K-dramas, K-pop, kimchi: Why Korean culture won India's heart

When news broke out of Ghaziabad about three children dying by suicide after extreme distress linked to phone withdrawal and reported obsession with Korean content, it triggered a familiar moral panic. Screens, foreign content, fandom culture, addiction. But focusing only on shock misses the more important question: why has Korean pop culture found such deep emotional resonance in India in the first place?

The rise of Korean culture, often referred to as Hallyu, in India did not happen overnight, nor is it driven by a single factor. It is the result of a slow but steady cultural alignment—one that taps into family structures, emotional needs, gender representation, aesthetics, and even everyday habits like eating and dressing.

Long before it became a headline issue since around 2022, Korean dramas were slowly becoming comfort viewing across Indian households, sometimes shared between teenagers and their parents, sometimes watched by older adults in Hindi-dubbed versions on streaming platforms.

To understand this wave, it helps to look beyond algorithms and trends, and instead examine what Korean storytelling offers that many Indian viewers feel is missing elsewhere.

FAMILY, TRADITION, AND FAMILIAR EMOTIONAL CODES

One of the strongest reasons Korean dramas work in India is how familiar they feel at their core. Despite language and geography, Korean narratives operate within social structures that mirror Indian and broader Asian values. Family is central. Elders matter. Duty, sacrifice, and social expectations shape individual choices.

Unlike many Western shows where independence often means cutting ties or rebelling openly, Korean dramas explore a quieter tension -- between personal desire and family responsibility. Characters struggle, suppress emotions, and make compromises. These emotional rhythms feel recognisable to Indian viewers raised in joint families or tight-knit social systems.

This familiarity extends to historical and period dramas as well. Korean shows featuring royal families, palace politics, succession battles, and court intrigue have found an audience in India that has long consumed similar themes through Indian mythology, historical serials, and period films. The costumes may differ, but the dramatic grammar is strikingly close.

It is not uncommon now to find Indian viewers in their 50s or 60s watching Korean dramas on Netflix in Hindi, drawn to the slower pacing, melodrama, and emotional intensity that feels closer to Indian daily soaps than to fast-paced Western series.

That sense of emotional comfort is echoed by viewers like Jayati Chatterjee, a 58-year-old homemaker from Delhi, who says Korean dramas feel closer to everyday Indian life than much of today’s mainstream entertainment.

“My husband and I started watching Korean dramas mainly because of the innocent faces and the natural, spontaneous acting. Most K-dramas are based on love, romance, and strong family values -- things that are very simple and normal, and easy to connect with our own lives,” she says.

“Many of these shows focus on female-led stories, which naturally attracts me more. They highlight emotions, culture, and fashion in a very subtle way, showing a simple, clean lifestyle that feels comforting rather than loud or dramatic,” she adds.

Supporting this shift, OTTScrape Research (2025) found that while Gen Z and millennials remain the largest audience segments, viewers aged 30 and above now form a significant share of Indian K-drama consumption, particularly through dubbed content and family viewing.

THE FEMALE GAZE FINALLY TAKES CENTRE STAGE

Perhaps the most disruptive element of Korean pop culture in India is how openly it caters to women viewers.

For decades, mainstream Indian mass entertainment -- especially big-budget cinema -- has remained deeply male-centric, dominated by hyper-masculine heroes in franchises like Dabangg, Singham, KGF, Pushpa, and Jawan, where aggression, dominance, and emotional unavailability are still treated as aspirational.

Korean content flips that script.

Male characters in K-dramas are emotionally expressive, gentle, attentive, and vulnerable. They cry, communicate, cook, apologise, and fall in love without irony.

This idea of “soft masculinity” is not about weakness, but emotional availability—and it has filled a long-standing gap for women viewers who rarely see their emotional realities reflected on screen.

K-pop takes this further through aesthetics. Carefully styled appearances, fashion-forward looks, skincare routines, and choreographed performances normalise self-care and beauty as gender-neutral.

For many Indian women and girls, this representation feels refreshing rather than radical. It validates what they have always wanted from romantic and emotional storytelling.

FROM SCREENS TO STREETS: FOOD, FASHION, AND DAILY LIFE

The influence of Korean culture in India no longer stops at screens. It spills into everyday consumption.

Korean food has seen a visible rise across Indian cities, especially among younger audiences.

According to Swiggy’s 2025 data report, orders for Korean food grew by 50% year-on-year in July 2025 across metro cities such as Bengaluru and Mumbai. The growth was even sharper—59%—in tier-2 and tier-3 cities including Surat and Mysuru.

