SEOUL, May 15 — K-pop boy group Stray Kids have been listed in this year’s Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia list which celebrates those below that age that it deems influential.
Besides the boyband, the list also listed fellow K-pop group Big Ocean which features members with disabilities, and actors Cha Eun-woo and Go Min-si.
“South Korea’s Stray Kids found global popularity by following their instincts, producing rock hits with a noisier, more industrial sound than the usual K-pop group,” Forbes Asia wrote of the eight-member group.
The business magazine lauded Stray Kids’ 2021 EP “Oddinary” for topping the Billboard 200, making it only the third K-pop group to achieve that position, following boy bands BTS and SuperM.
Forbes Asia also praised Big Ocean for featuring members with hearing impairments: Kim Ji-seok, Lee Chan-yeon and Park Hyun-jin.
“The group’s vocals are recorded with the use of AI, and while performing on stage they wear special vibrating devices to help synchronise dance movements,” it said.
The list also included Cha, 27, who has taken lead roles in the television series “True Beauty” and “My ID is Gangnam Beauty”.
“With over 47 million followers on Instagram, Cha is one of the advertising industry’s most popular models and is an ambassador for a raft of brands, including Dior Beauty, Saint Laurent, Calvin Klein and Skechers,” it said.
Meanwhile, Forbes said Go, 29, has wowed audiences in her roles since winning Best New Actress at the Blue Dragon Awards in 2023 for her performance in the star-studded film “Smugglers”.
“Go is known for her tenacious prep work and diverse roles, with her latest turns as an aspiring ballerina in ‘Sweet Home’ and a murderous villain in the thriller ‘The Frog’,” it said.
The list also included BINI, an eight-member Filipino girl group trained by local media juggernaut ABS-CBN in K-pop style,
Forbes said BINI endured years of intense daily practice, personal loss, and a network shutdown — emerging with a debut album in 2021 that launched their rise to fame.
By 2024, they had sold out concerts, surpassed a billion Spotify streams, and earned major accolades like MTV’s Best Asia Act and Billboard Philippines’ Women of the Year.
Forbes Asia said candidates are sourced by its reporters and editors combing through thousands of online submissions, and asking for recommendations from industry sources and alumni of the list.
It said candidates are then judged by a panel of independent experts on factors such as funding and/or revenue, social impact, scale, inventiveness, and potential.
For the entertainment and sports list, the judges are both from Singapore: Kuok Meng Ru, the Group CEO & founder of Caldecott Music Group, and Hua Fung Teh, the group president of mixed martial arts organiser ONE.
