Throughline: How Korean culture went global

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NPR

Society & Culture

4.6 • 14.5K Ratings

🗓️ 9 November 2022

⏱️ 48 minutes

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Summary

From BTS to Squid Game to high-end beauty standards, South Korea reigns as a global exporter of pop culture and entertainment. How does a country go from a war-decimated state just 70 years ago, to a major driver of global soft power? Through war, occupation, economic crisis, and national strategy, comes a global phenomenon - the Korean wave. This is an episode from our play cousins Throughline and originally aired September 8th, 2022.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Karen Gook's rebates and this is Coatswitch.
0:07.0	Remember that wildly popular Netflix show Squid Game or the Oscar winning film Parasite?
0:13.0	How about that 2012 Global Hit Gangnam Style?
0:16.2	Or maybe you're a diehard fan of Boyband sensation BTS?
0:20.8	All of those pop culture phenomena originated in South Korea.
0:26.4	What is recently as 70 years ago South Korea was decimated by war.
0:31.4	So how did it go from occupation and economic crisis to dominating as a global exporter
0:37.0	of pop culture and entertainment?
0:39.4	Good question.
0:40.8	Today's episode has answers and they come from our play cousins at Thru Line.
0:45.0	I'll let them take it from here.
0:49.0	It was in 2019, like late 2019.
0:55.6	So I became a fan around 2015, 2016.
0:59.6	During the pandemic I would say began in 2013.
1:02.1	I think I will say officially in 2016.
1:05.3	My roommate actually, he showed me one music video and then he showed me their performances
1:09.3	on SNL and for weeks after I just could not stop watching those videos.
1:15.6	Ladies and gentlemen, we've welcomed BTS.
1:19.6	The K-pop group song got over 108 million views within the first 24 hours of its release.
1:45.1	There's an interesting concept in Korean culture called one Joe means the original.
1:52.1	The K-dummer world has been the talk of the town, not only in Korea but also worldwide.
1:57.1	In the man for Korean beauty products or K-beauty continues to run.
	...

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