Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

Background of the study

Since the late 90’s, K-Pop has been one of South Korea’s most important cultural

exports. Fans have a deeply emotional attachment to the music.(Green, 2018)People

from all over countryespecially in Asia, K-Pop has easily got their attention by creating

catchy music or having an amazing live performances, and because of that many

people were convinced to like music. Because of their influences, many people started

to imitate their way of singing and dancing, many people were encourage to go to Korea

just to see their idols. In addition, K-Pop has contributed a huge part in our society.

K-pop (abbreviation of Korean pop; Hangul) is a genre of music characterized by a wide

variety of audiovisual elements. While the modern form of K-Pop can be traced back to

the early 90`s, the term itself has been popularized since the 2000’s, replacing the term

“Gayo”, which also refers to domestic pop music in south Korea.

After the financial crisis of 1997, K-Pop has been one of the South Korea’s most

important cultural exports along with film and TV dramas. There’s a thing that is called

Hallyu or Korean wave and K-Pop is a part of it. The “First Wave” occurred from about

1997 to 2005/2007 across Asia. In our present time, Koreans still has the wave and is

called “Second Wave” and it is now Global.

According to Martin Roll, the Korean Wave (Hallyu) is alluding to the global vogue of

South Korea’s cultural economy exporting pop culture, entertainment, music, TV

dramas and movies. (Martin Roll, 2018). First of all, let us define first the meaning of
Korean wave, Korean wave (Hangul; Hanja; RR: Hallyu), a neologism (literally meaning

“flow of Korea”) is the increase in global popularity of South Korean culture since the

1990s. The Ministry of Culture and Tourism was the first one to use the termHallyu in

Korea in 1999, it is when they produced a music CD titled in Chinese “Hallyu” – Song

from Korea. Chinese media used the term to describe the success of Korean popular

culture in China.

Korean Wave came from the Chinese term “Hallyu” which, when translated, literally

means “Korean Wave”. It is a collective term used to refer to the phenomenal growth of

Korean culture and popular culture encompassing everything from music, movies,

drama to online games and Korean cuisine just to name a few. South Korea is one of

the only countries in the world, if not the only one, that has a dedication goal to become

the world’s leading exporter of popular culture. It is in order to develop Korea’s “Soft

power”.

The Korean wave movement is the biggest soft power success story of the region

(Oh,2013) Particularly the rise of kpop a Korean popular music in the global music

scene came as a coup De main to many music fans,commentators and business people

in asia. The Anglo-american are European domination of the global music industry has

rarely face challenging competitors from asia prior to the sudden k-pop epidemic.Psy’s

“Gangnam Style,” for example,ranked number one the world in terms of YouTube click

counts, reaching more than 1.7 billion hits as of July 21, 2013 the second most hits

recorded in YouTube history by Justin Bieber in at just 0.9 billion.

Before Psy’s ascendance as a global pop star, other boy and girl bands from Korea

have enthralled a massive number of young Asian and European fans who rushed to
quickly sold outlive concerts and/or YouTube for instant and free access to music

videos. In countries like China, where YouTube is banned, young fans relied on the

alternative social networking service (SNS) sites for free music videos from Korea. Girls

Generation, Wonder girls, TVXQ, Big bang, 2 pm, 2 NE 1, and Rain are particularly

popular among a divers and long list of young entertainers from korea who currently

dominate the Asian music industry (see inter alia, Ho, 2012; Lee, 2012; Oh and park,

2012; Hubinette, 2012; Hirata, forthcoming; Iwabuchi, Forthcoming).

Now lets see how kpop invades the Filipinos. Painting the Scenario of Filipino K-pop

Fan Culture (Capili, 2014) This statement examines the aspects of K-pop culture in the

Philippines. In recent years, the K-pop scene in the Philippines has visibly flourished. It

has truly come far from its beginnings in the mid-2000’s. The main objective of this

presentation is to paint a picture of K-pop fan culture in the Philippines. This is a product

of an immersion into the scene – the researcher has attendant various activities such as

concerts, fab meets and conventions, and has joined and participated in online

communities. Research include informal discussions with fans, observations during

fieldwork and personal experience.

The presentation is divided into four parts. First is a look into the K-pop fandom scene

and the events that comprise it. Then we’ll check out the different ways of K-pop

fandom expression. After that, we will briefly discuss some emerging issues of this

phenomenon and to end in a bright note, I will present to you, what’s in my opinion, are

the contributions and/ or positive effects of the Philippines K-pop fandom scene in our

society today.
Also, there are K-pop text clans. With cellphone network providers offering unlimited

texting promos, fans can always text their fellow fans who are members of their clan

and with that it can help them to be updated if ever there will be events or concert to

their supporting K-pop idols.

