The Dark Story of K-Pop

Korean pop music, or K-pop, originated in South Korea but has become a powerful, global phenomenon. This multi-billion dollar industry manufacturers scores of pitch-perfect idols and groups, performers who become lead trendsetters in the world of fashion, dance, music and more. Yet there's a dark side to this fame, and a peek behind the curtain reveals a brutal, dangerous world of cut-throat competition, financial corruption and abuse. Tune in to learn about the dark side of K-Pop.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of My Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.

(00:27):
My name is Matt, it's you. My name is not
They called me Ben. We are joined as always with
our super producer Paul Mission Controlled deconds. Most importantly, you
are you, You are here, and that makes this stuff
they don't want you to know. Gentlemen, I propose that
we skip the Twitter roll call for now. I just
want to check in with you all. How's it going

(00:50):
at our respective bunkers. It's going okay. I you know,
family time has been great. UM. I have to say
we're we're reaching the point now in this saga, the
situation where more and more of us, at least me personally,
are knowing people like a direct Uh really, I have

(01:12):
a direct relationship with several people who now have or
believed to have come down with COVID nineteen and UM,
I would say, while a lot of this downtime being
at the house has been pretty great to get things done,
to be a family and everything, it feels like it's
closing in a little more at this point. Um, that's

(01:35):
just maybe a personal feeling, but that's where I'm at.
Quick question, Have the people that you suspect to have
contracted the coronavirus have they been able to obtain tests?
Because those things are pretty much unicorns in this country,
not a single one, zero out of six. That's a shame.
I wish them as speedy recovery man. Yeah. The good

(01:58):
thing is that of all the people I know, um,
four out of the six have fully recovered at this point.
So that's at least a very good sign. That's fantastic news.
What about you KNOWL I mean you and I spoke
earlier today, but uh, how's it going. It's it's good.
I'm okay. Um. I had my my daughter this weekend

(02:19):
and then just brought her back to her mom's this
morning and we had a nice weekend. Um, we're kind
of shuffling her back and forth. Um, I'm obviously continuing
to work so it's easier for her mom, who is
not working to do the homeschool situation. She does have
a small child as well, so she's having to balance that. Um,
you know another my my daughter's sister. But UM, it's good.

(02:40):
I've been doing a lot of things that I don't
normally do being home all the time. I've talked about,
you know, working on music and reading and just catching
up on things and catching up with a lot of
old friends. UH doing some online gaming. If anybody wants
to online game, UM, you can hit me up. I'm
all about it and playing Borderlands three. UM. I wanted
to share something really quick that I haven't told you

(03:02):
guys about. UM. I had a listener reach out to
me on Instagram, UM talking about how thanking us basically
for you know the show and continue to the show.
He's a fan of something I wants you to know
and also a movie crush. And he said that he
was dealing with the coronavirus, that he actually got the virus. UM.
I asked him a little bit more information and he
said he's a patient transport person, an ambulance driver. I

(03:24):
assume in in Long Island. UM he could trace back
to exactly when he was exposed because his supervisors were
able to UH isolate the incident, UM that the patient
that he was transporting and go back and kind of
do process of elimination. So he could figure out when
he was exposed. He was exposed on like the thirteen
and didn't start experiencing symptoms till last week, early last week,

(03:47):
which which that was kind of interesting to me because
that seems like an awful long time. Uh. The good
news is he's he's he's in his late twenties. He's uh,
you know, running a fever of about a hundred point
four um and it continues, so it's not just like
it spikes and goes away. So that's uh, you know,
certainly a thing that you can look for. Um. And
he seems to be doing okay. He's just taking tile

(04:08):
and all. Uh. And he is in the hospital. UM.
I think that's largely to do with his profession um
and just playing it safe. And he said he's got
nurses that are checking in on him. UM. But yeah,
it was It was really a really nice that he
reached out to let him know that the show was
helping him sleep and just kind of keeping him calm,
and also to get a little information directly from someone
that was dealing with it. I'm gonna keep his name anonymous,

(04:31):
but um, he said it was okay to to share this.
I agreed, Yeah, and thanks for sharing that on air.
So peek behind the curtain here, conspiracy realist. UH, We've
been doing the same thing, or at least I've been,
uh you know, UH Matt Noel and I have been.
I've I've been sending you guys text messages where I've
been screen capping uh some some similar communications. Thank you

(04:55):
to everybody who's been reaching out to us UH to
to thank us uh even more importantly, to encourage us
uh to keep going even when the circumstances are are
fraught with plot twists like these are these are troubled days. UH.
So we're here for you. You You can find us as
as a group. You can also find us as individuals,

(05:18):
and you can find our good pal Knell on what
did you say, border lands, UM on borderlanes. You can
find me at the cubists th H E C U
B I S T S if you want to hit
me up and do a little little gaming of and
uh commune connecting with some listeners and plan plan some
borderlandes and just just really quick huge thanks to this listener, UM,
because you know very much on the front lines of

