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| Girl group Vcha in a promotional photo for their single "Girls of the Year" |
I am only a casual K-pop consumer. After all, I'm nearly 39 years old, far outside the target demographic for K-pop. But I'll casually listen to a fairly broad variety of music, maybe never delving super deep into any of it. Similarly, with K-pop, I'm always a little bit on the outside of major events happening.
Many years ago, the only way I was consuming any K-pop at all was thanks to rhythm games. Dance Dance Revolution 3rd Mix Plus was marketed directly in Korea. Dance Freaks was the Korean-marketed version of Konami's Dance Maniax series. ParaParaDancing was the Korean version of ParaParaParadise. And then eventually I would start dabbling in Korean-made rhythm games like Pump It Up, which would often feature popular K-pop tracks, eventually evolving to feature the music videos from the artists.