Why BTS Gwanghwamun show shocked Japanese social media users

Fans of K-pop group BTS, known as ARMY, film a promotional comeback video broadcast at Shinsegae Square in Jung-gu, central Seoul, March 20, one day before the group's highly anticipated concert at Gwanghwamun Square. Korea Times photo by Park Ji-yeon

Korean culture has become part of everyday life around the world. Former U.S. President Barack Obama nodded along as children at a care home sang “Soda Pop,” a song from the animated film “KPop Demon Hunters.” Director Steven Spielberg waved a K-pop light stick at the Academy Awards.

Such scenes, in which people across generations share an enthusiasm for Korean culture, would once have been difficult to imagine. They reflect the global rise of Korean content and K-pop fandom.

Korean content exports reached a record 22.26 trillion won ($14.9 billion) in 2025, according to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.

The global spectacle highlights how overseas audiences interpret the Korean wave and its impact on local cultures.

Audiences see different stages at BTS show

One of the biggest events in Korean popular culture during the first half of 2026 came March 21, when K-pop supergroup BTS staged its comeback concert at Gwanghwamun Square in central Seoul.

The official event title was "BTS THE COMEBACK LIVE | ARIRANG." Netflix streamed the show live to more than 190 countries, turning one of Seoul’s best-known landmarks into a global cultural stage.

The concert also disrupted daily life in central Seoul. Authorities restricted roads around Gwanghwamun for 33 hours, inconveniencing people who lived, worked or traveled through the area. The use of extensive government resources for a privately organized entertainment event also sparked debate.

“Who does the square belong to, and how should it be used?”

The concert left Korean society confronting that question. About 18.4 million Netflix subscribers worldwide watched the livestream that day, according to the streaming service.

How, then, did international audiences view the global spectacle?

A chart generated by artificial intelligence

Foreign visitors in Korea found it unusual to receive concert-related information from government authorities through public safety alerts sent to their mobile phones.

Overseas posts described Gwanghwamun Square as an urban stage and showed strong interest in Korean cultural elements, including hanbok, or traditional Korean clothing. President Lee Jae Myung's message about the concert also drew widespread attention. Japanese-language posts paid particular attention to the debate over using public space and resources for the event.

Those findings came from an analysis of 1,527 X posts about the concert written in nine languages, including English, Japanese and Spanish, during the week surrounding the March 21 performance, from March 18 to 24.

The Hankook Ilbo commissioned the research from consulting company Ars Praxia. The company operates a Korean wave big data dashboard for the Korean Foundation for International Cultural Exchange. It is the first analysis of international social media posts about the BTS concert at Gwanghwamun Square.

A Thai user posts on X regarding the BTS concert at Gwanghwamun Square. Korea Times file

Safety alerts become part of spectacle

“I was surprised when I received this kind of notification on my phone. It became such a topic of conversation among my friends. I heard that in Korea, these messages are normally used to provide information about disaster preparedness or emergencies. But it felt unfamiliar to receive this kind of message because of a (BTS) concert,” said a Thai X user with the handle @hyunx****.

The Thai-language post appeared on X on March 20, one day before the concert. The user had received several alerts warning that authorities would restrict roads near Gwanghwamun because of the show.

The post drew 2,898 reposts. As screenshots and descriptions of the alerts circulated online, overseas users discussed not only the concert but also Korea’s mobile disaster and safety alert system. This reaction occurred because authorities in other countries rarely send safety alerts for concert-related traffic restrictions.

Researchers also examined 200 posts expressing anticipation for the concert or describing the atmosphere around the venue.

“Safety” appeared in 51 of those posts, or 25.5 percent, making it one of the most common foreign-language keywords in that group. For people in Korea, the alerts warned of road closures and sought to ease disruption.

Foreign users treated “safety” as a sign of both government involvement and the concert’s scale. The alerts showed that the performance required extensive crowd-management measures and a substantial public response.

‘Could this happen in Japan?’

“Early dismissal is truly surprising when this is not even a public project,” said an X user with the handle @dokka61****.

“BTS has a huge economic impact on Korea. But how does Netflix figure into the concert revenue? Are taxpayers then covering the cost of the public resources used?” said another user, @yunyu****.

“I want to know why they are trying to hold a concert in Gwanghwamun,” said a third user, @IuvztVGPyJu****.

Rather than originating from domestic online communities, users posted these questions in Japanese on X.

A Japanese user posts on X regarding the BTS concert at Gwanghwamun Square. Korea Times file

As in the Korean-language discussion, Japanese posts asked how far public support should extend for a privately organized concert.

Some companies with offices near the venue recommended that employees leave work early. Korean society, meanwhile, was debating the government resources used for the private HYBE-Netflix event. News reports carried that discussion to Japan in real time.

