South Korea got it's independence on 15 August, 1947. The country was facing major economic crisis it was a country in abject poverty with its land ravaged by war, didn't have even the most basic resources. America at that time used to send baby food helped the babies to survive. But suddenly their economy started to increase after the 1980s, HOW?? that its now considered as a developed country.
Answer to this question is a bit weird. When the neighboring countries, China was gaining profit by selling products and that by Japan exporting technology, South Korea decided to export something different in the world that is “SONGS” .South Korea exported songs even to the counties that did not understand Korean language. Now these K-pop songs are getting more views than a number of other artists. The most viewed artists BTS a Korean boy band, even though they don't sing in English. Then what's the secret behind this appeal?
The secret is loan! would you believe me if I say world's biggest industry was made to repay the country's depths. The year 1997, the country was facing worst economic crises, people were getting unemployed, expenses have increased, locals did not have food to eat, so South Korea had to take a loan of 58 billion dollar from IMF to remove them self from this crises. And now that the loan is taken you somehow have to repay. IMF kept the deal as the country has to pay back by 24 August 2001. Without wasting any time the entire country cane into action, 3.5 million people donated their gold to the government centers, which then were melted down to make gold biscuits and by selling those gold biscuits 8 billion dollars were made, more 50 billion dollars were left. The entire government were busy into finding a way out but then the president Kim Dae-jung comes up with an idea saying that there is only one thing that can be made once but sold forever that are songs. So he set up KOREA CREATIVE CONTENT AGENCY [ KCCCA] which had only one mission to sell Korean songs all around the world to make up that 50 million dollars music will be our export. But this had a very major problem, why any country would want to hear Korean song there wasn't any demand back then for K-pop. To sell their music around the world South Korea had to give a glimpse of their music, which they did by a very clever way. A very famous Korean tv series ‘What is Love’, they sold free cd of this serial to a local Hong Kong tv station, as soon as the tv station aired this series it got popular there. Even though South Korea didn't get any money from this but surely got a profit. Now their culture had spread overseas, they were now ready for the next step. Korea soon passed a law according to which 1 percent of the entire state budget would be invested in their culture. Three major companies came up to take the advantage of this and made a formula because of which K-pop is all over the world today.
The formula was quite simple, there won't be a single musician but a group as in BTS there are 7 members, at least 4 members were there in a band. The name of the band would be in English acronyms not Korean for international audience could understand, every song had few English words. They train for years for dancing, singing, rapping, too much efforts. They can't share their private life on social media. But the song Gangnam style, Gangnam is actually a place in South Korea. This was the first time international audience heard the Korean music BTS made it a main stream by social media. By now BTS has added around 3.6 billion dollars to South Korean economy. Korea has now made up a district on K-pop theme park where there is going to be a museum, recording studio, concert hall but this is nothing BTS donated 1 million dollars to BLM issue also their fans known as ARMY collected and donated 5 lakhs Rs for Assam flood in India.
This industry the country started at it's lowest, in compulsion of it's economy made it popular all over the globe. Conclusion is to not give up find another way to your problem and too seek help if needed
