(Published in ENRICH magazine, 2021)
FOR A K-POP CRAZY country, the Philippines let pass the 25th anniversary of
the founding of K-pop idol culture without as much as a ripple of recognition.
The rise of the $5 billion industry and global cultural phenomenon called
K-pop -- which also sparked the androgynous "kkonminam" ("Flower
Boy") sub-culture among Korean men -- is widely held to have begun in
September 1996 when "H.O.T." (Highfive Of Teenagers) burst onto the
pop music scene.
The five boys in this group released their first album that same month, but
it was their second album, "Wolf and Sheep," released in 1997 that
saw them rocket to fame. The album sold more than one million physical copies
in only 10 days. Just to give you an idea of how big a deal this was, sales of
six of the top 10 physical albums in Korea in 2020 ranged from 1.7 million to
1.0 million.
H.O.T.'s first big hit, the clownish "Candy" from their first
album, "We Hate All Kinds of Violence," featured all the trappings
we've come to associate with boy idols. These include catchy pop music; strong,
synched dance moves; rich wardrobe, outlandish and colorful hairstyles and
feminine facial make-up typical of kkonminam.
You'd never know the track was dropped in 1996 if you saw it today and knew
absolutely nothing about its history. You can say the same thing about H.O.T.'s
1997 monster, "We Are the Future," whose performance MV (music video)
resounds with female fans screaming from start to finish.
Small wonder those in the know regard this first generation band as the
daddy of 21st century K-pop. H.O.T. disbanded in 2001 following a contract
dispute with their management agency.
The group got together for an evening mini-reunion concert in 2018 with the
boys now over 40 years old. It was poignant watching them try mightily to resurrect
their inner young stud as they went retro. But their equally old fans loved it,
and screamed like it was 1997 all over again.
The rapid commercial success of H.O.T. in only 10 months helped ignite
today's crazed K-pop culture where "ARMIES" of fans venerate their
idols on social media platforms to the point of idolatry. The good, the bad and
the ugly abound in these armies. And they can be sooo irritating at times.
Other K-pop experts claim the three-boy band named "Seo Taiji and
Boys," which exploded onto the "gayo" (pop music) scene in 1992
and popularized rap, might well have been the first K-pop boy band. Still
others have their own take on the issue.
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| H.O.T., the Korean boy band credited with launching the K-Pop craze in 1996 |
The first K-pop single by a girl band that got my attention was the catchy "Nobody" by the now disbanded "Wonder Girls." I first saw and heard the song's MV on TV back in 2009.
I didn't pay much attention to Wonder Girl's five group members, however.
Not one girl stood out. The MV cast them as dolled-up 1960s back-up singers who
all looked alike in their gold pencil-cut minis and bouffant coiffure.
My girl idols existed in the 2010s, making them part of the third
generation of goddesses. I've no interest in the newest acts such as Blackpink,
Twice and Itzy. They're are all fourth gen idols that seem far too masculine
for my taste.
The goddesses of Hello Venus
The first idol girl group that knocked my socks off was the magnificent
"Hello Venus," whose final six members look like they all could have
contested the Miss Korea national beauty title.
Hello Venus' trademark was beautiful sophistication. The goddesses'
pulchritude was the centerpiece of a showtime career that lasted from 2012 to
2019.
Their initial sweet high school image later gave way to a classy
seductiveness as the group matured. A Hollywood-like glamor pervades Hello
Venus' MVs.
This was highlighted in the stunning performance MV for
"Mysterious" with the girls decked out in sparkling gold and blue
outfits, and in the official MV featuring a spy adventure on a pink train with
actors, Seo Kang Joon and Cha Eun Woo.
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| The goddesses of Hello Venus |
Another group founded in 2012 that also featured members with movie-star
looks was "Fiestar." Unlike Hello Venus, however, Fiestar took their
sexiness a bit too far and paid a price for it.
The group's single, "One More," with its far too suggestive
lyrics and risque MV was banned from airing by MBC TV. Their most successful
singles on the Gaon Digital Chart were "Sea of Moonlight",
"Vista," One More and "You're Pitiful."
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| Fiestar |
Also a child of 2012, "AOA" (Ace of Angels) had more hits chart
than either Hello Venus or Fiestar. Unsurprisingly, the three most popular of
AOA's seven members are its loveliest: Face of the Group Seolhyun (Kim
Seol-hyun), lead dancer Hyejeong (Shin Hye-jeong) and lead vocalist Choa (Park
Cho-ah).
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| AOA |
"Heart Attack" debuted at the top of several Korean charts in
2015. It went on to become one of the year's most downloaded tunes. It also
became one of the longest charting singles on Melon's top 100.
AOA's other hits include "Miniskirt", "Short
Hair"," Like a Cat", "Heart Attack" and "Give Me
the Love." AOA's still at it but of the original seven, only Seolhyun, Hyejeong
and Chanmi (Kim Chan-mi) are left to carry on.
The wonder year of 2012
The year 2012 can be seen as the breakout year for K-pop with a deluge of
new bands making their debut. The success of Wonder Girls on the world stage in
2009 seems to have triggered the frenetic burst in "idolization" that
remains with us to this day.
