Korean netizens are discussing a new issue rising in the music industry as K-Pop's popularity spreads globally.

One netizen posted on an online community the reasons she believes that some of the newer K-Pop idol groups are not as popular in Korea anymore. She began explaining, "the previous idol groups that gained popularity overseas first gained their popularity in Korea first. The groups aimed to land on the upper ranks on the music charts as they focused on producing songs that are loved by the general public." 

The netizen claimed that even the boy group, namely BTS, that became successful in America already had a strong fandom in Korea and had songs that many people sang along to.

However, the idol groups that debuted over the past few years began targeting the overseas markets only and do not care about their popularity in Korea. The netizen criticized, "Since the idol group focused on the overseas market, of course, they would gain some recognition in other countries. But they are unknown in Korea. Also, their fans get angry if someone says that the group is not popular in Korea and the fans quickly reply they are popular overseas, but Koreans don't care about overseas popularity unless they made the HOT 100 chart."

The netizen also pointed out that even though some K-Pop idol groups are recognized overseas, they are not popular enough to be mainstream and these groups are mostly unknown in Korea. So overall, there are many groups that are formed that are in the middle-ground, neither popular overseas nor in Korea. 

That is the reason many Korean netizens lose interest in K-Pop idol groups, and there are many idol groups that are not popular in Korea. These groups also do not chart so well in Korea's music charts because there aren't many people listening to their songs.

Other Korean netizens joined in on the conversation and agreed with the post. They commented, "it's also a problem that if one concept becomes popular, all the other idol groups appear with the similar concept," "What's more a fact is that this is more prevalent with male idol groups," "To be honest, EXO, BTS, Seventeen, BTOB, Winner, and these popular groups became popular in Korea first and have a strong fanbase in Korea, then they gained popularity overseas. But now there aren't groups that make a big impact, in my opinion," and "yeah BTS had a strong fanbase in Korea first and they already got the grand prize in 2016 before making it big in America. They were already recognized for their music and had songs people knew."