06 ISSUE VIII
OCTOBER 2025
OCTOBER 2025
It’s Your Fantasy
K-Pop’s glossy, upbeat facade hides its politics well: This isn’t about the music; it’s state-influenced soft power wrapped in neoliberal capitalism.
By Olivia Ellis
Is your favorite K-pop idol dazzling, sexy, cute, angelic, or the bad boy you’ve always wanted? Can they dance, sing, smirk, and wink with the precision that takes your breath away? If your heart just skipped a beat thinking about your K-pop “bias,” congratulations: South Korea’s K-pop formula is working precisely as intended.
Image by Ciaran O’Brien, via Unsplash.
The rise of Hallyu (or the “Korean Wave”) didn’t happen by accident. It was engineered.
What began in the 1980s as a government effort to boost its economy through the soft power of its music industry has become a global cultural phenomenon. Following decades of Japanese colonization and authoritarian rule, South Korea sought a new identity through entertainment. The 1988 Seoul Olympics showcased Taekwondo to the world. By the 1990s, the country was exporting K-dramas such as WHAT IS LOVE (1997) and WINTER SONATA (2002), and soon after, K-pop groups such as H.O.T. captivated audiences in Japan and China. As globalization and the digital era began to expand through platforms like Apple Music, YouTube, social media, and streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu, the Korean Wave went global. Hallyu captivated Western audiences. K-pop songs such as Psy’s “Gangnam Style” (2012) and CL’s “Hello Bitches” (2015) gained popularity in the West. Other groups like BTS and BLACKPINK became increasingly popular in the West, and K-pop music and Korean culture dominated global charts and trends. Behind the addictive hooks, flawless choreography, and perfectly curated visuals is a specific kind of politics: state-influenced soft power wrapped in neoliberal capitalism.
The South Korean government has long supported entertainment exports as a form of cultural diplomacy. In 1998, the Kim Dae-jung administration (in power between 1998 and 2003) implemented the Hallyu Industry Support Plan to increase South Korean value in the culture industry, increasing the soft power budget from US $14 million to US $84 million in 2001. Following this, the administration of Roh Moo-hyun (2003 to 2008) increased subsidies for cultural startups that helped protect South Korea’s domestic film industry. The Lee Myung-bak administration, which governed from 2008 to 2013, embraced the “Global Korea” concept to help build South Korea’s national identity as “future-oriented, multicultural, and visionary.” His government’s 2010 Diplomatic White Paper helped to define what soft power meant to South Korea's economy and cultural industry: an “increasingly important element, as culture has surfaced as an indispensable element of a nation's competitiveness and economic resource that produces added value. To keep pace with the changing global environment, Korea has adopted cultural diplomacy as a new pillar of the country’s diplomatic makeup.”
During her administration (2013 to 2017), President Park Geun-hye promised to strengthen South Korea's cultural policy, increasing the budget of the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism for projects, such as building stadiums and cultural centers, proclaiming that “Hallyu content gave us confidence that we can also lead the global cultural industry.” The continuation of cultural policy followed in Moon Jae-in’s administration (2017 to 2022), as K-pop had become increasingly popular globally, influencing tourism growth. In 2020, the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism announced a new Hallyu department to support the new Korean Wave, described as Hallyu 3.0, to diversify Hallyu content, foster other industries through Hallyu content, and create a sustainable environment for the growth of Hallyu.
Behind the glittering image of K-pop idols lies a rigid, exploitative system that amounts to a highly intense and competitive process for aspiring idols. Trainees from ages 11 and up undergo years of rigorous training in singing, dancing, language, media handling, and social behavior. Many trainees will quit school and their part-time jobs, travel across the world, all for a chance at commercial success. Trainees who sign the contracts end up going into immense debt that they continuously pay off through their stardom, or they quit. However, the few who make it are packaged into “humble beginnings” success stories to represent South Korean resilience and national pride, which aids the capitalist system.
Idols aren’t just performers: they are fantasy products. Once they debut, the pressure to maintain a “perfect” image builds. Idols are marketed like Barbie and Ken dolls: customizable, flawless, and emotionally available only to you. Companies impose dating bans, preventing idols from dating or keeping their relationships hidden to keep the illusion alive.
The effect: K-pop’s fan culture plays a central role in advancing South Korea’s soft power ambitions by transforming emotional intimacy into a global economic and diplomatic asset. “Fan-sign” events and fan meetings, core components of album promotions, allow for highly personalized interactions between idols and fans, reinforcing loyalty and emotional investment in the industry’s products. These encounters, often involving playful performances or requests for “aegyo” (cute gestures), are designed to humanize idols and deepen the parasocial connection that drives consumption and engagement worldwide. However, this cultivation of intimacy also blurs boundaries, sometimes fostering unhealthy levels of attachment among fans, including the extreme behaviors of “sasaeng” or obsessive stalkers. Despite these risks, entertainment companies, and by extension, the South Korean state, continue to promote such practices because they are integral to K-pop’s global appeal and profitability. In this way, fan service becomes not just a marketing strategy, but a soft power instrument: it sustains South Korea’s image as a source of emotional connection, cultural sophistication, and desirable modernity, even as it commodifies intimacy for national gain.
South Korea’s soft power strategy, centered on exporting its cultural industries, depends on maintaining a carefully curated image of purity and perfection that limits deviation and dissent. Although the country is becoming more diverse, expressions of difference (especially around politics, gender, or race) remain tightly controlled within the entertainment industry. K-pop idols, in particular, face severe constraints: speaking openly about feminism, LGBTQ+ rights, or racism can jeopardize careers unless such messages are sanitized by management to remain commercially safe. This tension was evident when BTS’s V (Kim Taehyung) faced criticism for posting a photo holding McDonald’s fries with the company’s logo visible—an act that drew backlash amid global boycotts over McDonald’s alleged ties to Israel during the ongoing genocide in Palestine. As UNICEF ambassadors known for messages of love and resilience, BTS and their label’s silence on Palestine disappointed many fans, especially as reports surfaced of BTS photocards being found among the rubble in Gaza.
Such moments expose the contradiction at the heart of South Korea’s cultural diplomacy: while K-pop promotes empathy and unity, its idols are restricted from engaging authentically with global injustices.
Ultimately, the industry’s pursuit of marketability and global appeal often comes at the expense of moral integrity, turning cultural expression into a tool of neoliberal capitalism and soft power rather than a genuine human connection.
Olivia Ellis, an MA student in International Affairs at The New School, studies Korean pop culture and its intersections with South Korean politics and international relations.