K-Pop's Biggest Crossover Moments, a Timeline

The story of K-pop's transcendence begins with a financial crisis.

After the 1997 Asian financial crisis, which particularly devastated South Korea's economy, the country secured a $21 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) over three years.

In the wake of that agreement, the government took a heightened interest in supporting cultural initiatives, aiming to strengthen the country's international reputation. This shift in priorities, combined with major investments in broadband internet, laid the foundation for K-pop.

But exporting this product to the United States was not an easy feat. In 2009, SM Entertainment presented the US debut of K-pop’s first reigning queen, BoA, who had already broken into the Japanese music market.

It would take another decade of ups and downs before K-pop would become one of the biggest movements in music. Today, the whole scene is being led by two north stars: the runaway success of KPop Demon Hunters—the most-watched Netflix film of all time—and the return of BTS, whose single "Swim" and the album, Arirang, are both sitting at the top of the charts.

The crossover could really be felt this week with the announcement of KPop Demon Hunter’s teaming up with McDonald's, as well as a limited-edition fashion capsule—in partnership with Complex and designed by VANDYTHEPINK®.

Pieces from the collection are available now on Complex.com.

If you're wondering how we got here, here's a timeline of K-pop's biggest crossover moments.

In the late 2000s and early 2010s, Korean companies tried to break into the American music industry with their most popular idol groups—with little success.

But really, it was a satirical song about Seoul's Gangnam District and how it turns up at night that introduced the genre to a global audience.

This was the power of PSY's "Gangnam Style," which featured a combination of a humorous music video, a catchy chorus, and an easily replicable dance that matched perfectly with internet culture at the time. The song and video were omnipresent that year. And it made history.

On December 21, 2012, "Gangnam Style" became the first video on YouTube to hit 1 billion views.

In 2017, Minho of SHINee inadvertently upstaged the First Lady of the United States.

While Melania Trump was at the U.S. ambassador's residence in Seoul to encourage girls' participation in sports ahead of the 2018 Winter Olympics, two schoolgirls standing nearby saved all their excitement for Minho, who was standing nearby. Of course their reaction went viral.

SHINee has caught the attention of other U.S. leaders too: just a couple of months earlier, Barack Obama name-dropped the group as an example of K-pop's growing reach among American teenagers.

Unlike the idols before them, who were sent to the United States with English tutors and spots on daytime talk shows, BTS didn't aim to make it in the American market.

They were signed to a small label in Seoul and made music largely in Korean. So how did BTS land Korea's first no. 1 album on the US charts? Their fans did it for them.

BTS made a name for themselves by tackling topics that were usually taboo in K-pop lyrics: mental health, societal issues, and self-love. ARMY fell for their authenticity and scrappiness – building a fandom infrastructure devoted to earning critical acclaim for a group that would normally be overlooked.

Their label, BigHit, was a small company with none of the institutional muscle of SM, YG, or JYP. In 2018, all of that paid off. Love Yourself: Tear became the first K-pop album to top the Billboard 200. It was also the first primarily foreign-language album to do so in over a decade.

K-pop had been courting American late-night television for years: Girls' Generation appeared on the David Letterman show in 2012, and four years before that, Rain famously competed with Stephen Colbert on the Colbert Report.

But it was BTS’s 2019 Saturday Night Live debut that finally broke through the mainstream in a major way.

BTS took the SNL stage with“Boy With Luv” and “Mic Drop—both performances racked up over 50 million YouTube views combined—proof that the audience they built reached beyond the living rooms tuned to NBC that night.

While the success of Love Yourself: Tear was proof of ARMY's capabilities as a fanbase, "Dynamite" was the first time a K-pop song was truly inescapable.

Previous K-pop singles had difficulty getting airtime on U.S. radio stations because of the language barrier, but "Dynamite" broke through with an all-English song that was more immediately accessible to American audiences. Debuting at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100—right above Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s "WAP"—”Dynamite" provided some levity during the height of COVID-19, during a moment when audiences were hungry for something light.

There was a lot going on in the spring of 2020, but one headline was especially odd: the godmother of Elon Musk's son with Grimes was confirmed to be a relatively unknown K-pop idol.

