{"id":5040,"date":"2018-11-11T06:45:31","date_gmt":"2018-11-11T11:45:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/?p=5040"},"modified":"2018-11-16T11:45:47","modified_gmt":"2018-11-16T16:45:47","slug":"k-pop-bts-and-their-american-impacts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/?p=5040","title":{"rendered":"K-pop, BTS, and Their American Impacts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rebecca Horton ’19
\nEE\u00a0<\/em>Contributor
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Americans have seen it countless times before: stadiums packed with screaming teenage girls, dying in anticipation as they wait to see their favorite band perform live. The instrumentalists are queued in, and the deafening roar of the crowd progressively grows louder. Finally, the first lyrics are sung, but this time they\u2019re in Korean.<\/span><\/p>\n

Korean pop music, most commonly referred to as K-pop, has gathered a global cult following in recent years. In less than a decade, it has evolved from a small subculture to an almost $5 billion dollar industry.<\/span><\/p>\n

In America, there\u2019s one band to rule them all: BTS, the all-boy group that has gone as far as any K-pop band can go in terms of leaving a lasting mark on American culture. In fact, as cited by CNBC, \u201cBTS was the No. 1 most tweeted about musical group in the U.S. in 2017, topping Justin Bieber, Rihanna and Nicki Minaj.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

From being featured on the cover of American Billboard magazine, to being the first K-pop band to debut an album at No. 1 on the US Billboard charts, to collaborating with well-known American singers and songwriters such as Nicki Minaj and The Chainsmokers, there\u2019s no denying the band\u2019s seven members were destined for stardom.<\/span><\/p>\n

A<\/span>s BTS and the rest of the K-pop scene continue to expand here in the US, many people are left pondering the reason for BTS\u2019s success, especially since non-Western music isn\u2019t common in America. The reason can be attributed to the fact that, \u201cthe members of BTS are deeply, plainly deferential to their fans, and appear grateful to the machinery that brought them all together.\u2026 Unlike American pop stars, who tend to embrace and perform bravado (or at least a kind of outsized independence),\u201d explains the New Yorker.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cK-pop culture focuses a lot more on being interactive. They have events and fan-signs, which are really personal things because they\u2019re not concerts, or a chance to see them perform. It\u2019s a chance to talk with and connect to fans. You have to have a level of trust with your audience to do that,\u201d said Arianna Diamond, an avid K-pop and BTS fan.<\/span><\/p>\n

Overall, K-pop\u2019s sudden success is not a mere stroke of luck or an accident. The cultural divide between the glitzy, untouchable glamour of Western pop stars and the humble community of K-pop bands like BTS has continued to widen. While the money and fame flaunted by American artists are aspirational desires for many, K-pop offers escapism through a more relatable, down-to-earth lens.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rebecca Horton ’19 EE\u00a0Contributor Americans have seen it countless times before: stadiums packed with screaming teenage girls, dying in anticipation as they wait to see their favorite band perform live. The instrumentalists…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5040"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5040\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5048,"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5040\/revisions\/5048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thseagleseye.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}