Korean idol

A Korean idol is a South Korean musical artist whom is a singer that signed under a mainstream entertainment agency or performs as an indie artist under his/her own label.[1][2][3] In South Korea, potential idols are commonly cast by agencies via auditions or street casting[4][5][6][7] in order to become trainees.

Overview

Trainee system

Idol group Girls' Generation, signed under SM Entertainment

Hundreds of candidates each day attend the global auditions held by Korean entertainment agencies to perform for the chance of becoming a trainee.[8] Auditions include public auditions and closed auditions. Others are street-casted or scouted without auditioning, based on looks or potential talent. Those who successfully pass this audition stage are offered long-term contracts with the entertainment company. There are no age limits to becoming a trainee; thus is not uncommon for trainees, and even debuted idols, to be very young.[9][10]

The trainee process lasts for an indefinite period of time, ranging from months to years, and usually involves vocal, dance, and language[11][12] classes while living together with other trainees, sometimes attending school at the same time, although some trainees drop out of school to focus on a career as an idol.[13][14] This whole process may includes "scouting, auditioning, training, styling, producing, and managing" which first created H.O.T, a boyband of S.M. Entertainment in late 1990s. Among trainees in the same company, the elimination mechanism decides who earns the chance of settling in "the company-owned dormitories" and continue fighting for the ultimate goal to debut in new idol groups, while those who cannot show their company the potential to become an eligible idol artist will no longer be able to stay in the company. Once a trainee enters the system, they are supposed to be regulated in multiple aspects ranging from personal life (for example, dating) to body conditions and visual appearances, etc.. The whole point of trainee system is to survive this process of training and regulation of companies, which somehow one's talent does not play a relatively important role in the production of Korean idols.[15]

The investment on a potential trainee could be expensive. In 2012, The Wall Street Journal reported that the cost of training one member of Girls' Generation under S.M. Entertainment was US$3 million.[16]

Big Bang member, solo singer-songwriter, rapper and producer G-Dragon is one of the highest-earning Korean idols in the South Korean entertainment industry.

The K-pop trainee system was popularised by Lee Soo-man, the founder of S.M. Entertainment, as part of a concept labelled cultural technology.[17] As a unique process, the Korean idol trainee system has been criticised by Western media outlets. There are also negative connotations of idols within independent and underground Korean music scenes.[18][19]

Personal image

When trainees are finally chosen to debut in new groups, they will face a new setting of personalities created by the company to cater the entertainment market. Each member of an idol group has his or her own character to play and therefore an important part of their job duties is to maintain that temperament in any kind of exposure they may get. One way to build personal image of idol groups is through social media services with contents taken care by the company to make sure the consistency of these personal characteristics.[15]

Working conditions

Several Korean idol groups and solo artists have resented the contracts issued to them by their management companies, claiming that the decade-long contracts are "too long, too restrictive, and gave them almost none of the profits from their success". A director of South Korean entertainment agency DSP Media stated that the company does share profit with the performers, but often little is left over after paying costs.[20] Korean entertainment companies such as S.M Entertainment have been called "factories"[21] for their unique method of mass-producing stars. Members of groups are frequently retired and replaced with fresh trainees when their age or musical inclinations begin to pose a problem.[22] Dong Bang Shin Gi charged S.M. Entertainment for unreasonable terms in their contracts with the company in 2009.[23]

Commercialism

Entertainment companies in Korea use a boot-camp system in grooming their idols. In the case of S.M. Entertainment, the company receives 300,000 applicants in nine countries every year.[24] They possess training facilities in the Gangnam district of Seoul, where recruits then train for years in anticipation of their debut. SM was called the first company to market "bands as brands", and commodify not just the artists' product, but the artist(s) themselves. Such techniques have resulted in mass recognition abroad and helped to spark the Korean Wave, which benefits entertainment companies by broadening their audience.[24] As domestic fandom is not generally enough to produce the profits that these corporations and their players require, branding and marketing of the artist/group has become central to industry profits and thus a defining feature of the genre today.[20]

