 A whopping 60% of all Netflix members worldwide have watched at least one Korean TV show or movie. So David, does that mean that South Korea, pound for pound, is the greatest entertainment country in the world right now? Honestly, it might be. I mean, the Netflix co-CEO, Ted Serandos, was in Seoul, Korea last week. He said a staggering 60% of our members have now watched one Korean title with viewing of K-content up six-fold globally in the past four years. That is just an incredible jump. That's got to be the quickest content jump from a country in world history to be honest. Yo, I don't know if anybody utilized the internet better than South Korea has. And I would say this, David, the cultural impact and export of entertainment and stars from South Korea kind of reminds me of like Jamaica in the 90s and 2000s. Lord of Mercy. Yeah. I mean, not a, Jamaica is a tiny country, but South Korea, not a super big country, is producing all this content that everybody's watching. You're saying a country that has a smaller population number, but just like an outsized cultural impact, pop cultural impact. Pound for pound. All right, everybody, we're going to get into the comments section. So please hit that like button. Check out other episodes of the hot pop boys because there are a lot of opinions on this. And also in the comments down below, let me know what your favorite Netflix show that is Korean is because I need to watch a new one. You know what I think is really interesting is getting sort of like older Americans' opinions on Asian content. You would think that prior to this, the whole K wave, the haul you, they were only watching maybe like Bruce Lee, Kung Fu Flicks, maybe anime Pokemon if they were younger. Yeah. And I would say what Serando said when he said this is the power of Korean storytelling. I thought that was a really good line, obviously big enough Koreans. But I feel like that nowadays, you know, especially when people are on their TV and on their computer, just flipping through stuff, like if it's a really good story, a lot of people can look past the Asian face. And also, let's be honest, those Asian faces that they're picking are beautiful. Those are some gorgeous Asian faces. There are amazing faces. All right, guys, I do want to say real quick before in the comment section, 90% of K romance viewing now comes from outside of Korea, David. So there might be a little Korean fever going on. And I think this leads us to our very first comment saying that I think that K dramas are even bigger in the Western world, not in the US or not in Canada. Probably even like Latin America, you know, Latin America, still in the Western Hemisphere. Right, right, right. Yeah, I did hear that in Latin America, like, I think the K-pop stuff is even larger. Like, have you seen those concerts that they have out there? It's like crazy. Yeah. I think in America, it's viewed as a niche thing, but like a large niche. But I almost want to say in Latin America from what I know, it's bigger than a niche. Yeah. It's like a real movement. And you know what? There's a lot of speculation on why, why like the Latin market was able to kind of transfer and kind of lash on to K-pop stuff and K drama stuff so easily. Right. You're saying in a more mainstream fashion. Yeah, like they, I think, like relatively, the Korean content ranks way higher in Latin America than it does in America. Yeah. Somebody said that Asian dramas have always been good for a lot of decades. People are just catching on now. They've got better storytelling skills that actors are engaged. It just seems like everybody is trying their best. Yeah. And I think that is, they take a lot of pride. Obviously, there's a long history of how entertainment, the movie industry helped the economy of Korea over the last few decades. So it was a really big part of it. So really there is actually, in a way, if you think about the last like 30, 40 years was pretty important as far as that goes. And you know what's funny? David, there was like K-Con in LA like 10, 11 years ago. I remember and people would not believe me when I said like, yo, like half the people at K-Con were like, I think Latino girls. Right. Yeah. So it's like not like it's, it was already starting back then. Yeah. For sure. I mean, that was 10 years ago. Somebody said it's not just everybody trying their best and giving their best. It's actually the content of the series as well. There's like less political agendas. There's less degenerate behavior. There's less guns. There's less cheating. There's less like wild, crazy sex. Like it almost reminds people, Andrew, of like content. And you know, that was before, you know, in the 1960s or the 1950s in America more cleaned up. I got a question for you. And do you think that a lot of that kind of like family friendly and obviously I think it is edgy, but it's not like too edgy of material. Do you think Korea keeps it like that because there are a lot of them are Christian or it's just also Asian culture or just both? I think it's both. I think it's actually reflective of the day to day society. Like let's say for example, American TV soap opera or a novella from Latin America. They have a lot of like, let's just say there's guns in them, right? Because guns are a part of American and Latin society, but there's like zero guns in Asia. So why would they end up working? You know what I mean? There would be no gun storyline in that unless it was like a like a thriller drama shooting movie. Oh yeah. And also when it comes to like drug dealers, like the drug dealers in Korea would have to be super, super gangster because like it's very strict. It's not going to be like euphoria where there's just this like dude who looks like Mack Miller who's selling drugs. That's a real reality in America that would not happen in