It’s hard to escape K-pop Demon Hunters content on social media these days. The soundtrack currently occupies 4 out of the top 10 spots on the Billboard Hot 100, and it’s quickly become the most streamed title in Netflix history. “Golden” is just as viral in real life as it is in the movie. I remember watching it with my family the day it came out, not knowing what to expect. The promotion for the movie seemed minimal at first, with the trailer barely circulating the internet. So how did this niche animated movie shape our summer, and maybe the whole year?
The movie appealed to some of the strongest fandoms out there: K-pop fans and fantasy lovers. As someone who’d grown up in and around these fan spaces, I was really excited to see a creative project like this, especially when it was being created by an animation studio I love. I was a fan from my first watch, but I never expected the movie to skyrocket the way it did. To me, it showed the impact fandom power has. These are two groups that have always had huge power in their own social spaces. Some of the biggest pop culture phenomena of this century started with these fans. With that logic, K-pop Demon Hunters was probably set to be pretty popular (which, as you can see below, it was).Â
What I think made this such a moment in our culture is how positive and unifying it is. Good vanquishing evil has been a story told in millions of ways over the entirety of human history; we’ve always loved this trope. Getting to see it in a world that leaned into being a fan, fun music, and colorful imagery felt like the refresh this genre needed. A demon boyband defeated by a superstar girl group is the exact level of whimsical we need. Additionally, in a world where so much of the content created are sequels, remakes, or something in a shared universe, it felt nice to have something new and unique like K-pop Demon Hunters. Original content like this being so successful could help push studios away from quickly cancelling new shows or only greenlighting sequels, so we can finally get more refreshing and unique content that gets some time to shine.
For fans of fantasy and K-pop, it felt nice to have something they love get to be in the spotlight. Ask anyone who loves these things, and they’ll probably tell you about getting bullied for listening to BTS in middle school or being a die-hard fan of reading fantasy literature. I think K-pop Demon Hunters excelled, because not only did it make people feel seen and understood, but it helped them feel confident to be true to themselves, much like the journey Rumi goes through in the film. I can’t even count the number of TikToks I’ve seen from young women and girls who have felt empowered by this movie. At the end of the day, that’s the power of good art- the ability to make people not just feel understood, but to physically move them. In an era where social media is often negative, seeing something that fostered connection and was so wholeheartedly positive was nice. I hope that we continue to see that shift towards acceptance and community that started with people bonding over this movie.
If you want to check out the soundtrack (which you’ve probably heard before) it’s linked here!