The Hidden Truths Behind K-pop Idols’ Fancy Lifestyle That Will Shock You to the Core
All that glitters is not gold.
No!
They are not as perfect and happy as they look on the screen. Broken, trapped, depressed, and unhappy — are the words that can precisely define them.
But you don’t believe that, do you?
This is how the K-pop journey begins
For K-pop idols, the journey begins at a very early age.
The boys and girls who developed extraordinary skills in dancing, singing, acting, etc. early in their life ultimately find themselves in a huge audition room. That very audition is the hint that the upcoming K-pop life is not going to be as lucrative as everyone thinks. But who can realize the hint at that moment of sheer excitement?
In 2020, Euodias, a former K-pop trainee, shared her first K-pop audition experience with BBC.
“We were kept in a vast waiting room, like the sort you see on Britain’s Got Talent, except there were no chairs,” She explained. “So we sat on the floor in rows of 10. After a six-hour wait, it was my row’s turn. My heart was beating so fast as we were called forward one-by-one.”
Read that again!
Yes. Six hours of waiting time! And then it’s your turn to show what you got. Don’t you think for a ten-year-old kid, that’s too much?
After analyzing your look, skill, and performance, if the judges find that you have the potential to be a K-pop star, they will select you. Eventually, you have to sign a contract with the company.
There are so many k-pop entertainment companies. HYBE, SM Entertainment, JYP Entertainment, YG Entertainment, Starship Entertainment, and FNC Entertainment to name a few.
Falling into the trap
In case you don’t know, K-pop contracts are tough and sometimes can be extremely cruel. Even many artists filed lawsuits against unfair contracts in the past.
The contract is made to enslave the artists and finally turn them into the company’s puppets. And you can do nothing about it. You have to repay the total cost of your training (which is beyond your wildest imagination) if you dare to break it.
Signing the contract means your trainee life has begun and you have to live with other fellow trainees in the dorms leaving your friends and family behind.
The rules are very strict. All your connections with the outside world will be restricted. Even your parents will not be allowed to meet you without prior approval from the company.
Did I mention that you will be given a number and a stage name to replace your real name during this training period? Well, everyone will be given a number and a stage name.
Inside the company building, no trainees are allowed to use their original names.
This new life of yours is all about hard work. You have to wake up at 5 am for dance practice that will continue till 8 am. Then you will go to attend school till 11.00 am.
After that, your dance and singing training will start again. A trainee spends 15 to 18 hours a day sharpening his/her singing and dancing skill.
Train, train, and train or else…
No matter how exhausted you are, you have to practice and practice to impress your instructors.
If you perform badly in the performance test or fail to get a good grade, you will be eliminated or replaced by a new trainee. So, before 11 pm, you literally have no rest. And the routine continues for days after days without a single-day break.
As you can imagine, the trainees become so exhausted that sometimes they fall asleep on the dance floor.
Euodias recalled— “There was no such thing as weekends or holidays. On national holidays like the Lunar New Year, trainees would remain in the company building while staff took the day off.”
But the interesting part is — years of hard training is no guarantee that you will make your ‘debut’. Your dream of being a K-pop performer is still uncertain.
Because for a ‘debut’, you have to be perfect in everything.
You must have all the skills necessary and your look, personality, and weight must be as instructed by your instructor.
Nothing can go a tiny bit wrong.
Changing your own body and personality
There is a general rule — irrespective of their age or height, no trainees can be heavier than 47kg.
“If you were over the designated weight, then they would ration your food. Sometimes they would even take away entire meals and those “overweight” trainees would just be given water,” Euodias described her trainee life.
She also mentioned, —
“ Starving yourself was really normalized. Some trainees were anorexic or bulimic, and many of the girls didn’t have periods. It was common to pass out from exhaustion. Often we had to help carry unconscious trainees back to the dorms. I passed out twice during dance practice, probably because I was dehydrated or hadn’t eaten enough. I woke up in bed not knowing how I got there. The attitude among the trainees after that was like, ‘Good for her! She wants it so much!’”
The same applies to your look as well.
The company highly encourages you to have plastic surgery if they think it’s necessary. And all the costs for it will be added to your debt which you will repay after being famous(!).
However, among the trainees there reside jealousy, hatred, and bullying too. The path to becoming a k-pop star is a cruel, uncertain, and near-impossible ride.
Identity crisis
What will happen if you managed to make your debut successfully?
Well, it will add a new problem to your life. As your instructor sets a name and personality for you, you must act accordingly on camera or in public.
It doesn’t matter what your actual personality is, you have to embody the personality of your stage name and behave the way your instructor tells you to behave.
This creates a huge problem of identity crisis for K-pop stars. They lose their original self and eventually become a character that other people want, desire, or appreciate.
“It was fun at first but later the loneliness and all that stuff settles in,” Amber Liu, the former member of the South Korean girl group f(x), mentions while remembering his former bandmate Sulli, who committed suicide at the age of only 25.
Again, being famous is not the end of the world and it doesn’t mean that you are now free to do whatever you want. It’s quite the opposite.
You have the pressure to repay the company debt, you have the pressure to constantly be on the top, and of course, you have the tremendous pressure to deal with yourself (loneliness, depression, and dual personality).
Parting thoughts
As you can see — all that glitters isn’t gold.
The K-pop idols you see singing and dancing on the screen or in the concerts to fill your heart are actually a bunch of puppets who sold their lives (knowingly or unknowingly) to some companies.
I hope next time, while enjoying their performance, you will be less excited about their fancy looks and less motivated by what they portray on the screen.
Maybe you will feel sorry for your picture-perfect k-pop idol and feel good about yourself thinking that you are not one of them. You have a life.
Sources: BBC News, HS Insider (latimes.com), PEOPLE.com, Bloomberg
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