The Rise and Recognition of K-pop in the Western Media
For the past several years, Korean pop music has received worldwide recognition. Many artists and bands from South Korea have started taking over music charts, been invited to American music shows and selling out shows. Western music created a huge impact on the Korean music industry, but the culture of how K-pop promotes its music, creates its concepts and its interactions with fans became a culture shock to people who weren't familiar with the pop culture in the country. Today, the K-pop industry has explored different genres, with many groups and artists expressing their concepts and styles. This resulted with the music and culture continue to grow as more people become exposed to a new genre.
The K-pop industry has now been widely recognized due to social media and the loyal fans who share information. The term for this is called Hallyu or the Korean wave. The entertainment industry in South Korea has now flowed through different parts of the world and becoming known worldwide.
Entering the Charts
One way that K-pop fans show support for their favorite artists is by streaming their music. Services such as Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music or Amazon Music allow people to stream their favorite songs which led to music streams become a key element for artists. This ensures the interaction fans have with the music. Today, music charts now include streaming data, while before it only pertained to sales and radio airplay. K-pop now has been dominating the American charts, having this be some Korean artists' first achievement in Western sales and media.
Billboard updates their charts weekly with the hottest songs and albums. As of Oct. 7, 2025, South Korean boy group P1Harmony entered their first Billboard 200 chart, with their album "EX" being in the top 10. Billboard has dedicated multiple achievement posts for Korean artists and groups. The charts range from Hot 100, Global 200 and Billboard 200. This is how most artists slowly starts receiving attention in the West, with their music reaching spots on charts, and people doing a deep dive on the artists' work. For most of them, this what fans would call their "first U.S. achievement."
In many cases, it's a huge deal for a K-pop group or artist to earn the title "the first K-pop group/artist" to achieve something big. Whether it's winning an award for a song, being number one on the charts or having the most streamed music video, this was something big for the industry and the artists.
The video above is a list of Guinness World Records the boy group BTS has accomplished. Some of the achievements included the most streamed track on Spotify in first 24 hours with their song "Butter," the song "Dynamite" being number one for 18 weeks on the Billboard's digital song sales charts and had the most viewed Youtube music video in 24 hours with the music video for "Butter" being viewed 108.2 million times.
Although these records were recorded in 2021, BTS continues to hold these records as other groups work their way to the top or already having their big career moments.
Western Influences on the Korean Entertainment Industry
While some people think K-pop has a unique sound and style, others may not realize the major influences which K-pop has from other genres. These influences mainly came from the West or African American artists. This includes hip-hop, rock, jazz, R&B and more. In the early 2000s, many Korean artists were heavily influenced by many Black American artists, from the music style to the outfits. Each year, the industry continues to have new trends and new sounds, but the majority of this is inspiration from the West and a lot of it has impacted what K-pop is now.
Independent artist and content creator Sayat Nokerban stated that the K-pop industry is influenced by Black culture and music. He talks about the newly debuted boy group, CORTIS, where they released a song called "GO!" in Aug. 2025. The song was said to sound similar to songs made by Black artists such as rappers Travis Scott and Don Toliver. Nokerban said that if a K-pop group had a hip-hop section or an R&B-like tone to their songs, it's most likely correlated with African American music. In general, music takes inspiration from all sorts of genres and has taken inspiration from each other.
Many K-pop songs have also been either been sampled or covered from other produced songs or demos that were sent to entertainment companies for their artist to use. Sampling is extremely common in the music industry as many songs today have practically been sampled from one another. Other groups covered songs and mixed it into their own style.
A TikTok video, posted by user @adamandyvess, showed clips of K-pop songs that were sampled from various artists. Some of the songs that were mentioned were "Hot Summer" by the girl group f(x). The song was a cover, whereas the original song was performed by a German girl group called Monrose. Others include boy group SHINee's song "Juliette" being sampled from the song "Deal With It" by American singer and actor Corbin Bleu. This comes to show that K-pop not only has influence from Western artists, but also artists from all around the world.
An Introduction to Korean Culture
As more people are learning about K-pop or slowly getting into it, they are also learning more about the culture and traditions. There are many cultural aspects that play a part in the industry, and with that many fans learn the difference in celebrity culture in South Korea. Korean culture now has been much more recognized through K-pop, Korean dramas, content creators, influencers, etc. Trends like Korean beauty and skincare have also been on the rise, with even people who aren't into K-pop or K-dramas feeding into them. South Korea is also known for their eating shows called "mukbang," where creators upload videos or livestream themselves eating food.
One way people can interact is KCON, a convention that holds all things K-pop and trends relating to the culture.
The convention is an annual event that has three-day sessions. This includes artists engagement, concerts, and activities guests can interact with. KCON updates their supporters with fun moments, showing some of the highlights of the event. They recently posted on X showing moments of artist engagement and fans having up close interaction with idols. The actual convention includes fun booths for people to check out. This year, the convention was sponsored by Olive Young, a Korean makeup brand. The brand held a large booth for people to interact with the products, including learn about makeup and skincare brands. They held a contest on their Instagram for people to join and potentially win a skincare starter pack.
This is just some of the trends that have been gaining attention and it all pertains to Korean culture. With this, there's been many ways for people to interact with this in person, including KCON. Besides that, others may witness mainly through social media as everything regarding trends and pop culture would be through the internet.
Conclusion
K-pop today still continues to be on the rise within the industry and the western media. Artists have now entered the doorway to expand their music outside of South Korea, with heavy influence from different genres including from the West and Black artists. Korean culture has been receiving much more recognition due to Hallyu or the Korean wave, due to the entertainment that's been shared such as dramas and films. Beauty trends like skincare and makeup are making their way onto social media. It's unknown what beauty trend might be next or what group or artist will have an all-kill on the charts but what is known is that K-pop will continue to strike its way worldwide, now becoming a global phenomenon.