The Meteoric Rise of K-Dramas in the US
From Left To Right: Park Eun-bin - Extraordinary Attorney Woo/Netflix, Lee Min-ho & - Boys Over Flowers/KBS, Lee Min-ho & Minha Kim - Pachinko/AppleTV+
From niche interest to overwhelming popularity, Korean pop culture has exploded onto the scene in the United States. While K-pop may have been the first breakthrough success in the US, Korean dramas are rapidly becoming mainstream in the country as well. Between 2019 and 2021, K-dramas have seen a 200% spike in viewership numbers and as it stands, K-dramas are an overwhelming force in television today that will only continue to grow.
So, what is a K-Drama? K-dramas are drama television series that is produced and aired in South Korea, starring Korean actors. These shows are done in the Korean language and tend to follow a certain type of structure. These dramas are mostly limited series, often completed in 1 season, that comes out twice a week during nighttime slots. Viewers might relate K-dramas with soap operas and telenovelas and though there are some similarities, K-dramas have carved out their own style and structure that makes them unique. In the same way that soap operas evolved with American television and telenovelas grew with Latin American television, K-dramas came into their personal style as Korean television developed. Unlike the extended and overarching plots of other drama television, K-dramas are notably compact as they tell their complete story within a limited but drama-filled, number of episodes.
The popular K-drama format viewers are familiar with came after several steps of evolution in Korean TV. In the 1950s and 1960s, Korean-produced shows were primarily centered on historical times and reached small audiences. When the television became a more common appliance in Korean homes in the 1970s, drama television shifted the focus to stories of that time period, connecting to viewers by showing storylines that were more relatable and accessible to the common viewer. After the 1980’s when color television helped usher in more variety in these shows, the 1990s set the precedent for K-drama formatting in the future. This growth into limited series focusing on relatively accessible storylines for viewers established the basic blueprint of K-dramas that we see today. Modern k-dramas have taken this format and expanded into a myriad of genres, ranging from romance to action to even medical dramas. Regardless of what type of drama series a viewer is looking for, there is likely a k-drama that fits that genre.
Where could one find these shows then? Watching K-dramas anywhere but in Korea used to be a difficult ordeal. Prior to streaming services, a person could only watch whatever was on cable at the time, and that’s if one was able to get a Korean channel in the US. Other than that, one might have to rely on physical copies of DVDs and even VHS tapes from local Korean sources. Another glaring hurdle with either of these options was the lack of translated subtitles. Even if an American viewer was able to access Korean dramas, they would have to understand Korean to even keep up with what was going on.
Considering these factors, K-dramas did not seem like they had the recipe for success in the US market. They were foreign drama shows that had limited availability, a structure different from what many viewers were familiar with, and were in an entirely different language. So how did it become such a popular staple in America? The answer comes from three converging factors: the Korean Wave, the rise of diversity in media, and the utter dominance of streaming services.
The first of these factors, the Korean Wave, is a term used to describe the spread of South Korean culture across the world. The term was first coined in China in the late 1990s (it was called hallyu, literally meaning Korean Wave) and was addressed by people due to the international success of movies and K-drama series such as Shiri and What is Love. In addition to these areas of media, the K-pop music industry saw continuously increasing popularity in the US.
Since the early 2000s, K-pop has had a presence in international cities such as Los Angeles and New York. The Korean Music Festival sold out its show at the Hollywood Bowl in 2003. In 2006 three of the biggest, K-pop music groups performed three major US shows. The hit single “Gee” by K-pop group Girls’ Generation got a spark of popularity in the late 2000s and Psy’s “Gangnam Style” became the first YouTube video to be viewed 1 billion times in 2012. However, these flashes of popularity were still paving the way for establishing K-pop in the US. It wasn’t until the 2010s with the rise of stan Twitter helped cement K-pop in more mainstream knowledge. Fans were able to create a social media community that held immense influence due to their sheer numbers and popularity. Then, in 2017, BTS redefined how K-pop was received in the US. Thanks to their communication with fans and the depth of their music, BTS skyrocketed to Billboard heights previously unseen by K-pop groups. And now after 5 years of continued success, the group can be pointed to as one of the most direct reasons why K-pop and Korean media are accepted in the mainstream rather than relegated to niche fandoms.
