Hawzah News Agency- The Korean Wave is no longer just about exporting films and music. South Korea, through strategic investment in its culture industry, is now exporting a comprehensive worldview — and its most potent instrument is the global phenomenon known as BTS.
When "Parasite" won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2020, many believed it marked the peak of the Korean Wave. Six years later, with K-pop acts selling out American stadiums and South Korea's content industry generating revenues exceeding $100 billion, it has become clear that something far beyond an entertainment trend is unfolding.
Since the late 1990s, following the Asian financial crisis, South Korea has defined its culture industry as a national strategic priority. But what the world is witnessing today transcends the export of cultural commodities such as film, music, and food. Seoul is now actively exporting a worldview — a framework of values, identity, and morality — with BTS serving as the vanguard of this ambitious project.
A Decade-Long Trajectory: From Symbolic Allusion to Explicit Messaging
A close examination of BTS's decade-long career reveals a deliberate pattern: concepts have gradually moved from symbolic undertones to overt ideological expression.
In 2016, the group released "Wings," an album inspired by Hermann Hesse's novel "Demian," whose protagonist must transcend traditional morality of good and evil to reach a deity called Abraxas — a god that merges light and darkness, good and evil. The group's leader, RM, officially recited passages from the book in the album's teasers.
Years later, in "Map of the Soul," BTS drew from Jungian psychology, replacing the concept of "sin" with "shadow." Inner darkness was no longer something to repent but rather a component of the "authentic self" that must be embraced.
Along this trajectory, global campaigns such as "Love Yourself" and RM's 2018 speech at the United Nations delivered a seemingly harmless message of self-care to millions of teenagers worldwide. Yet these messages gradually shifted from "loving yourself" to something far more consequential: the assertion that the self is the sole arbiter of right and wrong — not religion, not tradition, not family.
The 2026 Return: A More Explicit Agenda
Notably, this pattern became even more explicit following the members' mandatory military service and their 2026 return with the album "Arirang."
Billed as a return to Korea's folkloric roots, the album was accompanied by music videos that raised eyebrows among critics. "Hooligan" depicted a world of chaos and aimless rebellion wrapped in polished aesthetics, while "SWIM" transformed the loyalty embedded in the Arirang myth into a narrative of fleeting, multiple romantic entanglements.
Pitchfork, the influential music publication, described the album as "generic" and symptomatic of "Korea's eagerness for Western approval."
A Consciously Engineered Project
Skeptics may dismiss these as mere products of an entertainment industry. But BTS is the product of conscious design, not accident.
Since 2015, the group's agency — Big Hit Entertainment, now HYBE — has officially maintained a narrative universe called the "Bangtan Universe." This multimedia project, staffed by a dedicated creative team, spans music videos, webtoons, novels, and even mobile games. The group's narrative has been the product of deliberate planning from the outset, not the scattered creativity of a few artists.
South Korea replicates this model at the national level. The content industry is officially designated as strategic. Government funding for the sector grows at double-digit rates annually. A presidential committee for popular culture exchange operates with the direct participation of K-pop stars.
Exporting a Model of the Human Being
What emerges from the Korean Wave is no longer mere entertainment. Alongside cultural exports, this project is offering a particular model of the human being: an individual whose sole reference for distinguishing good from evil is the self; an individual whose identity derives not from family, religion, or tradition, but from belonging to a global fandom.
For societies rooted in faith and tradition, the question is not whether this model is merely "foreign entertainment" but whether it represents a fundamental challenge to the values that have long anchored communities and families.
The Korean Wave demands clear-eyed analysis — neither blind fascination with an attractive cultural product nor denial of this phenomenon's real power in redefining the world's young generation.
By Hoda Mansouri-Khah, Director of the Hatef Shargh International Institute
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