Dark spectre behind the world’s biggest girl band
You’ve probably never heard of Korean K-Pop sensations Blackpink but they’ve had No 1 hits and sell-out tours. Here we reveal how starvation diets, daily weigh-ins and huge pressure to have plastic surgery have left a...
WITH their demure smiles, the four young women were the picture of decorum as they lined up last week to be honoured for their work as climate change ambassadors. For most twentysomethings, being awarded an honorary MBE by the UK’s King Charles in Buckingham Palace, would be an exciting moment.
But for Lisa Manoban, Rosé Park, Jisoo Kim and Jennie Kim, members of the Korean girl band Blackpink, this latest honour represents a mere footnote in a career sprinkled with accolades: numerous top 10 albums and No1 hits, global sell-out tours, music awards by the bucketload and collaborations with international superstars including Lady Gaga.
They dominate the world of South Korean pop music – more commonly known as K-Pop – and stand atop an empire worth €57m, spanning not only music but fashion, beauty and entertainment, which has seen them dubbed ‘the biggest girl band in the world’.
You may not have heard of Blackpink, or their K-Pop music style (best known for Gangnam Style, the 2012 viral dance song by rapper Psy), as it hasn’t properly taken off here. A cross between pop, rap and R’n’B, with lyrics in Korean and English, it appeals more to American and Asian audiences, with a cutesy image heavily marketed towards teenage fans.
But globally it’s huge. This is mostly due to social media. Blackpink, for example, have 57million Instagram followers – three times more than Madonna.
Look online and you’ll see different pictures of the four young women with miniskirts and suspenders, latex platform boots and provocative music videos. This raunchy look is part of a carefully curated image, churned out on the conveyor belt of manufactured pop acts that the South Korean music industry – the sixth biggest in the world – has become so adept at creating in the past two decades.
As well as Blackpink, there’s Grammy-nominated boy band BTS (who sold more albums than Taylor Swift in 2020 but disbanded to complete their military service), eight-piece Girls’ Generation and newcomers NewJeans, whose five members are aged just 14 to 18.
Each shares the same polished public persona: dance moves perfectly choreographed, music videos resembling big-budget blockbusters, and not a single blemish, wrinkle or hair out of place on their alabaster complexions.
BUT behind the unspoilt facade there are widespread concerns about a ‘dark side’ to K-Pop. Bullying, abuse and exploitation are said to be commonplace, with youngsters subjected to gruelling training regimes and daily weigh-ins, as well as being pressurised into plastic surgery and made to sign contracts that mean their every move is controlled.
Euodias, a 25-year-old YouTube star from Sunderland, England, who is half-Korean, had first-hand experience of living in a K-Pop ‘training camp’ when she moved to South Korea as a child to follow her dream of becoming a pop star. She describes the regimented existence, living in a building owned by her management company, as ‘some sort of science experiment’.
She says: ‘On a typical day we’d wake at 5am to get in some extra dance practice before school started at 8am. When the school day ended, we’d return to the company to be trained in singing and dancing. Trainees would practise until 11pm or later.’
Other than attending school, she says, they weren’t allowed out without permission, which was usually refused anyway. Dating was banned, as were unscheduled visits from friends or relatives.
While Euodias slept in a dorm, some, in a group deemed less likely to succeed, had to sleep on mats on the floor. She says few complained as they were all ambitious and because the company’s attitude was that ‘everything we experienced was part of learning the discipline needed to be a K-Pop idol’.
Rather than use their own names, she says youngsters were given a number and a stage name to match the K-Pop character type the company had chosen for them.
Blackpink spent between four and six years in such a regime, living in what band member Jennie, 27, has compared to ‘boarding school’. She has said: ‘It was like 14 hours a day, just training. It was really harsh.’
Euodias, who left the South Korean capital Seoul after two years to return home, says that the girls’ appearance was the subject of intense scrutiny, with weekly weigh-ins taking place in front of the whole group.
‘Weight was the constant obsession,’ she says. ‘Everyone was required to be no heavier than 47kg (7st 6lb), regardless of their age or height. If above the designated weight, they would ration your food. Sometimes they’d take away entire meals and “overweight” trainees would just be given water. Starving yourself was normalised. Some trainees were anorexic or bulimic, and many girls didn’t have periods.’
She says she passed out twice during dance lessons due to dehydration and lack of food. ‘Often we had to help carry unconscious trainees back to the dorms.’
There are many other shocking testimonies. Momo Hirai, 27, of K-Pop band Twice, has spoken about eating nothing but ice cubes in a bid to lose weight for a TV show. ‘I was told I had to lose 7kg no matter what,’ she said in a 2020 interview. ‘That was the only way to be on the show. So I didn’t eat anything until that date and went to the gym all the time.’