Cafs, cloud kitchens, and small restaurants serving ramen, tteokbokki, corn dogs, and kimchi often owe their popularity directly to K-dramas. Viewers want to eat what their favourite characters eat, recreating on-screen comfort in real life.

For early viewers, this curiosity often existed long before Korean food became easily available in India. Sutapa says that during her initial exposure to Korean dramas, food remained something she could only experience through screens.

“From there, my interest expanded to K-dramas, with Goblin being the first show I ever watched. Korean food options were almost impossible to find in Kolkata back then, so I could only experience it through the shows I was watching," she says.

Fashion follows a similar pattern. Oversized silhouettes, layered clothing, minimalist styling, and gender-fluid aesthetics seen in Korean media have quietly entered Indian youth fashion, especially through social media and college campuses.

This desire to live the culture rather than just watch it is a key marker of soft power at work.

MUSIC, CHILDREN, AND CROSS-GENERATIONAL REACH

K-pop’s expansion in India has been steady and strategic. What sets it apart from earlier foreign music waves is its ability to cut across age groups.

Teenagers engage through fandoms, choreography, and online communities, while older listeners often discover Korean music through dramas, films, or even animated properties linked to music.

A recent example is the Korean animated and music-linked Netflix title KPop Demon Hunters, which became a breakout success in India and globally. According to Netflix Tudum data (2025), the title recorded 266 million views within 91 days of release, ranking number one globally and in India.

The cultural moment extended beyond streaming. In 2026, the song “Golden” from the film -- performed by EJAE, Audrey Nuna, and Rei Ami -- won the Grammy Award for Best Song Written for Visual Media, marking the first time a K-pop track won in this category.

BTS songs and K-pop choreography are also routinely taught, practised, and performed across Indian dance studios, college festivals, school competitions, and social media reels.

The strong performance of Korean content on Indian streaming charts shows how this culture now speaks to children as much as adults.

For many Indian viewers, music is often the first entry point into this cultural ecosystem. Sutapa Das Sarkar, a 34-year-old academic research paper writer from Kolkata, recalls discovering Korean culture through K-pop while she was still in school.

“My first introduction to Korean culture was in Class 11, when a friend introduced me to the K-pop group Super Junior with songs like Sorry Sorry, Mamacita, and Mr Simple. I was drawn to the music because of the catchy tunes and simple words," she says.

“I didn’t have to think too deeply about the lyrics, which actually helped me study without getting distracted or sleepy,” she adds.

Unlike earlier phases where foreign content felt niche, Korean pop culture has become family-viewable, shareable, and emotionally accessible.

LEARNING THE LANGUAGE, PLAYING THE GAMES

Another clear indicator of deeper engagement is the rise in interest in learning Korean. Language institutes, online platforms, and university programmes across India have seen growing enrolments, driven not by academic necessity but cultural curiosity.

A Duolingo study published in 2023 reported a 75% year-on-year increase in Korean language learners in India, particularly among users aged 13 to 22.

Viewers want to understand lyrics, dialogue, and nuances without subtitles.

Gaming also plays a role. Korean-origin or Korean-influenced mobile games, especially romance-based and simulation formats, have gained traction among Indian teenagers.

These games extend the same emotional storytelling seen in K-dramas into interactive spaces, blurring the line between entertainment and emotional escape.

UNDERSTANDING THE MOMENT WITHOUT PANIC

For many long-term viewers, what sustains interest is not novelty, but cultural familiarity.

Reflecting on her continued engagement with Korean content, Sutapa points to deeper similarities between Korean and Indian social structures.

“What really kept me interested were the cultural similarities. The social structures and interpersonal dynamics in Korean society felt very close to Bengali, and to some extent, broader Indian experiences,” she says.

“Even Korea’s historical journey and how it shaped the country’s socio-political development felt surprisingly similar to our own,” she adds.

The Ghaziabad tragedy is deeply disturbing and deserves sensitive, responsible reporting. But it should not become a shorthand to demonise an entire cultural phenomenon. Obsession, screen addiction, and emotional distress are complex issues that cut across content types, languages, and countries.

But Korean culture did not create these vulnerabilities. What it did do is offer emotional narratives, aesthetics, and values that many Indian viewers -- especially young people and women -- felt were missing elsewhere.

At its core, the Korean wave in India is not about trends or fandom alone. It is about connection, about seeing family, love, restraint, beauty, and vulnerability portrayed in ways that feel emotionally safe and culturally familiar.

That is why it has become such a powerful soft force, and why it continues to grow.