Familiarity with central Seoul, including Gwanghwamun, helped the discussion reach Japanese users beyond the K-pop fandom. The concert did not appear simply as a distant entertainment event. Its setting and effects allowed Japanese users to compare Korea’s rules for public space with those in their own country.

Lee Chang-min, a professor at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, said comparable Japanese spaces would carry far tighter restrictions.

“The Japanese equivalent of Gwanghwamun would be Kasumigaseki, Tokyo’s government district, or the plaza outside the Imperial Palace,” Lee said. “Holding a commercial concert in either place would be almost impossible in Japan.”

Hosaka Yuji, a professor at Korea University’s Graduate School of Policy Studies, said Japanese society shows unusually strong concern for “what is public” and “whether something causes inconvenience to someone.”

“A considerable part of citizens’ daily lives takes place in public spaces, and Japanese culture is sensitive to the rules governing those places,” Hosaka said. “Because of this, Japanese people, like Koreans, show interest in the social discourse surrounding the BTS Gwanghwamun concert.”

K-pop supergroup BTS performs during "BTS THE COMEBACK LIVE | ARIRANG" at Gwanghwamun Square in central Seoul, March 21. Courtesy of Big Hit Music and Netflix

Some Japanese posts also compared the strength of Korea’s and Japan’s entertainment industries.

“It was the excellent idea to turn an entire city center into a live concert venue. I hope Japan will try something like this too. But I wonder whether Japan has a singer who can bring together 100,000 people from around the world at once, so I do not think it would be easy in reality,” a commenter with the handle @megQ**** said.

Such comments prompted comparisons between the international competitiveness of the two countries’ entertainment industries.

“In Japan, K-pop is classified not simply as entertainment to consume but as a successful example of content industry policy,” Lee said. “With Japan’s ‘Cool Japan’ policy widely considered a failure, people have been asking for several years, ‘Why can Korea do it while Japan cannot?’ In that context, Japanese people interpret the BTS Gwanghwamun concert as an issue involving industrial policy and national branding.”

Researchers found the March BTS concert sparked strong interest among Japanese users on social media. Japanese ranked second only to English among the nine languages, with 355 Japanese-language posts about the performance.

An international user translates President Lee Jae Myung's social media post regarding the BTS Gwanghwamun concert into Portuguese and shares it online. Captured from X

Why president’s message spread overseas

Posts sharing President Lee Jae Myung’s message drew the strongest response among the foreign-language material. Lee posted about the event on X on March 18, describing BTS as “artists who make Korea proud.”

“I hope this will be a meaningful occasion to share our beautiful cultural heritage and the appeal of K-culture, with ‘Arirang’ as its theme,” Lee said in Korean.

Users translated the message into English and other languages and circulated it among international fans. Posts sharing the message averaged 3,348 reposts, the highest figure among the analyzed foreign-language content. Overseas fans saw the post as official recognition of BTS as representatives of Korean culture.

They also saw the concert as more than a fandom event. It became a way for international audiences to see how Korea presented itself to the world.

“In non-Korean-language posts, the English keyword ‘historical’ appeared repeatedly,” said Hong Min-jung, a researcher at Ars Praxia. “This reflected overseas fans’ desire to give the BTS Gwanghwamun concert meaning as a ‘historic event.’”

Spanish-language posts accounted for 80 of the total regarding BTS and Korea on the day of the concert, the highest figure for any language that day. This highlighted the online organizing capabilities of fans in Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking regions.

Police officers control traffic and enforce restrictions in central Seoul during the BTS Gwanghwamun concert. Korea Times file

Same concert, different readings

The researchers also examined 472 Korean-language posts from the same period. Of those, 121 criticized disruption to daily life, the use of government resources or the decision to use the square.

Debate over public access, everyday disruption and government support formed a substantial part of the Korean-language discussion. Foreign-language posts, by contrast, more often framed Gwanghwamun Square as a place of celebration. The analysis found 159 foreign-language posts that mentioned the history of Gwanghwamun or its symbolism as a Korean landmark. An English-language post showing audience members singing “Arirang” together in the square drew 8,502 reposts. Another post also gained attention with its description of the evening scene.

While Korean-language users focused more heavily on how organizers and authorities used “the square,” overseas posts more often focused on how Korea presented itself to the world. For people who live and work in Seoul, Gwanghwamun Square serves as public infrastructure. Residents and commuters pass through it as part of everyday life, and restrictions affect their access to the city.

For many overseas audiences, however, Gwanghwamun Square was seen as a symbolic stage where BTS and Korean culture came together. That difference appears to have shaped the contrasting perspectives: Koreans saw "the square," while international audiences saw "Korea."

Foreign tourists enjoy a BTS concert in the Gwanghwamun area of Seoul, March 21. Overseas visitors eat tteokbokki and wear hanbok while touring nearby ancient palaces. Korea Times file

This article from the Hankook Ilbo, the sister publication of The Korea Times, is translated by a generative AI system and edited by The Korea Times.