(05:38):
this pandemic. UM putting himself in harm's way. UM, and
obviously is dealing with the repercussions of that, but something
that clearly he does not regret, and it's very much
a mission that that keeps this person kind of going.
So I really really appreciated the information and also just
really respect you being willing to put yourself out there
and and not really think yourself instead of thinking of

(06:01):
others first, you know, yes, pick up uh indeed, and
to everybody else who's putting their health and lives on
the line to save and protect everybody else. Yeah, yeah,
we've been including that message, but we simply cannot overstate
it enough. Um. And and and also you know, in
the in the interest of privacy, I've just been sending

(06:23):
these messages to Mattnell offline. But if you if you
are okay with us sharing your story on air, please
just let us know in the message, and let us
know if you wish to remain anonymous, or if you
wish to have your name or a name attached to
your story. There is no right or wrong answer here. UH.
But today's episode UH is not about COVID ostensibly or

(06:49):
not yet. Today we are returning to the Korean Peninsula.
This is not an episode about UH my ongoing obsession
with the infamous Hermit Key to move North Korea, or
our collective obsession. Now, in fact, this in a way
is a pop culture episode. You see, we're delving into
the global phenomena collectively known as k pop or Korean

(07:13):
pop music. So here are the facts. First, what is
k pop? It's what it sounds like. It's collective term
for pop music originating in South Korea. And it may
surprise some of our fellow listeners to learn just how
recent this phenomena is. Yeah, it's true. I mean, today's
K pop industry wouldn't exist at all without South Korea's

(07:36):
extensive modernization and a crucial detail, their relaxation of censorship,
particularly in the way this change has affected the nation's
ability to broadcast things on television. Because back in the
day UM, before some of the reforms in place UM
that created the nation's sixth Republic, there were only two

(07:57):
broadcast networks in the entire country. Uh, and they had,
you know, just immense control over the kind of music
South Koreans were allowed to listen to. The radio was
also more or less under state control. Yeah, yeah, I
think about all those times you've heard people older than
you maybe your parents, maybe some other loved ones. Say,

(08:17):
you know, back in my day, the television only had
like three channels, uh, F v h F whatever. Uh,
And then you just had to watch what was on
channel three or five or eleven or whatever it was
in their part of the world. This was the situation
in South Korea. That is not an exaggeration. Uh. And also,
like he said, radio is under a government control. This

(08:38):
means that, if we're being incredibly diplomatic, we would say
independent music didn't have much of a footprint, by which
we mean like zero. These these folks were, Uh, these
folks were very much a state enterprise. Rock and roll
music as we think of it today or even back then,
was incredibly controversial. It was often banned sometimes for I

(09:00):
would say almost xenophobic reasons, the idea that the culture
of the creed nation would be compromised by a glut
of this foreign music. And the way there was a
specific way that musicians and songs met the public. There
were these talent shows on television. They aired on the weekends.

(09:21):
And again remember they're only like two channels. Uh. And
when the people, when performers won these talent shows, then
radio would play their music finally, but they would only
play the music of the people who had already you know,
quote unquote made it on those weekend TV shows, So
there was no like underground breakout star who went from

(09:44):
busking on the streets of soul to all of a
sudden blowing up on your radio station. You know. It's
interesting like j pop, which is the Japanese equivalent of
K pop obviously really didn't hit big until the nineties either. Um,
but Japan had much more of a history of like
more diverse kind of musical taste, especially after uh, you know,

(10:06):
global conflicts and a lot of American soldiers bringing you know,
American music to Japan, and then you know, when Japan,
Japan kind of became this almost like had to rebuild
from the ashes, you know, of of being bombed. Uh,
they kind of emerged as this like technological superpower and
this very pop culture driven society. Um. So that was

(10:26):
much earlier, obviously than than K pop, but very interesting
that the boy band, girl group kind of thing didn't
really come around until the nineties, around the same time
that K pop was was happening. Yeah, because it's so
easy going back to our earlier ongoing conversation for long
time listeners, it's it's so easy to forget that this
is kind of a new thing in the grand scheme

(10:48):
of events. It seems like it's always been around, but
it's it's really it goes down to that seven Reformation.
That's when the soil was laid for this. After things
are loosened up, after they're a little bit less orwellian
with censorship, radio blows up. Radio is everywhere a f

(11:09):
or i should say a m FM. Uh. South Korean
residents would hear new music that they had never heard before.
They'd hear it on a regular basis. It's like, just
for a second, every radio station became eight eight point
five or one point one. Those are two great, great
local stations here in Atlanta. It's like everything turned to

(11:29):
college radio in terms of the variety you would see.
And this included music from the Yankees, music from the
United States. So people were digging it and they were like, hey,
this isn't that bad. But radio is only part of
the story, right, Yeah, don't don't forget those talent shows
that those come back in a big and important way
for for new acts and new types of music. I mean,

