JINJU, Southern Korea — K-pop stars are liked, and also worshipped, across the world.
BTS fans, who will be inside their millions, call themselves the “Army” and when flooded a restaurant that is korean one-star Yelp reviews following its owner stated another band was better.
Other hardcore K-pop fans also pool their funds together to get presents — including billboard adverts in Times Square — for their idols in a training in line with the Korean term “jeogon,” which means that “tribute into the king.”
But behind the scenes, the truth is various.
Insider talked to people of Great Guys, a boyband that is up-and-coming of nine guys inside their 20s, after their performance during the Korea Drama Festival in Jinju at the beginning of October.
Whatever they shared had been a full life of strict gymnasium schedules, food diets, and forced singledom — far through the glitz and glam they reveal on phase.
Grueling gym routines and restrictive diet plans
“Gym, studio, bedroom — which is my entire life circle,” stated Ho Ryeong, one of several musical organization members. “Our company is now get yourself ready for our album that is new and really quite busy.”
“seriously, we do not have enough time for eating,” he stated. “Nor are we able to consume everything we want.”
Another user, Jae we, chimed in: “that is the part that is hardest. It isn’t simple to follow a meal plan, but We suppose it is not impossible either.”
It’s a testament to your pressures of keeping the intense beauty criteria for the K-pop industry: idols must look and remain gorgeous, young, as well as in good condition. That always results in serious diet plans and do exercises regimes.
One famous K-pop diet, referred to as “Paper Cup Diet,” involves eating nine paper cups — how big the people you would find by water coolers — worth of whole grain products, fruits, and veggies every single day. Discussion with this diet can be popular among on pro-anorexia discussion boards.
Means, an old person in K-pop musical organization Crayon Pop, told Insider in a split e-mail: “we had beenn’t permitted to consume midnight treats. Other treats like potato chips and candy were not allowed, therefore we’d sneak away and eat it.”
“us not to, that made us want to eat more since they kept telling. We might secretly purchase it and consume it into the restroom,” she included, laughing.
Gym routines may also be grueling. “We utilized to dancing with 4 kg (8.8 pounds) of sandbags on our legs for a couple of times,” Method said. “Our teacher desired us getting accustomed the sandbags, therefore without one our dances would look lighter in the performance.”
It is well well worth noting why these beauty requirements affect other companies in South Korea too: the nation’s journey attendants usually move to surgery that is cosmetic be gorgeous and slim, to improve their odds of securing jobs.
A year ago, a news anchor made headlines for refusing to put on contacts and lashes that are false and opting presenting together with her cups on alternatively.
No relationship allowed
An rule that is unwritten K-pop is the fact that idols should also give up having a love life if they desire to be effective.
Being solitary makes them appear more available to their fans. This, the idea goes, means more fans that are devoted this means more money for the team and record label.
This really is additionally why groups that are k-pop either all-male or all-female, too — so fans do not suspect band people are dating one another.
“Before we produced title for myself, i really couldn’t fulfill my children or buddies,” Method told Insider. “All all of us users had been residing together in a condo with a full time income space as well as 2 spaces, therefore on a regular basis we might be accessible as well as work.”
“We also necessary to offer our phones towards the record business,” she stated. “we’re able to barely satisfy also our close loved ones.”
Donghwi, another known person in Great Guys 
, additionally told Insider: “None of us have been in a relationship.”
Whenever Insider asked him to make clear whether he and their bandmembers wouldn’t like lovers or are not permitted them, he stated: “Both! We mustn’t, but in addition, we do not like to date anyone.”
“We consented to not have a woman within our life, so we can focus more about our objective,” he included. “We love our fans, that is enough for all of us.”
“If things get well, we are able to forever stay like this. We have been delighted for as long we love. even as we are doing exactly what”
Great Guys appears to be enjoying their way to popularity thus far, that will help them keep the difficult elements of their life. Not all K-pop movie stars have provided the exact same optimism.
Lower than three months ago, South Korean police announced that 25-year-old K-pop celebrity Sulli ended up being discovered dead inside her home. Police will always be investigating her reason behind death, but they are focusing on the presumption that she killed by herself.
She had been mostly of the K-pop music artists who’d attempted to deviate through the K-pop mold, and ended up being chastized for this.
She made her relationship along with her boyfriend public. She dared go out associated with the homely home without a bra — departing from K-pop’s squeaky-clean image. She talked freely she put her career on hold after suffering physical and mental exhaustion about her mental health: in 2014.
Inturn, she got cyberbullies. When you look at the wake of her death, one fan re-posted a video clip from Sulli’s final Instagram Live, where she stated: “i’m perhaps not a bad person. I’m very sorry. What makes you saying things that are bad me personally? Exactly just What did i really do to deserve this?”
Fans and movie movie stars alike have actually advised K-pop record businesses to just simply take psychological state more seriously, and address it as less of the taboo.
Earlier in the day this season BTS had been permitted an “extended amount of sleep and leisure” — into the terms for the extremely successful team’s record label — during which musical organization people got to go to museums, head to concerts by other teams, and get fishing, Billboard reported.
Quitting K-pop is not an alternative for several movie stars too — record businesses are apt to have a hold that is financial their movie movie stars.
A typical agreement between record businesses and their stars requires the business paying for the costs of reserving concert venues, traveling, and food, and anticipating them become offset by the profits. But then stars have to pay them back if the expenses end up being more than the earnings.
As means explained: “Idols using the false hope of a future that is bright their financial obligation to your business until they ultimately lose every thing . As soon as, we had a need to offer my possessions, including my laptop computer and beloved piano, to endure.”
In accordance with the Overseas Federation associated with the Phonographic Industry, K-pop is “shifting from ‘potential’ to ‘power player'” within the international music industry. Its getting more essential than ever to guard its movie movie stars.