Is Kpop nerd culture in Europe and America? Are you a nerd?

[yoodle]

4 hours ago, Solfa said:

I live in Michigan, yes, it’s nerd culture here. But nerd is not necessarily a bad term, or at least not as bad as it used to be. Star Wars and Game of Thrones are also nerd culture, but they are/were also mainstream juggernauts. 

However, Kpop is not mainstream, it just doesn’t have mainstream appeal the way Anime doesn’t. Majority of American ignore a movie or a TV series because it’s animated regardless how good it can be simply because they don’t like animation, and that’s why Anime cannot become mainstream. Likewise, majority of Americans really dislike groups in music, remember how much One Direction was mocked for existing? Yeah, it happens every boy band cycle, no matter how popular, likable or successful they are, majority shuns them for being groups, especially boy groups. Now add that to the music being foreign, the members being Asian (ahem) and you have a perfect recipe to never find mainstream success. 

I don’t think the group thing is a turn off for people— you have girl groups like little mix, fifth harmony, in the past destiny’s child, spice girls. Don’t know a whole lot of boy groups unfortunately. For 1D, people “hated” on them the same way they hate on any famous guys with a large female following (see Justin Bieber), it wasn’t because they were a group. 
 

I agree that the turn off has a lot to do with the culture shock of Korea— how blatantly engineered groups are to be not only talented but attractive, different concepts (e.g aegyo) that are foreign, and the language barrier (I have talked to SO many people who say they don’t like to listen to kpop because they can’t understand the lyrics). Americans don’t like when music is so clearly being sold to them as a commodity. Not to say the same thing isn’t done here, but it’s more “taboo” and kept on the down-low, and a lot of emphasis is placed on “homegrown” groups that formed themselves.