(11:52):
TV is really the gold standard, and it had been
in South Korea. It continued to be that way. More
than of the homes in South Korea had access to
national television networks as early as so that's not long
after the change over there, and then people watching TV
it was the most it was the most viewership that

(12:13):
had ever existed within South Korea, especially on the weekends,
and that's when those talent shows happen, and that is
where you get all these new acts being introduced to
everybody in South Korea all at once. Yeah yeah, yeah,
yeah yeah. And they these TV shows still even now

(12:35):
remain in the modern day one of the biggest single
factors in the success of any South Korean band. It's
funny because you know, I know that all of us,
all four of us Mission Control, Matt Noel and myself,
we're we're fans of music history, both from a socio
cultural perspective and just from the experience of music we like.

(12:59):
So we all know that when you look at a
a genre or a shift in music, you you tend
to look more at a gradient. Right. A lot of
genres kind of blend and and slowly evolved into something
new or different. But unlike many musical genres, k pop
appears to have a definitive starting point. It's April eleven two.

(13:26):
There's a great account of this by research named Hannah Wait.
She she studies the history of K pop and she
says that a group named Ceo Taji pardon me if
I'm mispronouncing Ceo Taji and Boys. Uh, they are the
they are the watershed moment of K pop. So Ceo

(13:47):
Taj is the frontman of this. These a couple of
different bands. First, he was in a heavy metal band
called sin Away or sent Away, and they broke up.
He got into hip hop. He teamed up with two dancers.
They performed a single called nan Arreo or I know
on one of these weekend talent shows you were talking
about Matt and Boom. Just like that. When they perform

(14:10):
on April eleven, K pop is born. This may make
you think that Ceo Tashi and the Boys actually won
the competition, but no, man, they came out on the bottom.
They got the Little Store out anybody on the show
that day. But but it doesn't matter. It was It's like, um,

(14:31):
I'm trying to imagine what it's like. Um, I'm gonna
take it to my four year old son. So he
had never tried uh broccoli before, and then one day
he tried it and he didn't like it at all.
He's like, that is gross. But now he knows what
broccoli is, and when we talk about broccoli, he thinks
about it and he'll take a taste. He's like, that's okay,

(14:52):
And now broccoli is one of his favorite things that
he can eat. I'm telling you, that's all that they needed,
that he just get that broccoli on TV. For a second,
it reminds me of like that do you want to be?
A VJ competition where that like super skinny, weird looking
stoner guy Jesse one first place and the guy that
one runner up ended up ultimately becoming a pretty big

(15:13):
television sensation, like You had much more of a you know,
long lasting career in TV, whereas Jesse kind of burned
out pretty quickly. I mean he already seemed like a
bit of a burnout. He had like some some issues
with drugs and alcohol and like, uh, you know, being
on the lamb about I don't know it was a
whole thing. But that guy Dave, what is it was
Dave's last name? He he was the he lost the competition,

(15:34):
but he ultimately became. He came out on top. Dave Coolier.
It wasn't Coolier, it wasn't Mustaine, it wasn't Navarro, it
was you know, the Dave, the Dave. If you're if
you're talking, Dave's on top, I'm always thinking to Dave Coolier.
I mean, that's that's that's the gold standard of Dave's right.
Welcome to MTV News. This is Dave Holmes. Dave. That's

(15:57):
exactly right. He's acceptable. Dave sucks too. I agree, man VJ.
That was a dream job. Huh. So the for the
whole point there is that the the whole South Korean
culture got introduced to this K pop thing all of
a sudden, all at once, and they all saw it
and they went, huh, that's the thing. It's not are
not our favorite, but that's the thing. Yeah. Yeah, Well

(16:19):
here's what happens. So there's an interesting role here in
you know, there's something to be said about the possibility
of cultural policing, you know, like uh, like in France,
there is an official linguistic institute that monitors how new
words are entering the French language, and they're fighting to

(16:40):
quote unquote preserve it. You have to ask yourself whether
the judges on this talent show we're uh, we're playing
playing Ceo and the Boys to the left because they
were too culturally different. One thing's for sure, the rest
of the nation does not agree with the judges. This

(17:00):
song I Know goes on to dominate the singles charts
of South Korea for like seventeen weeks, and then for
fifteen years after that it remained. It held the record
for the number one longest streak in the country's history,
or the longest time at number one. Yeah, and and
this was not just like a band. This was like

(17:22):
the beginnings of an institution, and big business recognized that
recording studios record labels actually stepped in to take over
and formed a new studio system. Let's when we say
studio system, we think of like MGM Universal, you know,
like the big movie studios. This is that kind of

