Grammy victory ushers in new K-pop era

The Netflix animated series “KPop Demon Hunters,” released last year, ignited a global sensation and broke multiple records. Its defining moment came when the soundtrack single “Golden” won Best Song Written for Visual Media at this year’s Grammy Awards. The win marked the first Grammy for a K-pop act, breaking through a barrier even BTS could not overcome in 2021.

The success of “Golden” also highlights the increasingly hybrid nature of K-content. Strictly speaking, the project cannot be labeled purely “made in Korea.” It brought together a Korean Canadian director and a Korean American composer, was produced by Sony Pictures, and released on Netflix. Yet few disputed seeing the award as a milestone in K-pop history. K-content now transcends nationality and geographic boundaries.

A recent article in The Economist, titled “The risky experiment to drop the K from K-pop,” reflects this global expansion. The magazine reported that some music industry figures are considering removing the “K” from K-pop to avoid confining the genre to a regional label and to extend its influence across the international market.

Such efforts are still widely viewed as risky, raising concerns about diluting Korean identity and weakening established fandoms. Even so, the emergence of this debate underscores growing confidence in the intangible brand power of “K.” It reflects the belief that no single stereotype can fully define what is “Korean.”

Among global fans, Korean terms such as “hoobae” and “unni” are commonly used in romanized form, regardless of South Korea’s official romanization system. While “hubae” and “eonni” would be linguistically accurate, these spellings have evolved through interactions within fandom communities. They cannot be dismissed as simply incorrect. K-culture now encompasses more than content created by Koreans or strictly following Korean conventions.

A recently published book, "Perspectives From Within and Outside in Reading the Korean Wave," argues that it is time to reconsider the Korean Wave from a transnational perspective that goes beyond national authenticity. “Koreanness is not a static identity diluted in a global environment, but a process continually renewed through complexity and interaction,” the book states.

On YouTube, recipes for “Korean-style” soft tofu stew or fried rice frequently appear. Soft tofu stew made with gochujang and kimchi, or fried rice prepared with long-grain rice and sriracha sauce, may not align with traditional Korean standards.

Yet as the term “Korean-style” implies, K-content and K-culture may already have evolved into cultural phenomena that extend far beyond South Korea. One thing is clear: the “K” once associated primarily with the Korean Wave has expanded into a broad phenomenon encompassing both variation and universality. In this era, what is considered “Korean” will inevitably continue to evolve in new directions.