Asia. Breaking bad does not happen in Asia. Let's just be clear. Yeah, somebody said it's actually an economic equation making American content suck in comparison. So this guy said as good as Korean content is, it's actually American content being horrible and falling off a cliff. That's interesting. And they're saying that everybody is so greedy. Everybody wants so much money from the director to the actors to the writers. And then they have to go after the lowest common denominator type consumer where they can essentially like trick them into liking things. So then you get like fast and furious all the way to like 15, 20. Not that those are really terrible, but you know what I mean? Like that is for a very basic mind probably. Alright. I kind of, I can see that this is maybe part of the reason, but I really think it's the former comment that we talked about. And somebody saying that that that's what's forcing America into use just like all the same old tropes where Korean content is different. Their government is working with the studios. It's almost like an entire societal movement. No, it is definitely a national pride thing. Like, you know how a lot of people like in Hollywood or whatever, like maybe they wouldn't take pride as being an American, but whatever, like however they frame it. I would say in Korea, bro, those people are very like, I'm not saying the actors themselves in their hearts are super nationalistic, but I think they have to like play that, you know, like outwardly. Like they have to be very proud to be South Korea. I mean, it's almost like if you're part of the entertainment industry, it's almost like partially being on the Olympic team. That's a good point. No, I mean, like to be honest, like just you guys got to go over there. It's just very different. I mean, like, but it produces amazing entertainment. Let me just tell you this. They take pride in a lot of different things that like people don't take pride in in like America or even China. Of course, Andrew, there was dissent, especially from the boomers on Yahoo News. Someone said none of it is entertaining or riveting. It's pretty bland and boring to me. It's bewildering that anybody that would watch this nonsense, especially people who are not Asian. It is surprising because they're all terrible. I must be in that 40% because I had to click the story just to find out what K content is. I don't like it because nobody talks like the conversations that they have in the shows. How true is this? Well, I think it's partially the dubbing and the subtitles that might be taken away from it. So if he's watching it with the English dubs, it probably doesn't sound even as good as the subtitles. And obviously, if you actually understand Korean, then it's probably the best. You know what I mean? Like the enjoyment level goes down a little bit every time you dub it or read the subtitles. And then you dub it some more in English. And then all the voices are like, huh, hey, what's the next challenge? It's the squid games. And it's like, it doesn't sound right. But I do think that, you know, people always accuse Dawson's Creek, Andrew, of being written too high level because the high schoolers would never talk to each other that way. You know what I mean? Like they were like talking like liberal art school hipsters with like grad school English degrees, even though they were supposed to be playing like 17, 18 years old. But I mean, that is the nature of entertainment. And I feel like it's just different because you're able to in a different culture, people are just going to communicate differently. Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, listen, I think if you can get past the Asian faces, if you're not against Asian faces, I think there's some really good stories out there. Somebody said, I never thought I would see the day. This is just amazing. Like this is obviously a comment from a Korean. Yeah. So actually they were talking about this other person said, I had a lot of Latino students who grew up on telenovelas, soap operas, they got really into Korean soaps. And so actually, so this is why a lot of people feel like that the Latin market latched on to the Korean soaps because they are, they have really big like telenovelas, right? Which are like the Latin soaps, right in Spanish. And so if that's already a genre that everybody loves, then switching to K-dramas is not that different, right? Right. Now, if you're not a person that's into drama's period, like I don't, I'm not, that's not like a huge part of my life. But so I'm not, I guess for me. I can't tell you the last time I saw any drama. Right. Right. Exactly. So I also heard that mechanically it's different like the Korean storylines, they end after one or two seasons. Once they feel like everybody's story arc has been completed. A lot of people were saying because in America, once they find intellectual property that everybody wants to watch, they want to milk it for six, seven seasons and they just make wackier and wackier stuff happen. So people sort of end up like hating those characters that they love the first three seasons, but everybody's just trying to milk it to obviously make the ad dollars. Yeah. Yeah, I guess, David, overall like your takeaways is do you think it is more that American content is going really downhill too? Not to say that Korean content isn't great. I think it is, but it's also like also comparing it to all the trash content that America's put out. Yeah, I do think it, America went through what the, the, the, the, what it was American Hollywood was dominant from, I want to say the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s into the 2000s. But a lot of people feel like American content fell off for 10 to 20 years. I just, I still think America's producing good things, but just not at the same