Living the life of an Idol, as an average citizen (Full resolution in 1st round)

From the surface, it may seem like a life that is full of fun and games from the outside, for the fans’ point of view, but a deeper look, and consideration, a much darker, stressful and difficult life compensates for their relentless support from their massive fanbase. To look at the life of a K-pop idol, I’ll give a brief structure of the big stages of their lives: - Passing an audition (Usually as a teenager) for a particular entertainment industry (for example, YG, SM or LOEN, JYP etc. - Going through the tough training process before entering the proper K-pop world - Living your life as the Idol, singing, dancing, selling albums, fan-signs, autographs for a stronger fan-base Step 1: Passing an audition The competition to be, firstly, accepted into the grounds of an entertainment industry and become a trainee within their trainers’ guidance is highly competitive. Very few people are chosen, and it often takes multiple attempts even for a person with talent to be accepted. [1] However, during the auditioning processes, most people are only permitted approximately 30 seconds due to the hundreds of teenagers desperately wishing to show off their talents either in singing or dancing as a way to impress the judges and possibly become the next top idol of Korea. The people who are accepting through this auditioning process won’t only have to highly talented, but have to be extremely determined. Being accepted into entertainment industry does not guarantee a spot in any group, or a successful solo career. Failures of auditioning processes and first debuts aren’t talked about that much throughout the K-pop fanbase, but for the stories that do exist, no example would be better than T-ara’s Soyeon. [6] A highly inspirational and motivational story of extreme hardship experienced by Soyeon which ended up with the sweet reward of success at the very end of the tireless journey. Step 2: Going through the training process If the auditioned singer and/or dancer pass through the auditioning process hosted by the entertainment industry, they will reach a critical point where a crucial decision must be made. They are obligated to sign a contract with the entertainment industry company before starting their training period which lasts for several years. Some even as long as 10-15. This is an important and highly stressful stage of their lives where they must live to the high expectations of their trainee’s within the company that they are contracted to. They will go through a huge amount of vocal training, dance training as well as language courses. This will often lead to periodic tests (which cannot be compromised!) to ensure you are up to the standards of what you have been taught. Not being able to keep a decent level or ability with these skills can easily result in losing your chance of becoming an idol as there are other people who want to achieve the same thing. Stage 3: Living the life as an Idol After a successful debut, either within a group that you have been placed in, or else as a solo artist, the biggest sacrifice, and stressful moments of your life will commence. By this point, you had the chance to drop out if you wished to, due to rigorous training schedules etc. but by succeeding in your first debut, is when your life as a successful K-pop star truly begins. It would be an unwise choice to step back at a point like this as it would badly damage your reputation as well as the their K-pop industry’s. Stage 3.1: Constant media coverage, whenever and wherever you are The one thing that fans want is constant and updated information about their favourite idols. The more famous an idol, the bigger of this demand there will be. This information could be about anything, including, but not limited to: 1. Their DOB, blood type 2. Their family members details 3. Their habits, hobbies, favourite food, drinks, favourite colour 4. Where did they receive their education and who are their primary school and high school friends? 5. Etc. The Kpop industry itself is huge, and the types of fans that you will be exposed to will be vast, with different types of people. Envious fans, stupid fans, smart fans, respectful fans, desperate fans, disrespectful fans may even come and expect to receive a huge amount of attention from the idols to themselves will appear from time to time. However, a critical part of the fans involve their thirst for knowledge about their Idols, which will be a point in their lives where their entire life history will be revealed publicly with no denial from the Idols. This isn’t only impacting on the privacy of the idol, but also towards their family members, and close friends, which can be considered a selfishly unnecessary act if they have not talked to those members before their first debut. The constant media coverage itself will be a massive impact on the K-pop Idol’s reputation from an international scale. Their reputation in front of their fans is by far one of the most important factors in their lives as an idol. If for example, the idol trips over while performing in a live concert, and is caught on camera (most likely will be), this action will hit its way up to popular K-pop news. However, one of the recent and by far most popular examples of overwhelming and unnecessary (arguably) uses of over-extensive media coverage relates to that of Leeteuk’s (Super Junior) loss of his father, grandmother and grandfather all in one day. What we see below is simply a picture of Leeteuk feeling sad, but deep down, he’s probably self-destructing and going through hell. This excessive media coverage lasted for more than 2 weeks, a period where Leeteuk was not allowed to mourn in peace over the death of his family members. And this is all because the fans’ demands will be prioritised over the wishes of the kpop idol. Sure the idols will have their voices heard by the media coverage teams, but will they listen in and accept their request? They won’t back down when the fans are asking for it. Stage 3.2: Pressure to have a good physical appearance This factor, should not, but unfortunately is, a part of all Idols within the Kpop Industry. If you are a good singer and dancer, but do not look cute nor sexy, you won’t be popular. EVER. It’s as simple as that and arguing won’t help at all. Most fans claim they respect their idols due to a “gentle personality”, “humour”, or “good nature” except the flaw in this logic, majority of the times, what attracted them to that idol in particular involved their appearances. The pressure for the maknae to look cute and innocent and for the leader to look sexy is high. This is a highly stressful demand from the fans, which often results in multiple idols (female idols in particular) to resolve to plastic surgery and heavy use of makeup and cosmetics to change their physical appear to look better. However, this, in itself leads towards angry fans complaining about idols being “fake”, itself forming a circular system of fallen logic. The fans are unable to compromise either way. If their idols do not look cute or sexy, majority of them won’t respect them as much, and if they do look sexy and/cute but have resorted to heavy uses of plastic surgery that they, once again don’t respect them. Every K-pop idol that used plastic surgery are well aware of the consequences (and it’d be highly unwise not to know). [4] The second downfall of good-look hype results in inevitably restrictive diet. This especially applies, once again, towards the female diets, some of which are forbidden to eat certain types of meat. The restrictive diet will be a psychologically impacting factor for the idol. To be perfectly clear, this means, that most idols (females in particular) are not allowed to (or severely limited with) eating foods such as: - Chicken - Chips - Lollies - Any types of foods with high fat and high sugar content Stage 3.3: The Pressure to maintain higher ratings The general ideal between the fans and the Idols involves the idols producing good content (music, music videos, dramas etc.) and the fans will buy their merchandise, albums and therefore support them in this mutual and direct approach. It was already a highly competitive auditioning process for the idol, but throughout their entire career as the idol, it’s still a fierce competition between other groups and soloists to maintain a good image, and good level of popularity amongst the public. However, one of the worst possible outcomes for an idol involves being forced out of the scene due to a disbanded team. This is not necessarily the idol’s fault, but can involve their team members, as some good examples can be shown [5] where multiple highly talented groups disbanded much earlier than they really should have due to reasons such as their team leader leaving the group. Disbanding a team for a Kpop Idol is not simply a process of “leaving”. It’s a highly emotionally traumatic experience for all the members within the group. The relationships that grow between these members are so strong that they’d often called each other eonnie (for females) or hyung (for males). Disbanding a team is not only leaving your dedicated and highly supporting fans, but also a process of leaving your team members who you’ve developed sisterly or brotherly relationships for a long time. Having a team or a member being forced to leave the K-pop scene does not happen often, but these moments do occur. The time for these times to disband will eventually reveal itself (team receiving too much hate, huge decrease of support, critical member/s missing for various reasons). These times will often prove to be incredibly difficult for the idols, sacrificing a great deal of their lives to become the idol and end up outside of the K-pop world. Over here I'll end my arguments. More arguments may come in the following round.