section_path: Culture/Entertainment
section_name: Entertainment
paragraph_text: Entertainment
  
  In addition to domestic consumption, South Korea has a thriving entertainment industry where various facets of South Korean entertainment, including television dramas, films, and popular music, have garnered international popularity and generated significant export revenues for the nation's economy. The cultural phenomenon known as Hallyu or the "Korean Wave", has swept many countries across Continental and East Asia making South Korea a major soft power as an exporter of popular culture and entertainment, rivaling Western nations such as the United States and the United Kingdom.
  
  Until the 1990s, trot and traditional folk-based ballads dominated the South Korean popular music scene. The emergence of the pop group Seo Taiji and Boys in 1992 marked a turning point for South Korean popular music, also known as K-pop. Since the 1990s, the genre of K-pop has continuously engaged in a process of ongoing reinvention and modernization by assimilating various elements of popular musical genres and trends from across the world such as Western popular music, experimental, jazz, gospel, Latin, hip hop, rhythm and blues, electronic dance, reggae, country, folk, and rock on top of its uniquely traditional Korean music roots. Though Western-style pop, hip hop, rhythm and blues, rock, folk, electronic dance oriented acts have become dominant in the contemporary South Korean popular music scene, trot still continues to be appreciated and enjoyed by older South Koreans. K-pop idols are well known across Continental Asia, have found fame in the Western World, and have generated millions of dollars in export revenue beyond the confines of the traditional East Asian music market. Many K-pop acts have also established themselves by securing a strong global following using online social media platforms such as YouTube. K-pop first began to makes its mark outside of Continental and East Asia following the unexpected success of singer Psy 's international music sensation, " Gangnam Style ", which topped global music charts in 2012.
  
  Since the success of the film Shiri in 1999, the Korean film industry has grown substantially, garnering recognition both nation-wide and across the globe. Domestic films have a dominant share of the South Korean film market, partly because of the existence of government screen quotas requiring cinemas to show Korean films for at least 73 days of the year. 2019's Parasite, directed by Bong Joon-ho, became the highest-grossing film in South Korea as well as the first non-English language film to win Best Picture at the United States-based Academy Awards that year amongst numerous other accolades.
  
  South Korean television shows have become popular outside of Korea. Television dramas, known as K-dramas, have begun to find fame internationally. Many dramas tend to have a romantic focus. Historical dramas are also famous. The 2021 survival drama Squid Game, created by Hwang Dong-hyuk, received critical acclaim and widespread international attention upon its release, becoming Netflix 's most-watched series at launch and garnering a viewership of more than 142 million households during its first four weeks from launch.