Students react to K-Pop companies’ unfair treatment

The life of a Korean pop music star may seem rather glamorous on the outside — weekly hairstyle changes, personal stylists, makeup artists, recording studios, game shows, interviews, screaming fans and travel.

At a closer look, however, the life of an idol is far from glamorous; instead, it is strictly controlled by the management company.

Most K-Pop groups consist of various physically attractive strangers brought together by their management companies, who view each group as essentially just profit-making merchandise. Even the most passionate K-Pop fans such as sophomore Laura Makeever, find this fact hard to bear with.

“It makes me sad to see the wrong things that the companies do when some of the mistakes are so basic, such as simply giving artists their human rights,” Makeever said.

In September, Lee Hoo, the leader of a band ZE:A, overthrew his agency and made major changes to the company. According to a documentary about a group under the same company, Nine Muses, Star Empire Entertainment, a relatively smaller company, had abused the group physically and emotionally. The management yelled at the members and sometimes hit them if they didn't perform well enough. At one point, Lee Hoo even tried to commit suicide.

In his tweets, Hoo stated about his management president, “President Shin Joo Hak who lost everything and was left with empty pockets, I still deplore and hate you, but you were our President for eight years. You were my responsibility, and I'll take the shaming from the public and the fans.”

According to Hoo’s fans, this was an unprecedented act of defiance against authority.

“I think it was amazing how he could overthrow his own boss like that and straighten things out with the company,” Makeever said. “I just hope that it will continue to be successful and run properly.”

Some students believe that when signing a contract to become a K-pop star, the celebrity knows what he is signing to.

Sophomore Yuna Kim compared being a K-pop idol to being a professional model. Idols are under pressure from their companies to stay tall, skinny and beautiful. Often, this results in sacrifices on the part of the musician such as missing out on education, spending less time with his or her family and friends and dieting strenuously.

Kim believes, however, that the companies place limitations on the stars to protect them from fans. In Korea, the idols have an image of being a perfect “model” for the rest of the nation. If they smoke, the society would react as if the idols were criminals.

In the K-Pop world, fans are often so devoted to their idols that they stop viewing them as normal people. Recently, SM entertainment announced that Taeyeon from SNSD and Baekhyun from EXO were dating. Baekhyun’s fans were so upset that he had a girlfriend because it meant the fans no longer had a chance with their star.  They sent Taeyeon and Baekhyun death threats to break up and even threatened them with suicidal posts.

According to Han, the fans should just try to do their best to support the artists for their music and not for their image.

“Sometimes I get tired of K-Pop because of scandals about the mistreatment of artists under certain companies,” she said. “But there’s almost nothing fans can do, so the best we can do is support the artists.”