For a long time, I really despised how popular k-pop is in the western culture, worst of all, it was almost unavoidable. It drove me nuts why I had to see the song and its meme, Gangnam Style. Turns out the usual suspects astroturfed the shit out of it. Same ol business as usual but the reason why they astroturfed K-pop in particular had way more nefarious reason for it.
If you can spare 50 minutes of your time, I hope you could watch this video all the way as it discusses quite a lot of topics like symbolism as well. Having watched the video all the way, it only affirmed what I believed even further but made me also confirm, the big record label executives totally knew about P diddy and pretty much share the similar penchant. Now you know why the big tech collaborated in pushing k-pop in the west so much.
You might want to TL:DR that thing if you want engagement.