0:02 Seven boys millions of fans Bangtan Boys, also known as BTS is taking North America by storm. BTS is currently headlining the rapid popularity of K-Pop or Korean pop in the international music scene. Despite K-Pop songs being primarily sung in Korean it is drawing attention and devotion from fans all over the world. 0:43 Hailing from South Korea, BTS has acquired a solid and loyal fan base, aptly called Army. Army's helped the boy group win top social artists at the Billboard Music Awards. Siel Emand second year industrial engineering student at the University of Toronto is a BTS super fan. Emand traveled to New York four times to see BTS perform live. 1:11 In October, we had a historical concert at Citi Field and it seats 42,000 people. There was probably 1000 in the pit, but it was just this huge venue and it was all filled with the BTS fans and it meant a lot to them. And it meant a lot to us because no other Korean artists ever performed at a bigsStadium in North America, so I was happy to be part of a historic moment. 1:32 BTS may have achieved a lot of firsts for Korean artists, but these boys will not be the last. K-Pop is growing steadily in the international music scene. Not exclusive to pop the term is often used for any audio visual content originating from Korean music artists. 1:50 I got a VIP pass. They signed our posters and you got that meaningful eye contact with them. It was really fast, but it was enough to say like, oh, thank you for coming and hi, it was just so sweet. They just lightly high five the fans after the show. Jim and Greg onto mine at the end who's making remember I was like, oh my god. That was like so meaningful. It was so surreal, because you always you're always on screen on the other side of the world, then they're right in front of you. Like you can see a face up close like that, something you can't get from high definition. They're just actually very glowing. They're very beautiful I would say. 2:24 Emand says her love for K-Pop brought new friends to her life. 2:28 Three years ago I met a girl in line she's from Montreal and we still keep in touch like through Snapchat, Instagram. I met some people from in September like a Hamilton we were waiting in the merge line at 6am. And then it only open at nine but then there was a long lineup to get the merchandise. So we talked my sister and I talked to those people online we follow them on Twitter. It's just so crazy. 2:47 Meeting new friends, though is not exclusive to Armies like Emand. Like any other music genre, fans easily bond over their favorite K-Pop idols. Evident in the K-Pop or Korean culture oriented groups across universities and colleges. 3:02 I'm part of a school dance club. My close friend she actually teaches the K-Pop classes. When we can we learn like the choreography for some K-Pop songs and we do performances for them. 3:22 Sara and Tom is a gift shop on Bloor Street in Toronto's Korea Town. Easily recognized by their pink walls, pink decorations and K-Pop songs playing inside the store at all times. Gina Kim who works at Sarah and Tom says the store is visited by Kpop fans daily. The demand for albums and merchandise is increasing in their store. 3:44 I think it's because of their looks and how attractive they are to girls mostly. I see BTS fans here the most. They look for albums and posters and if we have any pillows or merchandise of like outfits. Emand's bedroom has a display of music albums exactly like the display at Sarah and Tom's. Albums as thick as books fill the shelves. Ten BTS posters cover an entire wall in her bedroom plus wall stickers of all seven BTS members faces 4:18 At the concert you'll see lots of these. It's the BTS light stick. It will be best showing up but then it has a Bluetooth capability where at the concerts we got an app on our phone and then you put our seat number. Depending on where you sit and if your light stick is on Bluetooth mode is going to change colors throughout the show. 4:36 South Korea actively uses K-Pop as a marketing tool to drive tourism and revenue into the country. Ever since the 1997 financial crisis in South Korea, K-Pop has been a main cultural export. Similar to anime in Japanese culture interest in learning Korean and the Korean culture often comes with being a K-Pop fan. 4:58 I watched YouTube videos. I think it's called Hana, Hana Hungoo. That's where she taught how to read the certain symbols and stuff. It took me maybe a month or two, like I can't read it super fast, but if I take my time I can understand it. 5:11 I think it's great. Because I get to learn more and I was actually surprised because I didn't know a lot of people knew about Korea or anything like that. So when I started working here, yeah, I was happy. 5:23 I'm familiar with like, the food and then its main cities, the beautiful traditional costumes. I would love to know more about Korean history. I just like watch Korean dramas. I know very not reliable source for all historical events, but at least I know what the times were like. 5:38 Daniel Decosta, an audio engineer who frequents Korea Town does not listen to K-Pop. He compares K-Popfans to people who enjoy Spanish music. 5:47 I think language matters in the music I listen to. Although I only believe that to a certain extent because many people including myself, listen to Spanish music. Despite not understanding what the artists are saying lyrically. 5:59 South Korea may have succeeded in exporting interest in their language and culture through K-Pop. But in the words of American poet Henry Longfellow music is the universal language of mankind. 6:12 Even though there's a language barrier in their message gets through and before K-Pop I always like heard the phrase like music changed my life. I never really related to that because I never found a song more than just catchy like, Oh, this is nice to listen to. And then but it didn't really make me feel something or like remind me of something important, but with K-Pop but different songs cover many different things like love rejection, overcoming one's hardships and just celebrating oneself. 6:40 Come as you are. K-Pop stays true to its language and vision, while catering to fans from different countries and cultures. K-Pop is proving to have the ability to move people's hearts and bring people together one catchy song at a time.