(17:44):
money and that kind of opportunity. They created this from scratch,
out of the ashes of the broadcast centered system. Right.
So then between you had three mega powerhouse music studios appearing.
Yet SM Entertainment Um often just referred to as s
M town uh and that was and then we have
J Y P Entertainment in and y G Entertainment created

(18:07):
by one of the members of Stag and Boys. Uh.
And then we've got Yeah that that was Young Yuan Suku.
And so together these studios began to uh cultivate and
and headhunt, essentially recruit what would become known as idol groups. Uh.
And you know, we we know this in the States
in terms of like the Backstreet Boys and as far

(18:29):
back as the New Kids on the Block, and you know,
more recently with One Direction and these kind of supergroups
up even as far back as the Monkeys, you know,
bands that were built from the ground up by executives
for the purposes of eliciting a certain response. It wasn't
like they were just doing it in their parents garage.
These were created as a business ploy. We pause. Can

(18:50):
we pause here really quickly just to talk about how
big this business has become, because we're talking about the
first big three, right, M Entertainment, G I P Entertainment,
and Y G Entertainment. So these are the big ones.
These are it's the mid nineties to late nineties when
these are created. If you look now at lists anywhere
of the biggest K pop groups that are out there,

(19:13):
and there are so many groups that exist almost not
not this isn't all of the music labels that are
controlling all of them. But j y P is still
up there, s M is still up there, y G
is still up there. Now you've got Big HIT Entertainment,
k Q Entertainment, Cube Entertainment, fn C Entertainment, and there
there are probably a dozen more that control I don't

(19:36):
even know how many hundreds of these groups. It's crazy.
Here's the thing, uh, A lot of those younger studios
are kind of a revolving door like we see with
government and private industry in the United States, because a
lot of their creators were formerly members of K pop
groups are somehow affiliated with the industry and struck out
on their own. I do want to point out also,

(19:58):
when we say idle group, we mean I D O L.
These folks are anything but I D L E. They're
actually living a very very difficult life. Um so, yeah,
the first idol group comes on comes on the global
stage in the founder of s M, guy named Lee Suman,

(20:19):
creates this group called Hot h O t Uh, and
he does it by getting five singers and dancers who,
in his mind, represent what he thinks teens want to
see from a pop group. So, you know, I love
that Monkey's reference because it's just like somebody who's who's
kind of aged out of that scene going, you know
what the young folks like? You know what they're like. Uh,

(20:41):
they're like a little Gyrates. They're like a gyrate with
a hip and like a little uh you know, I
like a little harmony. This is what the kids are
pop into these days. They like these beatles and we
need to make more of those wells. But what's funny
about the Monkeys? As they started off that way and
then they made some pretty cool records and a really

(21:01):
psychedelic film called a Head that you guys should check
out if you haven't seen it. Like, they actually went
on to be pretty interesting in their own right. But yeah,
that was that was a thing that that that took
the world by store. I have a question, like maybe
we're gonna get to this, but I just want to
say I love Red rubber Ball. Everyone should listen to
it when you get a chance. That's a I think.
So it's a good vocal warm up, though, isn't it.

(21:22):
That's hard to say I really thought that was an
h O T song? What is well? What what what's questions? Oh?
Oh no, just I mean they're called idol bands. That's
obviously where the American American idol came from. It was
emulating this system of of talent shows that was so
huge that created this industry, right yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, agreed.

(21:44):
And that means that we can also trace the evolution
of all the other kind of shows like America's Got Talent,
uh and uh, you know, whatever their derivatives are, we
can we can trace all of that to this genre.
So now we have now we have the emergence of
the idol group, the emergence of these these huge, these
Leva like Leviathan size businesses, and it's off to the races. Nowadays.

(22:09):
The global invasion of K pop is part of a
larger cultural invasion called Holly you or the Korean Wave.
But Matt, I really like something you pointed out. How
big of a business are we talking? We'll explore that
briefly after a word from our sponsor. Okay, we're back.

(22:34):
How big of a business? Well, it's global, that's for sure.
That's an understatement of uh stuff. They don't want you
to know history, because today the popularity of K pop,
not not just how you but specifically K pop reaches far, far,
far beyond the South Korean borders. There was a survey
conducted in where they asked a ton of people in

(22:55):
seventeen different countries, uh, you know what, what's the word
it on? K pop in your neck of the global woods?
And thirty seven point five percent of everybody responding in
all seventeen countries said that K pop was super popular
in their country. And think about that, because you know,
not everybody in those seventeen different countries speaks Korean right

(23:19):
or reads Korean. The fans are almost their own episode.
The fans of K pop are rabid, they are fanatically loyal.
They're found across the planet, and there are even some
what are called anti fans. Have you guys heard about this?
The the anti fans who for one reason or another

(23:40):
specifically zone in and hate a K pop band or
a performer, sometimes because they feel like that person is
um has done something wrong to a K pop performer
that they like. It's very weird like this, this is
a graphic thing, um, but the level of stalking here