I guess not the Philippines per se, but the Filipinos (specially the young ones) are

affected by the growing k-pop culture.( Figueroa, 2013) those Filipino who are into k-

pop, then it means a lot. From fashion, arts, and social it influences them somehow

though there is no official statistics on how many Filipinos are in to k-pop, I could safely

say that could be considered as a minority but with huge social reach, especially online.

Being a millennialmy self, I am not in to k-pop. I do have few friends who are, but most

of my peers are not. On the other hand, the growing fan base of k-pop in the

Philippines undeniable. Give it few more years, and maybe it could reflect a stronger

foothold in our country as whole. More Korean brands specially cosmetics and

garments are popping up in malls. But also Chinese brands. Few private business are

being operated by Korean nationals here (my boss in my current part time his Korean

himself). Meaning, Koreans are taking the opportunity to join the economic growth the

Philippines has been enjoying recent years. Korean are also the top tourist visitors of

the country. They are also on top list in terms of foreign students studying here.
LOCAL
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

Thanks to the spread of the media, Korean pop culture became one of the

indispensable factors of life for some people. For example of Japan, group of elderly

people around age of 60 or more were into Korean house drama “winter sonata”, which

created a special world, that was isolated from the daily world. It’s quite iconic how a lot

of Filipinos nowadays are so engrossed with Korean pop songs and dramas. Base on

the objectives of this study, the researchers reviewed related studies that are significant

for the fans active media consumption, Filipinos as active-fans, popular media content

in the Philippines, and the Korean wave in Asia and Philippines. Because of the rising of

this social media or social networking sites k-pop became popular in the Philippines

especially in the Filipino teens. Not only in the Philippines but also in the other country,

people who are influence by this k-pop group are mostly teenagers, some are young

and others are young at heart. Because of the popularity of k-pop group and artists, k-

pop fandom among Filipino teens become also widespread, they influenced most of the

Filipino teens nowadays with funky hair style (and those huge that almost cover their

faces), fashionable clothes, trendy shoes, coal eyeliners, eccentric shacks and the

bangs flip trademarks. Filipino teens imitate now their Idols look, how they move act and

everything that his/her k-pop Idol & k-pop fans imitate that too. There is no doubt, k-pop

fever is all over the Philippines, with its consistent sales of k-pop albums and concerts

tickets, Filipino is definitely invaded by Korean culture. Even on the culture of the Korea

they search about it, how they talk and their language they imitate that also. Even

though they were more ease speaking tagalog than English and they can’t understand
their language, they still buy their merchandise or album. The world of K-pop in a world

where music dominates and influences everything we do, there is a new type of music

that is weekly progressing in popularity, not only nationally but globally as well. K-pop is

a Korean although it is not only pop music, it is also trot, hip-hop and R&B and rap. K-

pop is not only music though; it is a guide that can help give a person more insight

about the world around them. It is a hard thing to be an idol in Korea, there are so many

values and difficulties they must overcome in order to achieve recognition and fame.

INFLUENCES OF K-POP TO FILIPINO YOUTH

There are some good influences of K-pop to people especially to millennial. Lets state

at least three advantages. First, “You can learn another language that might be useful”

learning the Korean language is very useful especially to those students that are

studying in Korean school. As a fan it is so easy for them to cope up for their lesson

because they already had the knowledge of it.

There are several benefits to learning Korean. Professionally, speaking Korean can be

an asset. Academically, speaking Korean can open a lot of doors. Socially, speaking

Korean can lead to a lot of friends and connections.

Professionally, speaking Korean is not the main factor that will convince companies to

hire you. Experience and degrees count more than the ability to speak Korean. For

example if someone has more experience and higher degrees, chances are Korean

companies will hire him even if he does not speak Korean.

k-pop choreographies, want to learn Korean. In this advantage if you are able to like k-

pop you will able to get addicted and you started to sing like them, dance like them and

imitate the way they choreograph their performance.

In this advantage, you will be able to enhance your skills in singing and dancing. You

can also develop new skills that may help you in the future. You can also help your

health with that, especially if you keep on dancing you didn’t know that the more you

dance and copy their choreographies you can also burn your fats.

