Kevin Bacon of Kpop

In academic science Erdos and in Hollywood Kevin Bacon, that anyone in the industry is within 6 degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon, because he has worked prolifically with many.

Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon - Wikipedia

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Who would be such a person in K-pop?

ONLY idols active in the last 20 years are for consideration.

Who has collaborated, interacted, done something or other, that they can be connected with anyone in the industry within six degrees.?

My candidate is IU, because

Heroes, Dream High, Salamander Guru, The Producers all had a lot of idols at least as cameos.

And then her remake albums, collaborations connect to a lot of older generation artists.

And now her Palette YouTube show, the guest list reaches to the 4th gen or concert guests to 5th Gen.

Another option is Heechul primarily because of Knowing Bros, which many idols visit, sometime or other.

Who do you think can be the Kevin Bacon of K-pop?

Quote from Taemin-Identity

I guess it is someone from older generation, like Gdragon, IU, BoA or Taeyeon! If these acts would agree to work with someone I can’t think of any other artist rejecting them heck even BTS members!

On a side note I want Taemin to do more collaborations! Many artists, producers and choreographers would like to work with him, but Taemin doesn’t really want to collab with them, he only once said he would like to have collab with Dpr Ian but that’s it

Minho might be a better candidate from SHINee, more due to his acting.

Quote from Taemin-Identity

The best candidate would actually be Late Jonghyun, since he is an incredible producer and artist, and he worked with many artists during his short and sweet career!

True. But unfortunately..

We can only consider the living.

Quote from WhyKnock

Most likely Heechul, who is friends with everyone

Plus he is part of Knowing Bros, so he has met a lot of people not in Kpop genre as well

He is friendly with JYP and other acts as well

IU's social circle is actually a lot more limited than expected. For example she is still not acquainted to Ailee; whenever Ailee showed up in Inkigayo IU would rather stand far, letting someone else to deal with the American.

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Yes, I did mention Heechul as a good candidate for the same reasons. Just that it has been very long since he has been an active idol. But ok.

As to IU-Ailee, there need not be direct interaction for this concept, just within 6 degrees of some association.

Quote from ThePhantomThief

Here's an outside choice but has close links to both K-pop and kdrama

Kim Sejeong

She is good, but has a long way to go before she has a network like IU or Heechul.

It is not just about working in both acting and music, but the extent of collaborations, interactions.

Quote from wsoet

J.Y. Park comes to mind, given the large number of songs he's written, his 30-year career, and his automatic linkages to every JYPE artist.

We should be looking at idols than producers/agency heads.

Sure JYP was and still is an occasional artist, but if we expand to likes of him.. then it is probably some session musician who is most connected.

It is an "idol" based industry, let us look only among idols who were active in the last decade or so.

Quote from Taemin-Identity

Then we have to include LSM first since he has the largest connections in the industry that he can blacklist his own idols and ban them in Korea!

No agency heads. ONLY idols active in the last 20 years are for consideration.

Quote from crystalblues

I am unsure how to feel about this statement as during her show in LA she actually stated how an US based Korean artist who she looked up to was in the crowd that night in disguise. We all did not try to see who it was as basically the entire venue decided it was not our business but I am unsure she is that crass when it comes to Korean-Americans because of how excited she was to see that person.

Wasn't that Patti Kim?

Quote from WhyKnock

Probably some Korean-American artist mostly operating in USA and not well known to KPop fans. Ailee is too well known.

It was Patti Kim.