K-Pop Is Driving Global Culture. And Lisa Is a Novel Kind of Superstar

K-pop is a musical genre, but it’s also a titanic industry unto itself—something like the subconscious of Western culture. Through the looking glass of South Korea, American ideas like R&B, rap, and pop diva-dom are transmogrified into something totally up-to-date: boy bands and girl bands that have stateside roots (think ’NSync, Destiny’s Child, even the Ronettes), precision crafted for the global stage of the internet. Young K-pop hopefuls who succeed at the boot camps run by Hybe and YG Entertainment, the two dominating labels, are like SEAL Team 6. The very best become mononymous stars and henceforth are known simply as “idols.”

And yet, for many in the West, K-pop has been a blind spot—a phenomenon they recognize but know exactly nothing about.

That ignorance has begun to erode. If you’re a millennial parent, it was probably the Oscar-winning KPop Demon Hunters that brought you up to speed. If you’re in the business, you might have noticed Scooter Braun’s foray into Hybe. For me, it was a Louis Vuitton show at the Louvre attended by Felix of the band Stray Kids, the closest I’ve ever gotten to witnessing Beatlemania (louder than Bieber; crazier than Harry). For others, it was the third season of The White Lotus, which featured Thai idol Lisa, one fourth of Blackpink who was making her Hollywood splash in a bid to become the first bona fide K-pop crossover star.

She graces our cover this month.

If you don’t already know Lalisa Manobal, it may be unsettling to learn that she is inconceivably famed to a vast portion of the world. So famed that the Labubu craze has been traced to her personal obsession. So famed that White Lotus producer Dave Bernad calls her “the Princess Diana of Thailand.” And so famed that tickets for her upcoming Vegas residency, priced at thousands on the higher end, sold out within 10 minutes.

Lisa is in good company in this issue: Her Blackpink bandmate Rosé appears alongside Anthony Vaccarello in a profile of the Saint Laurent original director, and we met the next generation of K-pop idols, Katseye, as they took Coachella. (Those stories will be published soon.) But I suppose that’s what happens when seven of the ten top-selling albums of any year derive from a single genre, as was the case with K-pop in 2025. The subculture becomes the culture.