From reluctant parents to viral stars

At first, it was background noise. Parents half-listening to Golden on a loop while their kids rewatched clips of Hana spinning her staff or Jinwoo flipping across the screen in KPop Demon Hunters (if you know, you know).

But somewhere between the fiftieth and five-hundredth listen, something shifted. That reluctant toe-tap turned into humming. The humming turned into singing in the car. And before long, parents (and most singers) are full-blown, unashamedly belting out the chorus louder than their kids… and posting the proof on social media.

What looks like a funny parenting saga is actually a social media engagement masterclass. KPop Demon Hunters Golden may well have gone “viral”, but the question is how (besides the perfectly written songs that feel like they belong in a lip-sync battle).

It’s gone viral because, unlike many trends that spike by accident, KPop Demon Hunters was built for cross-generational pull: kids became the superfans, and adults (those “reluctant plus-ones”) turned into the amplifiers. It led to people creating content that others can’t help but join in with. That’s the sort of magic social marketers should be taking notes on.

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What can marketers take away from a trio of animated K-pop stars?

1. Tap into both ends of the audience

Kids may be the superfans, but parents and adults are the ones who’ve driven the virality. That’s a goldmine for marketers. When designing campaigns, think about how to hook your core audience and those who’ll get swept up in the orbit.

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2. Algorithms love snackable stories

Every clip of people giving KPop Demon Hunters a go is tailor-made for TikTok and Instagram. It’s quick to consume but tied into the larger success of the film. The content is either seriously impressive or incredibly entertaining. It’s short form at its best.

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3. Make it easy to copy

We definitely didn’t plan to sing along with Golden on TikTok like it was taking over our existence, but the trend made it effortless. The sound was ready, the moves simple, and suddenly you’re belting the catchy riffs like we’re headlining with BLACKPINK.

For brands, giving people content that’s fun to mimic (a jingle, a soundbite, a filter) is likely to travel further.

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4. Communities beat campaigns

K-pop fans aren’t just passive watchers of their favourite films or bands. They perform, remix, and share. The Demon Hunters trend leaned into this because adults getting swept up in their kids' favourite film soundtrack is funny and relatable.

Tie in the epic vocals of those who can actually hit those ridiculously high notes, and you’re hitting a vast cross-section of audiences on social media.

That’s a shift marketers can embrace. Instead of aiming to go viral, you can offer content people can adopt and reshare as their own.

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5. Let online spill offline

The Demon Hunters craze hasn’t stopped at screens. Sing-along cinema nights, cosplay meetups, and themed pop-ups have all become extensions of the online fandom.

By letting digital excitement flow into real-world experiences, you can create more opportunities for people to film, share, and loop back online.

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You’re going up, up, up, it's your moment.

Netflix’s K-pop phenomenon has fast become the platform’s most-watched animated original. But it’s also living proof that audiences don’t just want to watch; they want to participate.

Songs to sing. Moves to copy. Characters to impersonate. They want to join in.

For social media marketers, the message is simple: people love being co-creators. Give them something where they can join in, weaving it into people’s everyday lives, whether that’s parents reluctantly (then gleefully) screaming lyrics in the car or kids staging their own backyard battle scenes.

Because once your audience goes from scrolling to performing, they become part of the story.

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