Pro-government news outlets in Turkey have been obsessing over Korean pop groups for months now, with the Islamist paper Yeni Akit taking the lead in warning young people, families, and the authorities about the infiltration of Korean culture.

Yeni Akit wrote about the wildly popular K-pop group BTS, saying that with male members who look female, it intended to promote the idea of a sexless society. The newspaper linked the issue to gender equality and the prevention of violence against women and domestic violence

A few days later, Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency also warned of the dangers of K-pop. Experts urged state institutions to take steps against the cultural invasion, which they said had targeted young people from conservative backgrounds. The experts also said families were not equipped to struggle against the menace, as these groups were from the East, rather than the West, so parents had assumed they were harmless.

It is not the first time a worldwide music trend has been targeted by Turkish media. In the mid-1990s, Turkey’s mainstream media outlets argued that Western heavy metal groups encouraged satanism. The main difference today is, while earlier concerns mostly focused on young people from secular families, K-pop has triggered concerns among conservatives.

K-pop has become fashionable in Turkey in recent years, with young people communicating about various bands through Facebook groups, using a language of their own, with specific images and symbols. Turkish K-pop fans are mostly conservative girls in secondary or higher education. K-pop is widely popular in Islam-friendly imam hatip high schools and among theology students.