Opinion | Squid Game, Parasite, BTS: why are people still surprised that Korean pop culture is good? It’s been making waves for decades

Recent years have seen people repeatedly shocked by the quality of Korean entertainment, but comments that it is ‘seemingly out of nowhere’ are sorely mistaken

The biggest successes coming out of South Korea nowadays are ones that take on sociocultural issues that resonate with audiences on a global level

Reading Time:4 minutes

Why is the popularity of Netflix’s Squid Game such a surprise when Korean entertainment content has been popular for so long? Photo: Reuters

Published: 6:45pm, 6 Oct 2021Updated: 8:38am, 11 Oct 2021

You’ve probably heard of Squid Game by now, even if you haven’t watched it. The Korean series featuring social critique disguised as deadly games is on track to become Netflix’s most popular show ever.

Though the success of Squid Game is a shocking phenomenon in its own right (even to the team that produced it), the fact that Korean-language pop culture content is good is still surprising people who marvel at how it has come “seemingly out of nowhere”, as per a September 29 article in The New York Times that spurred much upset on Twitter.

It’s almost an equation at this point: a South Korean media entity becomes a hit in English-language markets and it spurs dialogue across social media, culminating in surprise that Korea has created such a buzzed-about product.

Whether it is another success from BTS, or the Oscar-dominating film Parasite from director Bong Joon-ho, or another K-drama (Squid Game is the biggest but far from the only one), the past few years have been a rinse and repeat of people being shocked that Korean entertainment is good. Long-term fans, meanwhile, are basically the shrugging emoji at this point, asking: “How are you still surprised?”

Korean entertainment isn’t just having a moment right now, it has dominated internationally for ages. Known as the “Korean Wave”, its global popularity has ebbed and flowed since the ’90s, taking off in earnest with early ’00s hit shows like Winter’s Sonata and Dae Jang Geum. Over the next few years, K-dramas and K-pop became beloved by sizeable audiences not just in Asia but regions such as the Middle East and Latin America – where K-dramas have even been broadcast on local networks.