(24:01):
has entered like fatal attraction, cape fear degrees of extremes.
Not to be too crass, but UH fans have in
the past sent letters proclaiming their undying love to again
people they've never met. But these letters have been written
in blood, particularly menstrual blood, at least a few cases. Yeah, okay, Well,

(24:28):
they'll even go so far as to UH set up
cameras and Mike's in the hotel rooms of traveling musicians
as these bands as they're going around, they'll like show
up early and basically bug the rooms before the band
gets there and then record them. And now I think

(24:52):
I may have mentioned this to you, ben Um, but
when I got back from a trip not too long ago, UH,
in the in the gate at the Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson Airport, UM,
there was a group of what appeared to be Japanese
or Korean school aged girls and they were wearing you know,
the traditional kind of school garb, like the you know,

(25:15):
a skirt and kind of like a uniform top, and
they were all wearing masks, so I can't quite tell
what their nationality was. And I was also from Afar,
but they all had these very pricey looking telephoto lenses
and we're all just snapvity, snapping it up at these
four dudes hanging out in the corner um looking on
their phones. Uh, And I believe they had to have

(25:37):
either been J or K pop dudes. But I'm like,
how were these these young ladies happened to be traveling
with them? Or what was the deal? Like, like are
they following them around the country? Like it's is that?
Is that a thing? Like what's up? Oh? Yeah, yeah,
I thought, Uh, the the communication network for fan groups

(25:58):
is extensive. They could probably teach intelligence agencies a few things.
To be candid they had, uh, Like I'll never forget.
I was spending some time in Koreatown in Tokyo and
we saw something kind of the same thing, just sitting
getting like a Macha tea or some or whatever kind
of coffeehouse confection, and then all of a sudden, there

(26:20):
was this mob of people with as you said, very
expensive professional grade uh telephoto lenses and they were they
were just, uh, they were waiting for these people who
literally just sort of like walked by nonchalantly, maybe one
guy pose And it was it was nuts to see
that up close. It was almost like it was almost

(26:42):
like how whale hunters or whale watchers must feel when
they're out in the boat and all of a sudden
they see this enormous thing rising from the depths. Uh.
It's it's a huge, huge, huge industry. And you know,
just just to give some numbers about how big this is. Uh,
we were talking about this off air. Uh. The true

(27:06):
financial numbers, especially for those big three studios, are a
little squirreling, at least in my opinion. I honestly think
they're being under reported. But you can you can find
some estimates. But as we're going to learn, those estimates
leave something to be desired. We can talk about some

(27:27):
specific global milestones that K pop has reached. You will
call the first YouTube video to reach one billion views.
Everybody remember what that one was. It was the very
same by sci who's interesting because he's not like your
typical K pop person in appearance. But yeah, he reached

(27:48):
the billion views, and as we record, the numbers continue
to climb for just that one video. Well, well, first
of all, that that must have had something to do
with the fact that that was one of the first
ones to really hit big in America. I think so. Yeah,
I agree, because it was huge in America, and it
was mainly because it was just funny. It was a

(28:08):
really really funny video. Um, it was really brilliantly produced
with all the dance moves and like all the crazy pyrotechnics,
but it had this tongue in cheekness to it that
I think really just hit at the time, where like
absurdist comedy was really big, like Tim and Eric and
things like that. So I think that fascination with some
of these you know, um cultural phenomenons and being able

(28:31):
to kind of glom onto the sort of absurdity of
it all really made it it go over the top
because that was the first ever K pop thing that
I was ever really intimately familiar with, and I don't
know that there's ever been another one since then that
I was as familiar with. Well here, yeah, I would agree. Um,
but let's let's imagine really quickly, how how much is

(28:53):
that worth? A billion views? On that? Now, just from
from our experience on YouTube, you you know, that's that's
probably a fairly long that's a nice chunk of money,
but you know it's it's YouTube money. It's um, you know,
it's okay, but that's not going to make anybody a
millionaire necessarily, Um, even if you did that a bunch

(29:15):
of times, you might get there eventually. And then think
about album sales now, and let's say two thousand twenty
and even the two thousand tens um album sales aren't
what they used to be because streaming became such a thing,
and you have to imagine how much money is actually
being generated by a sigh or by the biggest K

(29:39):
pop band out there right now? Ah, interesting you say that.
I would like to quote, uh, Spaceballs or any number
of Danny de Vito, Frank Reynolds subplots and always sunny
in Philadelphia. It's merchandizing, you know what I mean. That's
where a lot of the money is likely. That's a
great point, Matt. Let's talk turkey, believe it or not.
As of twin T nine, a single K pop band

(30:03):
and let's see, uh, fellow listeners follow conspiracy realist, Let's
see if you can guess who it is while you're
listening along at home. A single K pop band is
worth an estimated four point six five billion dollars US.
Can you guess? I bet you guys already know. I
think it's probably um, what is it XO close close

