How I got into K-Pop/K-Culture and why I can’t get over it

Although I am probably not part of the target demographic when it comes to K-Pop I slowly started descending into the rabbit hole back in 2013. Everything started when I first stumbled across „Gangnam Style“ back in 2012 when it just had a couple of million views. I remember that after seeing it, I slowly got curious and started watching some other music videos of Psy over the next few weeks. Back then I had no clue how much this would impact the next few years in my life. Would I have decided not to do look it up if I would have known how it would affect my life? Absolutely not.

Fast forward a couple of weeks/months until late 2012/early 2013: There I was, watching a couple of Korean music videos without understanding a word. But since music is a universal language everyone can enjoy it even without understanding the lyrics. It’s pretty much the same as you enjoy listening to songs in English or Spanish if you don’t speak it. I occasionally watched some videos every other evening while I was staying in a hotel because I was away from home for work.

I mostly watched some videos of Psy, Miss A and T-ara, but I remember the exact moment I sealed the deal with K-Pop: It was during Psy’s Happening concert in April 2013 which I watched live while chatting with one of my best friends. Everything was going fine until suddenly I heard a female voice shout „are you ready for the B E S T?“ and I was totally not prepared to what was happening. It was the first time I witnessed 2NE1’s stage presence and at that time there was no turning back for me.

• Getting into it

So of course once the concert was over I started to look up more of 2NE1’s stuff. That’s how i became a YG stan. I started to watch all the music videos of the YG artists back then and for a couple of years I always preferred YG artists over others because I really liked their stuff and they were the reason I got into K-Pop in the first place. So while I mainly listened to the likes of BigBang, 2NE1, Lee Hi and Psy, I also loved some stuff by other artists like SNSD, T-ara (especially their drama music videos). I first fandom I got into was – you probably guessed it by now – the one around 2NE1: Blackjacks. We just couldn’t get enough of their music, videos and performances. I got so invested I watched the whole of 2NE1 TV two times and some clips/episodes even more.

Everything happened so fast that in summer of 2013 I booked my first flight to Seoul for December and I started to learn Korean. Well… at least my Korean skills haven’t changed much in the last 7+ years since I learned to read/write Hanguk around the time I booked the flight but never actually got into speaking/conversations since I just couldn’t find the motivation to do so in the evenings after work.

• First trip to Seoul

One of the best things about my first trip to Seoul actually happened a few months earlier while I was waiting for my flight home from Paris. 2 women who were so invested into talking into each other that they missed the boarding window for their flight made a scene at the counter. I found it pretty amusing – as did two young women sitting opposite me. We started talking and it turned out one of them actually is Korean and was visiting Paris with her friend from Vienna. When I mentioned that I would be visiting Seoul the Korean girl offered to show me around once I arrived. We talked to each other for a while and exchanged contact information before we had to board our plane.

After chatting every other day for the next few months she kept her promise and we met on my second in Seoul. Since I mostly like to plan things in advance I read a lot of stuff regarding travel and etiquette in South Korea before going there in order to get around easier and not offend anyone. I even printed a subway map and noted some things I wanted to see on there with the information about the station as well as the exit I had to take. This sheet of paper accompanied me for every of my four trips to Seoul and with pretty much every trip I added a few places to it. Even though the map is not in a good shape anymore I still keep it around for a possible future trip to Seoul.

• My first K-Pop concert

While I only stayed in Seoul for 3 nights, I booked another flight in June only a few weeks after I was back in Austria because I was so impressed by everything the city had to offer that I couldn’t get enough. In April I stumbled upon the SBS Dream Concert while looking through some K-Pop related websites and noticed that it was scheduled exactly while I was there – 10 minutes later I sent a mail to get some tickets, since I thought it would be a nice experience. And it was… it was just so different than other concerts I’ve been before. Everything was organized so well before the concert. For every area there was a different meet-up spot outside of the World Cup Stadium. While I haven’t seen any K-Pop act live before, that number rose to over 30 with just this one concert.

