BTS vs K-pop 

I see you guy’s comments about Japan & China’s history. Thankyou for the cliff notes! I also see some of you saying Psy didn’t put kpop on the map or he is not kpop at all. I would like to know Who you think put kpop on the map and what do you categorize Psy as. Let me know in the comments. I will be responding back to some people. Let’s get into some thangzzzz💜💜

I wouldn't say Psy put kpop on the map, because most people didn't even know he was Korean, let alone connect him to kpop (heck even you said in your commentary that you didn't connect him to kpop when Gangnam style first became a thing). I remember when Gangnam style came out, I knew he was connected to kpop because I was already following kpop, but to all of the people around me he was just this "funny Asian guy with the horse dance". I would say that in retrospect people have now connected psy to kpop, but that has only occured when they truly learnt about kpop because it became so unavoidable that they had no choice but to know kpop was a thing... and for the vast majority of the Western world that moment only came about after Bts blew up over here. So if the Western world is largely only connecting Psy to kpop in retrospect due to Bts becoming so large they are forced to learn of kpop, then it would have to be Bts that put kpop on the map rather than Psy.

I was also in the same boat as you about discovering BTS’ discography. I wasn’t into their more famous western hits such as “Butter” and “Dynamite,” but they peaked my curiosity because of their popularity. I only became a fan when I listened to their older songs which blew my mind away with their artistry. The variety of songs is what really got me hooked from “Mic Drop” to “Fake love.” I felt they really cared about what they produced and gave to the people.

bts are the ones who definitely put kpop on the map on a global scale after their 2017 rise in the west. psy was the first kpop act to blow up but he didn't really do much for the industry globally because most people still didn't know what he was singing about, or even what language he was singing in, and only treated him as a meme. it also shows in the way bts are the first korean artist since psy to really chart well in the west... if psy "paved the way", so to speak, more artists would have gotten boosts in popularity worldwide as well, right? well they got their boosts after bts blew up, and now we see where korean and kpop acts stand on itunes charts and on billboard, as compared to before bts blew up. if that's not proof, i don't know what is. also, psy is kpop, he's just a solo artist.. i think some people don't say he is because when you think of kpop you think of groups but i think he is because he makes music typical to the industry, as opposed to someone like heize or IU who i wouldn't count as kpop artists, just korean soloists. also, bts are not kpop for me either because kpop is an industry and them taking elements from it does not make them part of that industry per sé, especially after all the mistreatment they suffered from it. they've outgrown that label a long time ago now.

It is true, while I was living in Korea, people used Idol and Idol Music to refer to what the west calls K-Pop. The term K-pop only started being used in Korea after the exportation of Hallyu started bringing profits into Korea. So because the news and media uses the term K-Pop to market it as an export, it has become a household word. During WWII, Japan and the US were not on the same side, so when Japan took over Korea, they tried to erase Koreas Identity. Forcing their writing system, music, culture etc...on the citizens. Once Japan lost, and was forced out of Korea and the US started occupying many bases in Korea, that's when western music was really introduced. Before the introduction of western music or j-pop styles, Korean music sounded realllly mournful. The music spoke of their sorrows from the war and past struggles. It wasn't upbeat at all. Trot is one of the first upbeat genres to come out of Korea after the war.

BTS are on another level of their own. Proud and blessed to have them during our generation. #ARMYsince2014 💜

i was the same as you. i have heard young people speak about kpop and i think i watched that netflix story about kpop witch turned me away from the whole thing. teenage crazy about men and women who are so plastic to look at. they looked fake to me, all about the facade. and also the extreme training of young people was insane. a young girl wanted me to react to blackpink so i finally did but it was really not for me so i asked her if there was something else i might like and she said bts and i found idol. i was hooked from the start and it was on repeat for over a week. i was being drawn to jimin and wanted to find out who he was and found out his comtep dance witch blew me away since i love that type of dance. but also the way he blends his dance styles. he reminded me of MJ. so i started listening to more BTS and i got hooked. i have also tried listening to other kpop but i think they are lacking what bts has. catchy melody, writing their own songs,and the deep lyrics. i feel like BTS took kpop and upgraded it. so it´s hard for me to settle for less. and their performances is just better than all other groups.

