Opinion | Hallyu...I'm talking to you

Kpop's influence is limited.

Reason #1
Most of this scene is idols, who were trained, manufactuted, mold into a specific image, and heavily controlled by their company, their fans and the MOGEF. This strips these idols of most of their freedom, individuality, creativity, and independence which are essential for a brand new global recognition. Remember the American artists until the early 00s? They were THE shit. They MADE the global standard.  American pop is manufactured too, yes, it has become a crappy mess these days, but in order to deviate the center of attention from America to Korea, kpop will need to level up and bring excellence and novelty back as the standard if they want recognition nowadays.

Now why the West would love seeing hundreds of identical Asian groups doing the same basic routine with boring personalities again and again? When they can see fierce, familiar-looking decent-to-good performers who are fluent in English on TV. How can Korea think that they can give the world the next Micheal or Madonna given what I've said? (Yes, one of their dramas said so) Our media already thinks they can only give us clones of what we already have with Asian faces.



Reason #2

The music is no different from what you can hear in the West. Actually kpop is heavily inspired by it and follow Western trends instead of being avant-garde or making their own distinctive genre or evolution. In general there's a lack of music experimenting, a lack of interesting or unusual collaborations. All I hear is recycling, recycling and mixing, sometimes at the cost of music quality. Kpop is no better than American pop. Instead of promoting "uniqueness" and substance, they  both want to promote their hype and formulaic glam. Well, the only one who will win this game is the international language one, Amurrrica. Duh.

Reason #3
The biggest music labels are not ready (except JYP but he failed) to invest money, time and energy in the unknown markets such as the US by making their big music icons live abroad and expand their network and knowledge of the business there, which means giving their idols more freedom. They want to do it "palli palli". I mean that they want to do it quickly, they want fame quickly, and if they don't have it instantly they want their biggest musicians back at home quickly so they won't lose too much money, they just don't take their time to expand and make the necessary efforts and steps (and sacrifices) for what they want. Paying Quincy to do a funding for them and promote them isn't what I'd call a risk and a real investment. It's like  "let's try with this guy, it might work out later somehow".

Reason #4
Hallyu pushes itself on us instead of making us want to like it and have it come to us (no I'm not talking about international kpop fans obviously). Why would we need something we have no interest in? Even those like me who are fed up with current mainstream American pop, why would we turn to the same music but in a language we don't understand and have no interest in? That's a fail especially considering all what I said above. The more popular kpop gets among their niche international fans, the more crappy and low quality their music gets. So why would Americans turn to kpop if they find the same thing? They also don't take racism against Asians AND against other ethnic groups abroad into consideration in their quest of fame. Focusing on the US where racism against Asians is blatant in Hollywood and music business. Korean media  holds ignorant or racist views against non Koreans as well. The latter can backfire their quest of fame, and the former will just block them from being successful there. Bad strategy for expansion.

In conclusion: Hallyu, just be yourself (focus on your own growth) and grow some balls if you're going to keep saying how global you are. You want the world's attention? Then, bring something "refreshing" by challenging things to gain respect. You either get attention by being respected first, mocked or hated first. Your choice.
However, I see that kpop is basically trying to buy American media's attention by paying some TV studios to host their acts, they even sollicited Quincy Jones to promote kpop globally. The Korean businessmen are handling Hallyu like a simple business thing but it's really more complicated than that...they'll soon find out.