While I was kind of sad there were no YG artists attending, I got to see a couple of acts I already liked back then and some I started to like because of their performance (p.e. Block B). Another funny thing that between my arrival at my seat and the start of the concert was, that I have been interviewed by 2 young women from a Korean radio station who asked me questions about where I come from and which group(s) I’m rooting for. After about 4 to 5 hours the concert was over and I still tried to comprehend what I had just witnessed while in the subway on my way back to the hotel.

• Not getting enough

In 2015 and 2016 I once again went to Seoul – this time I traveled with friends which was a nice change of pace. Even though I have been there 4 times until now I always managed to find new places and experiences every time I went to Seoul. In 2015 there was a special exhibition for the K-Drama „My Love from the Star“ (or „You who came from the Stars“) and since it took place at the same time I’ve been there I also went to see the exhibition because I had just seen the Drama a few months before (and I even bought the BluRay Box Set Collection of the whole series for almost 500 Euros back then).

In 2016 again I was lucky enough to be able to visit a concert while visiting Seoul. This time it was the Rapbeat Show & Nite with acts like Zico, Bewhy, Zion.T, Illionaire Records (Beenzino, Dok2, The Quiett), Nucksal, Microdot, Nafla, Deepflow, Don Mills and many more. Since this time the concert didn’t take place at a large stadium but rather a small venue and the performers mostly weren’t idols the experience was a completely different one. My friend and I had a lot of fun that night with all those Korean Rap and Hip-Hop acts and even the fact that my phone destroyed it’s memory card that night (which resulted in me not having any pictures and videos of that night in my phone anymore) couldn’t take that experience away from me.

SHINee performing „Sherlock“ at KCON France

• KCON Paris 2016

Less than a month later my friend and I went to Paris to visit the first (and – until now – last) European KCON where BTS, Block B, SHINee, F.T. Island, f(x) and I.O.I performed. While we were there we even met some new friends form Austria who were interested in K-Pop and the five of us stayed in contact ever since. Even though we couldn’t enter the convention part, since it was way to small to even remotely fit everybody in who wanted to enter, we still had lots of fun while waiting in line.

Once again I should experience something pretty unusual connected to Korea/K-Pop: My friend and I had some pretty good seats but at the moment we wanted to go to our seats one of the staff members told us they had to give us other seats, since the Korean president was attending and she and her companions got our seats. In the end we got pretty lucky, since the new seats were even better, since we were right next to one of the stages (instead of between them).

• My collection and favourites

Since I didn’t just go sightseeing during my trips to Seoul but I also started buying K-Pop CDs and DVDs back in late 2013. I currently own approximately 200 K-Pop CDs and I’m not ready to stop. The production quality of most of the CDs is just so much better than the one of European or American artists. In the end there are various factors on why I simply cannot stop listening to K-Pop/K-Hip-Hop – like the flashing performances, stunning vocals and visuals as well as fiery raps.

My current K-Pop collection (stored double deep).

I may get a bit more into detail regarding my trips to Korea from a sightseeing/travel perspective so I guess the best way to finish this post – which ended up to be just a tad longer than expected – is to give you a list of my favourite Korean music acts, movies and K-Dramas (in no particular order).

Favourite Korean movies:

• Blind
• A Company Man
• Confession of Murder
• The Handmaiden
• The Host
• The Man from Nowhere
• My Sassy Girl
• Oldboy
• Parasite
• Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring
• Train to Busan

Favourite K-Dramas:

• Descendants of the Sun
• Goblin
• My Love from the Star
• Pinocchio
• Remember

Favourite singers/groups:

• Epik High
• IU
• SHINee (and all the solo work of each member)
• Mamamoo (and all the solo work of each member)
• BTS (and all the solo work of each member)
• 2NE1 (as well as CL’s and Bom’s solo work)
• BigBang (and all the solo work of each member)
• Red Velvet
• Akdong Musician
• Taeyeon
• MFBTY / Drunken Tiger
• Twice
• Zico
• Hyuna
• Winner
• Jessi
• Nell
• and much much more