Game: describe the year/time frame you got into kpop without naming any artists, songs, labels, or eras/gens, and other redditors try to guess when it was

I was describing how much kpop has changed since I first got into it to a friend recently (like, how weird it is to hear kpop in random places and see albums at Walmart) who was trying to guess when that was based on what I was saying. I thought it would be a fun little game for this subreddit based on all of our knowledge of kpop and it's global expansion.

Here's mine: I first learned about kpop from seeing a now-iconic music video in a boba shop. I had to download YouTube videos as MP3s to add the songs to my playlists and burned CDs. None of my friends had ever heard of any of it before aside from me sharing it with them. I had zero hope for any of my faves to tour to the US. I had zero merch or access to merch.

The night that I was supposed to study for a final, I stayed up learning the choreo for what has become one of the most iconic kpop songs of all time, thanks to the catchy cute hook and maximalist production.