Reported earnings

According to the South Korean National Tax Service, the average annual earnings for a Korean idol in 2013 were KR₩46.74 million (USD$42,000). This was more than double the 2010 figure of KR₩26.97 million (USD$25,275), a rise attributable to the global spread of Hallyu in recent years.[25][26]

Some of the highest-earning Korean idols, for example G-Dragon, receive multimillion-dollar annual incomes in album and concert sales. On June 25, 2015, SBS's "Midnight TV Entertainment" revealed that G-Dragon earned an annual KR₩790 million (USD$710,000) from songwriting royalties alone.[27] Idols can also earn revenues from endorsements, merchandise, corporate sponsorship deals and commercials. According to The Korea Herald, once a K-pop music video attracts more than a million views, it will "generate a meaningful revenue big enough to dole out profits to members of a K-pop group."[28]

Recognition

The Korean Wave has led to a global rise in interest in Korean idols, along with other aspects of Korean culture including Korean films and K-dramas being exported to other parts of the globe.[29]

Sasaeng fans

Some idols have experienced extreme invasions of privacy from obsessive fans as a result of their career in the public eye. Alleged invasions of idols' private lives include stalking, hidden cameras in idols' dorms, fans attending personal events such as relatives' weddings, and physical assault.[30][31]

Sexualization

There have been criticisms on the sexual objectification of female and male idols across the industry. The problem is exacerbated due to the higher rigidity of gender norms in contemporary Korean society.[32] For example, according to an MIT thesis entitled 'How K-pop Mirrors Gender Roles', "the image of a passive and submissive woman is celebrated in the Korean society like no other, when actual Korean women are not so passive nor so submissive by nature".[33] Korean idols are frequently depicted in music videos wearing revealing clothes and dancing provocatively, as part of the companies' effort to market idols in multiple ways.[34]

Race and Korean Identity

It is especially common in K-pop music videos to have women of non-Korean ethnicity more overtly sexualized than Korean women, on the part of the company so as not to offend the traditional thought of Korean women as being 'pure'. Research on Korean straight male pornography viewing habits shows that on average, porn with women of non-Korean descent is watched more often than porn containing Korean women. This is because pornography is viewed as degrading, and to associate Korean women with that would pollute their carefully constructed image.[35]

