Orientalism is why. K-Pop has actually been popular outside of Korea for decades, but when it gets big specifically in the West, suddenly it's a nefarious plot to increase #KoreanSoftPower. As if the US Dept of Arts and Culture doesn't exist? https://twitter.com/hyunsuinseoul/status/1309755195610419200

I'm still laughing about the image of Evil Kpop getting mass produced to impressionable young Western kids to turn them into zombie koreaboos.
Better yet, this dude is British. Did he just recycle what they said about "Beatlemania" back in the 60s?

On a more serious note, I don't think it's automatically bad if a govt sees that its country's pop culture is a popular export, and wants to invest in it and make sure it's projecting a good national image. That doesn't make BTS a group of South Korean government agents or w/e.

This shouldn't need saying, but people like that Jack Riminton guy exist, so...

KPop artists are their own individual people and they do not work for the government no matter how big they get and how many people around the world get turned on to Korean culture through them.

Interesting info from @TheKpopProf https://twitter.com/TheKpopProf/status/1309851010043719686?s=19