The Current State of the K-POP Industry Becoming Like the EPL "English Premier League"

1) Most Asian countries have their own music and album markets, but they lack market expansion potential. Only K-POP has a truly global fandom.

2) As a result, elite trainees from various Asian countries are flowing into Korean entertainment agencies. This has led to an increase in K-POP idols from different Asian countries.

3) The largest number of foreign trainees come from Japan, China, and Thailand. Even kids from extremely wealthy families, who wouldn’t have to work a day in their lives, drop out of school, leave their parents, and endure extreme training in Korea—practicing 16 hours a day, crying, struggling, and living the tough life of a trainee.

4) In Southeast Asia, there is significant jealousy and admiration toward Thailand in the K-POP scene. BLACKPINK’s Lisa, a K-POP legend, is from Thailand. She has become such a global star that even major Thai corporations struggle to book her.

5) K-POP companies are structured as follows:The Big 4 agencies: HYBE, SM, JYP, YG, Mid-sized agencies: Starship, Cube, Wake One Small agencies: Mystic, High Up, etc.
6) When one of the Big 4 agencies launches a new idol group with a trainee from a particular country, the fandom from that country goes absolutely wild.

7) The Philippines, which had long envied Thailand, finally had a breakthrough. When a Filipino trainee participated in HYBE’s global audition, Filipinos rallied behind them in global voting, securing a debut spot by taking first place.

8) A girl group with a Filipino member, who had only released a single debut song in Korea, went on to dominate major events in the Philippines. Even before gaining popularity or recognition in Korea, she was already being treated like a top star in her home country and was booked for prestigious events.
9) SM recently debuted a new girl group, which includes an Indonesian member named Carmen.
10) In Indonesia, people went wild, celebrating the fact that a trainee from their country finally debuted under one of the Big 4 agencies, calling it a long-awaited dream come true.
11) Even before the debut, some fans in Indonesia started speculating that the Indonesian member would face discrimination, fueling baseless rumors. Meanwhile, Vietnamese fans expressed their frustration and jealousy.
12) Many trainees from Asian countries, who could debut in their home countries immediately, are instead choosing to enter the K-POP industry. The reactions from their respective countries resemble the way football fans cheer for their local players when they transfer to an EPL (English Premier League) team.
13) The EPL-ization of K-POP is in full swing.

THE COMMENTS:

1. I scrolled past as soon as I saw Wake One listed under mid-tier companies. LOL.
2. Oh, I get it now.
3. Doesn't Vietnam support Hani? Or is it different due to identity?
4. Calling it EPL makes sense. LOL.
5. It's kind of funny when you look at it from a distance.
6. People in Vietnam lean towards communism, while Vietnamese people in Australia or the West support democracy. They even use different flags, so they don't support the same people. I heard this directly from a Vietnamese person.
7. Oh, thinking of it like EPL makes total sense. LOL.
8. But it's not just Asia; if you want to be an idol, Korea is the only option. Didn't they also launch a group with foreign members?
9. K-pop fans in our country are the only ones who downplay it. If you look at the global music market, it's actually amazing. It's not classical, jazz, or rock, yet it became its own genre.
10. The original post only mentioned Southeast Asia, but it's the same in the West. K-pop is everywhere on Spotify playlists. Even if people talk about fandom power, just being on global charts is impressive.
11. If it's not K-pop, it won’t make it. Even viral TikTok songs from other countries don’t chart. LOL.
12. No Filipino member has debuted from a HYBE audition.
13. I don’t think it’s a bad thing if K becomes a global platform.
14. Liking someone and thinking about their nationality are different things.
15. A Vietnamese person said that only a minority don't support Hani. Most people in Vietnam like her and cheer for her.
16. Ah, so it wasn’t a domestic audition program.
17. I met a Vietnamese friend through K-pop, and they don’t consider Hani Vietnamese. Makes sense—she’s Australian.
18. Worse than EPL...
19. Who's number 8?
20. "☞19 HYBE CatsEye Sophia.
    I kind of agree. LOL.
21. The EPL analogy. LOL.
22. From the perspective of China, Japan, and Southeast Asia, K-pop is basically EPL.
23. Right, it’s like EPL. LOL.
24. But there's no country that could act as the Champions League.
25. The problem is that K-pop is declining, except for a few veteran groups. There's no room for expansion anymore, and now it's just Southeast Asian countries fighting over it while Korean fans get tossed around.
26. There's no Bundesliga or La Liga... Might as well call it F1.
27. Vietnamese people don’t like Hani because of communism.
28. If there's no Bundesliga or La Liga, isn't it more like the NBA?
29. Ugh, people who barely follow K-pop just want to feel national pride. Why make it a national competition?
30. Thinking of it as EPL makes it all click. It's like how we support teams with players like Park Ji-sung or Son Heung-min.
31. LOL, EPL.
32. I don’t know much about K-pop, but it does feel like it’s declining. I used to see more English comments on YouTube, but now it's mostly Korean.
33. This seems pretty accurate. LOL.
34. Isn't this just reality? EPL isn’t about national competition; it's just a league where talented players go. The same applies here. LOL.
35. Why the constant complaints about nationalism? I don’t know if K-pop is really like EPL, but the point itself is valid.
36. "Ah, number 11 is really stressful."
37. "Then will it gradually become more deep-rooted?"
38. "No, it seems roughly correct, so what's the issue? If there's a Southeast Asian member, YouTube does well too."
39. "I was wondering what this was about, lol, but now I get it, lol."
40. "It's good when talented people come in. But in the end, everyone becomes a toxic solo fan, only supporting their bias and drawing a line away from K-pop, and that's the problem... Even our own fandom has become too toxic, making it feel like an extreme fandom, so it started being treated as something deep-rooted. In terms of quality, staying within public interest is the most important for competitiveness, but since idols make an overwhelming amount of money overseas, they’ve become too separated from mainstream pop music. I’m a fan too, but it just feels like these two are completely different markets now. At this point… let’s just see how far this goes."
41. "Of course, there are people in Vietnam who like Hanni, but it's probably not in the same way that Lisa is loved in Thailand."
42. "The only relatable thing here is that the toxicity in Southeast Asian fandoms is extreme, lol."
43. "I was wondering what EPL meant, lol."
44. "Oh, the multinational aspect is stressful."
45. "Lisa is amazing, but... I'll hold back my words."
46. "How can you know if there's discrimination before even debuting, lol?"
47. "I met Vietnamese fans at a concert, and when I said I liked Hanni, they told me Hanni is a different kind of Vietnamese from them, so it was a bit awkward. Maybe they think she's Australian? This time, Indonesian fans went crazy over an SM debut, lol."
48. "Ack, lol, EPL... I kind of get the feeling now. So even if they're not super famous in Korea, they still do variety shows and stuff."
49. "Who is the Filipino member that ranked first?"
50. "Vietnam’s issue with Hanni isn’t just about communism vs. democracy. It’s a mix of Vietnam’s history of colonization by France + the U.S. war manipulations that devastated the country. (Criticizing Hanni over historical issues is xxxx, but pointing out that saying Vietnamese people don’t like her just because they support communism is an oversimplified, prejudiced take is ooo.)"
51. "There’s already a Vietnamese idol, isn’t there? Isn’t Hanbin Vietnamese? lol"
52. "Seeing Lisa makes the analogy understandable."
53. "I get the general idea now, lol."
54. "Hanni has Australian nationality, so obviously, her main identity is Australian, but her roots are Vietnamese. It’s like how 3rd or 4th generation Korean immigrants who don’t speak Korean and only have relatives abroad are still considered Korean. Hanni is the same. Just because a Vietnamese Australian speaks better Korean than Vietnamese doesn’t mean she isn’t Vietnamese. A third party saying 'Hanni is Australian' when Vietnam is mentioned is kind of funny… It’s like Min Jin Lee, the author of Pachinko—she probably speaks way better Japanese than Korean, but she still considers herself Korean. Isn’t that natural?"
55. "Thinking about it, it's pretty amazing. It’s not just one genre, and Korea isn’t even a superpower like the U.S., yet its music is globally dominant, and people from all over the world come to be idols. Even during the peak of Anglo-American pop, this didn’t happen, lol."
56. "In the end, being acknowledged is a good thing, but some fans from certain countries seem to identify their idols too much with their nationality, taking things too personally, and attacking other members over anything. That’s kind of the problem. They’re still part of one K-pop team, so why act like that? Having multinational members is good for popularity in different countries, but for fans, this must be really stressful."
57. "EPL, lol."

ORIGINAL POST HERE