How K-dramas came to and dominated America

polygon.com:

For some Americans, Korean dramas came out of nowhere. Between 2019 and 2021, viewership numbers for TV series produced in South Korea went up a staggering 200% in the U.S. When Squid Game hit Netflix in September 2021, one in four Americans watched it. It wasn’t just a K-drama hit; it became the streamer’s most-watched series of all time.

But Squid Game isn’t a total anomaly. The Korean series is one chapter in a larger story with its own name and history: a seismic, ongoing shift in the global entertainment landscape known as Hallyu. The term comes from a Chinese phrase meaning “Korean wave,” and it refers to the phenomenal international success of Korean cultural exports. Hallyu is a challenge to the decades-long domination of the global pop culture market by English-language, American-made media. K-dramas built the foundation of this disruption.

Prior to the development of the internet and the streaming technology that would eventually come with it, Korean TV was accessed almost exclusively by Korean Americans in major U.S. cities through a few broadcast stations, cable channels, and Koreatown video rental services. That began to change in the 2000s, when populations outside of Korean American communities started to find and seek out K-dramas.

This is the story of the slow, steady integration of Korean dramas into the U.S. “mainstream” — a journey tied to development of the internet and streaming video technology, and spearheaded by a woman-dominated fan culture.

A working definition of the term

At its most basic, the term “K-drama” encapsulates TV drama series made in South Korea. American TV series with Korean settings, characters, and language, like Pachinko and XO, Kitty, are sometimes miscategorized as