I’m going to try to put this simply so you don’t get confused bc the history is deep 😂 so Japan colonized Korea for many years, if i was to generalize it into easily understandable terms they basically had all of Korea as slaves. Like all Koreans were 2nd class citizens, abused regularly by the Japanese (and don’t get me started on what they did to the women). So during those decades Japan basically had total control over what Koreans did and consumed. The reason American influence took so long was bc Korea only got their independence and democracy in the late 1980s. So it wasn’t until South Korea stabilized into a democratic nation that they really even had the time or technology available to get media from somewhere as far and foreign to them as America (plus those years when America helped SK during the Korean War). As a result of such a delayed start in creating their own cultural identity, their pop music developed when TV and movies were established things. So they’re watching MTV while we were. But “pop” is not what Koreans came to love really. Thanks to Japan’s rule and their later exposure to America, Koreans today love Ballads and indie/rock music from Japan days and Hip Hop and R&B via their exposure to America. Those are their top 4 genres. Most of the general public in Korea doesn’t even listen to idol music that much (a big reason why I don’t see kpop as a genre but instead it’s just another word for the idol Industry imo)

Rise of Bangtan Episode 1 has the inteoduction of music where seo taji and boys started. It's an amazing series. It consists of around 50+ episodes aince episodes 2 onwards has the main episode + deleted clips + bonus contents. It's a huge commitment but most reactprs do 1 episode (includiing deleted scemes+bonus content) per week. So that would give you 24 weeks of contents already. I love your insights and opinions towarda bangtan ang the whole industry. It's nothing wrong to say you have no idea and it's nice that you are so open about everything now. ❤️ Subbed!

japanese rule over korea was basically genocide so koreans had to leave their own culture and take part in japanese culture they were being forced to even count in japanese. i suggest looking into what japan did to korea and many other asian countries but warning its disturbing. that probably affected the music too but im not certain on the details relating to music.

The issue I have with K-pop is: K-pop was dubbed because of SM. The first business to recognize seo Taji and turn into a record label. A business. Others then formed YG and JYP. The big three. And the only groups ( amongst MANY other smaller companies) that ever won anything were from these companies from back stage and behind closed door hand shakes. BTS fought this. They were barred from Korean traditional media to promote groups because SM had a ball grip on them. So BTS had to figure out how to get their music out there. They used v logs and YT. It worked. Since then you have very dirty and subversive attempts through the big three (primarily through SM, remember they were the first and most powerful company) to defame, downplay and thwart BTS and bigHit. What they didn’t plan on was BigHit ceo used to work with YG, and had left for artistic differences. He knew the “game” And started big hit. Who was he? None other than Bang she hyuk (Phonetic license ). Bang PD who heard RM and created BTS. The war began. So now since the big three couldn’t silence or kill BTS, now all of a sudden BTS represents K-pop. THEY DO NOT. I’ll send you a link of a political radio show that outs the K-pop industry as it pertains to BTS. Put it like this….you see a pair of sneakers, you like the sneakers, you order the sneakers, but now you have all the other designers flooding your email with offers of their name brands saying they are just the same. OR you meet a friend that you really get along with and you invite them to your home for dinner. The door bell rings, you open the door and BTS is there, but before you can welcome them in a crowd behind them forces their way in, the next door neighbor, the gardener, his friend of a friend and an uncle that everyone avoids at Christmas….. all on the one invite. That’s K-pop trying to ride BTS coat tails. While BTS is linked together with K-pop, they are not of it. K-pop tried to kill BTS. But couldn’t. Why? Because ppl like you and I heard them. Political radio show : ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-jntgE0TRuCI.html seotaiji the god of Korean rap ( who heard western hip hop and brought it to Korea) invited ONE group out of the many many K-pop groups available to appear with them. Guess who it was? ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-C0T6MVYxC8s.html