Gowon was a member of the now-disbanded girl group LOONA, which had previously worked with Grimes on their 2018 single "love4eva."

Their fandom was known for spreading misinformation, but this time the news was fact. Was Gowon actually present at a christening for baby X Æ A-Xii? Who knows. But Grimes confirmed in an Instagram comment that the young idol was in fact the godmother of her son.

In April of 2023, K-pop finally made it onto the stage of the most famous music festival in America.

BLACKPINK, who headlined the second of three nights for both weekends, performed an hour-and-a-half-long set of their hits, including "Pink Venom," "How You Like That," and "BOOMBAYAH." In the process they became the first K-pop group to headline Coachella—helping open the door for K-pop acts at major Western festivals.

For Coachella 2026, two K-pop legends will take the desert stage: Taemin will become the first K-pop solo artist to perform at Coachella, while the aforementioned BIGBANG will mark their 20th anniversary with a long-awaited reunion set—a performance originally scheduled for 2020 before COVID postponed it.

In the 2020s, K-pop's biggest stars didn't just make music—they made their way onto some of America's most talked-about television. Jennie made her acting debut in HBO's controversial 2023 series The Idol, while Lisa landed a role in The White Lotus Season 3, one of the most talked about shows of 2025.

Hollywood wasn't casting them as a novelty; neither played a K-pop idol in their respective series. Lisa was a natural fit for a show based in her home country of Thailand and despite the criticism The Idol received, Jennie's performance as Dyanne was praised as a standout.

While Jennie was making an impact on television, BLACKPINK member Rosé created one of the most inescapable songs of 2024.

"APT.," which featured Bruno Mars, became the hit that erased the line between K-pop and Western pop entirely.

​Built around the rhythm of a Korean drinking game, “APT.” has the funk-inflected pop sound signature of Bruno Mars. With a chorus that sticks like a playground chant, the song was the best-selling global single of 2025—the first time a non-Western artist topped the IFPI Global Single Chart.

"APT." was nominated for three Grammys, making it the most nominated song by any Korean or K-Pop artist in Grammy history.

The Victoria's Secret Fashion Show is one of the most coveted performance slots in music. In the past, legends like Taylor Swift, Rihanna, Destiny's Child, and Cher have all taken the stage among the angels.

After a five-year hiatus amid controversy, VS needed to prove it was still relevant. So for their 2024 rendition, they turned to Lisa of BLACKPINK. Apart from her performance, Lisa generated $1.6 million in media impact value for Victoria's Secret with just one Instagram post.

The following year, TWICE became the first K-pop group to perform at the show, doubling down on their embrace of K-pop.

If Victoria’s Secret was K-pop’s commercial fashion moment, the Met Gala was its high fashion one.

While K-pop idols have attended in previous years, Stray Kids became the first full group invited to fashion’s most exclusive night.

All eight members were dressed in matching custom Tommy Hilfiger looks—no small feat for a group whose members individually hold ambassadorships at some of fashion's most storied houses. (Hyunjin is a global ambassador for Versace, Felix for Louis Vuitton, I.N for Bottega Veneta, and so on.)

K-pop idols have become luxury fashion’s most coveted faces, a relationship that says as much about the genre’s global reach as any chart position.

K-pop has historically been a homogenous industry, with the occasional idol from a neighboring Asian country. HYBE disrupted that with KATSEYE—a girl group with members from the Philippines, the US, France, and Switzerland, created in partnership with Geffen Records.

The group's diversity became the centerpiece of Gap's Better in Denim campaign, featuring the girls performing to a fresh recording of Kelis' early 2000s hit "Milkshake." The video racked up 500 million views across platforms and drove double-digit growth in denim sales for Gap.

Every moment on this list was about K-pop knocking on America's door. KPop Demon Hunters is the moment where America showed up without an invite.

In an interview with The New York Times, the film's director, Maggie Kang, was clear that the film wasn't made for children: "It was really for a more mature audience. And really for ourselves." The sentiment turned out to resonate far beyond anyone's expectations—especially the executives at Sony, who sold the rights to Netflix during the pandemic for a fraction of what it would ultimately be worth.

KPop Demon Hunters went on to become the most-watched Netflix title of all time. Then it won two Academy Awards.