Monday, November 26, 2012

The Dark Side of Korean Pop


Western music such as R&B, Hip-Hop, electronic dance was interpreted by Asian sentiments in Korea and developed a unique style of pop music. Flawless good looks, well-synchronised dance moves and catchy music tunes are the reasons why Korean pop is taking down the world. The Korean pop also known as K-pop or Hallyu has spread not only in Korea itself but Southeast Asia and Europe, and now even at America. According to Korea Creative Content Agency (KOCCA), the entertainment industry had hit about $3.4 billion last year (Rajeshni, 2012). Besides that, the K-pop also contributes in tourism industry by promoting Korea as a tourist destination. Leading K-pop group such as Wonder Girl, Girl Generation have been given recognition for their contribution in promoting Korea to the eyes of the world. But sometimes when it comes to K-pop music industry, people used to have this impression towards Korean celebrities of not having real talent but just pretty face instead.  
In order to push away this reputation of K-pop, the entertainment agency started off casting internationally, it held not only in Korea but also at Japan, China and America to recruit more talented people. Every audition there are over hundred thousands of participants, every one of them wanted to be the so called ‘K-pop idol’ but only 100 will be selected and till the end there will be only few that can actually release a debut. Of course, once you are selected, the journey to become a K-pop celebrity starts. A typical training day start as early as 5am and ends at midnight. This training day held seven days a week with hardly have any time to rest. The training session includes singing, dancing and acting. They also require to learn foreign languages such as English and Chinese.  
All of the activities and training were good to shape those trainees into a ‘all-rounded celebrity’ but when the schedule is too hectic, it will cause exhaustion. There are few cases where several celebrities such as Park JiYeon from T-ara and Sunny from Girl Generation were hospitalised due to fatigue caused by sleep deprivation. I admire their songs; their determination towards their career but then wasn’t it too ridiculous in term of the training schedule? Those celebrities are normal people just like us, they are not robot, and they need rest and holidays too. According to Hankyung, one of the members of boy band Super Junior filed a lawsuit against his respective entertainment agency SM Entertainment (SME) for their unlawful action. Hankyung’s side representative stated that he was constantly doing things that not under the contract and he did not get any single rest for two years. He is not allowed to skip any of the schedules even if he is sick, they added. According to BBC (2009) there was an event that he failed to fulfil his daily contractual obligation, he was fined for 5,000,000 won (more than 4 thousand USD).
I could not believe that such a big company like SME is treating their own artists so mean. They train those celebrities since they are 12 years old; it took them seven years or more to train and ‘packaging’ them into an all-rounded artist. In my opinion, they could just find a slightly old teenager which already have basic skills in singing or dancing and provide training for them for one or two years instead of recruiting children that age average of 12 and they are not mature enough to think what they want for future. Take Justin Bieber as an example, he was discovered through YouTube, he was an untrained artist till he get signed by RBMG company and within 2 years he becomes a popular singer all around the world, isn’t that much easier? Back to topic, imagine if those trainees grow up and noticed that they don’t like to be celebrities, they don’t have the passion to work for this industry anymore, is a waste of time and the money goes down to the drain. Yes, you might think that they already tied up with a contract; they could not escape from it, they will be fined if they did not obey the rules. Also, they have been forced to dance, sing and to entertain people all around the world without any rest. Due to stress and pressure from the working site, the easier way to relieve is to end up their life. There was a case in 2009 where famous Korean female celebrities Jang Ja-Yeon committed suicide due to the pressure and was being physically and sexually abuse when she refused to obey the contract (McCurry, 2009).    
In America, even the famous Canadian- singer Justin Bieber gets to rest and has a holiday vacation with his girlfriend Selena Gomez. But why Korea entertainment agency would want to ‘torture’ their artist this way.
The most surprising thing is that despite Korean artists are famous now but they earn very little. In fact, most of them can only get their income after the company regained the money spent training and promoting them. Furthermore the piracy rate is increasing in every country, the Korean artist are not able to gain revenue by just selling their albums. Therefore, they have to constantly attend worldwide tour, concerts and fan meetings. Even they successfully gained revenue from worldwide concert tour and endorsement of products, they have to divide among themselves. Girl Generations has total of nine members, the total revenue has to divide by nine people. Imagine how little they paid. In order to get more popular, they have to compete with one another, they have to work twice harder if they don’t want to be fade out.    
No doubt that K-pop really has arises this few years, but still there is long way to go. With all these bad news we heard of, we surely hope for a better management for the celebrities. I honestly respect those celebrities that can go through all the training and successfully release a debut. Nevertheless, giving them a little bit of freedom probably will make them feel better. It is a win-win situation as both parties are agreed and can work along together rather than suing each other and get a bad reputation for themselves.