Korean Wave makes second splash
The main beneficiaries of ubiquitous hand-held smartphones may, of course, be mobile phone manufacturers and telecom operators, but Korea’s producers of popular culture should add their names to the list as well.
As more people have access to filesharing Web sites and video-sharing Web sites any time anywhere, Korean pop culture, especially music and dramas, is gaining worldwide followers.
This Web-based fandom, which is more spontaneous and prevalent than the previous drama-oriented flood of interest in the early 2000s, went offline as Korean musicians such as Girls’ Generation, Super Junior and SHINee paid their first visits to Paris in June as part of their world tour. Tickets to the two-day concert sold out in less than 15 minutes.
Fans who failed to get tickets rallied outside the concert venue, urging SM Entertainment to hold another show.
SM is the leading entertainment company and manages the aforementioned musicians.
In the end, SM had to stage one more concert in Paris due to rallies and rampant ticket scalping. The Paris concert was later dubbed the “Korean Invasion” by some foreign media.
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
To write comments, please log in to one of the accounts.
Standards Board Policy (0/250자)