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· Editorial Staff
5 Times K-Pop Stans United to Make Change for Social Justice
K-pop fans have emerged as valuable allies in the advancement of current social issues in the U.S. For years, followers of multiple fandoms have used their numbers to influence changes within the industry, but pressing matters in the last several weeks have united them to take…
· Ryan General
K-Pop Stans Reportedly Troll Trump Campaign Rally With Fake Ticket Reservations
K-pop stans and TikTok users are being hailed as heroes for their reported hand in the not so impressive turnout in Donald Trump’s campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma. According to the New York Times, Trump was “furious” at the low number of supporters in attendance on Saturday…
· Bryan Ke
K-Pop’s TST Member Yohan Dies Suddenly at the Age of 28
The 28-year-old singer Yohan, a member of the K-pop group TST, died Tuesday. Details of Yohan’s death, whose real name is Kim Jeong-hwan, remains private, according to SPOTV News via AsiaOne.
· Ryan General
Filipino K-Pop Fans Drown Out Hashtag Supporting Controversial Bill Threatening Basic Freedoms
Filipino K-pop fans are foiling attempts by pro-government groups to drum up support for a controversial bill in the Philippines. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte recently proposed a tougher law against terrorism which many critics feared would be used to restrict Filipinos’…
· Bryan Ke
K-Pop Stans Flood White Supremacist Hashtags to Help BLM
K-pop fans demonstrated their massive power on social media again by flooding trending White supremacist hashtags on Twitter with fancams of their favorite idols. The effort started on June 2 for the #bluelivesmatter hashtag, according to Vulture. The flood led to other White…
· Bryan Ke
K-Pop Fans Troll Dallas Police App With Videos to Protect Black Lives Matter Protesters
The Dallas Police Department’s mobile app iWatch Dallas crashed due to a flood of video submissions from K-pop fans as a way to protect the identities of the Black Lives Matter protesters. The online protest began after Twitter user @7soulsmap shared a screenshot of the Dallas…
· Bryan Ke
Lady Gaga is the Latest American Artist to Dip into K-Pop With BLACKPINK
Lady Gaga’s collaboration single with the mega-popular K-pop girl group BLACKPINK, titled “Sour Candy,” is now available online. “Sour Candy” is a single from Lady Gaga’s latest “Chromatica” album released on Thursday, featuring both English and Korean lyrics. It is one of the…
· Carl Samson
#BigKPopBitches: Plus-Size K-Pop Fans Start Hashtag to Represent Themselves
Feeling underrepresented in the K-pop community, a group of “big” K-pop fans launched a hashtag to make themselves visible on social media this month. The hashtag, #BigKPopBitches, started to pick up more traction on Twitter this week, as more plus-size fans join to celebrate…
· Bryan Ke
BTS’ Jungkook, 3 K-Pop Idols Criticized After Visiting Seoul Bar During Second Wave of Outbreak
Editor’s Note: This article has been updated to correctly report that the idols visited bars and restaurants, not clubs. The headline has also been updated from “Lockdown” to “Second Wave of Outbreak”. Big Hit Entertainment, the label of K-pop group BTS, has apologized after one…
· Kimberly Nguyen
K-Pop Stars Who Gang-Raped 2 Women Get Prison Terms Significantly Cut
Jung Joon-young and Choi Jong-hoon, two former Korean pop stars, had their sentences cut following the gang rape of two different survivors in November 2016. Singer-songwriter Jung’s six-year sentence turned to five years. Choi, 30, a former member of South Korean boyband FT…
· Bryan Ke
First British K-Pop Girl Group KAACHI Debuts
A new K-pop group from the United Kingdom made their debut and is breaking away from the usual girl group model by including different nationalities. KAACHI, which just released its debut single “Your Turn,” is made up of Korean, Spanish and British artists, according to Essex…
· Ryan General
TikTok Influencers Spark Outrage After ‘Stealing’ Dance Moves From K-Pop Group Apink
A pair of popular TikTok users are being called out after viewers noticed an uncanny similarity in the moves they used in a dance challenge with choreography performed by K-pop group Apink. Using a track called “Roses Remixed” by artist Saint Jhn, influencers @jazlynebaybee and…
· Bryan Ke
K-Pop Star Jaejoong Faces Backlash for Making COVID-19 April Fools’ Joke
Jaejoong from the K-pop group JYJ is under fire for his April Fools’ joke in which he falsely claimed that he tested positive for COVID-19. The now-deleted joke was posted Wednesday on Instagram where Jaejoong, whose real name is Kim Jae-joong, told his nearly 2 million…
· Carl Samson
Groom Surprises Bride With a K-Pop Wedding Dance and It’s Dope AF
A groom in the Philippines has gone viral on social media after getting down in a K-pop dance to surprise his bride at their wedding. The performance, which was uploaded on Facebook, has received more than 2.2 million views, 86,000 reactions, 68,000 shares and 18,000 comments…
· Carl Samson
Obsessive K-Pop Fan Posts Delusional, Terrifying Response to EXO’s Chen’s Marriage
An obsessive fan, whom others would likely label a sasaeng nutcase, has responded to the news of Chen’s looming marriage with disappointment, claiming that it destroyed the image of EXO they long had in mind. Earlier this week, Chen announced his plan to marry his girlfriend, a…
· Junsoo Kim
How MFBTY Adopted Hip-Hop for the K-Pop Scene
As international audiences become steadily more exposed to some of the hottest Korean boy and girl groups, listening to inspirational legends in the Korean music scene will lead audiences to a deeper understanding. According to ethnomusicologist Haekyung Um, hip hop was…
· Ryan General
K-Pop Stars Voted as Having the World’s ‘Most Beautiful Faces’ of 2019
TC Candler and The Independent Critics have released this year’s edition of “The 100 Most Beautiful Faces” and K-pop stars have reigned supreme on the annual list once again. In the rankings released on December 27, Tzuyu, of K-pop girl group Twice, was named the “Most Beautiful…
· Carl Samson
K-Pop Can Do Better With Mental Health
The untimely deaths of three of the biggest K-pop stars of their generation in the last two years have sparked conversations on the perils of neglecting mental health in the global multi-billion dollar industry. Proposed solutions to some of the issues idols constantly face have…
· Bryan Ke
YouTuber Gets Flak After Saying BTS, ‘K-Pop Boys’ is ‘Like a Little Fetish’
Ethan Klein, the other half of the husband-wife duo H3H3Productions, is under fire for his comments on BTS and the K-pop fandom. The 34-year-old YouTuber criticized BTS and the K-pop genre in a podcast on Dec. 9, according to Dexerto.
