K-pop, long considered one of South Korea’s strongest cultural exports, is also entering a period of uncertainty. “K-pop companies began catering mainly to the core fandom, and kind of forwent the idea of being widely known to the public,” she says. At the same time, the global success of Korean cultural ideas no longer guarantees that Korean companies will be the ones profiting. Jeong describes it as a “de-territorialised, hybrid idea of K-pop [rather] than an authentic K-pop product”, suggesting that Korean cultural concepts have become portable enough to be reproduced internationally without Korean participation. As domestic productions became more formulaic, American studios and Korean-diaspora creators began drawing on Korean cultural elements in works such as Minari, Beef and Demon Hunters.

Source: The Guardian December 28, 2025 17:01 UTC