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Lion contracts, extreme diets and continuous surveillance: what lies behind the apparent perfection of Korean pop

2020-10-27T01:30:04.203Z


In the documentary about BlackPink that triumphs on Netflix, the artists of the famous group speak openly about an internment adolescence and a work rhythm with hardly any days off. But it is only the tip of the iceberg of what happens in the academies that train the future stars of oriental pop.


In the Netflix documentary

BlackPink: Light Up The Sky

, the members of the K-pop phenomenon BlackPink describe without drama how they spent all their teenage years in an academy.

With little contact with the outside world, they rehearsed 14 hours a day with only one day off every two weeks.

The K-pop industry projects a modern, healthy, and positive image of South Korea, but its star-making system hides abusive contracts, individual nullification, and inhumane conditions.

The 1988 Seoul Olympics boosted the nation's economic prosperity, markets were opened, and restrictions on the media were relaxed.

But the economic crisis of 1997 forced the South Korean government to neoliberalize its economy, opening up abroad and allowing a greater influence of Anglo-Saxon culture.

K-pop was born with an almost mathematical formulation: synthetic musical bases of hip hop, rock,

eurodance

, funk, reggae, techno, disco or country with African, Arab and Asian sounds.

Its animated fantasy aesthetic was adapted to the lascivious gaze of Western eroticism.

K-pop, a hybrid of all the popular products on the planet, is the sublimation of globalization.

And all thanks to the concept of “cultural technology” devised in 1998 by Lee Soo-Man, founder of the SM label and architect of K-pop.

“The information technology era dominated the 1990s.

I predicted that later would come the era of cultural technology, ”Lee explained to the

New Yorker

weekly

.

The first star cast by Lee, rapper Hyun Jin-young, was on the verge of making it big when he was arrested for drug possession.

Lee vowed to himself that he would never again embark on the arduous process of developing an artist who might fail him.

So he combined his knowledge as an engineer with his passion for music and his entrepreneurial ambition to produce a manual that he himself dubbed "Cultural Technology."

All SM employees should memorize their guidelines: at what point in the process to incorporate foreign composers, producers and choreographers;

what chord progressions to use in each country;

which eyeshadow color works best in each region;

how the hands should move when greeting according to the culture;

or what camera angles to apply for videos.

According to this strategy, music stars can be built like a mobile phone or a computer, and the result is the same: cultural influence, social transformation, and economic growth.

In 2010, the Japanese business magazine Nikkei put the Girls' Generation group on the cover, calling them “the new Samsung”.

South Korean idols are the visible face of their country's neoliberalization in its most extreme sense: they are human beings whose identities are manufactured as if they were consumer goods.

Western audiences like to imagine their pop stars as special but imperfect creatures whose talent comes from an x-factor (or inexplicable magic) and whose charisma lies in their humanity.

Stars are born in the United States, they are made in South Korea.

Idol academies instruct applicants in singing, dancing, languages, exercise, good manners, use of social media, and dealing with the press.

The most successful South Korean group in history, BTS, boasts of practicing between 12 and 15 hours a day.

Students begin their training around the age of 11 and, thanks to simulation software, the record company can estimate what their voice will sound like and what their face will look like a decade later.

“The students woke up at 5:00 to practice before school classes, which began at 8:00, and at the end some of them stayed rehearsing until 23:00 to impress the teachers.

The students in group B, the least talented, fell asleep on the gym mats because they were the same as the ones in their bedrooms.

I was from group A, so I had bunk beds ", recalled in an interview for the BBC Euodias, an aspirant who abandoned her career on the threshold of her debut and who assures that the teachers did not call the students by their first name but by your assigned number.

“I am lucky because I backed down at 18, but many of my classmates left everything and found themselves at 21 without a musical career and without academic qualifications,” added the young woman.

Parents must request advance permission to visit their children.

Throwing in the towel is not an option not only because of the embarrassment that this would cause in their family, but because they would have to pay the expenses of their training until then as a penalty.

