Anti-Woke Movie Sneaks Past Media Execs to Smash Records (KPop Demon Hunters)

Join Malcolm and Simone Collins as they dive deep into the global phenomenon that is KPop Demon Hunters. Discover how this animated film shattered streaming records, topped charts in over 90 countries, and sparked conversations about culture, faith, and the future of media.

In this episode, Malcolm and Simone break down the movie’s surprising Christian themes, its unique approach to female characters, and why its message of personal responsibility and self-improvement resonates with audiences worldwide. They compare “K-Pop Demon Hunters” to Disney classics like “Frozen,” discuss the impact of K-pop stars in the film, and explore what Hollywood can learn from its success.

Whether you’re a fan of K-pop, animation, or just looking for a fresh perspective on modern storytelling, this discussion is packed with insights, humor, and cultural commentary.

Episode Transcript:

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Simone. I am excited to be here with you today. Today we are going to discuss a movie that will likely change the way films are produced globally. And because it accidentally snuck a bunch of Christian themes and very intentionally, a lot of people are like, oh, it’s accidental that Christian themes got into this.

We’ll go over it. It’s not accidental that Christian themes got into this. Nice a lot of anti DEI themes. Into the most, like the biggest movie phenomenon of all time. Mm-hmm. And I say, they say all time, you might be like, oh, you know, K-pop demon hunters was cute, but like how big was it exactly in in the last three months?

It has gotten more streams on its songs than Frozen has gotten on its songs in the 12 years since it was released. No significant margin. Oh my God. What? No. K-Pop. Human hunters shattered expectations to be the most watched original ever with 325 million views. [00:01:00] Eclipsing red notice, 236 million views in squid game season 1, 260 6 million views.

Wow. Top the charts in over 90 countries. The sound trek went platinum debuted at number eight on the billboard of two hundreds and made history as the first. With four simultaneous top 10, a hundred global hits. Deserve, though they’re, they’re catchy tunes. Was was golden number one. So good. It had your idol number four.

Oh yes. Soda pop, number five. Oh, love it. And how it’s done. Number 10. With. Golden alone. Top charts in the uk with over a million units sold in a sing along theatrical version grossing 19.2 million. Now that’s, that’s not a big a deal. But hold on, I wanna, I wanna compare it to frozen here.

So, since it’s released in, in terms of the number of streams that it’s songs have gotten, they’ve gotten around 3.5 billion streams. Okay? Frozen has gotten 2.5 to 3 billion over the past 12 years.

Simone Collins: 12 [00:02:00] years. Oh my God. If

Malcolm Collins: you’re talking weekly streams, the absolute peak for frozen was 50 million.

The peak for demon hunters was 141 million.

Whoa,

not moving Close my my mind. Monthly listeners for demon hunters, it peaked at 40 million for, for frozen, it peaked at 20 million. And, and the reason why this is so interesting to go over is because. A lot of people like are individually like, I like K-pop, demon hunters.

It was pretty cool and based. Yeah. And then but it doesn’t feel like a frozen, right? Like, no, it’s delightful. It’s fun. There’s, there’s conflict, there’s issues, but frozen’s just like. Culturally, we don’t feel like we’re in a frozen moment. Like the fact that I can compare K-pop demon hunter to something like frozen, and I’m like, this completely smashed frozen’s numbers.

You can hear that as a person and be like, but I thought I, that was like my thing, like, [00:03:00] like my private weird thing that I Oh

Simone Collins: yeah. Everyone thinks it’s like their little niche, like, oh, it’s this, this Korean anime thing that I watch. Yeah.

Speaker 4: , the only ones dying tonight are your, I’m sorry. What? They’re fans. We’re at your fans. Oh, no, no, no. Thank you. No, no, no. Not our fans. When you mess with our fans, we need to make it hurt.

Simone Collins: Oh yeah. And like when, when you and I had to like. We had to, to sneak into my, my dad’s Netflix account, ask him to give us temporary vacation traveling access.

Yeah. And then just like, I thought it was, it was gonna be like, oh, like listed front page top 10, like, here’s our most success. No, we had to search it. It wasn’t even listed in any of the, like, suggested for you listing wrote

Malcolm Collins: this. So deep cut, but it’s not. And, and no, this is a movie that doesn’t have a single black person in it.

Like in terms of like anti, it doesn’t have a single white person in it. It doesn’t have a single white person in it either. And I’m not complaining. That doesn’t, it shouldn’t have a single white person. No, it’s Korean. You go to South Korea, you don’t see that. [00:04:00] You don see many white people in Korea. I lived there for a while.

The, the other thing that well we felt bad walking down the streets ‘cause we were just bringing down the average attractiveness. Somebody told me that

I know what,

of what the people who we were invested in actually told me that I know. I’m, I’m not, you’re beautiful. They said, I, I broke up the social harmony by looking like non, with your ugly western face.

We just can’t, we

Simone Collins: can’t hold a candle. I don’t know what to say. Like, Korean people are just so beautiful

Malcolm Collins: if you, if you go to streams per track. So, for, for K-pop demon hunters, it was 300 million. With versus a hundred to 200 million for frozen. If you look at like individual songs here if you look at Golden which was their, their top one.

Yeah, of course. You get, get around 1 billion cumulative strings. Oof. If you compare that with Let It Go this is, this has gotten 800 million. So it, I love that dude, because Let It Go

Simone Collins: is all about victimhood narrative. Bed rotting, giving up we’re shirking responsibility and Golden is about [00:05:00] reaching your potential.

It’s about becoming the best possible of yourself. I don’t point

Malcolm Collins: out was let it go because this, this like actually Let It Go, gets me as a song because it was the perfect song of the Tumblr Arena. It was. It was like, I don’t need one. I have been constantly vilified by the outside world when in reality her, she was from a wealthy family who was pretty supportive of her.

Mm-hmm. And she was the one who victimized herself. Mm-hmm. Her sister didn’t force her to stay in that room. Her sister, I mean, there’s even a song like, let’s Make a Snowman.

Speaker: . I never see you anymore. Come out the door. . I wish you would tell me, come on, do you wanna build a snowman? Snowman. Okay, bye.

Malcolm Collins: Like Let’s, yeah. You know, about her rejecting the people who were reaching out to her about her self victim hurting people. And the way that self victimization hurt the people around her who was the real [00:06:00] victim, her kingdom, her entire kingdom, her sister, her kingdom.

And then when she lets it go and indulges in her worst impulses, she ends up causing everyone in the kingdom to suffer and starve. Like mass famine and everything like that. Yeah. Her sister to be scooped up by this creepy guy. Like the, the message in frozen is like. Incredibly bad. Yeah. They, well, the message people took from it, the actual message is that you shouldn’t be that type of person.

And she’s also is a pretty vile person. Yeah. One

Simone Collins: