The number of online posts on Hallyu worldwide has jumped about 30 times thanks to the global popularity of the Netflix smash series "Squid Game," which was released in September last year.
By Park Hye Ri and Lee Jihae
The number of online posts related to Hallyu (Korean Wave) has jumped 30 times since the Netflix series "Squid Game" took the world by storm last year.
The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and Korean Foundation for International Cultural Exchange on April 18 said their research report on the Hallyu market was based on analyses of big data online last year on the Korean Wave abroad.
The report said the weekly number of Hallyu-related videos on YouTube was around 2,300 between June and August last year, but skyrocketed after the Sept. 17 release of "Squid Game." That December, the weekly average was 70,600 videos, a 30-fold increase.
The number of YouTube videos on K-dramas posted per week surged from around 200 in August last year to 6,000 in November. In the third week of October, the top five videos in the number of views were all about the hit drama, and the five videos' number of views was a combined 450 million.
The foundation said fans and general consumers are actively reproducing content as overall interest in Hallyu has spread since the release of "Squid Game."
High interest in the Korean Wave was seen not only in videos but also online communities, review sites and foreign media.
The social news and discussion website Reddit in early September went from 15,000-16,000 posts on Hallyu per week to over 20,000 in October. The number of reviews of Hallyu content in Rotten Tomatoes, a movie review site, went from under 20 per week prior to the drama's release to 130 afterwards.
Twenty-eight English-language media outlets in 15 countries, including those from non-English speaking states, saw a daily average of 14.5 posts on Hallyu. K-pop accounted for 54% of foreign news reports on Hallyu and those on K-dramas 32.5%.
The report was based on big data on Hallyu's global status from June to December last year from YouTube, Reddit, Rotten Tomatoes and foreign media outlets.
The study was the first using big data to gauge interest in and responses to Hallyu at the government level. Its purpose was to collect and analyze global responses online to grasp Hallyu's status.
hrhr@korea.kr