If we count the contribution of BTS to KPop as 1,000, you can put any number your feel like to there, but IU's contribution could be called as 0, zero, nil, prior to she sang BbiBbi on 2018, her first contribution to KPop after being in Korean Pop for 11 long years.
In other words, she managed to spend the first 10 years of her career contributing NOTHING to KPop's worldwide growth.
And she never truly became part of KPop until... 2021.
But, despite of her almost complete lack of contribution to KPop until this year, she was honored by Spotify with a sign at the Times Square of New York City, and also she had this honor
http://www.mediatraffic.de/albums-week14-2021.htm
by topping the world album chart for week 14 of 2021, enshrining her to the history of world pop for ever.
I am not aware of any other 2nd Generation acts of KPop claiming this honor.
Her entire career is full of irony, but the biggest irony is while other acts sweated and suffered in the overseas when KPop was growing she sat comfortably in Seoul to build her base, and while all of the 2nd generation withered, she solidified her fanbase to compete against BTS, the biggest name of Pop on earth now, and somehow inserted herself into the league of the world's leading acts.
Now she is inviting actors to her personal cast. Actors who rarely show up in TV shows are comfortable seeing KPop's Senior Singer. Her reputation was almost completely built at Korea, but because she was mentioned a lot with people like EXO and BTS, it gave the world a false impression that she was on the same league with these internationally prominent acts, leading to her popularity to the rest of the world with her dramas (all in Korean ) as well.
Because of her, the acts of 2nd Generation, even SNSD, had to watch their backs constantly because IU would strike them from the back when she felt like. And, despite of the first 10 years where she spent most of her efforts hindering KPop's progress, she gets recognized as one of KPop's leading lights, despite of the fact that she only turned into Kpop less than a month ago (when Spotify readmitted KakaoM, and therefore IU).
Whyknock's chief thesis was that IU contributed nothing to kpop and harmed it, but now that is no longer true, Whyknock has lost what to say about it anymore
