Idolizing Toxicity: K-POP
By SOPHIA LEE ’24
In the past few years, K-Pop has rapidly expanded from its market in Korea to the rest of the world. Being born and raised in Korea, I love the culture of K-Pop and the community it has brought to me and my fellow Koreans. However, this does not mean that I have no criticisms of the industry. Though I’m a big fan, I cannot deny that the nature of this industry is misogynistic: the way that boy groups and girl groups are marketed in K-Pop enforces toxic gender roles and beauty standards that pervade the patriarchy.
In every group, there is a member that’s considered the “visual.” In other words, they are the member deemed to be the most attractive, and it is their physical appearance that lures people into the fandom. Inevitably, this causes both male and female idols to be sexualized to some extent.
However, in order to be profitable, female idols are put under much stricter beauty standards than male idols. Many are forced to undergo intense diets to lose as much weight as possible in order to look conventionally attractive.
Then comes every K-Pop group’s “concept,” which is similar to a theme and closely related to the way they’re dressed. Traditionally, there are two different types of concepts. One is the concept of cute, pure, baby-like girls that seem to be vulnerable and need protection, which is what is considered to be desirable under the male gaze. A primary example of a group that embraces this concept is Twice.
The other concept is the total opposite. Groups that embrace this concept have female idols who wear provocative clothes, such as heels and tight, small, revealing dresses. They dance to sexualized choreographies that emphasize the shape and movement of their bodies. For examples of female idols and groups that embody this concept, you can turn to EXID or Hyuna.
These two contrasting concepts emphasize the harmful stereotype that women can only be boxed into one of two things: weak and needing of male protection, or hyper-sexual beings who gratify men.
The lyrics of many female groups also reinforce harmful ideas about women. For example, while BLACKPINK is well known for their “girlboss,” independent woman image, their lyrics still sing “Born skinny, bi**ch, thin, no matter how much weight I gain.” I believe this is the company’s strategy of attracting both male and female fans. The strong “girlboss” image attracts female fans by inspiring them and gaining their admiration, but their provocative dances and lyrics attract male fans by still being in accordance with what the patriarchy deems to be beautiful.
Because K-Pop stars are “idols,” harmful ideas, like the one mentioned in the previous paragraph, are perpetuated in society. Kids follow their choreographies and outfits to look and dance like them. While this phenomenon happens to girl groups and girls in society, boy groups sing more traditionally masculine, stronger music that often isn’t even related to love. A clear example of this contrast is the Produce series, which was a phenomenal audition program in Korea, with 4 seasons, the first and third with girl trainees and the second and fourth with male trainees. In each season’s theme songs, the girls sing “pick me, pick me, pick me up,” while the boys sing “tonight, the star is me, it’s me.”
Another misogynistic aspect of K-pop is the exploitative nature of its fandoms, which consist predominantly of teenage girls. While the girl groups target the audience in order to gain more streaming, boy groups target teenage fangirls. The girls sacrifice a lot of money and time into supporting their idols.
Financial support includes purchasing albums and merchandise. To increase their sales, the entertainment companies even host fan-sign events, where the more albums one buys, the more likely it is to get into the event. Some teenage girls even end up purchasing hundreds of albums for these opportunities. They also pour a lot of time and effort into supporting male idols by consuming their media, and, especially, continuously streaming their newest albums for weeks in order to support their streaming records. They have to “donate” money so that the larger fan groups can put ads for the idols on buses and at train stations, which are jobs that, in other industries, the companies should be doing. Also, within the fandom, there is a pyramid-like structure, where the fans who purchase more albums and sacrifice the most to support their idols are respected and admired as “better” fans.
The K-pop market isn’t one where the consumers are considered equal beings to the sellers, and thus, teenage girls are manipulated into putting their sense of self on their idols. They are manipulated by the system into feeling joy or sadness according to the success of their favorite idols, which makes the corporations easier to exploit them. I believe this is directly linked to the patriarchy, where the important role of women is to support men.
Even though this exploitative, misogynistic nature of the industry has been rooted for decades, since the birth of K-pop, I believe there is still room for it to change. The biggest challenge, or conflict the industry will have is whether they can meet their goals of reaching the most captivating visuals according to their “concepts” for their performances while not adhering to the social beauty standards. Will it be able to sell as much without the “pretty” appearances and “attractive” physical features that they are known for? How will their prior audiences feel about the change? Corporations should also work to create more diverse employment bodies and understand their responsibility as they can impact large populations all over the world. The change cannot happen so quickly, but it can start with conscious audiences that acknowledge and critique its exploitative, misogynistic nature.
