Behind the BTS Comeback, the Dark Side of K-Pop
K-pop shines with talent, talent and hard work, but the wildly successful South Korean music industry also has a dark side that sometimes leads to tragic consequences.
Ahead of BTS’s comeback concert on Saturday, AFP examines the intense competition in the industry, grueling training, tight control over stars’ lives and sometimes obsessive fan behavior.
– 300 groups –
South Korean record companies launch dozens of new groups every year in the hopes they’ll become the next BTS or Blackpink, but with close to 300 outfits already available, they’re hard to come by big time.
A small minority of the thousands of young hopefuls who make it through the audition stage will then be able to face 15 hours of gym sessions, singing lessons, promotional shoots and dance practices.
Sometimes they sleep not at home, but in bunk beds in shared houses; They have tight control over their lives, including what they eat, their weight and their appearance.
In a 2020 interview with AFP, former Nine Muses member Ryu Sera likened it to a “factory-like mass production system” where people are treated like “interchangeable products.”
But industry bosses argue that the competitive nature is what has kept K-pop so successful.
“We cannot help those who are given the opportunity to improve themselves but cannot keep up with others,” Blitzers manager Oh Chang-seok told AFP in 2021.
The balance of power between record labels and K-pop stars was once heavily skewed; “slave contracts” mandated unequal profit sharing and bound artists together for over a decade.
Following a legal battle involving idol group TVXQ, the fair trade commission revised the standard contracts, with amendments made in 2009 limiting initial agreements to seven years.
– No dating –
Fans can become obsessed, and anger over rumors that their favorite stars might be romantically involved has become a hallmark of the industry.
When rumors broke out that BTS’ Jung Kook was dating Aespa member Winter, fans accused him of “cheating” and sent a truck carrying a billboard to the headquarters of BTS label HYBE.
Aespa’s Karina faced similar problems when she admitted to a relationship with an actor in 2024, drawing the ire of fans who sent a truck.
“Don’t you get enough love from your fans?” read it.
Karina offered her “sincere apologies” in a handwritten letter and promised to “never disappoint” her fans again. Shortly after, the couple broke up.
Others took things to dangerous extremes.
In 2024, The Boyz’s Sunwoo was attacked after a fan hid in an emergency stairwell to confront him. The group’s tag said it also detected a tracking device on their vehicle.
This month, a Brazilian woman was accused of stalking BTS’ Jung Kook. Allegedly, he rang the woman’s doorbell and left letters “out of love” 23 times in a month.
Kim Seong-sheen, a professor of creative convergence education at Hanyang University in Seoul, blames the way the industry structures the relationship between groups and fans.
“Fans began to take on the role of participants, investing their emotions and time, rather than simple consumers,” Kim told AFP.
“The industry has long operated on the premise of controlling idols’ private lives and maintaining the illusion of intimacy to maintain that interaction.”
– Cyber Bullying –
The industry has witnessed numerous cases of suspected suicide, most recently in 2023 when 25-year-old Moonbin from boy band ASTRO was found dead in his home.
Although mental health experts warn that a single triggering factor is rare, some artists face intense cyberbullying and harsh scrutiny of their personal lives from both fans and management.
BTS creator and HYBE president Bang Si-hyuk questioned whether such criticism was “justified” in a 2023 interview with CNN, and suggested that conditions were no better in Western pop.
Cultural commentator Kim Do-hoon said a deeper problem lies in the industry’s hierarchical structure between management and singers.
Unlike many groups elsewhere, K-pop groups are put together by agencies that invest time and capital to train them in a top-down system.
BTS was created the same way.
“This is essentially a very hierarchical system that hasn’t changed over the years,” he said.