· Carl Samson
K-Pop Stars Sentenced for Raping Intoxicated Women, Sharing Sex Videos
A pair of male K-pop idols received prison sentences on Friday for raping women who were too drunk to resist. Singer-songwriter Jung Joon-young, 30, was sentenced to six years behind bars, while former F.T. Island member Choi Jong-hoon, 29, was sentenced to five years, the Korea…
Answer
BTS connects to HYBE, Weverse, memberships, merch, and tickets.
People & Works
Open
Artist · K-pop
&TEAM
&TEAM is HYBE's first homegrown Japanese boy group -- a localization play that plants the HYBE system directly inside the world's second-biggest music market rather than exporting Korean acts into it.
Artist · K-pop
2PM
2PM invented the 'beast idol' -- JYP's masculine, acrobatic counter-brand that opened the Japanese arena market for K-pop boy groups and made Thai member Nichkhun one of the first non-Korean idols engineered as a pan-Asian sales asset.
Artist · K-pop
aespa
SM's flagship 4th-gen group turned streaming dominance into arena-scale global touring — the clearest sign K-pop's next tier can headline, not just chart.
Artist · K-pop
AKMU
AKMU are the sibling duo who won K-Pop Star and picked YG on their own terms -- 'The Nation's Siblings' whose songwriting-first model gave YG a rare non-idol prestige asset that outlasted a full 12-year label run.
Artist · K-pop
BABYMONSTER
YG built BABYMONSTER as its designated BLACKPINK successor, and the pressure is the point -- the label bet its next decade of revenue on a seven-member group that had to shatter rookie sales records just to justify the comparison.
Artist · K-pop
BIGBANG
BigBang were the original architects of K-pop as a global export business -- the first mainstream Korean hip-hop idols whose stadium tours and merch empire proved a Korean act could out-earn Western pop stars and became the template YG monetized for a decade.
Artist · K-pop
BLACKPINK
The genre's biggest girl group returned as a group after years of solo dominance — testing whether K-pop's Western peak was a moment or a plateau. 'GO' answered.
Artist · K-pop
BOYNEXTDOOR
BOYNEXTDOOR is rapper Zico's KOZ Entertainment absorbed into the HYBE machine -- an artist-founded label that HYBE bought and turned into a hit factory, showing how HYBE grows by acquiring creative shops, not just building them.
Artist · K-pop
BTS
BTS didn't just come back — they re-coronated K-pop's top tier. 'Arirang' fuses Korean folk roots with global pop, and the tour proved the machine HYBE built scales to stadiums worldwide.
Results
Culture · artist
BTS
BTS connects to HYBE, the company behind BTS, Weverse, albums, merch, memberships, tickets, and concerts.
Company · Korea · KOSDAQ:035760
CJ ENM
CJ ENM is behind TV, music, film, award shows, and major cultural exports that shape what people watch.
Company · Korea · KRX:352820
HYBE
One of the layers behind BTS, SEVENTEEN, TXT.
Company · Korea · KOSDAQ:035900
JYP Entertainment
JYP is tied to groups that drive albums, tours, subscriptions, merch, and international fan activity.
Company · Korea · KOSDAQ:041510
SM Entertainment
SM is tied to idol groups, tours, fan clubs, and the long-running system behind some of K-pop's most recognizable acts.
Company · Korea · KOSDAQ:122870
YG Entertainment
YG connects global K-pop attention to touring, brand deals, fan demand, and artist-centered entertainment revenue.
Company · Korea · KRX:251270
Netmarble
Netmarble is Korea's mobile-game powerhouse that turns pop-culture IP into games — from BTS titles to Marvel — and is one of HYBE's largest shareholders, linking K-pop and gamin...
HYBE · K-pop · KRX:352820
A BTS comeback is not just songs. It’s albums, merch, tickets, and Weverse.
A BTS comeback can start with one stream on your phone, then turn into a fan-club sign-up, merch order, livestream ticket, and more time spent inside Weverse.