@jazz9: Ok, that's fair, let me rephrase. They would get their 15 minutes of fame and then the US would forget about it until the next dramatic breaking news and forget about them. Korea? Not so much.
I dunno, man, Sang-Won was an absolute dick as a tween, but he's got his shit together now. He still overthinks and doesn't want to cause Ma-Ri issues, but as the community has proven, that turns out to be whatever since she's been evolving. In his defense, he DOES keep turning the girl down, but she's not taking no for an answer.