- IU is a Rooster and Go Youn-jung a Rat. We checked whether that means anything, and it does not
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.
- Psy is in 97 Wikipedias, more than any BTS or BLACKPINK member. Half of Korean entertainers are in one
Sat Aug 22 — We counted the language editions holding an article about each of 9,249 Korean entertainers. Psy leads at 97, ROSÉ of BLACKPINK is at 86, IU at 69. The median is 1, and 365 people have no article in any language.
- Ahn Sung-ki and Choi Jiwoo exist on one Southeast Asian Wikipedia, and it is not the biggest one
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.
- Cha Eun-woo, Kim Tae-hee and 383 other Korean stars were born in January, February or March. We are not running it
Fri Aug 21 — Korean stars are born in the first quarter 1.31 times as often as in the third. The test clears its threshold by 0.24, and removing any one of those 385 people puts it back below. Here is the finding we did not publish, and why.
- BTS is read most in Vietnam and Byeon Woo-seok in Thailand. The 20 biggest are all read least in Malay
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.
- IU started at 15 and Ma Dong-seok at 32. Go Youn-jung started at 23 and outreads them both
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.
- JAY B of GOT7 is a Thai star, Tempest is a Vietnamese one, and Kim Jong-kook belongs to nobody
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%.
- Jay Park outreads 2PM and Lee Hye-ri outreads Girl's Day, in all four countries. BTS's members never outread BTS
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.
- IU is a Rooster, Cha Eun-woo an Ox, Byeon Woo-seok a Goat — and none of it explains why they are famous
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.
- BTS tops three Southeast Asian Wikipedias. Indonesia's list opens with Babymonster
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.
- Go Youn-jung, Lee Chae-min and Moon Ga-young: three countries, three different first names
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.
- The most-read Korean place in Vietnamese was a battle fought in Vietnam
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.
- Five charting shows, seven times the readers, and still no way to guess about one actor
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.
- Fewer people are looking up what hangul is. The same is true of kana
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.
- Squid Game lost half its readers in one month. Goblin took seven
Sat Aug 15 — Twenty-six Korean titles could be timed from their peak across four Southeast Asian Wikipedias. The median fell below half in two months, nine of them in a single month, and nineteen later rose above half again.
- One Wikipedia writes down Korean titles first, and it is not the biggest one
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.
- We published two findings and corrected one. A one-line check told them apart beforehand
Sat Aug 15 — Removing a single title left one of our medians exactly where it was and moved the other by 89% of itself. The interquartile range rated the two almost identically. We ran neither before publishing.
- You cannot ask what a Korean hit leaves behind. The article is born with the show
Sat Aug 15 — Of 59 Korean titles fetched across four Southeast Asian Wikipedias, nine could be measured before and after their peak. Twenty-two were disqualified because their article did not exist before the title arrived.
- Actors whose show travelled draw 3× the lookups. Hold two things fixed and most of that disappears.
Sun Aug 09 — Across 812 Korean actors joined to Netflix's country charts, those with a title in 20+ countries draw 2.91× the median Wikipedia lookups. Match on how many titles they have and how recently they charted, and only one group keeps the gap.
- Actors whose one charting title also played in Korea are looked up 1.7 times as often abroad
Sat Aug 08 — Hold the number of titles fixed and the gap is still there: 1,926 English Wikipedia lookups against 1,111. Hold how far the title travelled fixed and it survives that too. Korea's own chart predicts foreign curiosity.
- We said we could not count the acts our K-pop panel misses. We can, and it is 1,312 groups.
Sat Aug 08 — Wikidata holds 2,128 Korean musical groups. Our attention panel sees the 816 with an English Wikipedia article. Among singers the gap is wider — 5,408 exist, we measure 1,421, and 3,572 of the missing ones have a Korean article.
- So Ji-sub is 3.1% of all attention on Korean actors. Squid Game is 21.3% of the viewing
Fri Aug 07 — One Netflix title is 21.3% of all Korean viewing. The most looked-up Korean actor is 3.1% of all attention. And within the fifty most-searched, appearing in more charting titles does not predict being looked up more.
- Ma Dong-seok has 21 charting titles and Steven Yeun has one. Steven Yeun is read twice as much
Fri Aug 07 — Actors in ten or more charting Korean titles are looked up eight times as often as those in one. We said in August that the rise stops at ten. It does not. The busiest are still not the most read: 21 titles against Steven Yeun's one.
- Most K-pop attention is flat. At the very top it is not — a quarter of BTS's month happened on one day
Fri Aug 07 — For the typical act, the biggest single day is 5.5% of a 30-day month. For the ten largest names the median is 11.0%. BTS sits at 25.1%, and all six of its measurable members peaked on the same date.
- Rank Korean musicians by look-ups and IU is not first — the top name is there for acting
Fri Aug 07 — 232 of the 1,550 individuals in our K-pop panel also appear in Korean titles that reached a Netflix Top 10. They are 15% of the names and 41% of the attention. Removing them does not correct the list. It produces a second one.
- K-pop members outdraw their own groups four to one, and the BTS exception was a hole in Wikidata
Fri Aug 07 — Across 86 groups whose full membership can be measured, the members' pages were opened 3.88 times as often as the group's. Newer groups looked like the opposite until we checked why: Wikidata lists two members for Fromis 9.