The only way out of an academy is by becoming a star or failing in the attempt.

Once a month, company executives evaluate the progress of students and expel those who do not meet expectations.

But the ones that do manage to graduate are perfect pop machines with an enthusiastic energy that never wavers (they have cameras constantly pointed at them) and synchronized choreographies that make them look like digital clones.

"We used to dance with 4-kilo weights tied to our ankles for days, so we could get used to that weight and then our movements would be lighter," a young man named Way, from the band Crayon Pop, confessed to Insider.

Students weigh themselves every morning and night, and a teacher says their weight out loud.

If you exceed your ideal weight they will give you water instead of food.

The girls are subjected to regimens such as the paper cup diet (they can only eat food that will fit in a paper cup), the cucumber diet (eat exclusively cucumber until they reach their desired weight) or the ice (do not eat in absolute and, when they get hungry, chew an ice).

"Even the skinniest girls look chubby on camera," lamented on the Canadian channel CBC an anonymous aspirant who feeds on water and coffee.

"Your body must not have fat to do well on camera."

The Oh My Girl singer JinE had to take a period of rest when anorexia led her to weigh just over 30 kilos at a height of 159 centimeters.

Sojung from Ladies' Code said that her daily diet consisted of an orange, 15 cherry tomatoes and a piece of pumpkin and that she had not had her period for a year.

Girls' Generation's Tiffany confessed that, at 48 kilos and 162 centimeters, her classmates teased her by calling her a pig.

"Losing weight makes your eyes and nose stand out more, and therefore you become more remarkable from the rest," says makeup artist Park So-jung.

The aim is for the girls to have the appearance of dolls available to the consumer: their long legs and symmetrical faces feed the fantasy of the oriental Lolita, with a submissive and childish attitude that tries to make her eroticism seem accidental and unconscious.

A Super Junior member exclaimed that the bodies of the Girls' Generation members "don't belong to them, they are treasures of the nation."

To achieve that image, the academies encourage their female students to undergo plastic surgery.

South Korea is the country with the most aesthetic operations in the world (50% of women between 20 and 30 have retouched), because there is no social stigma: changing your appearance to achieve beauty is considered a worthy sacrifice and a status symbol.

The most common operations among would-be idols are on the eyelid, cheekbones, nose and chin.

All with the goal of looking more Caucasian.

Eyelid surgery is a common graduation gift from South Korean parents to their children when they finish high school.

The nation's obsession with K-pop is spreading to the rest of the planet.

It is the sixth music market in the world and has been growing at around 15% annually for a decade.

In 2019 alone, profits increased by 50% thanks, above all, to BTS and BlackPink.

BTS's sixth album,

Map of the Soul: Persona

, sold more than three million copies in South Korea (the country has 50 million inhabitants) during its first month of release.

His 2019 tour was the third most successful of the year worldwide.

They are the most mentioned artist on Twitter.

Dynamite's

video clip

received a record 101 million views in 24 hours: in the top 20 most viewed videos on YouTube on its opening day there are five from BTS and five from BlackPink (they held the record for a couple of months with

How You Like That

: 86 million views in one day).

One in 13 tourists in South Korea points to BTS as the main reason for their visit.

By generating € 4.5 billion annually, BTS accounts for 0.3% of its country's gross domestic product.

The K-pop phenomenon has been used by the government as a diplomatic weapon.

In 2013 President Park Geun-hye declared in his inaugural address that "in the 21st century, culture is power."

The EXO band performed for Donald Trump (their contract, of course, prevented them from declining the invitation, considered an honor to be serving their country).

Red Velvet served as goodwill ambassadors with a concert in North Korea for Kim Jong-un.

Barack Obama applauded, during a speech at the 2017 Asian Leadership Conference, that thousands of Americans were learning Korean to appreciate SHINee's songs.

In 2005 the government created a 1 billion euro committee to promote K-pop, and the country is estimated to receive $ 5 for every dollar invested.

