, and ON debuted at number four in early 2020. Then, on the chart dated 5 September 2020, Dynamite entered at number one. BTS became the first all-South Korean act to top the Hot 100.
Two details matter to anyone who produces for an international market. Dynamite was the group’s first single sung entirely in English. And South Korea’s president at the time, Moon Jae-in, pointed out that the song had been written to comfort people affected by the pandemic. The breakthrough came with a change of language and a message that fitted the moment, not with a change of identity.
Albums first, singles later
The singles chart was the last door to open. By the time Dynamite arrived, BTS had already topped the Billboard 200 album chart four times since May 2018, starting with Love Yourself: Tear. In 2017, they became the first K-Pop boy group to perform at the American Music Awards. At the Billboard Music Awards in 2019, they won both categories they were nominated in and performed Boy With Luv on stage with Halsey.
The sequence is instructive: a loyal audience buys whole albums long before radio and streaming turn a song into a general hit. Reach followed commitment, not the other way round.
An audience that acts
The fan community behind BTS calls itself ARMY, and it does more than stream. In November 2017, BTS and their label launched the Love Myself campaign together with the Korean Committee for UNICEF, in support of UNICEF’s #ENDviolence programme against violence towards children and young people.
By 2021, the campaign had raised 3.6 million US dollars, according to a joint announcement by BTS, their label BIGHIT MUSIC and UNICEF. The fans were not the target of the campaign. They were its engine.
Speak yourself
On 24 September 2018, BTS spoke at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, at the launch of UNICEF’s Generation Unlimited partnership, which aims to get young people into education, training or work. The group’s leader, RM, told the room that the band had learned to love themselves and now urged listeners to “speak yourself”.
It is easy to read this as clever marketing. It is more useful to read it as consistency: the albums were called Love Yourself, the campaign was called Love Myself, and the speech carried the same idea onto the largest stage available. The message did not change between the stage, the charity and the UN.
A band as an economic factor
Before their military service, BTS generated more than 5.5 trillion won a year for South Korea, according to the Korea Culture and Tourism Institute – about 0.2 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product. Few cultural exports anywhere can be expressed in such a figure.
The director Bong Joon-ho put it his own way at the Golden Globes in 2020: BTS, he said, had three thousand times the power and influence he had. We look at his work in Bong Joon-ho: Okja, Snowpiercer, Mickey 17 and the Parasite Puzzle.
The pause and the return
In June 2022, BTS went on hiatus while the members completed South Korea’s mandatory military service. In October 2022, shortly before the break, they played a free concert in Busan in support of the city’s bid for the 2030 World Expo; their management company HYBE put the number of viewers at more than 50 million. By June 2025, all members had completed their service.
The comeback was staged as an event. The album Arirang, named after the Korean folk song about longing and separation, was released on 20 March 2026. The next day, BTS performed together for the first time since their military service, on Gwanghwamun Square in the heart of Seoul – streamed live and exclusively on Netflix to more than 190 countries. A documentary, BTS: The Return, followed on 27 March, and a world tour began in April; HYBE announced 79 shows in 34 cities.
Even the attendance is a lesson in reading figures: HYBE reported about 104,000 people on the square, while local reports estimated roughly 40,000. Both numbers were published on the same day.
That a K-Pop comeback was released as a live event on a streaming service says a great deal about who now distributes culture. Who benefits from such deals is the subject of Who Owns the Success.
What this means for film and series
Korean drama and Korean cinema followed a similar path, which we describe in Why Korean Stories Captivate the World. The lesson for European producers is not to copy K-Pop. It is to take three things seriously that K-Pop got right early: the audience is international from the first day, language is a strategic decision rather than an afterthought, and a story that stays true to itself travels further than one that tries to please everyone.
If you want to see where that leads on screen, start with our list of 20 K-Dramas.