I don't know about you, but Snoop Dogg hasn't exactly been at the forefront of American music in a long time. His 2011 album Doggumentary (uggh...) peaked at #8 on the Billboard 200.
And I don't doubt that K-pop has found a faithful following online. However, the internet has enabled the long tail, by allowing people who would otherwise be geographically disparate to create an online community. Even if 1 million Americans listen to K-pop (more than enough for a huge online following), that's less than 1/3 of 1% of the population - far from successful.
As for concerts, that's an area that has been an indisputable failure. Although there have been some in areas with large Asian-American populations (LA, SF, NYC), it's not like they've made inroads among the non-Asian population. In fact, the "SBS K-Pop Festival in LA" was postponed, allegedly due to poor ticket sales. Considering that people were flying in from all over the country for it, that's a pretty shitty move, even by Korean entertainment agency standards.
On the whole, I would say that the internet is a poor gauge of the general popularity of anything. Let me know when K-pop acts start regularly appearing on TV (no, the Letterman appearance by SNSD a few months ago, which they completely bombed, does not count) and radio - that's when you can legitimately claim that K-pop is popular in America.
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I don't know about you, but Snoop Dogg hasn't exactly been at the forefront of American music in a long time. His 2011 album Doggumentary (uggh...) peaked at #8 on the Billboard 200.
And I don't doubt that K-pop has found a faithful following online. However, the internet has enabled the long tail, by allowing people who would otherwise be geographically disparate to create an online community. Even if 1 million Americans listen to K-pop (more than enough for a huge online following), that's less than 1/3 of 1% of the population - far from successful.
As for concerts, that's an area that has been an indisputable failure. Although there have been some in areas with large Asian-American populations (LA, SF, NYC), it's not like they've made inroads among the non-Asian population. In fact, the "SBS K-Pop Festival in LA" was postponed, allegedly due to poor ticket sales. Considering that people were flying in from all over the country for it, that's a pretty shitty move, even by Korean entertainment agency standards.
On the whole, I would say that the internet is a poor gauge of the general popularity of anything. Let me know when K-pop acts start regularly appearing on TV (no, the Letterman appearance by SNSD a few months ago, which they completely bombed, does not count) and radio - that's when you can legitimately claim that K-pop is popular in America.