The alarm goes off at five in the morning, so you can start your daily workout. You’ve had maybe four hours of sleep, or five if you’re lucky. Afterwards you will weigh yourself, and send the results to your manager who is keeping a close eye on your weight. If you’ve gained weight, you’ll get a telling-off and a warning to stick more closely to your diet. After your morning rehearsal, your lunch break rolls around — one sweet, brief hour of respite. Then it’s an afternoon of more rehearsals. If you’re lucky, you might be let off at 10pm, with some fan meetings squished in. Otherwise you’ll probably go to your dorms at midnight, preparing for the next gruelling day.
The secret to success for a K-Pop idol is no secret at all. Ruled by discipline, which tends to come in the form of rigid contracts, the career is famous for its competitiveness and glamour. Boy band BTS lays claim to the largest fan group in the world, with a follow base of 325 million known popularly as ARMY. Those who make it big attract devoted fans, make enormous amounts of money and live lives that many would envy. However, the path to success for an idol is by no means easy.
NiziU, a Japanese girl group managed by JYP Entertainment, recently complained about their schedule while promoting their music shows and a Korean album in South Korea. This involved getting up at 2am and working from 7:30am to 10pm, spending the day doing rehearsals, broadcasts and meeting fans. These routines would continue for up to two weeks, during which time the artists would become sleep-deprived and overworked. Korean music culture involves staging music shows every day of the week, with new and established artists alike re-staging and re-promoting their music to ensure its success. Idols commonly face rigorous schedules because of the demands of self-promotion and preparation for performances, which often involve hours spent on preparing hair & makeup, meeting fans or promoting with other artists. This toxic work culture has become normalised due to its ubiquitousness.
Yet while the workload is consistently intense, the pay is not necessarily meted in proportion. K-Pop agencies select young individuals from hundreds of eager candidates, and these people go on to become ‘trainee idols,’ incurring enormous debts for the dance classes and training that they have to undergo for years. This means the profits gained from performances usually goes to pay off the debt rather than directly to the idol, creating an exploitative cycle. An idol called Daisy (born Yoo Jung-Ahn) from girl group Momoland shared on social media that during her career she had a parallel job as an English translator. “My translating job was a part-time job and I was making 11 dollars an hour… My translating job made 1.3 times more than when I was an idol.” She amassed debt of $150,000 USD ($228,000) and received a single paycheck during her career, after she had paid off her debt in full.
While up-and-coming trainee idols lust after the wages, which can reach millions of dollars per member, the Korean audience equally provides enormous demand for new faces and new music. As a result, the idol industry is deeply toxic, with highly competitive structures that entrench financial insecurity into the beginning of every idol’s career. They would be compelled to sign so-called “slave contracts” which have different terms depending on the company, but regularly involve the idol committing to several years of training before they can make a debut. If the trainee lives outside of South Korea, they would be expected to move and leave their family behind. An artist called Hanse from boy group VICTON, reported by Koreaboo in May, explained how promoting music shows was not financially feasible because the costs of promotions was less than the remuneration that idols received from appearances. Hanse said that the contracts at his agency entailed seven years of work, after which if a trainee made it through their debts would be forgiven.
Idols also have strict regulations on their dating lives, with pressures to hide any relationships in order to maintain their image as an acquirable commodity. Rules vary between companies, with some employing an outright ban and others like SM Entertainment advising dating only within the company to reduce the risk of scandals. However, the implicit assumption is that idols need to appear available as potential partners to all their fans, to boost their sales and marketing. The mindset of idol training is that visuals matter above all else, because dances can be learned. This leads to expectations that idols are unanimously attractive and visually engaging.
The lack of job security in the industry makes the life of an idol trainee precarious. After a debut, of course, it is less intense, but the demands on idols continue to mount. Despite this, there is little pressure on Korean entertainment industries to ease the conditions for younger idols, and the thousands of people who apply for traineeships each year ensure that the supply of willing youths will not dwindle any time soon.