The extreme diet left her vomiting, crying and fearing she would die of starvation. ‘When lying on my bed, trying to sleep, I was scared that I might not wake up.’
For image, in the distorted, commercial world of creating a K-Pop star, is everything. Many have
plastic surgery. With this obsession with youthfulness, it’s not surprising that the youngsters look like they’ve come off an assembly line: all high cheekbones, perfect noses and luscious pink pouts.
Though none of the Blackpink members has admitted to having surgery, they appear to have undergone dramatic transformations since childhood.
In a recent Netflix documentary, Blackpink: Light Up The Sky, the four shared family photographs showing them as plump-cheeked, wide-eyed youngsters.
Some stars, though, admit to surgery. Lee Joo-won, or ‘JooE’, a former member of girl group Momoland, admitted to a nose job in 2018, while Sulli, a South Korean singer who took her own life in 2019 aged just 25, had spoken of having eyelid surgery.
Kim Min-seok, a former trainer at Blackpink’s label YG Entertainment, has said surgery is encouraged. He said: ‘The most important thing is appearance.
‘If a girl has a bad face and a good body, the problem can be fixed with plastic surgery.’
This can include lightening the skin to make musicians appear ‘whiter’ and more Western.
Inevitably there are allegations of jealousy and bullying among wannabes. Auditions – which have a success rate of 700-1 – are cutthroat and only about 10% of hopefuls are chosen to ‘debut’ on the music scene.
Once signed to a management company, they can be contracted for up to 10 years.
But a report by South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission in 2017 compared such agreements to ‘slave contracts’ and ordered agencies to change punitive clauses such as those which fined musicians for breaching terms and which unfairly redistributed their earnings.
Dr Haekyung Um, senior lecturer in music at the University of Liverpool, says that the relationships between artists and their management have now become less repressive, but points out that the entertainment firms invest much time and money in creating stars of the future. She compares the rigorous and competitive training regimes to those undertaken by ballerinas or concert pianists.
Dr Sarah Keith, a music and media lecturer at Macquarie University, Sydney, who researches K-Pop, says many criticisms – ‘exploitation, abuse and coercion’ – are ‘endemic’.
‘There is often a focus on the “dark side” of K-Pop, which overshadows the creative and positive aspects,’ she says.
Lee Hark-joon, a Korean journalist, has said life for such youngsters is ‘mechanical’ and ‘spartan’: ‘They seldom have a chance to develop a normal school life or normal social relationships.’
And the impact can be brutal, especially without the support of friends and family, who are reportedly kept at arms’ length (Euodias recalls getting a 15minute daily phone call with her mum).
In 2019, The New York Times exposed ‘the painful side of being a K-Pop idol’, after two female stars – Sulli, whose real name was Choi Jin-ri, and 28-year-old Goo Hara – took their own lives.
Two years earlier, Jonghyun, lead singer of the boy band Shinee, was found dead in his apartment, aged 27, with a note that said he was ‘broken from inside’. And in 2010, Park Yong-ha, a successful 32-year-old singer and actor, killed himself amid reports of career pressures.
Describing the K-Pop industry as ‘a high-risk, high-reward system’, Dr Keith says it is a logical result of the social and industrial circumstances of K-Pop’s production.
‘Being a K-Pop idol has become a career choice for many young people, not only in Korea but globally.
Well-known artists are the “face” of Korea, and K-Pop is hugely influential on the economy.’ This not only includes music and concert ticket sales, but the way K-Pop celebrity is used to promote Korean goods and services such as Hyundai cars, and show Korea as an attractive travel destination.
Meeting King Charles at Buckingham Palace last week was the latest high-profile milestone in Blackpink’s career. Already, a video of their 2020 hit How You Like That has been watched 1.5 billion times – three times the population of South Korea.
But with their superstardom, says Dr Um, there’s intense pressure to be ambassadors for their country.
‘They bear a huge responsibility to be good artists and good people,’ she says.
‘It’s a very high moral expectation from society: you’ll never see them doing drugs or misbehaving. They have to show their goodness, in how they behave towards others and in contributing towards social causes.’
Indeed, Blackpink’s recent environmental endeavours are just part of their philanthropic activities – they have donated more than €350,000 to charitable causes, including support for low-income single-parent households and natural disaster relief.
During a speech in front of them last week, King Charles said: ‘I can only admire how they can prioritise these vital issues, as well as being global superstars.’
However, for the billions of Blackpink’s admirers, the K-Pop pack lead a lifestyle that is glamorous and gilded – although the road to get there is anything but.
If a girl has a bad face and a good body, it can be fixed with surgery
They seldom have a chance to develop a normal life or relationships