It is something we see all around us – in the mad popularity of K Pop bands and increasingly, the popularity of K Dramas. This is the rising global popularity of South Korean culture which is partly driven by official policies of the government that support creative industries. It is called Hallyu or the Korean Wave; terms that are now officially included in the Oxford English Dictionary as of last year. Like K Pop, K Dramas are another wildly popular phenomenon. If you like K dramas, these memes will resonate:
The stories, the aesthetics, the good looking actors, the culture – people just love these Korean series which are available for streaming on various OTT platforms.
With so many people cooped up at home, the demand for entertainment content has never been higher. A lot of people were introduced to a whole new world of entertainment of Korean series during the pandemic.
Unlike our interminable saas-bahu series these are stories with a finite duration, a beginning and an end. The stories are entertaining, absorbing, exciting, emotional – this is everything that people expect from their soaps. There is fan service and it is satisfying.
Viewers have their favourites – Korean actors have become known in other countries like never before. It perhaps has something to do with the fact that the actors all seem to be very good looking.
They recommend their fave series to friends, discuss them on social media and bond with perfect strangers over them.
One can just slip into the narrative of one of those K drama series and before you know it, you're binge-watching.
I think Oppa is a polite term for addressing an older man. There are other words that non-Korean speakers have become familiar with, thanks to a cultish following for K Dramas.
People without a clue about the Korean language happily watch these series. Even those who earlier thought that it was too much effort to have to read subtitles to watch something have gotten used to it. Subtitles have has opened up a whole new world of entertainment in so many other languages...like the wildly popular Spanish series Money Heist for instance.
Some love the stories. Some love the passionate but restrained romance. Some love medical dramas in particular. Some just like to look at good looking people. Some find the culture interesting. Even I watched a K drama called Crash Landing on You – because FOMO! After all, who wants to be seen as completely ignorant when everyone around seems to be discussing their fave K drama?
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