#southeast asia

Sat Aug 22 — We sorted 1,047 Korean stars into twelve rooms by birth year — IU with 91 other Roosters, Bae Suzy with 102 other Dogs. Then we tested whether the zodiac picks out who ends up on a chart. Chi-square 7.77 against a threshold of 19.68.

Fri Aug 21 — Of 1,023 Korean actors and 1,701 music acts, 1,249 appear on exactly one of the four Southeast Asian Wikipedias. The Indonesian edition holds 1,155 of them — while the larger Vietnamese edition holds 31.

Fri Aug 21 — Across 374 Korean stars with an article on all four Southeast Asian Wikipedias, three editions share first place. The Malay edition is last for 310 of them — and there is an explanation we cannot rule out.

Fri Aug 21 — Across 584 Korean stars on four Southeast Asian Wikipedias, those who debuted before 18 are read almost five times as often as those who started at 26. It is not that they have had longer — the median career is 20 to 22 years in every band.

Fri Aug 21 — Of 214 Korean stars with an article on all four Southeast Asian Wikipedias, 86.6% of the reading about JAY B sits in Thailand alone. An evenly read star would score 25%. Kim Jong-kook of Turbo scores 27.5%.

Fri Aug 21 — We put 23 K-pop soloists beside their own group on four Southeast Asian Wikipedias. Six are read more everywhere, thirteen less everywhere, and four disagree from one country to the next — T.O.P clears BigBang only in Vietnam.

Fri Aug 21 — We sorted 1,047 Korean actors and singers into the twelve zodiac signs. Go Youn-jung leads the Rat, Kim Seon-ho the Tiger, Im Yoon-ah the Horse. The spread across the twelve is indistinguishable from chance, and we counted that ourselves.

Thu Aug 20 — Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia each keep their own Korean reading list. BTS leads three of them, and is the only name on all four. Cha Eun-woo, IU, Im Yoon-ah and Stray Kids are each in some and not others.

Thu Aug 20 — Four Southeast Asian Wikipedias, four lists of Korean actors, three different names at the top. Byeon Woo-seok, Kim Seon-ho and Cha Eun-woo appear on every list — and not one of them is first anywhere.

Sun Aug 16 — We published 2,238 Korean places. Nineteen are not in Korea, including the one leading the Vietnamese column. The field we selected on records who was involved, not only where a thing is — and our first check reused it and found nothing.

Sun Aug 16 — Korean actors with five or more charting titles are read seven times as often as actors with one, across four Southeast Asian Wikipedias. Pick one from each group at random and the busier one wins 82% of the time — a long way from a rule.

Sun Aug 16 — Reads of Korean language, hangul, hanbok and taekwondo fell 25.5% across four Southeast Asian Wikipedias in a year. The Japanese equivalents fell 28.2%. Two other genres we measured could not be used at all, and we say why.

Sat Aug 15 — Across 25 Korean titles with an article on all four Southeast Asian Wikipedias, the Indonesian edition was first or joint-first 24 times and last not once. The Vietnamese edition is larger on every measure we checked.

Fri Aug 14 — We measured 2,238 places in Korea against four Southeast Asian Wikipedias. YG Entertainment scores 111.47 and Seoul 106.54. Twelve companies out-read 520 cities and districts on the median. What this cannot see is a single restaurant.

Fri Aug 14 — Split 22 brands by kind and the four Southeast Asian countries swap places. Indonesia is first among car makers on 53.79 reads per million and last among luxury houses on 38.45. A single ranking hides that.

Fri Aug 14 — We measured concentration — the share of a name's four-country reading that sits in its biggest country. K-pop groups come closest to even at 41.7%. The most concentrated row turned out to be an artefact of Wikipedia, not of attention.

Fri Aug 14 — Groups, solo musicians, actors, athletes — the Malay Wikipedia takes 7.6% to 8.6% of the four-country reading for each. For luxury and car brands it takes 23%. Four categories in a narrow band, one well outside it.

Thu Aug 13 — Split Indonesian, Vietnamese, Thai and Malay Wikipedia reads by month. All eleven esports players in the panel peak in the same month, and they agree in three of the four years we measured. The footballers never once agree.

Thu Aug 13 — We said Korean esports players in the Southeast Asian Wikipedias all peak in one month. Split by game, 85.7% of them play League of Legends. Korea has more StarCraft II players, and four of them have an article in those editions.

Thu Aug 13 — Chinese, Swedish and American esports players have articles in the Southeast Asian Wikipedias at roughly the rate Korean players do. 9.1% of theirs draw enough reads to measure, against 71.4% of the Korean ones.

Thu Aug 13 — We put 2,511 Korean entertainers, 900 athletes and 22 luxury and car brands on one scale. BTS clears the footballer. Of everyone else measured, nobody does — and the most-read brand sits at a sixth of the leaders.

Thu Aug 13 — We measured 1,972 Koreans with one instrument. Son Heung-min sits above all 1,023 actors. But 22 actors clear 100 against two athletes, and the two groups are read in different countries. Musicians who never acted are not in this panel.

Thu Aug 13 — A Korean player is read across Southeast Asia; a Korean manager is read in the one country that hired him. Median concentration in a single country: 50.55% for the players, 81.35% for the managers.

Thu Aug 13 — Four Southeast Asian Wikipedias, twelve months, 926 Korean athletes. Three of the four read almost only football. In the fourth, esports takes 60.6% of the reads and the most-read Korean athlete is not a footballer.

Sat Aug 08 — They are a different kind of title: 2.21 markets on average against 4.67, and one in seven reaches #1 against one in two. Netflix's Korean chart is not a smaller version of the regional one — it is a different chart.

Sat Aug 08 — Of the 421 Korean titles that reached Southeast Asia's top 10, Korea's own chart got there first for 51 and in the same week for 165 — and never charted 151 of them at all. Series enter together; films scatter.

Fri Aug 07 — Of 397 Korean titles that reached a Netflix Top 10 in Southeast Asia since 2021, 45.1% charted in all six countries and 30.7% in exactly one. Series average 4.6 countries; films average 2.6.