The number of foreign students in South Korea has grown by 50% in the last decade.

Idols, therefore, are a source of national pride and represent a prosperous and cosmopolitan country while maintaining the traditional values ​​of hard work, family, friendship and romantic love.

His attitude on stage is humble, unlike Western pop stars who display a commanding and superior energy.

Neither are there leaders in the groups nor are individual identities encouraged, in tune with the South Korean mentality of contributing to the community rather than pursuing individual success.

But this pressure is leaving victims along the way.

One of the SHINee members, Kim Jong-hyun, committed suicide in December 2017. The singer had spoken openly about his depression, the heartbreak of fame, and the need to tear down South Korean stigma around mental health: Seeking psychological or psychiatric treatment is perceived as a selfish decision that puts the individual before society and, therefore, is a reason for family disgrace because it suggests weakness and lack of discipline.

South Korea is one of the countries with the highest suicide rate in the world.

Singer Sulli took her own life after months of criticism for having expressed feminist opinions, while Goo Hara committed suicide by not enduring attacks from her fans for having denounced an ex-boyfriend who threatened to post a sex video of both of them.

Park Kyung of the band Block B has pointed out that anxiety and loneliness are his companions for life.

In his suicide note, sent by WhatsApp to his sister, Jong-huyn said "Tell me I did well."

Because graduating from one academy does not mean the end of exploitation but the beginning of another.

According to the seven-year contracts (the government had to regulate the so-called “slave contracts”, which until 2009 were for 13 years), the artist cannot express political opinions other than patriotism, nor have romantic relationships, nor go to any site without company supervision.

You cannot refuse to attend an event or endorse a product (Girls' Generation became the image of roast chickens).

And of course, you must not make a single slip that corrupts your pure and innocent image.

2NE1's Park Bom was arrested at the airport for drug trafficking.

Although it was prescription drugs in the United States, the public did not forgive her and Bom was fired.

South Korean Confucian culture demands submission to authority, specifically male authority.

When the Girls' Generation members made eyes at a group of boys during a television show, the audience decided to humiliate them at their concerts by turning off their flashlights and keeping quiet during their performance.

The president of YG called the members of his group 2NE1 "very ugly" on a television show and they burst into tears.

The confidentiality clause also prevents the artist from revealing the ins and outs of the industry: the known dark side of K-pop is just the tip of the iceberg.

But it is being reported more and more in public.

In 2009, Super Junior member Han Geng sued SM for fining him when he refused to participate in an event and forcing him to work for two years without a single day off, which caused him kidney disease.

F (x) 's Krystal faints so often during concerts that it is one of her identity traits.

In 2011, three members of Kara reported that their record company paid them only 110 euros per month despite having generated hundreds of thousands in profits.

(It is estimated that the much more successful Girls' Generation, by contrast, received around a million a year.)

The group TVXQ also sued SM for not letting them sleep more than four hours a day and refusing to pay them if their album sold less than 500,000 copies.

When Lee Lang won an award at the Korean Music Awards, he used his thank you speech to put his trophy up for auction so he could pay the rent.

Prince Mak stated that the artists only receive 10% of their earnings, to be divided among the members of the band, and that from that 10% we must deduct the expenses for their training that they are obliged to pay retroactively: classes, maintenance , accommodation, clothing, diets and cosmetic operations.

Mak said he had to work for three years without interruption before receiving any money.

The exception to this practice are the three major labels (SM, JYP and YG, the creator of BlackPink, which also expressly prohibits aesthetic operations), which start paying their stars as soon as they debut and only have to return their money. training if they breach their contract.

Complaining, especially when they succeed, is perceived by South Korean society as a weakness of character.

The BlackPink documentary ends with the four girls eating at a restaurant while they speculate whether at 40, after having married and having children, they will be fit to face a return tour.

It is estimated that the commercial life of a K-pop idol never exceeds seven years and they are perfectly aware of how the cycles of pop work.

After all, that's literally all the life they know.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2020-10-27

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