Psy did put kpop into map BUT it left a very very bad impression on people about kpop. It gave an impression that kpop is not serious, it's just people dancing to exaggerated pop with lyrics that don't make sense. I would say people having a bad bad impression about k pop was highly fueled by Gangnam style Edit: forgot to mention that bts are now here debunking all these myths people have about them. And well..paving the way for all the kpop group rising at present

Korean Music History needs to be a movie for the World to see. From the Musicians of Nakwon Musical Arcade to Jongseo and Taewon music veterans...not forgetting Seo Taji and G Dragon and so on.

In my opinion, Gangnam Style is like Despacito. Like Despacito knows but Luis Fonsi doesn't. (Or Macarena?) However, bts is a brand in itself.

What a great video to react to! Elliot is an amazing essayist and I am glad you liked it! 🙂

also highly recommend the other videos on his channel ive learned so much and helped me be more cautious when learning about korean music how i speak about it etc

First off, thank you for your reactions. For Americans, your comments on the video essays are almost as helpful as the video essays themselves. And those videos are great. I had already watched them before seeing you. But for example, while it may not technically be that Psy paved the way for K-Pop, for the general public in the west, and for Most of us, he really did put it on the map. I know that's hard for real K-Pop fans to hear and I apologize that we weren't more aware before. But that doesn't make it less true. I mean, I know Big Bang and Girl's Generation were huge everywhere else before Psy's breakthrough, but I had never heard of them before BTS.

When psy was doing shows in the US, i didn’t associate him with kpop because to me kpop are those singers who comes in groups. After psy, i didn’t really saw kpop groups being introduced in the west. Like after the gangnam craze went down, there was nothing not until bts. Psy had his own time ofcourse, but before him there were few kpop groups like girls generation, wonder girls 2ne1 but other than that other groups gained started to follow after bts’ appearance in the west

I’m so glad that you went to Elliotts explanation is so good and explains things so clearly

Korea was ruled by Japan from 1910 until 1945 when Japan surrendered to the United States before Korea split to South and North.

BTS PAVED THE WAY

Had to comment when you mentioned going down the rabbit hole. That is how I got in and was all in. Just discovered your site today and this is my second vid will have to look at your patron.

Honestly. BTS is in K-pop, they are not of it. They are very different, and that’s why they are so successful. I’m sooo proud of the narrator. He’s ARMY💜 oh, and btw, K-pop proper? The big gigantic 3 tried to kill and silence BTS. Lots of documentation on that. Even to place plants in other fandoms to drum up nonsense, breaking into big hit, sending paid journalists into press conferences to try and catch or get the young men into saying things. Dirty pool. So ARMY have been swinging bats from the word go. ARMY fought and still is fighting today.

I just discovered your channel today. Love what you have to say. Subscribed.

Korea was a kingdom ( it had another name depending of the dynasties ruling ) that due the proximity with the China empire they were cultural influence by them. Japan due to the more proximity and the development that Korea was getting, always wanted to invaded it , so they had so many wars between each other even Japan killed their last queen. Anyway, when the wold war 2 came Japan took that situation to invaded Korea and other countries around to built their dream empire , ( their dream was to be the ruler of Asia). But the wold war 2 ended with the nuclear bomb attack towards Japanese islands , with these Japan empire was defeated so all the colonies ruled by Japan got the independence , including Korea. During the time they were a Japanese colony , Japan force them to a lot of things to became “fully Japanese “ like changing their names , their writing , and the media was all control by them. When they got their independence they got free from that and got exposure to the west in the media and also the communist propaganda. So later cuz of the Cold War , specially cuz of the power of China that got towards the communist propaganda , so they got a civil war , one part supported by the west ( USA) and other by China , so at the end Korea got divided in South Korea ( capitalism cuz allied with the USA ) and North Korea ( communist which allies is China ). So with that SK got even MORE expose to the western media and with that little kids like the generation of the (80-90s)got highly influenced by that , and that’s how kpop started in the first place.