(30:31):
it is uh, it is what appears to be a
short grouping of English letters. It's BTS, the the elephant
in the room of k pop whenever we talk about it.
BTS was also the first K pop group to reach
number one on the Billboard Charts. Uh. They also still

(30:51):
hold the record for the best selling album in all
of South Korean history from like since the first album
came out in South Korea ever. Wow, you know, I
only learned about them when they went on Saturday Night Live.
But they were pretty great performers. That's all I really

(31:12):
know about them. They're a little bit different. K pop
fans have assured me because in a lot of a
lot of performances, you might hear that some K pop
bands are lip syncing their songs, but BTS is famous
for always actually singing the songs. And you know what,
even if you're not a fan, you gotta respect the hustle.
You gotta respect those dance moves. Those guys have it

(31:36):
on lock there on point now. They They also performed
live in front of a million people in person in
Times Square in December nineteen, ringing in the New Year,
and one billion other people tuned in via television. Those
numbers are insane. We could dedicate an entire podcast series,

(31:58):
not just the show. A series is to K pop alone,
and doubtlessly many other podcasts have, But we just wanted
to articulate the broad strokes who wanted to give you
the lay of the land. K pop is successful, it's huge,
It is a global economic force all its own. But
we would be remiss if we didn't have just like

(32:18):
a little fun with this. So we've named We've named
uh XO, we've named SI, we've named BTS, and we've
named the you know, the the group that made the
first K pop appearance back there in April. But let's see, Matt,
you found you found some other names that you wanted

(32:38):
to share with us. Huh yeah, let's do this. I
just looked up a couple of lists of what would
be considered the top selling or most popular K pop
groups that are out there right now as of I
think seven days ago. Uh So, here here's some Black
Pink Got seven Stray Kids, to Ice, t X T

(33:01):
Red Velvet n C T one, seven seventeen, Mama MoU Icon, K,
Monster x A t S, Super m Astro, gittle or
is it g idol. I think it's g idol. I
not not the authority there anyway. There's a ton Pentagon,

(33:23):
day six x one one US one US a pink
XP addition. There's just so many. Yeah, there's so many,
and you pick some great ones. I I am sorry
to inform all our fellow listeners that Stray Kids and
Twice are two different bands. For some reason, I love
the idea of a band that's just named Stray Kids

(33:44):
Twice me to Uh, they're they're just so they're so wonderful.
I love all those names. It's so much fun. It
just feels like screen names to me. Weird weird screen names.
Remember when everything needs to be so rounded by like exs,
like lower case and lower case X than the upper
case X. It wasn't a straight edge thing for a while.

(34:07):
It was in some circles. Yeah, like people would you know,
people would draw x is or even tattoo x is
on their flesh. Uh. This this is interesting because these
bands we have to emphasize it's not just about the music.
There's the fashion, there's the tone, there's accur of course,
the merchandizing. Uh, but this is not all that k

(34:30):
pop is, and it's tragic, and it's unfortunate that we
have to say that. It's the point of our episode today.
Because K pop is not all cutting edge fashion, smiling
teens and scads of money minted from catchy love songs
that are written to algorithm. K pop, you see, has
a dark side, and we're diving in after a word

(34:52):
from our sponsor. Here's where it gets crazy. Yeah, it
turns out there's a very dark side to this business
and in a lot of ways, but we're gonna be
talking about ahead reflects some of the issues that we've

(35:14):
talked about before in the music industry just globally as
well as entertainment industries across the world, especially in Hollywood
in in the United States. But it's a it's very
own brand of dark side. Just a word of warning
coming up, this will make some of you uncomfortable. We're

(35:34):
gonna be talking about um allegations of abuse, sexual and otherwise.
Just a word of warning. Let's let's talk about it. Yeah. Yeah.
For the past several years, decades, really, K pop has
encountered a number of scandals and then a greater number

(35:54):
of suppressed or hush hush scandals that give lie to
the squeaky clean image the bands and their management works
so hard to project to the outside world. Here are
just a few we wanted to want to isolate some
broad categories of issues. The first, Okay, so we mentioned
one band alone, BTS is a multibillion dollar industry by itself.

