The term “fan meeting” ought to be self-evident. It’s an event where artists meet their fans, but don’t fans and artists meet at a traditional concert? Perhaps one imagines a “meet and greet” event where you pay extra for the opportunity for a photo or to say hello to your favorite artist. In the world of K-pop, a “fanmeeting” (one word) refers to an event with a very unique format. My husband and I just attended the VIXX Starlight 6th Fanmeeting

Viewpoints June 4, 2024

K-pop’s first appearance on the US Billboard Hot 100 Chart was in 2009, when the Wonder Girls’ “Nobody” hit No. 76. Fifty years earlier, in 1959 The Kim Sisters (Sue, Aija, and Mia) from Korea made their American TV premiere on The Ed Sullivan show. So, is 1959 the year that K-Pop made its debut in the US? Probably not, but we should celebrate the importance of The Kim Sisters in representing Korea to the US. They would eventually appear on The Ed Sullivan Show twenty-one

Viewpoints May 28, 2024

As a K-pop fan, I was delighted that Stray Kids were attending the Met Gala on May 6, 2024. K-pop fans generally and Stays (the name of Stray Kids’ fandom) specifically celebrated the increasing inclusion of K-pop. Perhaps the US media now took K-pop seriously and would treat its artists respectfully. We were wrong. A few members of the paparazzi’s treatment of Stray Kids was shameful and racist, and embarrassed me as a fellow American. However, none of it was surprising and all of i

Viewpoints May 14, 2024

According to a March 29, 2023 article in The Korea Herald, 83 percent of couples have argued over how to split dating expenses. Increasingly, it seems that young people are measuring love and romance in won. Meera Choi, a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at Yale University, has interviewed 130 women aged 20 to 40 in Korea for her dissertation research. These women all believed in women’s rights, and some had strong opinions about how dating expenses (for heterosexual couples) ought to be split

Viewpoints May 7, 2024

Min Hee-jin, CEO of Ador (a subsidiary of Hybe) has accused Hybe and its other subsidiary Belift Labs of plagiarism over the similarity between supergroup NewJeans (Ador) and new girl group Illit (Belift Labs). In turn, Hybe has asked Min Hee-jin to step down and has accused her of “breach of trust” in its press release. To any casual K-pop fan familiar with both groups, there is little doubt that Illit’s sound and choreography is reminiscent of NewJeans. However, many other ne

Viewpoints April 29, 2024

Older women generally fade from view in the media, but the Korean and American shows “(The) Golden Girls” are two exceptions. “Golden Girls” is a popular show on KBS that features Park Jin-young (JYP)’s goal of bringing four famous singers -- Insooni (66 years old), Park Mi-kyung (58 years old), Shin Hyo-bum (56 years old), and Lee Eun-mi (57 years old) -- back as members of a new female idol group. The show’s title and premise reminded me of the popular 1980s

Viewpoints April 23, 2024

K-pop group BTS debuted in June 2013, and the rest is history. But did you ever wonder about the other boy groups that debuted that year? Maybe it’s because I’m a sociologist, but I believe we can learn more about social phenomena when we talk to the average rather than exceptional person, or idol in this case. There are thousands of former idols or trainees that didn’t “make it big.” Some have even managed to stay in the K-pop music industry. For people who becam

Viewpoints April 9, 2024

Makgeolli, a milky-colored and lightly carbonated type of Korean rice wine, is a common topic of conversation in our household. Since 2015, my husband, Jeff Rubidge, has been brewing and uploading videos about makgeolli for his YouTube channel. It is a modest drink that only requires three ingredients to brew: rice, nuruk (a Korean fermentation starter) and water. It can be purchased for less than US $2 per bottle in Korea. I have also noticed its role in signaling virtue in K-dramas. Let me exp

Viewpoints March 26, 2024

The doctors’ strikes in South Korea reminded me of what happened after I broke both of my ankles in Seoul last April. While there is never a good time or place to break one’s ankles, doing so while traveling abroad is quite a challenge. I was in Seoul giving talks at universities and meeting with people in the K-pop industry. While my friends joked that I should tell people that I fell while working as a backup dancer for a K-pop act, the truth is that I fell from a single missed ste

Viewpoints March 19, 2024

“BTS finds you when you need them most.” Army, the name of BTS’ fandom, is likely the largest and most devoted fandom in K-pop. While non-K-pop fans may envision Army as primarily young women who scream and cheer at concerts, fans in fact come from many backgrounds. This is particularly true of American BTS fans, who also find comfort both through the community of fans and the content BTS provides. Earlier this year, I attended two BTS Army cup sleeve events in Connecticut, a s

Viewpoints March 12, 2024

Even in the world of K-pop, there are second chances. The Mnet idol audition show “Boys Planet” aired from Feb. 2 to April 20, 2023. It featured 98 male trainees (49 from Korea or the “K Group” and 49 non-Koreans/global trainees or the “G Group”) who would compete for praise from celebrity judges and votes from the viewers in Korea and abroad. The top-ranked nine contestants would debut in a new boy group. Audience members could vote for a limited number of

Viewpoints Feb. 27, 2024

I must confess that I have always had cats. I have no children. However, at least for me, my cats were not a cause or consequence of a child-free life. My husband and I both love cats and we cannot imagine our lives without our furry family members in our household. In fact, our lives with our non-human companions are typical of the average American household. In 2022, the US Census Bureau reported that 70 percent of US households included pets. In contrast, the proportion of households with chi

Viewpoints Feb. 13, 2024

What is the appeal of K-pop to audiences in the United States? I am a fan and researcher of K-pop, so I think and talk to college students and fans of all ages regularly about it. If you do not live in the US, it might be difficult to imagine the level of visibility of K-pop here in the United States. It is not everywhere: We don’t see idols in advertisements and we do not hear K-pop songs in public settings, except perhaps at a Korean restaurant. Still, most Americans have heard of K-pop.

Viewpoints Jan. 30, 2024

NEW HAVEN, Connecticut -- Grace Kao got into BTS and K-pop by accident. In April 2019, the sociology professor at Yale University was deeply impressed when she saw the Korean boy band on Saturday Night Live, a TV show that she had watched since she was a child. “SNL was around from the ’70s. I always remembered the musical guests, and they never had Asians. I really enjoyed the performance by BTS, and Googled them a bit,” Kao said in an interview with The Korea Herald at her of

Hashtag Korea Nov. 7, 2023