The result of this Korean Wave was not just widespread recognition of Korean media, but the establishment of Korean artists and performers as international household names. Director Bong Joon Ho and music group BTS have become common knowledge in the US, even to audiences that were not looking for Korean media. In the same way that a music fan knows both the genre of Rock and specific artists/groups such as Queen, K-dramas have become such a notable category of shows that the very best are established as commonly known faces. Mentioning the name Boys over Flowers or Crash Landing on You is easily related to the popularity of K-dramas as a whole.
Historically, American drama television has not featured many Asian leads in its decades of production. Over time, representation and inclusion have strongly increased, but the most notable advancements were made after the turn of the 21st century and into the 2010s. With shows such as Killing Eve and Elementary proving that having Asian leads in the drama was an asset and not a hindrance, it allowed for greater acceptance of K-dramas that featured entirely Asian casts. As diversity in the US continues to grow, the demand for representation has moved up with it. With both this demand and the audience to back it up. At South by Southwest (SXSW), one of the largest multimedia conferences and events in the US, Korean Dramas were featured for the first time with their own panel. The presentation was called Hot Market: Navigating the Future of K-Dramas and featured k-media journalists and experts on Korean Drama news. Sara Layne, one of the panel members and co-producer of the podcast Kdrama reports, stated that though SXSW has hosted K-pop panels in the past, this was the first devoted entirely to Korean Drama. K-dramas are no longer just a novelty in the US, but a lucrative market both for show creators and for audiences thirsting for greater representation and diversity in media.
Perhaps the greatest factor on its own, the accessibility of K-dramas through popular streaming services has given these shows the ability to reach a wide audience outside of their home country and native language. Netflix has been a champion for K-dramas for many years now, having distributed countless K-dramas with subtitles over the years. The streaming service first came to Korea in 2016 and has since continued to foster strong relationships with Korean television. In the Netflix produced Love Alarm, the first of its many Korean original series. As of 2020, Netflix became the leading streaming platform in Korea. The importance of the distribution of K-dramas with subtitles on Netflix cannot be understated in understanding the rise of K-dramas. With a library boasting shows such as the global phenomenon Squid Game and K-drama hallmarks such as Boys Over Flowers, Netflix is able to share K-dramas across a variety of populations, making the shows easier to watch than ever.
In an episode of 1A, Avery Kleinman and Katie Anastas take a look at the international rise of K-dramas. They spoke with Justine Napoles, the head of marketing for KOCOWA. KOCOWA is an LA-based streaming service that works in collaboration with three major Korean broadcast networks to distribute thousands of subtitled Korean dramas to North, Central, and South America. In their discussion Napoles shares that 90% of their streaming service’s audience were of non-Korean ancestry. Despite not boasting the same variety of shows as other streaming services, KOCOWA has received an incredible spike in viewership, especially from the United States. Now audiences in the US did not need to find bootleg DVDs without translation from Korean markets; K-dramas were now easily accessible and, just as importantly, easily understood.
Ultimately, K-dramas would not have reached the zenith they are approaching without the collective contributions of each of these factors. Improved accessibility, greater representation, and connections to other popular media have all helped propel K-dramas to mainstream culture.
The prominence of K-dramas in the US has solidly moved past any fears of it being a simple fad. So, what can American viewers expect to come in the future of K-Dramas? They’ll have plenty to be excited for, as popular streaming services such as Netflix, Apple TV+, and Disney+ have all begun to venture into K-Drama production. In this year alone, Apple TV+ released Pachinko, a K-Drama based on the 2017 novel by Min Jin Lee. Disney+ announced a star-studded cast for its upcoming original series, Connect. Alongside those, Netflix continues its plans to produce Korean shows with at least 25 original series and films to be released this year. Through their contribution to K-drama production and distribution, these popular streaming services have helped further cement Korean dramas in the mainstream.
The meteoric rise of K-dramas is not constrained to the US, nor does it appear to show any signs of slowing down. Of the top 10 most popular non-English TV shows on Netflix globally, Korean shows make up 3 of the slots. K-Dramas such as Extraordinary Attorney Woo and All of Us Are Dead are some of the most watched shows around the world, despite being in a foreign language not as commonly spoken like English or Spanish. There’s no way to predict the upper limit of popularity that K-dramas can reach thanks to vastly improved accessibility and cross-media connections that are possible today. For interested and curious viewers, discovering the vast world of K-dramas has never been easier and streaming services are welcoming the rising demand for these shows.
