Overview

OKPOP is a non-Korean K-Pop group and comedy project created by YouTuber Anthpo and his friends for a YouTube video titled "Can a White Guy make a KPOP Group?" The group, consisting of only one Korean person, started posting content to TikTok in March 2023 and released their first single in April, releasing their debut album "Kinda Korean" in May, the same month the video revealing the project was released.

Online History

On March 29th, 2023, the TikTok^[1] page for OKPOP, described as a "Non-Korean, Korean-Pop group," posted their first video, introducing themselves as a K-Pop group with only one Korean member. The video gained over 6.7 million views in two months (shown below, left). The group consists of "the hot one" Paige, the "white guy" Po (Anthpo), the "one who can sing really bad" Sameer, the "dancer of the group" Hanbon and Berto, the one who "does all the work" and the only Korean member.

On April 1st, the group posted a video to TikTok^[5] where they appear to get OKPOP tattoos on their bodies, garnering over 700,000 views in a month (shown below, right).

The tattoo video is set to the group's first single "Take My Hand," published that day on YouTube,^[2] garnering over 37,000 views in a month (shown below, left). They released their second single to YouTube,^[3] "Look Me In The Eyes," on April 7th, garnering over 15,000 views in the same rough span of time (shown below, left and right). They also began advertising these songs in their TikTok content and posted them to Spotify.^[4]

On April 12th, OKPOP posted a video to TikTok^[6] about what it's like having a white person in their group, garnering over 1.6 million views in a month (shown below).

On April 20th, OKPOP posted an apology video to YouTube^[7] where they apologize for faking the tattoo video, garnering over 142,000 views in three weeks (shown below, left). That day, they also released two Jersey Club remixes of their songs "Look Me In The Eyes" and "Take My Hand." On April 25th, they posted the music video for the Jersey Club remix of their song "Look Me In The Eyes" to YouTube,^[8] garnering over 29,000 views in the same rough span of time (shown below, right).

On April 30th, the group posted the music video for "Take My Hand" to YouTube,^[9] garnering over 75,000 views in just over a week (shown below).

"Kinda Korean" Album Release

On May 5th, 2023, OKPOP released their debut album "Kinda Korean" on Spotify^[10] and YouTube, consisting of eight tracks. On May 7th, the group posted a video to TikTok^[11][12] jokingly claiming that the K-Pop group NewJeans stole their album cover, when in reality they copied NewJeans's album cover, garnering over a million views in four days (shown below, left). They posted a second video about this on May 8th, garnering over 1.8 million views in three days (shown below, right).

"Can a White Guy make a KPOP Group?" YouTube Video

On May 10th, 2023, Anthpo posted a video to YouTube^[13] titled "Can a White Guy make a KPOP Group?" In the video, he documents the creation of OKPOP, the advertising for the group and how it organically gained traction outside of Anthpo's fanbase as he wanted to avoid advertising it on his channel. The video also shows the group performing at local and college events, including the "night market" and an event at the Hong Kong Students Association (shown below). The video gained over 179,000 views in a day.

Online Presence

OKPOP is available on YouTube,^[13] Spotify, Twitter,^[14] TikTok^[15] and Instagram.^[18]

As the group advertised themselves on TikTok throughout April 2023, some TikTokers made videos about the group. On April 25th, TikToker^[16] @neemon_le posted a video getting ready to see their concert, garnering over 82,000 views in two weeks (shown below, left). On May 7th, following the video about NewJeans copying OKPOP's album cover, TikToker^[17] @favv_nwjns posted a video defending NewJeans, garnering over 295,000 views in four days (shown below, right).

Search Interest

External References