Jake Sim was watching boy band BTS perform at the American Music Awards from his home in Queensland when he set his mind on what seemed like an impossible goal.
The now 20-year-old knew becoming an artist in the notoriously competitive Korean music industry would be a hard slog – particularly living on another continent.
"I wanted to become a K-pop artist, but realistically, it was sort of not possible," Jake told 7.30.
But while on a family holiday with his parents in Korea, his birthplace, Jake attended an open audition with a major label.
The then-Year 10 student returned to Brisbane to continue the school year at St Peters Lutheran College before he received a life-changing phone call.
"I got a call from Korea saying that I passed the first audition and … they wanted to see more of me, I guess, and do the other auditions and next-level auditions," Jake said.
"I feel like that confidence and almost that mindset is something that they were surprised [by], just because I had nothing to lose, that was sort of my mindset."
So began Jake's journey to stardom. He finished term one of Year 11 in Australia, moved to Korea with his family and landed a spot on the 2020 reality show I-Land, in which 23 men competed for a spot in a pop band.
Jake defied slim odds to come third on the program with almost 1.2 million viewer votes, landing a key role in seven-member group ENHYPEN, which released its fourth mini album Dark Blood on Monday.
Data from Spotify, released to 7.30, shows ENHYPEN has had 17 million streams in Australia this year alone.
"There's a lot of ups and downs when you're doing what I do, but it always pays off," Jake said.
"We went on [a] world tour at the end of last year, and just seeing a lot of fans so happy makes me so happy as well.
"I just realised that what I do can sort of spread a lot of positive energy, I just love that about my job."
A global phenomenon
K-pop is Korea's best-known cultural export. The industry's biggest band, BTS, has smashed global records with more than 31 billion streams on Spotify. The most streamed girl group in the world is Korean band Blackpink, with more than 8 billion streams.
Jake sits among a growing number of Australian-raised artists who have made it big in Korea's multi-billion dollar music industry, including Rose in Blackpink, Bang Chan and Felix in boy band Stray Kids, Danielle Marsh and Hanni Pham in NewJeans, and solo artist DPR Ian.
Pop culture writer Jenna Guillaume – who voted for Jake on I-Land – said it was "extraordinary" that so many people who grew up in Australia had made it in K-pop.
"It's such a competitive industry, it's probably even harder to get into than the American music industry, which is notoriously hard," Guillaume said.
"It really takes a lot of drive and passion, they have to be really dedicated to go through the training process, and to debut and then to keep … striving for more and more."
Artists are subject to rigorous vocal and dance training and held to high standards by their labels and fans.
"I think to be any kind of performer would be a gruelling lifestyle," Guillaume said.
"Definitely in K-pop they have excellent quality standards, and really work hard to always put out the best."
A large and loyal fanbase
The K-pop fandom is massive and devoted – including in Australia.
Fans can pay for online chat services where individual artists send messages about the day-to-day details of their lives.
And each new album comes with a suite of items, according to central Sydney shop owner John Ko.
"Usually, we see with each album that they make, it comes with a CD, comes with a photo book, comes with photo cards," he said.
"There's no age [limit] for K-pop, we have fans from all over the world."
Kit Moore is a costume design student at the prestigious National Institute of Dramatic Arts.
Their application garment was inspired by a music video from Korean boy band ATEEZ, and they design and make replicas of their favourite artists' outfits to wear to concerts – including four different outfits for four different Stray Kids shows earlier this year.
Kit also has a chest tattoo of the title of their favourite Stray Kids song: Star Lost.
"It's really exciting to see the opportunities grow for Aussie K-pop idols and people in Australia who want to become K-pop idols and see how successful they are," Kit said.
Danielle Peters, who paints artworks inspired by K-pop artists under the name Kei, said it was exciting to see Australians making it big in her favourite genre.
"It's really cool, and it makes me really proud to be an Australian as well," she told 7.30.
Guillaume, who writes the weekly newsletter Let's Talk K-Pop, said while the industry was a global phenomenon, many Australian-raised artists weren't as well known in their home country.
"They are some of the biggest celebrities in the world," Guillaume said.
"We tend to get really excited when Australians get noticed overseas and get famous overseas, and so it would be really nice to see that kind of attention for these K-pop stars as well, because they're so awesome and doing amazing things and should be celebrated by their home country."
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