10 years of BTS expanding Korean cultural territory

These days, the night shade in Seoul is purple. When the sun goes down, Namsan Seoul Tower turns on purple lights, and a purple fountain show is held along the Hangang River in Seoul. In celebration of the 10th anniversary of the debut of world-renowned boy group BTS on Tuesday, the group's symbolic color purple festival is in full swing. The BTS “Army” gathered from all over the world is celebrating the group’s 10th anniversary by making a “pilgrimage” to the Yongsan office building where the BTS agency is located, Gyeongbokgung Palace, where they filmed an American talk show, and Hakdong Park in Seoul, where the members practiced dance as trainees.

BTS' 10 years is the 10 years that went beyond K-pop and rewrote the history of popular music in the world. It was a group that was far from "born with a silver spoon" from a fledgling entertainment company, but from the beginning, they aimed to target the U.S. market in order to achieve the world’s No. 1. In 2020, it became the first K-pop song to top the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and the first time in Billboard history that a song with non-English lyrics reached the top. Earlier in 2019, they held a solo performance for the first time as an Asian music group at Wembley Stadium in London, England. According to local media, it was a “K-pop invasion” and a moment “BTS made history.” After the emergence of BTS, the K-pop market expanded to the West, doubling the number of exporting countries, and the amount of music exports grew more than eight times, exceeding $231 million in 2022. “BTS is like King Gwanggaeto the Great who expanded the K-pop territory.”

The domestic economic impact caused by the "soft power" of BTS is estimated at 42 trillion won over the past 10 years. An analysis also shows that the number of foreign tourists, clothing, cosmetics, and food exports increase by 0.18 to 0.72 percentage points for every 1 percentage point increase in BTS awareness, measured by Google search volume. However, BTS is special because they do not stop at garnering commercial success. As global youth representatives, they attended the UN General Assembly three times, encouraging young people to “not be afraid of change” and asking others to “pay close attention to climate change.” The music video for "Permission to Dance" dancing in international sign language with people of different professions, races, and generations was a song to cheer people around the world during COVID-19. Just as the British band Beatles contributed to the anti-war movement with "Imagine,” BTS conveyed hope that if we join forces, we can overcome the pandemic.

Thanks to BTS' success and Netflix's K-drama, Hallyu is now becoming a mainstream culture enjoyed by ordinary people around the world, not just a minority of fanatics. Last year, the so-called "Korean wave balance," which calculated income and expenses earned from Korea-related music and video, stood at a record high with a surplus of 1.235 billion U.S. dollars. We hope that talented people from Korea armed with fresh ideas and challenging spirits will entertain people from all over the world and further expand their cultural territory.