National Public Radio Report Highlights South Korean Government's Role In The Rise Of K-Pop

The K-pop craze that has been steadily gaining more fans around world has been two decades in the making, helped along by the South Korean government and millions of dollars in dedicated funding, according to a feature story by National Public Radio (NPR).

"In the late '90s, when Asia went through a huge financial crisis, South Korea's leaders decided to use music to improve its image and build its cultural influence. So the country's government poured millions of dollars into forming a Ministry of Culture with a specific department devoted to K-pop," wrote NPR journalist Kat Chow.

The South Korean government, in its bid to nurture K-pop, also built expensive concert auditoriums, refined hologram technology and even regulated Korean karaoke bars known as noeraebangs, according to Euny Hong, the author of The Birth of Korean Cool, who was interviewed for the NPR story.

"It turns out that the Korean government treats its K-pop industry the way that the American government treats its automobile and banking industry, meaning that these are industries that have to be protected," said Hong.

What is the end goal of the South Korean government? Cultural influence and domination, claims Hong.

"They wanted Korea of the 21st century to be like America of the 20th century where America was just considered so universally cool that anything made in America would automatically be bought," said Hong.

The NPR story then goes on to mention a notable milestone in this bid for cultural clout - the creation of a new Nickelodeon show loosely based on K-Pop called Make It Pop, which stars Korean-American singer and previous K-Pop trainee Megan Lee.

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