Hallyu: Korean Wave Takes Over India, From Gangnam to Dalgona

The most favoured factors of the Hallyu wave have grown increasingly popular over 2020. Whether it's food, music, beauty regimes, or films, it seems that Korea has something for everybody.

ACN NEWS On Feb 10, 2021

By Anukrati Mehta

MUMBAI: When Spotify descended upon India on Feb 26, 2019, it hardly had any idea of the movement that it was going to trigger in the country. Inadvertently setting off the Hallyu 2.0 (a term used to describe the emergence of Korean subculture) in the land, the music streaming app was itself taken aback by the reception that K-Pop enjoyed among the Indian masses.

Case in point, the Korean boy band, BTS, was the fifth-most streamed artist of 2020 and had the third-most streamed album on Spotify India. It also broke the record for having the most streams for any given song twice in a year.

While Spotify was surely stupefied, Hallyu was a long time in the making. The wave first gained momentum in 2012 when Psy’s horse-dance fervently spread among the masses as they tried to emulate his Gangnam style, spawning several thousand parodies in the process.

It really took off in India, however, when a Korean band named N-Sonic toured the country shortly after and later on, became a member of the judging panel of the annual K-pop India music festival.

Half a decade since then, K-pop has become one of the most-loved genres nationwide, with festivals being routinely organized for fans. Bands like Blackpink and BTS are a household name today while shows like Descendants of the Sun and Crash Landing On You dominate Netflix.

However, before K-pop’s craze had spread over, what caught the attention of the people at large was South Korea’s film and television fare. Thanks largely to The International Film Festival of Kerala, Korean films had started becoming popular in India. With the foundation for the subculture’s affinity laid in place, people slowly started migrating to K-dramas because of their universal appeal and the familiar themes of family, friendship, and love, something that’s a staple in Indian shows.

This movement, however, grew more popular than ever during the pandemic when people with an inclination towards the Korean culture started immersing themselves in it. Trends like Dalgona coffee and the Mukbang challenge that became a global viral hit had Indians partaking in them in equal measure.

As people started consuming more Korean content, they also began exploring K-beauty and Korean food more zealously. In fact, even the intent to overcome the language barrier had grown so much that Duolingo, the language-learning platform, saw a 256% increase in Korean learners in India.

The K-beauty trend, too, has been massively popular in the country, with people being fascinated by the ‘no-makeup’ makeup look of the South Koreans. The trend has considerably influenced beauty and makeup routines and has introduced new and inventive skincare formats like sleeping masks, serums, and sheet masks.

Its impact has been so huge that Shopclues, an e-commerce website formed an MoU with KOTRA (Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency) to support the entry of outstanding Korean enterprises into the Indian market.

The most favoured factors of the Hallyu wave have grown increasingly popular over 2020. Whether it’s food, music, beauty regimes, or films, it seems that Korea has something for everybody. For a nation like India that has since long attempted to ape the West, the adoption of Korean culture has come as a breath of fresh air. With the subculture having something in store for everyone, it needs to be seen how it progresses from here. One thing’s for sure, though: Hallyu is here to stay.