The Korean Wave

The Korean Wave, or Hallyu, is the global spread of South Korean pop music, television dramas, films, food and fashion since the late 1990s. Chinese media are often credited with coining the term as Korean dramas became popular there. After the 1997 Asian financial crisis, the South Korean government increasingly supported cultural industries as a source of growth and soft power.

The drama Winter Sonata became a hit in Japan in the early 2000s, and in 2012 Psy's Gangnam Style became the first video on YouTube to reach one billion views. BTS topped the US Billboard Hot 100 in 2020 with Dynamite, and the series Squid Game became a global streaming hit in 2021. Hallyu shows that cultural flows can come from countries once seen as peripheral. Scholars debate how much its success reflects government policy, entrepreneurial companies, social media fandoms or the creativity of artists.