K-pop artists and groups

See also

References

  1. ↑ Caramanica, Jon (2011-10-24). "Korean Pop Machine, Running on Innocence and Hair Gel". The New York Times. Retrieved 7 September 2012.
  2. ↑ Seabrook, John. "Cultural technology and the making of K-pop". The New Yorker. Retrieved 30 October 2012.
  3. ↑ Sun, Jung. "K-Pop Idol Boy Bands and Manufactured Versatile Masculinity: Making Chogukjeok Boys". Hong Kong University Press. doi:10.5790/hongkong/9789888028672.001.0001/upso-9789888028672-chapter-5 (inactive 2018-08-05). Retrieved 30 October 2012.
  4. ↑ "[Instiz] Interesting idol casting stories ~ Netizen Buzz". netizenbuzz.blogspot.co.uk. Retrieved 2016-04-17.
  5. ↑ "Girls' Generation reveal their individual audition stories; Sooyoung scouted four times in a row". Koreaboo — breaking k-pop news, photos, and videos. Retrieved 2016-04-17.
  6. ↑ "Street casting of SM Entertainment artists revealed | allkpop.com". www.allkpop.com. Retrieved 2016-04-17.
  7. ↑ "Majority of this boy group members debuted without even auditioning? – Koreaboo". Koreaboo. Retrieved 2016-04-17.
  8. ↑ "K-Pop Boot Camp". ABC News. Retrieved 30 October 2012.
  9. ↑ amycwang93. "18 of the Youngest K-Pop Idols Ever to Debut". Soompi. Retrieved 2016-04-17.
  10. ↑ Tam, Vivien (16 November 2015). "10 Youngest Debuted Baby K-pop Idols!". NowKPop. NowKPop. Retrieved 17 April 2016.
  11. ↑ "In any language, JYP spells success on the global stage". Joong Ang Daily. Archived from the original on 17 September 2012. Retrieved 30 October 2012.
  12. ↑ Leung, Sarah. "Catching the K-Pop Wave: Globality in the Production, Distribution, and Consumption of South Korean Popular Music". Vassar College. Retrieved 30 October 2012.
  13. ↑ Woo, Jaeyeon. "Journey to K-Pop Star, 'I Am.'". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 30 October 2012.
  14. ↑ "The Price of Fame in South Korea". Toonari Post. Archived from the original on 3 September 2012. Retrieved 31 August 2012.
  15. 1 2 Elfving-Hwang, Joanna. "K-pop Idols, Artificial Beauty and Affective Fan Relationships in South Korea." in Routledge Handbook of Celebrity Studies, edited by Anthony Elliott. London: Routledge, 2018.
  16. ↑ Yang, Jeff. "Can Girls' Generation Break Through in America?". WSJ. Retrieved 2016-04-17.
  17. ↑ Seabrook, John (2012-10-08). "Factory Girls". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 2016-04-17.
  18. ↑ "Us and Them: Korean Indie Rock in a K-Pop World | The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus". apjjf.org. Retrieved 2016-04-17.
  19. ↑ "Ask a Korean!: What's Real in Korean Hip Hop? A Historical Perspective". askakorean.blogspot.co.uk. Retrieved 2016-04-17.
  20. 1 2 Williamson, Lucy (2011-06-15). "The dark side of South Korean pop". BBC News. Retrieved 2018-05-12.
  21. ↑ Seabrook, John (2012-10-01). "Factory Girls". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 2018-05-12.
  22. ↑ "Seoul Trained: Inside Korea's Pop Factory". Spin. 2012-03-26. Retrieved 2018-05-12.
  23. ↑ Lee, Dong-Yeun. "Who's Afraid of Korean Idols?" In Made in Korea: Studies in Popular Music, edited by Hyunjoon Shin, Seung-Ah Lee. London: Routledge, 2016.
  24. 1 2 Staff, Forbes. "Korea's S.M. Entertainment: The Company That Created K-Pop". Forbes. Retrieved 2018-05-12.
  25. ↑ "Average annual incomes for Korean idols rise significantly thanks to the Hallyu Wave". Allkpop. January 22, 2015. Retrieved 27 June 2015.
  26. ↑ Jeff Benjamin (January 19, 2015). "K-Pop Star Earnings Swell in Recent Years". Billboard. Retrieved 27 June 2015.
  27. ↑ Tamar Herman. "G-Dragon's Annual Earnings From Song Royalties Add Up To An Impressive Sum". Kpopstarz. Retrieved 27 June 2015.
  28. ↑   (2012-08-24). "Successful social marketing translates into profits for K-pop acts-The Korea Herald". View.koreaherald.com. Retrieved 2012-10-29.
  29. ↑ "South Korea's K-pop takes off in the west". Financial Times. Retrieved 7 September 2012.
  30. ↑ "13 extreme accounts of sasaeng fans | allkpop.com". www.allkpop.com. Retrieved 2016-04-17.
  31. ↑ "'Sasaeng Stalkers' (Part 1): K-pop fans turn to blood, poison for attention". sg.celebrity.yahoo.com. Retrieved 2016-04-17.
  32. ↑ Alvare, H. M. (2009). Communion or Suspicion: Which Way for Woman and Man? Ave Maria Law Review, 8(1), Fall 2009, George Mason Law & Economics Research Paper No. 10-47.
  33. ↑ "How K-pop Mirrors Gender Roles" (PDF). MIT Get Inspired: 1–26. January 8, 2016 – via MIT.edu.
  34. ↑ Lie, John (2015). K-Pop: Popular Music, Cultural Amnesia, and Economic Innovation in South Korea. Oakland, CA: University of California Press. pp. 10–12. ISBN 978-0-520-28311-4.
  35. ↑ Sun, Chyng (17 May 2014). "Korean Men's Pornography use, Their Interest in Extreme Pornography, and Dyadic Sexual Relationships". International Journal of Sexual Health. 27: 16–35. doi:10.1080/19317611.2014.927048.
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