The End of K-Pop: Why the Era Needs to Come to a Close
Around the globe, modern Korean culture has been embraced like none other. There’s even a term for it: hallyu, the “Korean Wave”. Korean cuisine, online gaming, television and film, and popular culture have all become wildly popular and show no signs of slowing down anytime soon. The biggest and most well-known case is the towering juggernaut of K-pop, or Korean pop music.
K-pop is everywhere. From early originators like Psy to modern superstars like BTS, the K-pop industry is massive. An international survey in 2018 found that 63.3 percent of respondents — a clear majority — found the genre quite popular to very popular. This popularity comes with a price, though. There’s a dark underbelly to K-pop, and there’s mounting evidence that the time has come on this pop culture phenomenon. Here’s why the K-pop era needs to come to a close.
Artificial, Superficial, and Dangerous
K-pop is known for its flawless production value. Bright young stars drill endlessly for years, often from childhood, so performance becomes second nature. Singing, dancing, comporting themselves as squeaky-clean and highly moral at all times is all part of the daily regimen of a rising K-pop star. It’s part of what’s so appealing about the genre; K-pop stars performing in flawlessly choreographed music videos are wildly popular. In fact, a typical music video for reigning champs BTS has upwards of 500 million views on YouTube.
Yet spending years reinforcing these artificial and superficial aesthetics takes a major toll on K-pop performers. Pressures to be picture-perfect at all times in order to remain popular (and profitable) mean that there’s little room for error — and absolutely no room for being yourself. The industry has a high turnover rate as a result. Additionally, cultural mental health stigmas in South Korea and beyond mean there are few places a K-pop star in crisis can turn to for support. This has led to a dangerous and distressing trend: troubled K-pop stars often choose suicide as a way out.
The Death Toll Rises
The number of young Koreans that have lost their lives to suicide. Among the young, suicide was the number one cause of death in South Korea as late as 2017, where 7.7 deaths out of every 100,000 came from Koreans between the age of 9 and 24 taking their own lives. This is, unsurprisingly, the same age range that most K-pop performers inhabit; in an industry where most stars retire before the age of 30, it’s no surprise that performers that have been in the system since an early age are suffering under the pressures of that system and its culture.
The number of K-pop stars that have taken their own lives is troubling, as it grows seemingly every day. In March 2009, South Korea were shocked to hear the news about death of Jang Ja-Yeon, who died by suicide due to sexual abuse from media and entertainment prominent figures. 10 years later, Ministry of Justice responsed to petition from the Blue House to reopen the investigation of Jang Ja-Yeon suicide and her list of prominent figures who were involved with sexual abuse which included Chosun Ilbo. However, the committee later revealed that there was insufficient evidence to conclude Jang Ja-Yeon sexual abuse in 2009. Their conclusion was lack of evidence and statue of limitations which led to close the case. In December of 2017, the death of Kim Jong-hyun, better known as Jonghyun, shocked the world, with his suicide note claiming the pressures of dealing with his depression finally defeated him. Then, in October of 2019, K-pop superstar Sulli, who was known for a strong feminist stance that exposed her to extreme cyberbullying, was also found dead. Just one month later, Sulli’s close friend and fellow female K-pop performer Goo Hara also took her own life as well.
A Culture of Corruption
The deaths of two of the highest-profile female K-pop stars just weeks apart from each other highlights even more distressing aspects of the underlying culture that has produced the Korean Wave. The press to spread Hallyu far and wide has led to a “success at any cost” drive forward that not only places intense, sometimes debilitating pressure on performers but also enables clandestine corruption, often in the form of extreme misogyny. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the case of the scandal surrounding the Burning Sun nightclub.
Located in the basement of a swanky hotel in Seoul’s elite Gangnam district, the Burning Sun was owned, in part, by Seungri, one of the biggest K-pop stars of all time. With K-pop culture focusing on providing anything and everything K-pop superstars like Seungri desire while keeping the immoral behavior of those stars under wraps to preserve their wholesome image, Burning Sun became a hotbed of alleged crimes including date rape, sex trafficking, bribery, and spy camera recordings. Seungri and many other K-pop performers have been placed under criminal investigation for their role in perpetuating these offenses.
The K-Pop Era Has Reached Critical Mass
Whether it’s the moral debasement of K-pop idols like Seungri allegedly involved in heinous crimes like date rape and sexual assault or it’s simply the damage done to countless performers being ground down by a constant pressure to be seen as perfect at all times, the K-pop industry as a whole is destroying lives left and right. Idol groups designed by committee and controlled within an inch of their lives to appeal to the widest audience — and make the most money — have reached a critical mass in both global popularity and impact, and the potential leverage that K-pop culture can exert around the globe is troubling when viewed through this lens.
Too many young adults are suffering needlessly as a result of this critical mass. Young Koreans, dazzled with the ideas of fame and fortune, are finding themselves incapable of coping with the intense consequences of both rising to superstardom and then maintaining that image. This leads to jaded stars like Seungri falling to the dark side of crime and corruption, or tortured souls like Jonghyun, Sulli, and Goo Hara tragically succumbing to those pressures. It’s past time to examine the profit-driven K-pop industry for what it is: toxic and outright dangerous.
Returning to Korean Cultural Roots
The K-pop era is certainly coming to a close on its own. It’s crumbling under its own weight, but the number of Koreans it’s taking down with it is unconscionable. There are better ways to spread Korean culture around the globe than by destroying the lives of young, vibrant Koreans in need of help.
The truth is that K-pop is just one aspect of Korean culture, and one that hasn’t been around nearly as long as other aspects that might truly reflect the region. From cuisine and art to fashion, performance, and history, Korean culture is rich and deserves to be celebrated today. There’s already been a push to provide better exposure to traditional Korean cultural practices; as early as 2018, the PyeongChang Winter Games offered something called the Traditional Korean Experience Booth showcased traditional pangut performances, pungmul folk music, and hands-on opportunities provided by traditional calligraphy and woodprinting experts.
The Traditional Experience Booth at the PyeongChang Winter games is just one example of how to promote traditional Korean culture without relying on K-pop and reinforcing its dangerous influences. Just because the tide is receding doesn’t mean that the Korean Wave will disappear. Hallyu can and will survive, but not through K-pop. The roots of Korean culture are deep and strong, but they must be tended — and not with the blood of the young.
