In the past few years, K-pop has emerged globally as a revolution in music. K-pop, K-dramas, K-movies are attracting a huge global audience. The South Korean boy band BTS – “Bangtan Sonyeondan” in Korean or “Beyond The Scene” in English became an unprecedented global sensation since their debut in 2013. Their global popularity peaked highest in 2018 with two albums in Billboard Top 200 and Top Social Artist Award.
BTS is the most successful manifestation of the Hallyu phenomena of Korean pop cultural exports including K-pop (Korean popular music), soap operas, and cinemas to date. Hallyu is a Chinese word that means Korean cultural wave. There are many K-pop idols and bands but none managed to create such a huge global influence spreading Korean culture globally.
BTS or K-pop culture is regarded as soft power, but is it truly a soft power? Firstly, what is a soft power for a country?
In politics, especially international politics, soft power is an ability or something that provides an added advantage for the country. In simple words, soft power works in the country’s favor in shaping the preferences of people through appeal and attraction. Soft power has an enormous impact on people and businesses.
The biggest and most prominent evidence of BTS being a soft power is the presence of the K-pop group at 76th session of United Nations General Assembly. The band not just expressed their concern and thoughts on climate change but also performed their latest single ‘Permission To Dance’. BTS was the first K-Pop group to address United Nations in 2018 and first ever group to perform at UNGA. It was an undeniably highly looked forward to event with more than a million viewers tuning in when the group took to the podium to deliver a message of hope and power to teens and young adults across the world.
The band has a fan base as huge as an ocean – the purple ocean one can see at their concerts, known as the BTS ARMY. The band’s remarkable journey to worldwide prominence has been aided by the support of an estimated 90 million fans around the globe. The astronomical pull is a big bonanza for the country. Their popularity is an example of how Korean soft power is disseminated through ideas and concepts that bridge cultural divides.
The band’s popularity isn’t just seen in the sale of music albums, concert tickets or merchandise, it also has been a great booster to South Korean Tourism. The official website of ‘Imagine Your Korea’ features a list of all the locations from BTS music videos and album covers, encouraging tourists to recreate the scene at the same spot where their bias shot it. BTS members have been named as Honorary Tourism Ambassadors for Seoul, and they’ve been wooing visitors to the city with the “Live Seoul Like I Do” project, which encourages tourists to visit band members’ favorite spots in the city.
Another example of BTS popularity and influence is seen when McDonald’s launched its most awaited BTS Meal in June 2021, but was forced to close many of its outlets within minutes of the launch at several places due to high orders. Crazy right? Well, the craze and popularity of BTS is insane. It’s not just that armies love BTS insanely, the band also cherishes the fandom, loves armies, and does a lot of things for their fandom. It’s not just music albums that armies love; RUN BTS, Bon Voyage, VLives and many more are ways BTS keeps their fan base engaged and entertained.
The band members often interact with armies on Weverse through posts and comments. The band members have recently opened their personal profiles on Instagram and within a few hours the profiles crossed millions of followers. The BTS influence has also led to an increase in international armies learning Korean language to understand songs better and to interact with the band. The BTS effect has also resulted in the addition of Korean-origin words to Oxford English Dictionary. According to a Guardian report, more than 20 new Korean-origin words, such as hallyu, aegyo, mukbang have been added to the Oxford English Dictionary’s latest edition.
Breaking records on YouTube, creating new Guinness World Records, selling out merchandise within hours of launching, the special events hosted by fans globally on band’s and band members’ birthdays, sold-out concerts at few of the biggest stadiums and many more such astounding things are happening not just in South Korea but across the globe. This is the purple effect, The BTS Effect, impacting thousands of lives. BTS’ popularity can surely be defined as soft power, as their influence has an astonishing impact on youth – they use it to spread positive messages like ‘Love Yourself’, ‘Live your dream’ and motivate people through their songs and albums.
BTS has a huge fan base even in India. A lot of people, especially youths of India including Bollywood celebrities proudly call themselves armies. India has a lot of talent and art forms. Indian art forms, dance forms, and music are admired in many parts of the world. Indian music has a variety of genres due to the diversity in our country. Our unique and diversified music has never failed to amaze people. A classical singer having their own classical music academy in the USA or foreigners grooving to Bollywood songs are is a significant indicator of the influence our music genres can have over the world.
Increasing awareness and curiosity about different forms of Indian music can be seen around the globe as well. There are a huge number of foreigners who come to India to learn and study Indian Music. With this growing reach and popularity, Indian music may soon become a soft power for India, giving our art forms and us a unique edge and an image around the globe.
Written by Saili Sabnis from Deshpee. Image via Wikipedia
