Meet Latin America's Teenage Korean Pop Fanatics Marlon Bishop - NPR.org
go to original December 15, 2013

Super Junior - Mr.Simple (SMTOWN)

If you want to get a sense of what Mexican teenagers are up to these days, here's an unexpected place to start: A Korean bakery in downtown Mexico City.

Every Sunday, dozens of teens — mostly female — convene here to eat Korean snacks and geek out about their favorite boy bands. They're known as los k-popers – a growing subculture of Mexican kids who are crazy for Korean pop music.

... On the wall, a flat-screen TV plays the latest music videos from Seoul. They're flashy, with high production values and lots of dancing. Sing-alongs occasionally erupt through the bakery.

K-pop, as Korean pop music is known, burst into the US media spotlight last year when Psy's "Gangnam Style" went viral. Since then, K-pop has continued to expand, providing an alternative to US pop for young people around the world. Super Junior is one of the genre's most popular acts. On its recent world tour, the group spent a lot of its time in Latin America, one of K-pop's fastest growing markets.

Ask any of the bakery teens how they got into K-pop and they'll give you the same answer: YouTube.

Read the rest at WUIS.org

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