Visibility of K-pop in the U.S.: Global rankings, 'audience mis-aggregation', and mainstream attention to niche genre.

This article examines how K-pop, a niche genre appealing primarily to specific audience segments, gained mainstream visibility in the U.S. market through the institutional construction of global audiences by Billboard's Social 50 chart and Top Social Artist Award. It argues that Billboard's quantification process aggregates worldwide social media engagement data without adequately accounting for regional differences in audience size and consumption cultures, resulting in a mis-aggregation that over-represents tastes from regions with large internet user bases, notably Asia and Latin America. BTS's rise to mainstream attention in the U.S. is attributed to this mis-aggregation, initially interpreted as global popularity, which was later reinterpreted as reflecting K-pop fans' data-driven consumption practices—fans strategically engaging with digital platforms to influence chart rankings. The study highlights how measurement regimes like Billboard's function as nexuses where diverse regional production and consumption cultures intersect, shaping industry narratives and prompting shifts in U.S. music production culture.