level. And I do think the American stuff is so raunchy that if you're an older conservative person, I'm not even talking about politically. I'm just saying you just live life conservatively. Right. It's just too much for you to handle. Yeah, yeah, I would say this. And I think that that's, it's the entertainment is truly reflective of where the country is at, right? I mean, a lot of people say- Yeah, where society is at, right? Yeah, well- In that locality- You see violence and drugs on the street. Well, you're going to see high schoolers do more drugs and do more violence and sex in euphoria. And other shows like that. Like every show, even the lighthearted fun ones, like Have I Ever? That's very like, obviously it's about a high school girl, but it has to do so much with sex and adolescence. She's like this traditional Indian girl anyways. So I'm saying like, even those shows, you almost have to tie those themes in where maybe you wouldn't tie those themes in as much into other countries. So I think people watch a lot more conservative people. They watch the Korean shows and are like, ah, look at these high schoolers, like just being high schoolers. I miss that. Right, right. As opposed to American content where they're trying to squeeze- Like how can we make these high schoolers live like amped up like 28-year-olds? Like how can these high schoolers be sexier and be more naked without it being like illegal? Right. I mean, it's true. I mean, it's true. Like whether you like it or don't like it, that is a complete cultural difference in content. If you look at American musical themes and K-pop music themes, that same disparity exists as well. I mean, some of the people, things that people wanted to say that you got to watch are the incredible attorney Wu, which I saw the trailer for, it looks really good, Crash Landing on You, the King Eternal Monarch, Live Up to Your Name, My Country, the New Age, Mr. Queen, and Familiar Wife. You let me know in the comments down below which one should I watch. I think Long Story Short Man from a macro takeaway perspective, and I'm sure you could just go on this forever, man. Content really reflects where you're at as a country, right? And I'm not saying that America is in the fall of Rome, but it sure seems like we're producing a lot of gladiator style content. And if you guys know about the story about the fall of Rome, they were all watching the gladiators kill each other in the Coliseum before everything fell apart. Yeah, you know, I mean, at this time when everybody mistrusts the government, nobody wants to listen to this and that person, I also don't want to listen to whatever shows like everybody else is watching. Like, I'll watch some of it, I'll watch definitely some videos on YouTube about it, maybe I'll watch an episode or two, but like, I really am trying to measure what I consume now, you know? And that's okay if you're going to watch some more conservative Korean high schoolers live high school over there. I think that's totally cool, you know? I would also say, yeah, I mean just, I guess it's, I guess like for example like China, like the content that they're creating, I think that they're just so not focused on creating cool stuff. You know, like, and the thing about Korea is they're producing so much content and so much entertainment, I'd have to assume that like 1% of their population is going to like be in a Netflix show at some point, which is a super high amount. For sure, at least it involves in the entertainment industry at some point. Because you need that many actors, yeah. I would say that China, it's funny because obviously coming up on the GDP level, Andrew, but like you said, probably even if you go on Netflix, 4 out of 10 Chinese things are worth watching and like 2 out of 10 of them are actually going to be good. And that's of content that's already been filtered to make it on a Netflix. I wonder, and I'm sure that there are like indie hipster like A24 like Chinese films over there that the local kind of hipster market is consuming. I would assume that there is, but it's not making it over here. Right. I know they're remaking three body problem on Netflix, which is based off of a Chinese novel. Right. Based off of a Chinese novel, but it's, but that's not just like made in China, I think. Yeah, but I just think different countries, they figured out different ways and they do have a fundamental different base culture. But then there's also the Hollywood entertainment like infrastructure that you overlay on top of that. So there's a lot of layers that make a country interesting. And I think that South Korea has all those layers. Dude, you guys let us know what you think down below. I think Korean storytelling is, it's banging on all cylinders, man. This is a tier. And you know what? It's interesting. I think Korean's actually lived their life like Western and relatable enough that people from Eastern Europe, Latin America and obviously select people and the English speaking countries can relate to them. I think Japanese content is pretty good, but it just seems weird. Like it seems like two different. You know what I mean? Like the way they live in Japan and perhaps like there's just and it's funny because Japanese and Korean culture are like kind of similar. If you really know, but there's just something. There's a gap missing of like fireiness. I just can tell that Koreans, they look more happy when they dance. Yeah. Like they like dancing. So I'm saying like that maybe resonates with people. Anyways, guys, let me know in the comments down below. All right. Yeah. Let us know because you know Korean content is just it's just going to continue probably to get better and just be produced and be more popular. I guess I don't know. It might meet me to make, you know, reach a peak soon, but maybe not.