(36:18):
That's very extreme example. But there's there's no arguing that
a lot of these bands make a ton of money.
And that's our first question. That's our first issue. Who
actually gets that revenue? Who gets the money? The answer
might surprise you. Yeah, it's true. And and you know,
we're gonna see some parallels with this and and the
way artists are treated in the States too. This is

(36:40):
a much more egregious version of this. Performers signed contracts
that can last as long as fifteen years. That's insane.
We definitely don't see in terms of that length in
the United States. And just to give you an idea
of that, the terms are somewhere between seven and fifteen years,
the ones that at least I've come across. And when
you're talking about a talent contract or something like that, terms, Yeah,

(37:05):
that as Nolan saying, that's an exorbitant amount of time.
Terms are usually in the year to you know, a
couple of years, five years maybe maximum, but that's a lot. Yeah,
that's essentially like signing away your adolescents to a company,
um and you know, and that goes along with the
profit ratios as well. We're looking at eight percent seeded

(37:28):
to the company to the artists or n to the company,
and ten percent to the artists, so you're it's like
almost like a form of indentured servitude. Absolutely, and keep
in mind that if you are in a group, that
figure is even worse for you because that ten or
twenty percent is typically going to be split between you

(37:51):
and all your band members. This this is this is
important because those seven to fifteen year contracts aren't just
like put out x amount of albums, do live shows,
is requested in appearances. There there are things like uh
like morality clauses, incredibly strict rules on your public interaction,

(38:14):
even your your private interaction, and this does function at
its worst as indentured servitude. They've actually been called slave
contracts because it's meant to keep the performers entirely dependent
on their label owners. Because the way the way that
these groups are created is very competitive and people train

(38:34):
in groups for just a chance to be in a
K pop outfit. So you know, as an individual performer
in many cases that if you don't tow the line,
there are hundreds of people right behind you who will
jump at an even worse deal. It just it's just
to really expand on that for a second, and a

(38:55):
lot of the reporting about this, and and I don't
know the full reality of it, but certainly from the reporting,
the training that occurs just to essentially be auditioned at
some point or to be like a stand in um
to get into one of these groups if a member
leaves or something, you are training for literally ten years

(39:16):
before you become a member of one of these major groups.
If you're going through some of the big you know,
the big schools essentially the K pop schools that exist
out there, well, the that means they're starting you off
when you're very very young then right a lot of
times other times the ages range pretty pretty extensively there.
But I would say, yes, starting out young and going

(39:37):
through the system too, then hopefully one day get one
of those contracts and when you get into a group. Um,
I don't know if you've noticed this, But the K
pop groups range from two people to generally about five
to seven people and go up to in the dozen.
Doesn't like literally a dozen people in one group and

(39:57):
we're talking about splitting that money, you know, twenty maybe
that's yeah, And it depends on what the you know,
is that ten or that stated on paper? Is that
the actual percentage of the hall? Uh? Color me skeptical
or color me cynical. But here's here's another thing about
that age range question. Yes, starting early is advantageous because

(40:23):
there is one big difference between this type of music
industry and the pop industry here in the United States. Well,
there are many differences, but here's when a lot of
people don't think about. These groups often have kind of
hardwired expiration dates or break up dates. Because the Republic
of Korea, South Korea has mandatory military service. That means

(40:46):
that you are already on a ticking clock leading up
to the time in which you must enlist, and that
means that you have a very limited window of time
to make it big. And you also don't have a
huge opportunity to fight back against this system if you

(41:06):
if you want to, you know, get better representation or
make things better for performers overall, You're it's brilliant in
the way that it has been calculated. But unfortunately, now
like that's bad, that's terrible. But you know, we we
can't cast too much dispersion because that's the music industry

(41:27):
across the world. The world over. There's another problem which
is unfortunately shared with many other countries music industries, and
that is sexual abuse. Uh. Sexual abuse in a couple
of different ways. One of the most famous examples is
something called the Burning Sun scandal. This happened about a
year ago this month. There were several male K pop stars,

(41:52):
including a guy named Solam Grie And again we don't
speak Korean. Here's what you need to know about him.
He was a member of a boy band named Big Bang,
and he and one of his associates uh. He and
a couple of his associates former member of a group
called ft Island, and a singer and songwriter called Jung
June Young were implicated in a spy cam sexual abuse scandal.

(42:18):
The songwriter was sharing videos of women filmed without their
consent in a group chat. And when we say without
their consent, uh, this isn't um you know, this is
all terrible, but it's not like they were. They weren't
just filming people UH naked or exposed without their consent.

(42:40):
They were filming UH gang sexual assault on women who
have been drugged, women who had been plied with drink
and were unconscious or unresponsive. This is demonic stuff. And
then yeah, and then it turns out it's called Burning
Sun scandal because Sore had ties to a nightclub called

(43:02):
Burning Sun and that's where a lot of this sexual
assault took place. The UM, the three been involved, got
five and six year prison sentences. But the controversy there is,
first off, is that a fair sentence. You know, were
the UH was there massive popularity somehow swaying the public

(43:25):
toward giving them a lighter sentence, And that that leads
us to something else too, which is that UM they're
they're proving cases where K pop stars UM have been
more or less forced to sleep with powerful people in
the industry, either to advance their own career. They're sleeping

(43:47):
with someone in a position of power, or a person
in position of power tells them to go sleep with
someone else and they're sent out. This is this, This
is forced sex work, and it happens. It happening. Yeah.
According to BBC News, this is an issue that runs
pretty rampant within the industry. Where are they where there

