by Lindsay Wong
Over the past decade, K-pop has transitioned from a regional trend to a global phenomenon. Social media has played a significant role in its globalization, especially particular platforms like YouTube and V-Live, which enables the process of sharing and engaging with fans. The easy access of the social media platforms of YouTube and V-Live has allowed fans to engage with their favorite K-pop artists and each other. YouTube and V-Live has successfully promoted K-pop artists when they make comebacks, particularly in terms of fan promotions and frequent fan interactions. Social media platforms effectively promote and distribute K-pop, which reflect its worldwide popularity in terms of fan engagement and global achievements.
The Korean Wave is a local creative industry that was able to expand into the rest of the world because of social media. K-pop – Korean pop music – is a genre characterized by attractive idols, hybrid musical genres, captivating dance routines and mesmerizing videos. During the 1990s to the 2000s, idols emerged in South Korea and were promoted locally before entertainment companies sought to promote them beyond the nation. Now, K-pop is becoming increasingly popular around the world as there is easier access for fans to engage in the genre through social media platforms. Its promotion and distribution usually occur when K-pop acts make a comeback – in other words, when they release a new single or album. Social media platforms like YouTube and V-Live play a significant role in promoting and distributing K-pop to a global audience.
A critical component of K-pop marketing is Internet and social media. Cultural flows in the media are considered a source of everyday reflexivity, which involves the media’s interactions with everyday life. This is relevant in the context of social media since it has now become such a vital part of daily life. YouTube emerged as a social media platform in 2005 as a video-sharing website. Entertainment companies in the K-pop industry immediately utilized the platform and opened their own YouTube channels. The easy accessibility of YouTube as a cultural sphere that enables collective viewing among a global audience helped it to rise an important online space for video circulation. Since one of the main characteristics of the K-pop genre is visual aesthetics and music videos, YouTube allows this visual aspect to be emphasized, which is essential to what makes K-pop easily circulable. As a result, companies can generate profits with video views without needing to focus on selling digital and physical copies of music.
BTS and Halsey, Image from Teen Vogue
Racking up just under 79 million views, BTS broke the record for most-watched video in 24 hours on April 13th, 2018 with their music video for ‘Boy With Luv’ featuring Halsey. By uploading the video onto YouTube, their company, Big Hit Entertainment, distributed the video on a platform that can be accessed by anyone with an Internet connection. When their video was released, fans around the world immediately started streaming the video and it started trending in many countries. Word-of-mouth helped the video go viral due to constant promotion by fans on social media. Fans kept encouraging other fans to continue streaming it by utilizing the comments stream and interacting with each other. This effectively helped to promote the video even to non-fans, who would be able to easily access the video since it appeared on the trending list. To promote this comeback, BTS traveled to the U.S. to perform on ‘Saturday Night Live’ and even at the Billboard Music Awards. This expansion to the West would not have been possible without the distribution and promotion of the group on YouTube.
V-Live is another online video-streaming platform, established by South Korean media powerhouse Naver, where artists log onto the app and interact with fans. Fitting into the definition of social media, fans and artists – both users alike – interact via live broadcasts and media content that are posted by the artist, ranging from high-production reality shows to exclusive behind-the-scenes content from music videos or short backstage greetings. On the app, people can follow their favorite artists, all of whom have their own channels. When a channel starts a live broadcast, fans will receive a notification. While watching the broadcast, fans may comment in the designated comments section or repeatedly leave ‘hearts’ in the form of a heart button at the bottom right corner of the screen to show their love and support to the artist. Although the broadcasts are primarily in Korean, this language barrier does not stop fans from logging on to interact with their idols. In the comments section, fans often interact by encouraging each other to leave ‘hearts’.
Similar to how YouTube is an online space of media circulation, the interactive nature of V-Live as a participatory culture among fans with their favorite artists has resulted in consistent and convenient promotion of media content. Because the app is free and available for download on Android and iOS devices, it is easily accessible for fans. Furthermore, there is a multitude of language and subtitle options available on the app, which takes away some of the language barrier that K-pop idols have with international fans. The intimate manner of the live broadcast – the app’s interface is reminiscent of video call platforms like Facetime – makes fans feel closer to their favourite artists. As a result, fans will continue to occupy this online space to promote K-pop and artists will distribute K-pop.
Stray Kids, Image from Wikipedia
Stray Kids has effectively used V-Live since even before their debut to continuously engage with fans and thus promote themselves. During comeback promotions, the group used V-Live to launch an exclusive reality show called ‘Finding SKZ’ available only for app users. This encourages fans to use the platform in order to engage with the artist and interact with each other via the comments section. The group’s leader Bang Chan also does a weekly live broadcast called ‘Chan’s Room’ where he recommends songs to fans and reads fans’ comments out loud in efforts to connect more with them. Fans also recommend him songs in the comments, which he then plays in the live broadcast. This method of regularly engaging with fans through live broadcasts on V-Live effectively promotes artists as fans interact more with them, which may increase their likeability for their favorite artists. K-pop is thus distributed and promoted to a global fanbase on the app.
Compared to conventional media like television and radio, social media has been more effective in promoting and distributing K-pop to a wider global audience. YouTube is considered the first global platform for media content to be distributed due to its easier accessibility than conventional media. Both BoA and TVXQ became established artists in Japan after five years, while Girls Generation was able to enter Japanese music charts on the same day that their album was released due to social media. Similarly, despite elaborate promotions from their respective companies, soloists BoA, Rain and Se7en all tried to break into the U.S. market before the social media explosion. However, without the help of social media in promotions, their American debuts largely failed. On the other hand, BTS was able to use YouTube and social media to reach a wider audience especially in the West. With this new method of music dissemination being a participatory culture, distribution and promotion of K-pop is more easily facilitated as fans engage with the artist and each other.
K-pop has been promoted and distributed through social media sites like YouTube and V-Live due to its easy accessibility as platforms that serve a global audience. Anyone with an Internet connection can access the site and be exposed to K-pop with a click of a button. The development of technology leading to the prominence of social media platforms has allowed K-pop to be circulated on a global level. Furthermore, users can interact with each other and thus promote K-pop. This is evident when examining the cases of BTS and Stray Kids. BTS was able to break into the U.S. market due to their achievement on YouTube, which was facilitated by social media. V-Live is another video-sharing platform where K-pop idols, as users themselves, log onto the app for the sole purpose of interacting with fans through various media contents including live broadcasts, reality shows and more. Fans are able to show their love by leaving comments or ‘hearts’. Consequently, K-pop is distributed and promoted as fans engage with their favourite artists in an intimate and familiar manner. Compared to conventional media, the effectiveness of social media in distributing and promoting K-pop is evident considering how popular K-pop is around the world now.
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Cover image from Forbes
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