It’s been a while since K-pop fans have been “accusing” K-pop of becoming too “Westernized”, stagnant, or bland. Many fans blame BTS for this: ever since their The Most Beautiful Moment in Life era, the group had already begun drifting away from K-pop‘s ornamental maximalism toward a more introspective, narrative-driven pop — something that felt less manufactured and more global in tone.
When they released “Dynamite”, the all-English disco-pop pandemic hit that entered the US music market like a Troy horse, everyone swore it was the beginning of the end: that BTS would fully Americanize themselves, abandon their Korean identity, and drag the entire genre toward assimilation. “Dynamite” became the symbol of a K-pop industry finally fluent in Western pop’s grammar, for better or worse.
It’s hard to blame BTS for “ruining” the authenticity of something that was never 100% authentic to begin with (or for playing the game they had to play to overcome prejudices and reach global stages). One thing is true, though: what came after BTS’s American domination turned what once felt like creative adaptation into industrial standardization.
Anyway, it all leads to 2025: the year that may go down as the one when K-pop was made for people who don’t like K-pop. After years of global expansion, aesthetic saturation, and corporate re-engineering, the genre seems to have entered what could be called its neutralized phase. Fans’ complaints stopped sounding nostalgic and began to feel diagnostic.
What am I referring to? It’s not just K-pop acts increasingly singing in English or reaching spaces once only meant for US/Europe acts (like K-pop girl group TWICE performing at Victoria’s Secret 2025 Fashion Show – who could ever imagine that a group of young women positioned in a conservative, sexually constricting industry would figure in a runway full of half-naked models in America?)
It’s not just the K-pop “label” having less and less to do with language or geography (like Lisa, Doja Cat & Raye’s “Born Again” winning Best K-pop at the MTV 2025 VMAs despite the song not featuring one single Korean member or lyric, only because Thai singer Lisa is also a part of the K-pop group BLACKPINK).
It’s not just how groups like NEWJEANS have made K-pop sound minimalist, precisely the opposite of what K-pop music became famous for. It’s also about the emergence of groups that were created along the lines of the K-pop mold (especially regarding artist development and marketing), but each one with its own degree of disruption of what made K-pop so unique. Think of KATSEYE, or CORTIS. If you have minimal knowledge about K-pop, you’ll inevitably conclude after reading my last sentence. You’ll say I’m “blaming” HYBE Entertainment.
Indeed, when we trace the lines of this transformation, most arrows point to HYBE’s name. The company, formerly Big Hit Entertainment, gave the world BTS and proved itself capable of launching more groups that add unique flair to K-pop (like TXT). However, it’s also the company that unapologetically announced it would use the K-pop formula to succeed across diverse fields – not just the Korean and musical ones, but aiming instead at a world (literally and figuratively) of innovative products and services across various fields.
Ironically, BTS were the ones who took K-pop to the world by doing things that were not entirely traditionally K-pop: addressing social critique, “allowing” members to “be more themselves” and act less performatively than usual, encompassing more authorial music than most groups, and articulating emotional depth that transcended language barriers. Their global impact created an unprecedented expansion. Many K-pop companies tried to follow their steps by targeting America and Europe with English singles and performances in US and UK TV shows.
With BTS on hiatus for mandatory military service since 2022, the ecosystem adapted. K-pop groups that were already successful, such as STRAY KIDS and SEVENTEEN, found an even bigger and more fertile space to thrive. They even ranked among IFPI’s global sales chart, in positions that, for years, seemed reserved for BTS alone. Yet, HYBE used the moment to reimagine its empire: to replicate the K-pop formula without necessarily keeping it Korean.
Take KATSEYE, for instance. Formed through a typical idol-training process and even a televised survival show, the group features only one Korean member. In 2025, KATSEYE fronted a GAP fashion ad, countering Eurocentric beauty ideals. If K-pop was once positioned as a decolonial alternative to US/Europe-centric pop, it has now become a new global standard, a benchmark that replaces the old benchmark, redefining what is seen as desirable and aspirational worldwide. That, of course, is excellent, but it comes with contradictions.
