Cowl artwork from the Little Golden Guide Biography collection that includes Okay-pop teams BTS, left, and BLACKPINK, each revealed earlier this yr / Courtesy of Penguin Random Home
A style as soon as outlined by teen and younger grownup fandoms, Okay-pop is now step by step pushing into kids’s leisure, getting into areas historically stuffed by preschool reveals and newbie e book collection.
The growth introduces the style to a number of the youngest media customers but — a growth educators and analysts say might have lasting results on how kids kind cultural tastes and media routines.
One of many newest examples comes from five-piece lady group FIFTY FIFTY. The group’s company, ATTRAKT, mentioned it launched a seasonal single titled “Making Christmas Magical” on Nov. 28 in collaboration with Blocks Universe, a kids’s content material IP whose characters — Numberblocks, Alphablocks, Colorblocks and Wonderblocks — are extensively utilized in U.Okay. lecture rooms and preschools.
In accordance with model proprietor Alphablocks, the venture marks the franchise’s first main cross-brand Christmas launch uniting all 4 properties. The track was produced by Blue Zoo Animation Studio, a long-time Alphablocks companion and a BAFTA- and Emmy-winning, B Corp–licensed studio identified for its academic animation work.
The jacket picture of Okay-pop lady group FIFTY FIFTY’s new single “Making Christmas Magical,” launched on Nov. 28 in collaboration with Blocks Universe / Courtesy of Blocks Universe
Related developments are taking form within the U.S. publishing market. Okay-pop juggernauts BLACKPINK and BTS now seem within the Little Golden Guide Biography collection, following the discharge of their titles earlier this yr. The road, aimed toward starting readers, distills the teams’ histories into simplified narratives and picture-book illustrations.
BLACKPINK was additionally featured in “Blackpink: Queens of Okay-Pop,” a hardcover title revealed in 2020 by Union Sq. Children. The e book, categorized as juvenile nonfiction, profiles the band’s 4 members — Jisoo, Jennie, Rose and Lisa —tracing their particular person backgrounds, the group’s formation and their rise to world prominence in language tailor-made for younger readers.
Different Okay-pop acts have additionally entered preschool programming by collaborations with established kids’s manufacturers.
NewJeans, as an example, appeared in dance movies with kids’s leisure firm Pinkfong and its mental property Child Shark in 2022. The members tailored their songs into easy-to-follow clips designed for viewers below seven, marking one of many style’s clearest steps into kids’s content material.
SM Leisure’s boy band NCT Dream additionally moved into this area by a collaboration with Pinkfong’s dinosaur character Redrex, remodeling the band’s hit “Sizzling Sauce” right into a kid-friendly sing-along with simplified choreography and animated framing. That partnership later prolonged into retail, with the 2 companies releasing “NCT-REX,” a family-friendly ready-to-eat meal line bought by the CU comfort retailer chain.
‘Household-friendly’
For leisure corporations, the enchantment of those ventures is simple: Youngsters symbolize an untapped viewers that may be reached by softer, low-barrier entry factors. Early publicity usually builds familiarity lengthy earlier than kids age into streaming platforms or concert-going demographics, creating the potential for long-term fan relationships that evolve over years.
For idols, showing in worldwide youngsters’ media, whether or not by academic characters, animated crossovers or newbie nonfiction, provides one other layer to their world attain. It permits Okay-pop acts to flow into in areas past conventional pop markets, embedding them in households and lecture rooms.
Critics say these collaborations additionally mirror the broader maturation of Okay-pop as a cultural export, one which now strikes fluidly throughout age teams, platforms and academic settings.
Some argue that the fast growth highlights the necessity for clearer requirements. Whereas a lot of Okay-pop might seem “family-friendly” to the ears of abroad listeners, observers say Korea wants a extra nuanced benchmark for content material aimed particularly at kids.
“It is time to suppose concretely about what Okay-pop for kids ought to seem like,” wrote music critic “Mimyo” Moon Younger-min in a neighborhood media outlet.
“With the style now 25 years into its historical past, this dialog is not untimely. Ideally, the upbeat and imaginative collaborations between idols and kids’s content material will assist form clearer pointers for the longer term.”
