Has K-Pop stopped being niche?

By Jack Coleman I first got into Korean pop music at the beginning of 2017. The genre was beginning to pick up serious steam at that time, with acts like BTS and BLACKPINK just starting to hit the Western market. However, the genre was still seen as unusual at the time. If you told someone in 2017 that you listened to K-Pop, there was a 50% chance they’d have no idea what you were talking about and a 50% chance that they’d have heard about K-pop but didn’t know what it was fully. To illustrate this, in 2017 the Kpop subreddit on Reddit.com had 66.1k subscribers. In comparison, as of today, it has now reached over 1 million subscribers. In 2017, BTS was a huge act in South Korea but among Western audiences, they were a plucky underground boy group that had fanatical fans but hadn’t broken the Western mainstream. The release of “DNA” and Steve Aoki’s remix of “Mic Drop” in late 2017 started BTS’s rise to popularity in the West, a performance by the group at the American Music Awards showcased that they were here to stay. With two movie releases, multiple chart-toppers and a performance at the Grammys under their belt, BTS is a worldwide music force. BLACKPINK debuted in late 2016 and steadily became a force in the West in their own right. There is a lot of debate among BTS and BLACKPINK fans about whether BLACKPINK followed in BTS’s wake or that they “paved the way” as a joint effort. Either way, both groups now have massive fanbases in the West. BLACKPINK took a conservative approach with their music, only releasing singles and smaller EPs until the release of their first studio album “The Album” in late 2020. BLACKPINK were so popular that they went on a world tour with a very limited discography. With collaborations with artists like Lady Gaga, Dua Lipa, Selena Gomez, Cardi B and a fully English Netflix documentary under their belts, BLACKPINK is a household name these days. Though BTS and BLACKPINK are certainly the behemoths of K-pop, commanding incredible popularity everywhere they go, they have brought new eyes to the entire world of K-pop and Korean entertainment culture. The popularity of variety shows like Running Man, Knowing Brothers and Hello Counselor has been steadily increasing among western audiences. K-Pop groups with smaller fanbases (which means they are large but not BTS-level) like Red Velvet, ATEEZ, TWICE, LOONA and NCT have also seen a growth in their international fanbases in the wake of the growing popularity of the genre. The popularity of Korean dramas actually predates the rise of K-pop to a certain extent, K-dramas had a cult following for years. The iconic Boys Over Flowers comes to mind. But these days, there are so many good Kdramas coming out right now. Netflix is currently populated with really high-quality original Kdramas like Sweet Home, Itaewon Class, Tempted and Kingdom. There really is a boom in Korean entertainment right now and I’m enjoying every bit of it. So, to answer, has K-Pop stopped being niche? I believe the answer is yes. Most people of our generation and younger will know what K-pop is and they’ll almost certainly at least have heard of the biggest groups. They’re playing BLACKPINK on RTÉ 2fm for god sake. I’m not as into K-Pop as I was back in 2017 but writing this piece has made me nostalgic, its time to dig up the old Spotify playlist I think.