To non-K-pop fans, KATSEYE are pure K-pop: the training, the sync choreography. To K-pop fans, KATSEYE’s cosmopolitan lineup and overt sensuality (with their short shorts and sexy dance moves) mark a break from K-pop’s coded purity. It’s a Venn diagram that pits each side against itself: both will recognize and feel estranged by what they thought they knew about K-pop.
Then there’s CORTIS, a boy group whose loose, collective energy recalls American hip-hop collectives like Brockhampton more than the polished unity of traditional K-pop groups. HYBE didn’t stop there: they recently launched Santos Bravos, a Latin boyband molded through K-pop’s system, but aimed directly at Spanish-speaking markets. These acts replicate the K-pop machine, characterized by intense training, multimedia storytelling, and fan-engagement structures, but they also discard the cultural specificity that once defined it.
That is a change that goes beyond HYBE’s planning. What proves so is that the same logic extends beyond human performers. For years, people have been betting that the K-pop industry was just the perfect space for an Artificial Intelligence dystopia to thrive (an idea often rooted in techno-orientalism and prejudice against Asian people). Indeed, the K-pop “non-human” super hit came, and it was not through avatars or Her-style parassocial relationships (even though replicas of these exist in K-pop). It was through Netflix’s animated film K-pop Demon Hunters, indeed, one of 2025’s biggest pop culture phenomena. The movie’s *fictional* K-pop idols even outperformed real-world K-pop idols.
As I wrote elsewhere: “(…) [the reason] why tracks from K-pop Demon Hunters got so many PAKs in Korea and went #1 on Billboard US has less to do with “the new era when avatars, AI, and fictional characters are just as relevant as human artists” and more to do with how the current generation of K-pop artists isn’t capturing the public’s imagination or emotional investment the way the big names of past generations did; leaving room for newcomers who break the K-pop mold a little bit.
“See, for example, KATSEYE, and the fictional groups from the movie have just enough ties with K-pop to capture the niche’s fans but bring something new to the table for them (even if that “newness” is just the fact that the members are not all Korean, or aren’t humans at all).[Also,] the animated/fictional format of the movie may have succeeded in drawing in consumers who (unfortunately) may be biased against K-pop or Korean artists. The movie is capturing different types of audiences, and some of these may include people who wouldn’t consume K-pop otherwise.”
In other words, the fictional format created an entry point for the K-pop-averse to participate in its sonic economy: children, casual listeners, or those who feel detached from K-pop’s culture and aesthetics are drawn to K-pop Demon Hunters. All these examples point to a strange paradox: the more global K-pop becomes, the more it dissolves into generic pop itself.
That is by no means a new discussion: you’ll find articles and think pieces of “K-pop losing its K” everywhere. However, never as visibly as in 2025 has K-pop revealed itself as less a genre and more a method: a replicable system of pop production detached from the need to sound or even look Korean. A system that does not really care that much about staying faithful to the interests of the fandom that catapulted it into global stardom and standardization.
That is also proof of the K-pop influence that many have been longing to deny. Global music industry experts have long ignored the merits of K-pop. They are only now acknowledging it, when it has reached saturation (or they repeat clichés about how the industry’s success can be credited to the Korean government’s investments).
For example, K-pop shaped modern “superfan” culture, and now, the entire global industry is catching up, mimicking the model to the point that the “superfan economy” is reaching saturation. Additionally, the same K-pop formula of narrative marketing and transmedia strategy is now a toolkit that can be deployed anywhere.
Interestingly, 2025 also marks the year BTS return from their military service. As K-pop evolves into something less distinctive than what made it beloved worldwide, the group that took it to the next level are back and are set to release new music and embark on a tour in the next year.
Despite everything that connects and sets BTS apart from other K-pop acts, their position is one that many industry experts take as indicative of how K-pop as a whole is doing and where it’s heading. Therefore, BTS’s comeback poses an existential question: can a group that once transcended K-pop still redefine it? The irony is that even before the hiatus, BTS were already too big to fit neatly back into the scene they helped transform. This same scene has proven it can walk on its own without BTS, but where exactly has it walked to?
Regardless of the artistic path BTS (or other leading K-pop groups) will showcase in their subsequent releases, the world they’ll find is not the same one they left: we’re living in a post-K-pop reality, where fragments of the K-pop mold are now capable of attracting K-pop skeptics. The very Frankenstein approach that once defined its innovation now repels its purists.