The year 2012 saw the appearance of 32 new girl groups and 24 new boy
groups, the largest number to appear in a single year, said Soompi, the online
resource that claims to be the world’s largest English online media covering
Korean pop culture.
Among the groups emerging in 2012 were my idols (or bias): Hello Venus,
Fiestar, AOA and Dalshabet. Except for AOA, none of these groups made it past
their seventh year. This high attrition rate confirms the cutthroat competition
among groups. It also highlights the relentless need to slake public demand
with a continuous inflow of fresh new faces.
Imposing a shelf life on talents might appear cruel, but it works. This
talent pipeline brought the total number of boy and girls bands to more than
300 by August 2021. Most of today's top boy and girl bands debuted after 2013.
Data shows girl bands becoming more multinational. Among the top boy bands,
the trend seems to revolve toward having more members. One of the top bands,
NCT, has 23 boys in its line-up.
As of August, the top girl band was Twice, which consists of five South
Koreans, three Japanese and one Thai. Founded in 2015, Twice rose to fame with
their 2016 hit, "Cheer Up" that seized number one on the Gaon Digital
Chart and won "Song of the Year" at the Melon Music Awards.
Blackpink, the top girl group in 2020, was second in August. It's world
famous for setting records galore since it burst onto the global scene in 2016.
Blackpink still remains the highest-charting female Korean act on the U.S.
Billboard Hot 100.
Its track, "Ice Cream," in 2020 topped out at number 13. Their
album, "The Album," released in 2020 became the first album by a
Korean girl group to sell more than one million copies.
Third on the list for August was Red Velvet and its five South Korean
girls. Red Velvet was ranked by both Time magazine and Billboard as one of the
most popular K-pop girl groups.
The multinational (G)I-DLE, who became famous as the monster rookies of
2018, held fourth place. Its six members are from Korea, China, Taiwan, and
Thailand. The oddly named MAMAMOO with its all Korean cast (four girls) was in
fifth place.
As for the boys, the alpha male in August was BTS. iKon and its
seven-members held second while Seventeen with its 13 boys was in third. Got7
with its seven members lies in fourth while NCT ("Neo Culture
Technology") and its platoon of 23 boys landed in fifth.
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| Blackpink |
I have an abiding interest in Korea and things Korean due to my being a
historian of the Philippines' involvement in the Korean War from 1950 to 1953.
It always astounds me how one of the world's poorest countries in 1950 rose
rapidly to become the 10th wealthiest country a scant 70 years later. You wish
you could say the same for the Philippines.
The intense national discipline, hard work, self-sacrifice and conformity
among the Korean people that created the Miracle on the Han River now works to
the disadvantage of South Korea's younger generations.
Gravely hurt by the constant pressure to conform to traditional and
sometimes harsh mores are generations of Korean youth starting with Generation
Z. These digital natives born starting in the mid-1990s include many of today's
K-pop stars. They also live in the shadow of a national suicide wave.
Suicide was the leading cause of death among young Koreans in 2018,
according to a report released last year by Statistics Korea. The suicide rate
per 100,000 people between 9 and 24 years old hit 9.1 in 2018, up from 7.7 in
2017.
Suicide has been the leading cause of death among young Koreans since 2007.
It reached its current all-time high in 2009 when the suicide rate came to
10.3. And why is this so?
The answer: savage pressure to conform and succeed. These factors create
higher stress levels among young Koreans compared to the global average. They
also contribute to South Korea having the highest suicide rate in the developed
world.
K-pop stars have not been immune to the suicide crisis. Media reports say
there have been at least 25 celebrity and political suicides over the past 15
years.
At least three of these people belonged to K-pop groups. They were Kim
Jong-hyun, main vocalist of the boy band Shinee (died Dec. 2017); Goo Hara,
former member of the girl group, Kara (Nov. 2019), and Cha In-ha, who belonged
to the boy group, Surprise U (Dec. 2019).
Kim Jong-hyun's suicide note was telling: "I am broken inside"
and "I hate myself," he wrote. Kim also assailed a doctor who blamed
his depression on his personality.
Depression among young Koreans is also driven by other pressures. The
Statistics Korea report showed Koreans between 13 and 24 mostly worry about
their future jobs and with good reason. One in five unemployed Koreans is
between 25 and 29 years old, the highest ratio in the developed world.
Another source of angst is the brutal need to pass the infamous
"Suneung" college entrance exam that determines what university a
student will attend. This is among the reasons why close to one in three
students (39.8%) see suicide as a way out of the almost unbearable academic
duress placed on them day in and day out.
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| High schoolers taking the dreaded suneung examination |
The sam-po generation refers to youth that have given-up on attaining three
key relationship goals: dating, marriage and having kids. Many of Korea's youth
have gone sam-po because they've lost hope in the promise of a good future.
N-po are distressed and depressed youth that have given-up on practically
everything that makes life worth living. The word literally means
"Numerous giving-up generation."
Young South Koreans have coined a new name for South Korea in light of
these horrors: Hell Joseon. They compare life in their country -- one of the
world's richest and Asia's most technologically advanced -- to Hell on Earth.
K-pop has become a glossy façade concealing this dreadful reality.
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