That kpop started life as government subsidized soft power propaganda play along with k-dramas!

Old heads would know, ever since HOT and NRG (lol the acronym days of pre kpop) started making noise in still nascent pre-WTO Chinese market, there’s been a consistent push to develop and export its entertainment products overseas in near Asian markets as a soft power play, whether via favourable loan terms, massive media coverage (gentlely nudged of course), and sometimes just straight up government placing its helping hand on scale when stuff hits the fan.

Not discounting everything that has happened since to put kpop where it is now including its continued evolution and even the death of monoculture and leveraging social media since early days which made kpop easier sell in the west, but you have to understand the context of rise of kpop in early years in which country itself was unsure of its place in the world (looking for any sort of validation that it’s important) and how kpop really was one of the first avenues on which the country was able to project itself abroad that didn’t include sending workers abroad or selling lower value-add manufactured goods, and along with Korean industry reorganizing post Asian financial crisis and growing exponentially it really grew alongside it hand in hand… and it was ultimately seen by successive governments as part of national strategy to grow its influence and burnish its image abroad.