It can also help us especially millennial to dance more and less thinking of the stress in

school. As you can see many people are socially isolated but if you will focus in learning

how to sing and dance like Koreans you could be busy and forget your social life. In

addition, by exploring them you can know more information about Korea and by that you

can imitate or adapt them in ease.

The third or last advantage is “communicating with other people” in this advantage we

are able to meet people and create friendship. Of course if you are able to share

something about your idols in K-pop many people will react.

They can relate at some point. In this advantage communication is the key so that you

could be able to learn more about their culture. You will be able to meet different kinds

of people. You will learn to communicate with others. Without communication how

would others know about K-pop?

your self-esteem and self-confidence. As you can see K-pop is very popular especially

to millennial they are able to build a huge communication especially to Filipinos

After discussing the advantages of K-pop there is also disadvantages, here are some.

Let’s state at least three of them.

First disadvantage, “you learn how to spend your saved money non-stop on albums and

posters and merchandise than to spend of other important goods” in this advantage

many millennial are spending their money just to buy merchandise, concert tickets,

poster, albums, light stick sand etc.

Instead of spending it to important matters such as buying materials for projects or

eating your lunch you are able to spend it for the things that are related to K-pop so that

you will not be left behind. As you can see, people has this attitude of wanting to get

something so that people would be able to see that they are so into Koreans.

Even if they have no money they still find a way just to buy or to get what they wanted

just to support K-pop. Sometimes they are able to borrow money just to go to the

concerts of their idols.

Second disadvantage is people are able to focus on other culture and they are able to

forget their own culture. As you can see millennial are into Koreans if others started to

talk about Filipino culture they are not interested to listen because for them its boring.

They has more ideas in how Koreans dressed and style while in their own country they

didn’t give importance because they are able to adopt how Koreans dressed and etc.

Also, their way of singing they are into K-pop but when it comes to OPM they didn’t
gave importance to it. In dancing, they are willing to waste their time in learning their

way of dancing but in their own culture there are only few that who still gave importance.

Korean pop has a huge contribution in the world but because of them students or

children will be able to forget the highlights or history of their country because they are

most interested when it comes to K-pop, they are willing to know when it started, how it

started, its history and etc.

The last disadvantage that we are able to give is you can lose some friends, family time,

or even forgets your own tradition or culture. Those friends who are not interested or

those who don’t have the same interest with you. In this disadvantage, yes many people

are into K-pop but there are also a lot of persons who are not into k-pop. Those are the

people who doesn’t have the interest to music. Maybe, because they cannot understand

the lyrics of it or they are matured enough to appreciate their own culture.

Some would say that they don’t admire Koreans that’s why they are not interested to k-

pop. Even though many people are into K-pop, many people also hates K-pop. It’s

because in their eyes K-pop is only for immature, because of that many people lose

their friendship because of K-pop.

Many people tend to fight or argue because of backstabbing their friends who are into

K-pop. Many of them who cannot relate so that some of their friends tend to leave their

friendship because they has different interests.

Your friends will make fun of you. You will tend to choose between your friends and K-

pop. You will be lonely. Your friends possibly forget you or leave because of your

addiction of k-pop. Sometimes, you’ll eventually forget to think about your friends
because you’re always in your phone watching k-dramas or k-pop concerts. When your

friends invite to go out with them but you say that you are busy, but truth is you’re just

watching a k-drama or k-pop. If you’re an addict at a Korean culture or to their doings,

there’s a possibility that you will forget your nation’s tradition or culture. In terms of

Kdrama, there’s always a thing that is called as a “cliff hanger”, by that you’ll be excited

in every episode you watch and because of that you’re going to spend more time staring

at your mobile phone and that results to destroy your eye sight, because of the radiation

that always occurs when using a mobile phone. K-Pop can be a distraction your work/

studies, some of you may agree but some may not. This one is from my friends and also

base on my experiences. It's true actually. It's hard to control studies and k pop

especially if you don't know how to manage your time. Especially when your favorite

group/solo artist has a comeback and you have a test for the following day. It's really

frustrating. You’ll going to fighting the urge to grab your Mobile phone and watch it.
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

This study examined the influences of Korean pop to the Filipino youth of second year

students of Maryknoll College of Panabo Incorporated, Philippine Panabo. The following

questions were considered for a thorough discussion.

Statement: Influence of Korean pop to the Filipino youth

Research Questions:

1. What is Korean pop?

2. What are the influences of k-pop to Filipino youth both in positive and negative?

3. What are the perspective to the Filipino youth to k-pop?