Before diving into this vast ocean, let's set some things clear.
I'm not an army or as a matter of fact fan of k-pop. In this blog post, I'm not going to roast or hate anyone. If it hurts you, I'm not the one to be blamed. Read this post completely to avoid misunderstandings.
I don't have to explain this but still, kpop means pop music originating in South Korea. Kpop fandoms have been increasing rapidly lately. [popularity: 34.4 percent in India]. We can notice in new Bollywood songs, that they are inspired by kpop. Sadly, many people who do know about kpop hate kpop artists, the reason you ask? They think they are gay, or some other nonsense.
But that's not true. In their culture, they believe that a clean shaved face is attractive. And we can't and shall not comment on their country's culture and traditions.
Kpop songs are unique, original and many of them have hidden social messages, and above all the music, it's so catchy and amazing. But they won't credit their music artists and directors. IDK why.
Moving on, as I said, kpop songs contain hidden social messages, for instance, the "Love myself" campaign by BTS, relating to which they delivered a speech at UNESCO and had a positive impact.
The dark horse of the kpop industry:
Behind the beautiful, flawless camouflage of the kpop artist, are hidden unhealthy and strict diets, plastic surgeries, and insane beauty routines.
Korea is termed as the "Plastic surgery capital of the world", because of the crazy numbers of plastic surgeries. One out of 3 Korean women has had plastic surgery. Plastic surgery is gifted to students by their parents as a graduation gift because you won't be able to get a job if you don't satisfy the beauty standards.
If this is the case for a normal citizen in Korea, then just imagine the pressure on kpop idols, who are always been watched, due to which many kpop idols have attempted suicide, and South Korea has the 3rd highest suicide rate in the world. Many suicides notes reveal that the idols were so much pressurized by the company they work for.
Every artist has to sign 9-15 years of "slave contract", and when the contracts expire they are no longer recognized. It is termed as a "slave contract" because until the contract expires the artists are prohibited from meeting their families and dating.
Not only does the artist have a strict routine of 20 hours, but also the company provides a limited amount of calories food to maintain the artist's body due to which the artist suffers both mentally and physically.
The solution you ask? In my opinion, the fandoms, instead of fighting against the haters or other fandoms, should come together and take a stand against the entertainment companies who don't treat the artists as human but money-earning machines. The most affected of all by these greedy companies are female artists. Once their contracts are expired they won't be able to secure other jobs and some are, unfortunately, pushed into prostitution.
The companies, in turn, argue these stipulations are necessary given the tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of dollars and time they invest in each trainee.
Thankfully people are becoming aware of the seriousness of this problem. They are spreading the awareness through various forms, for instance, a Kdrama and Webtoon named "True beauty", a Webtoon named "The makeup remover", etc.
Toxic Fandoms:
According to the research conducted by the University of Oregon on the psychology of teenagers, concluded that early teenagers are self-centered and mostly fail to tolerate and understand different opinions. These teenagers make up about 1% of the fandoms and are also the ones to spam comments and hate a person if he/she doesn't like kpop. But they must understand that every person has a right to express their opinions, and also need to learn to accept constructive criticism. They are just spoiling the image of the fandom and their idols.
And idolizing their idols too much. Fandoms need to know how to accept constructive criticism.
Contribution of kpop to the Korean economy:
In Japan and South Korea, people love to buy CDs instead of digital versions. Not only because of their copyright laws, licensing restrictions but also because of, you guessed it right-"kpop". Kpop groups have balanced out their losses from piracy with glossy and collectible CDs by selling CDs in the form of merch, with a variety of colors and cover designs to encourage multiple sales.
The most interesting part about kpop business is that everything from the very beginning is manufactured and sculpted to be a perfect consumer product. Artists are sculpted to reach as wide as possible, in a factory.
And kpop being internationally famous isn't accidental. Kpop is a government-funded project focused on growing South Korea's power globally, making it highly political.
A brief history:
The kpop industry's wave started in 2012 with the viral hit of "Gangnam Style". People around the globe became curious about kpop music, fashion, drama, culture, etc. Surely, it wasn't a representative of kpop as a genre but it was indeed useful to prove one thing, that is, a song didn't need to be in English to succeed in the West, also proved by the song "Despacito".
Kpop Formula:
The major difference between kpop and other genres is that kpop is reverse-fabricated based on the consumer's preference.
While most musicians start off practicing at home, sailing only by a passion for music and in time get discovered by a record label, whereas kpop groups usually begin, rise, and change the direction from a conference room. YG, SM, JYP, and Big Hit Entertainment are four big labels.
These labels aren't agents but product designers, they create and shape every aspect of their group. They start off by recruiting people who have unique yet cohesive personalities to appeal to a large audience. While some labels turn recruitment into a reality TV competition, which is ideal for creating loyal fans.
Fun fact, in 2012, 4% of the whole South Korean population tried out for "SuperstarK", which is one of the most famous singing competitions. While some also recruit based on appearance.
The next is training, the artists have strict routines to follow, getting only about 5 hours of sleep, as mentioned earlier.
Next is localization. Kpop is so diverse involving everything from pop, jazz, techno, rock, and hip-hop, it's hard to define exactly what it is.
Group names are generally short, easily recognized English words or acronyms, for instance, TWICE, BTS, EXO, etc. making it easier to remember.
Chart Manipulations:
A documentary named "Unanswered questions" touches every detail of the chart manipulations, who are to be blamed? the companies or artists or fans?
Many of the competition shows are fake, the results are manipulated. Here is a Youtube video you can check out if you are interested.
My Opinion:
Kpop is really an amazing genre and their songs are just amazing, but sadly, many people are fans for just the looks of the artists. I'm not saying that obsessing over artists for looks is a bad thing, but that must be secondary. For instance, I met an army girl, I asked her how she found out about BTS? She said at the beginning she wasn't even aware that they were musicians or singers. She became an army just for their looks and later found out that they were singers and musicians.
Trust me no artist would be happy to know that people love them for their looks and not for their talents. Which makes the companies pressurize their artists to look perfect and satisfy the beauty standards to grow income. What else do you expect? When people demand looks, they focus on looks.
I know that the companies are cruel and all but who made them like that? Fans fall head over heels for the artist's looks and invest huge amounts of money.
I have seen videos of BTS on my for you page on Youtube, but none of the videos was about their singing, it was about their expression, their smile, etc.
That would be all for today. See yall again later, until then keep smiling. [Even if your cheekbones ache, you dare not stop smiling!]
Here are the youtube videos for some of my curious readers who want to reach in depths of the topic.
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