Let's figure out what culture means first. Culture doesn't necessarily have to be geographic, ethnic, or what you may be thinking of.
AKP has its own culture. We use lingo and make references no one else would understand. We run with it. Other people don't.
Comics are cool now thanks to DC and Marvel taking over Hollywood, but there was a time when comic book enthusiasts were constantly mocked and ridiculed. They were reluctant to let people know they were into comics. That's comic book culture.
The same could be said about anime. Otaku culture exists, and even many Japanese people look down on it.
It's similar to how a lot of Koreans despise K-pop culture.
So ultimately, it's cultural in the sense that it's a subculture and a niche, but not cultural in an ethnic, racial, or geographical way.
SM has its own culture as a company. Much of that involves the cinematic theme. They've done this since way back. One notable example is S.E.S.'s "Dreams Come True." That iconic song included a made-up alien language for the rapping part. The MV is set in a fantasy world of some sort. Back then, I'm sure lots of people went crazy over the "lore" aspect of it. Now we only focus on the music because that was a great song.
I'm not sure why aespa's concept gets singled out when it's simply SM being on-brand with what they've always done. SM Entertainment is the K-pop company that's closest to Disney. Disney has its own record label that's actually very prominent. They've got high-profile celebrities doing covers of hit songs. Look at how many official covers of "Let It Go" there have been. It's similar to how SM gets its artists to do covers of old hits. Disney often involves high-profile celebrities outside Disney in their projects. SM does something similar with SM Station. The cinematic part is self-explanatory.
It's called SM Entertainment, not SM Music Group or SM Records. At the end of the day, it's an entertainment company and it won't limit itself to just music. This was the vision all along.
Being mad at SM for involving lore is like being mad at Disney. Do you see how silly it is? If you don't like the concept, it's just not your thing. Some people don't like Frozen, but they don't start hate campaigns over it. I see so much hateful energy towards SM, its groups, and its artists just because they want to do well in an industry just as anyone else would.
Here's another example. They had a whole musical involving SM stars. Very Disney-esque.