Please react to some live performances where you see their energy and connections with Army. Wembley or Brazil are my personal favorites.

Psy was a one hit wonder in the west and most people had no idea he was even Korean bless him.

I found the music history interesting. You asked about Japan and what the influence of Japan and America, how that became more of it. I think (not a historian), that China and Korea were closely tied, in part, because of the historic antagonism from Japan that culminated in a very ugly occupation of Korea and parts of China. Japan had already, apparently, adopted some interest in classical and balladic western music. When Japan left and, shortly thereafter, S. Korea was occupied by UN and US forces and fighting the Chinese-backed North Koreans, Western music became more widespread and, my guess would be, the more Chinese-centric music fell out of fashion given that they were the enemy. When that ended, some of that musical influence remained and they ran with it. That's how I would interpret it, in part from what he said and in part from what I know of that period of history. I am not, however, an expert.

For me it's not about the hard work. I think lots of music groups around the world put in a lot of hard work. But it is when hard work meets a unique or superior talent. That is when it changes history. I kind of love how controversial BTS is. They definitely have not received the acknowledgement they deserved (can anyone say Grammy?) but they will be in the musical blood stream forever. The respect will definitely come--like the Beatles or Nirvana--just later than it should have.

During the 2nd WW Japan had a colonization grip on Korea. During that time Korea was "held" by Japan and so listened to the type of music Japan listened to at the time. During the war they used a form of Ryukoka (Japanese clasical music) to encourage war marches or war songs much like in the USA they had American folk singers singing very clasical songs encouraging the war effort for the Allied Forces. Unfortunately in Korea they were forced to listen to this music from Japan that changed from the Pansori of the previous era to the Ryukoka of the Japanese war effort. Once the war ended and Korea was freed from the Japanese occupation they were given the freedom to listen to different music and began to listen to more Americanized music. I hope that helps you.

You know we are only fed music that makes it beyond the payola filters right? There is so much music out there. We are FED music we are Allowed to hear.

I think you would enjoy watching " Park Jimin Intro 2022" it talks about a lot of things I didn't know about my bias Jimin.

Love this video. So interesting.

If you want to know more about BTS, I recommend the documentary series about the group "THE RISE OF BANGTAN" from the channel that has the same name. It explains about the message they wanted to pass on the old songs from the albums that were shown in this video, it shows the vlogs they made before debuting and after, so you can get to know them well, it shows many things they went through, achievements, etc. They did an amazing job!!! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-hrOqT5Fm4_E.html

No he didn't unfortantly for him he was a one hit wonder and never taken seriously, most people didn't even know he was South Korean. He even said so himself.

😌 we like you too!

Eliot has good video essays, 100% recommend others too.

Japan occupied Korea for a while, my dad told me he wasn't allowed to speak Korean for a while, had to speak Japanese only, and he was given a Japanese name he had to use instead.

I think you were a little bored with the video essay. You skipped quiet a few little bits and no - they do not all from commercial skips. Was it too long or too complicated? Because personally I still do not understand all of it. I just observed those skips. (One was the possibly classification as Pop among other things) 💜

Hi my name is crystal and I just started to watch your reaction videos and I like them also I am a watcher fam member too whatyougot2say reactiors of bangtan onother video you should watch is the rises of bangtan from a fellow army member

The new K-pop group to listen to that just literally debuted in early August and have already won a couple of Korean awards I think, is a girl group called New Jeans. They’re young but their songs are catchy and dance routines for a girl group are pretty good than most I’ve seen. Check them out. I’d like to know what your thoughts are on them.

I think the desire of most ARMYs to separate BTS from Kpop roots from all the mistreatment BTS received from the industry and its consumers at the start of their career and sadly, even until now. Another thing is because BTS is bigger than the Kpop industry in every sense of the word that it just doesn't sit right to categorize them as Kpop. Lastly, as BTS are global artists, ARMYs want to break them out from that small box called Kpop in order to break down the barriers in the West and give BTS the recognition that they deserve. Until now, even as big as BTS are worldwide, they still don't get radio spins and playlistings just because they're Korean and they sing and rap in Korean (but really, it's because BTS refuse to employ the industry-wide tactic of payola; the industry just like using their language and race as an excuse).

You will need to look at another "Who Is BTS - The Seven Members of Bangtan" because this does not touch on the music, their talents, what sets them apart. BTS was doing hip hop music, which is why people do not want them classified as just kpop. They work outside the mold of kpop music and the industry.

Hi sis. Based on a previous video of yours that I watched, you seem to really value the hard work of creative artists. If this is true, it would be appropriate for you to credit the content creators whose work you are reacting to by either introducing the video and its creator at the beginning and including a link to them in your comments. I would also be interested in your opinion of musical artists independent of other creators work. It would be great if you created a video, based on your own research or experience.

Korea was influenced by China bec it was the regional power. Japan invaded, so of course they became a major influence. US occupied Korea during the Korean War, therefore Am music worked itself in.

BTS Bapsae...understand their lyrics and the importance of this song as social change takes place in South Korea

You should react to the story the revolution of blackpink by the Asian theory

Pls react to BTS songs : Dope Fire Blood Sweat and Tears (bst) Boy in luv (2014) Not Today Airplane pt 2 Pied Piper House of cards Like Born singer Run BTS Film out (Japanese) Your Eyes tell(Japanese) Let go (Japanese) Run I need you

World War 2 Japan invaded most of South East Asia including Korean. This is simple world History.

pls react to karma is an army pt 1,2,3,4

He paper is full of fluff. Sounds like he crammed for a test but can tell he's not all into what he's saying... thus the fluff.

Japan occupied Korea from 1910 to 10945.

Sorry... it wasn't PSY. was into KPop but not PSY .. At the time he was a one hit wonder. A lot of people iin the West did know KPop and bigger artist than PSY.

12:35 it’s because you’re not Korean it seems you missed the part of him saying Koreans** call it idol music while Americans call it kpop. Who are we to another culture or country what to call their music?

Idol music is the real name. Kpop is a term coined by the west according to their understanding of it. It is in fact a very xenophobic term. If you say kpop in Korea noone would understand you. They only know idol music. And "kpop" is an industry not a genre.

I like some of BTS’s music but I’m more into GOT7 , J-Hope, EXO, Gemini just to name a few and I’m 68 years old. I’m more of a R&B, Jazz (rap/rock with J-Hope) Korean music fan but it’s all off the chain👍🏿👍🏿👍🏿🔥🔥

K-pop is actually called Gayu(which is popular music for Korea) and the kpop we know is called Idol music. That’s actually what Koreans used to distinguish the two One of the most popular genre of music in Korea is trot and it originates from Japan.

Psy, BTS, Blackpink are the KPop groups I love. Their music is extremely entertaining and catchy.

Japan invaded Korea are part of world war 2 they tried to totally distory korean culture and language they enslaved Korean women and shipped them off to Japan as 'entertainment' for their soldier I think you will know what I mean by 'entertainment' . With the end of worldwar 2 American was in Korean. Korean being still one nation and not the North and South Korea we have today. American soldiers were stationed in Korea and took over more Americanised music than the Japanese imposed on Korea. China influence had been distroyed prior to Japan invading Korea.

"Putting Kpop on the Map" doesn't mean having a huge song in a asian language once. Many don't even know who Psy is or what languages he speaks, he was a meme with a single really popular song. People didn't start to think something positive about Kpop because of him since they, as i said, didn't know that he's kpop and people had never even heard of Kpop.

what’s funny is Yoongi said Psy is the one who actually paved the way for kpop.

Its a shame how Gdragon is not even mentioned once in this documentary.. He is like one of the most important figure that shape modern Kpop.

Please remember "Football" is American and there are.many more sports in the world where pads are worn.