(INTERVIEW) Meet Carolina Steinert, founder of Brazil’s first K-culture magazine

By Dong Sun-hwa

When Carolina Steinert first saw K-pop group SHINee online 13 years ago, she had no idea how a boy band from halfway around the world would change her life.

The singers, who mesmerized her with their breathtaking choreographies and music videos, opened the door to new opportunities, inspiring Steinert to become a K-pop content creator on YouTube and a K-pop dance instructor.

This zealous K-pop fan also earned her bachelor’s degree in journalism and began writing for Todateen, a Brazilian magazine dedicated to pop culture in general. However, Steinert felt that her solo effort was not enough. She felt that she needed more people to join her in promoting Korean culture in her home country, and ended up launching HIT! Magazine in 2023, the first of its kind in Brazil dedicated to Korean culture.

“At that time, no company wanted to hire and pay someone to talk about K-pop,” Steinert said in a recent email interview with The Korea Times. “So I decided to start one myself and editorially control what was published about it. I think Korean culture should be highly respected and K-pop should be treated as something serious, not something childish.”

According to Steinert, K-pop and Korean culture are experiencing a huge boom in Latin America, one of the fastest growing music markets in the world.

After singer PSY took the world by storm with his mega-hit “Gangnam Style” in 2012, K-pop giants like BTS and Korean dramas picked up the torch, cementing their presence in South America.

However, many companies and corporations in Brazil remain quite skeptical about their economic value and potential, Steinert says.

“My biggest challenge is getting recognition from big companies and corporations and showing them that K-pop is also a business,” she explains. “It’s profitable and we are professionals who work to promote Korean culture in the country. But we still feel a lot of resistance from companies, both outside and inside the industry.”

She added: “It is difficult to show these companies how we can further develop this market by working together. This is also becoming a real challenge in the Brazilian industry because many people do not have a business vision or perspective of boosting the Korean cultural industry here, which sometimes slows down progress a bit.”

Being a cultural pioneer is no easy feat, and Steinert’s journey would have been less bumpy if there had been a modeling magazine to follow. However, her love and passion for Korean culture, coupled with her quest for professionalism, is slowly paying off.

“Today, we have over 4 million monthly hits on our social media channels,” Steinert revealed. “We sold over 5,000 copies of our February magazine about girl group TWICE in the first few weeks of sales. We have also noticed the growing popularity of HIT! magazine in Japan, China, the Philippines, Chile, and other European countries. It is common to see many followers from other countries commenting on our articles and buying our magazines, even if they are in Brazilian Portuguese.”

She added that HIT! Magazine also has an editorial in the Sao Paulo metro, where it discusses K-pop news daily with more than 2 million people.

“As the only K-pop magazine printed in Brazil, we manage to bring official K-pop content to the Latin American market in a much more accessible way than any other portal before,” she said.

In addition to TWICE, HIT! magazine featured several prominent K-pop icons, including BI, a former member of boy group iKON, as well as The Boyz, (G)-IDLE, EXO’s Chen, and MAMAMOO’s Solar.

“For our digital magazines, we partner with record labels and companies to promote a band when they release something, but we also take into account the size of the band by measuring their fan base,” she noted. “Since we established a big potential for the magazine starting with BI and The Boyz, we try to maintain a list of big artists, especially for our print magazines.”

In the coming days, Steinert hopes to collaborate with other big names such as Stray Kids, ATEEZ, Seventeen, NewJeans and BTS. These are names that also stand out in Brazil.

“Brazil is a country that likes to appreciate several groups at once,” she explains. “We don’t have the culture of appreciating one artist more than others, so we end up having a more general taste. The reason varies from group to group, because we have a diverse audience, but Brazilians especially like idols to be accessible.”

Steinert, who has a lot on his plate at the moment, is thinking big and aiming high.

“I intend to continue developing HIT! in the Brazilian territory, so that it becomes the leading source of information and promotion of Korean culture in the country,” she said. “I also aim to expand HIT! Magazine to other countries while preserving our essence, and to open an office in Korea to bring even more coverage and exclusive content on K-pop and K-dramas.”

She is also interested in other areas besides the magazine, looking to do more promotional activities for different K-pop shows in Brazil.

“We want to bring concerts, events, releases and more opportunities to Brazilian fans who are dedicated to their artists,” she said, adding that boy group Omega X recently became the first K-pop group to have an official photoshoot for a Brazilian magazine by appearing on HIT! Magazine.

“So we want to continue to push these boundaries and create more opportunities, further strengthening the bridge between Brazil and Korea.”