The Washington Post (WP) published an article titled 'How K-Pop Conquered the World' in the middle of the first page of its website.
The article analyzes that the first factor cited as the reason for K-pop's worldwide popularity is the aspect of a 'hook song' that is engraved in the mind as a certain melody is repeated.
Dal-yong Jin, a professor at Simon Fraser University in Canada, says that K-pop is characterized by repeating certain parts and making them catch your ears.
Another reason for its popularity, the WP said, is that the music video meets fans around the world through YouTube.
K-pop fan Jason Nguyen saw the music video for Girls' Generation's song 'Gee' when he was 8 years old, and mentioned the members' choreography and colorful costumes, saying, "It's something that is difficult to see in American pop music."
The marketing strategy of dropping copyrights and uploading songs and albums to YouTube also contributed to the popularity.
In fact, as of the 13th of this month, 9 out of 10 music videos that recorded the most views within 24 hours of release are BTS and Blackpink songs.
In addition, he cited Psy's 'Gangnam Style' in 2012 as an example, saying that the popularity of K-pop also coincided with the development of social media.
Gangnam Style is the first video to cross 1 billion views on YouTube and is still the 5th most viewed music video.
The WP pointed out that the growth of K-pop also coincided with the growth of social media, with the number of K-pop-related tweets soaring from about 5 million in July 2010 to 7.5 billion last month.
In addition, K-pop fans actively contributed to the formation of the group image in the digital space, and the evolution into a strong fandom was also analyzed as a major factor in popularity.
The conclusion of the article is that K-pop can gain worldwide popularity as a result of the combination of the songs, point choreography, and flashy music videos that are engraved in the mind, optimized for social media, and the active activities of fans.