SEOUL, June 24 (AJP) - From Norway's Viking Row to South Korea's AI anthem, the 2026 World Cup shows how nations perform identity — and how those performances now travel far beyond the stadium.
Seconds after Norway secured a 3-2 win over Senegal at MetLife Stadium, Erling Haaland walked toward the stands. As Martin Ødegaard pounded a drum, the striker began pulling both arms back in unison — rowing, in the style of a Viking longship. The crowd followed until the entire section erupted.
Half a world away, a YouTube channel called "Soccer Will Be the Music" had already uploaded an AI-generated anthem for South Korea — a track built on the melodic DNA of a Portuguese football song, reworked into a driving Korean chant. Within two months, it had drawn 1.6 million views. On Instagram, the audio had been used in more than 1,700 Reels, with individual clips reaching 7.1 million views. A video by a women's professional dance team alone recorded 9 million views, 636,000 likes and 95,000 shares.
In Dallas, after England beat Croatia 4-2 in their Group L opener, some 20,000 supporters stayed behind to belt out Oasis' "Wonderwall" — a 1995 Britpop anthem that, within days, pushed UK Spotify streams up 50 percent, with the remastered version drawing 1.71 million daily plays.
At the 2026 World Cup, fan culture has become a content category of its own.
Norway's Viking Row is physical and communal. It requires no song, no lyrics and no prior knowledge — only a body and a willingness to move in sync.
Fans sit in a longboat formation, build a rowing rhythm to a drumbeat, chant "ro" — the Norwegian word for "row" — and rise in a collective roar at the climax. Inspired by Iceland's "Viking Clap" at Euro 2016, the ritual quickly migrated from stadiums to escalators, subway cars, Times Square and eventually the Norwegian parliament, all without a single word needing translation.
The numbers illustrate how far the ritual traveled before the tournament was even underway. A YouTube clip of Norwegian parliamentarians performing the Row drew 140,000 views. A Shorts video of Haaland leading the celebration after the Senegal win pulled 210,000. AP footage of fans in Times Square reached 170,000.
None of these was the main event. They were satellite content — the type of material that thrives on TikTok and Instagram Reels, accumulating around the 90 minutes before and after kickoff.
The team itself helped build the mythology. Norway's squad — appearing at its first World Cup since 1998, with Haaland having scored 16 goals in eight European qualifiers — posed for a pre-tournament shoot in helmets, shields and armor commissioned by the Norwegian Football Federation.
Football platform 433 posted the image on X with the caption, "Norway's World Cup team photo goes hard." Haaland added his own Viking-themed image with the caption, "Viking blood."
The visual identity had been established weeks before kickoff, though not without criticism. Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten reported complaints that the warrior aesthetic was overly masculine and exclusionary. The federation said the concept was intended to emphasize community, courage and solidarity.
England's "Wonderwall" moment worked differently: cultural, generational and not entirely spontaneous.
Every team at the 2026 World Cup submitted a match-day playlist in consultation with fan groups. England's selection included "Wonderwall" alongside The Beatles' "Hey Jude" and Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline." The song was already in the building before the final whistle. What nobody anticipated was the scale of what followed.
Oasis, formed in Manchester in 1991, became the defining band of the Britpop era — the soundtrack of a generation that grew up believing British music could conquer the world. "Wonderwall" alone has surpassed 1.7 billion Spotify streams.
When 20,000 England fans sang it in Dallas, they were tapping into a shared cultural memory. Several players, including Jude Bellingham, were visibly mouthing the words. Captain Harry Kane later called it "one of my favourite ever moments in an England shirt."
The timing also mattered. Oasis had completed a reunion tour in 2025, their first in more than a decade, and both Gallagher brothers publicly embraced the Dallas clip. Noel told The Sun that "Wonderwall belongs to the people." Liam, after Spotify confirmed the 50 percent streaming spike, wrote on X that it was "a classic" and that he sounded "BIBLICAL on it."
South Korea's approach is different again — and perhaps offers the clearest sign of where fan culture is heading.
While Norway and England's moments were born in stadiums and migrated online, Korea's AI anthem was born online and moved toward the stadium.
The "Dae-Han-Min-Guk" chant and the mass street-cheering culture led by the Red Devils have anchored Korean football identity since 2002. But this tournament has added a new layer.
At Gwanghwamun Square in Seoul, real-time city data showed between 12,000 and 14,000 people in the broader plaza area during the match with Czechia.
For the Mexico match, city officials estimated at least 18,000 people, forcing organizers to expand the viewing area.
Into this existing culture, the AI-generated track has seeded a cross-border content ecosystem. Creators with no connection to Korea's campaign have begun using the sound to make their own videos.
The song has become less an anthem than a platform.
Lee Sung-ho, a 35-year-old restaurant owner from Gangnam, had been watching the shift happen on his phone for weeks before attending the Mexico match at Gwanghwamun.
"What I remember from before was the 'Dae-Han-Min-Guk' chant with the big drum, or everyone singing 'Oh Pilseung Korea,'" he said.
"But now social media has such a big presence. You see videos of foreigners doing Korean cheers, foreigners supporting the Korean team. That's new."
He had encountered the AI anthem by accident.
"The first video I saw was a Latin woman applying Korean-style face paint, with each layer syncing to a beat switch in the song," he said.
"It was the first time I'd heard it, but it stuck with me. I went and looked it up afterward. Someone put real thought into making it."
Strip away the cultural specifics and a common structure emerges.
Each of these moments is short, visceral, collective and repeatable — perfectly suited to the grammar of TikTok, Reels and Shorts.
They clip cleanly. They land in seconds. The question is no longer how loudly supporters cheer, but how well those moments travel once they leave the stadium.
The Viking Row requires almost nothing from its audience: pure movement that is instantly legible.
"Wonderwall" requires context — Oasis, Britpop, Manchester and the emotional charge of a song many England fans already carry with them.
South Korea's AI anthem operates differently. It invites participation from people who may know little about Korean football because the sound itself is designed for reuse.
Fan performance used to be aimed inward: at the players, the stadium and the occasion. It is now also aimed at a phone screen held by someone who was not there — and may not even follow football.
Copyright ⓒ Aju Press All rights reserved.