Star’s suicide highlights dark side of K-pop
SEOUL (AFP) — Known for its ultracompetitive, pressure-cooker society, South Korea has one of the world’s highest suicide rates. And this week, the even higher stresses in the country’s lucrative showbiz industry took their toll on a K-pop superstar.
Kim Jong-hyun, a 27-year-old lead singer of the hugely popular boy band SHINee, took his own life in a Seoul hotel room on Monday, with his death sending shockwaves through fans around the world.
Five-member SHINee were at the forefront of the “Korean Wave” that has seen South Korean pop culture sweep Asia by storm in the past decade and lap at shores even further afield.
The band has found fame and fortune with multiple chart-topping albums and sold-out concerts at home and abroad since their debut in 2008.
But a grittier reality lies beneath the glitz and glamor of the K-pop scene — cutthroat competition, a lack of privacy, online bullying and relentless public pressure to maintain a wholesome image at all times and at any cost.
Many stars like Kim are picked up by agencies at a young age, usually in their early or mid teens, their lives then taken over by gruelling singing and dancing training, with the ever-present risk of falling foul of a cut-throat screening process.
Holidays are rare and privacy an unaffordable luxury as many live with other band mates in dorm-like apartments provided by their agents, who dictate everything from music styles and diet regimen to mobile phone use — and normally impose dating bans.
Many struggle with a constant lack of sleep and privacy.
Kim Se-jeong, a popular K-pop singer, confessed of once sleeping a total of one hour for four days.
“I had to perform on stage, appear in TV shows and shoot ad commercials all at the same time,” she told a television interviewer earlier this year.
Kang Daniel, of the popular boy band Wanna One, admitted that his biggest wish was “having just one day of rest.”
“For months ahead of my debut, I usually woke up four or five in the morning... practiced until two or three in the morning the following day,” Kang said in a television interview aired in August.
He was “grateful” to get a chance at fame, he added — but the gruelling schedule eventually affected his health and the 21-year-old canceled all public appearances earlier this month.
Many K-pop stars face tremendous pressure to look and behave perfectly in an industry powered by so-called “fandoms” — groups of well-organized admirers who spend enormous amounts of time and money to help their favorite stars climb up the charts and attack their perceived rivals.
In return, the stars are expected to tread carefully in an industry where today’s most-fervent fans can be tomorrow’s most vicious critics if their idols fail to meet their expectations — or “betray” them.