(44:08):
are these clubs like Burning Sun that exists all over
the place, where the K pop stars will go to
to make appearances and those kinds of things, and then
because of those contracts, there's this pressure that's felt to
just go and do whatever you are told to do,
and oftentimes it is exactly what been described. Um again,

(44:30):
that's BBC News. That's not you know, some other reporting
agency that you know is fairly unknown making allegations. This
is BBC News actually doing some uh some digging into
this and this this tragic situation, combined with the terrible

(44:51):
issues with the contracts and the financial uh the opportunity
for financial corruption, those two alone would be enough to
be are horrific episode. But it doesn't stop there. There's
something There are a couple of other things we need
to talk about. Yeah, I mean, think about what it
must feel like to be kind of bred almost to

(45:12):
be this squeaky clean image. Uh not only that you know,
if pop music and of like you know, good times,
but very very uh g rated kind of uh and
also sort of an ambassador for your country. Um, there
were some folksmen and women alike who have just buckled
under the strain of these brutal schedules, rehearsal regiments and

(45:38):
just the expectation. We've got um a story about Kim
Jong Human who's seven, who was a member of shinny Um.
He took his own life in after talking about how
intense this pressure was. Uh. And of course, you know,
you think of people having extreme success and everything being
easy street, but think about the pressure, sure, and and

(46:00):
anxiety of losing everything. And I'm sure this is something
that we we've seen is wielded by some of those handlers, right. Uh.
And then we've got another one in October of twenty nineteen. Yes,
this um in October nineteen Sully five year old. She's
a former member of the girl group f x UM.

(46:21):
She also took her own life. And then just a
month later, UM woman named Gujara who was you know,
a group called Cara and then she was also a
solo performer. She um, she took her own life. And
she actually was a close friend of Suley. So the
two of them in two months and both took their

(46:45):
lives tragedy tragedy, and they're they're not the only examples
you can see, you know, it's your point. You can
see how unsustainable, in demanding it could be too to
to literally have this contract act that says you have
to be perfect. You know, you can't do a lot
of the things that normal kids do when they're teenagers,

(47:07):
are in their twenties, you know, like dating, uh maybe
maybe having a long term relationship, maybe even pursuing kids.
You have to be this seven advertisement, you know, and
that's just not how people are built to live. Well,
if you're a female, you also have to essentially starve yourself,
especially in the system, because there's again there's reporting on this,

(47:32):
and it's just to keep that ideal image. It's not
not you know, not only the ideal image outwardly as
far as your actions. It's what you look like. And
there's also a massive problem with plastic surgery where young
people are getting plastic surgery to look a very specific
way to meet these standards. And there are several alleged,

(47:55):
let's say cases where that plastic surgery was not the
choy of the individual, it was the choice of the
you know, the controlling members of that, the group, the
company essentially. Oh, and I want to point out one
thing that many of us not might not know is
that South Korea actually has the highest rate of plastic

(48:18):
surgery per capita in the world, and the most popular
surgeries are things like skin whitening, uh nose jobs and
uh double it's called double eyelid surgery. That's where you're
changed the uh state of your epicanthic fold. And it's
all to make these people more closely resemble this kind

(48:41):
of idealized physical image, you know what I mean, even
if it's unrealistic. And Ben I wanted to bring this
up because we were touching on it here. No, you're
talking about kind of that g rated lifestyle or you know,
that that state of perfection where you can't be seen
to be doing anything wrong in public. Right. And yet

(49:03):
the both males but especially females in K pop are
overtly sexualized, like so overtly sexualized. Um. And that's not
completely across the board, but I would estimate of the
groups are overly sexualized, UM, both in you know, clothing

(49:24):
that's being worn and in choreography especially and the way
that they are seen by the camera. You know that
the gaze of the camera. Um, so there's this kind
of I don't know what you call this balancing act
there between these perfect g raated people. But then also
like the way they're portraying absolutely right now you see

(49:44):
what I was getting at their right Like it's almost
like there's this squeaky clean image, Like the sexualization is
almost innuendo, you know what I mean, Like you would
never actually think of them having sex or being sexual
beings who are inn troll They're just objects. They're sort
of like anime characters or something like that that are
kind of trotted out and there's no humanity to them,

(50:07):
you know, that's the way they're portrayed. Kind of yeah,
I guess so. I think it's just uh, it reminds
me of um, somebody like Britney Spears that had that
similar thing, like if you if you remember when she
was first becoming a popular and she's portrayed as this schoolgirl,
um in this very innocent way and yet hyper sexualized.

(50:30):
So it's just, um, it's just we're you know, we're
talking about all these issues here and you can just
almost feel how the portrayal on camera. I think a
lot of times ends up being one of these major
issues where there's a disconnect between what's being seen by

(50:50):
the end user, somebody at their house, you know, watching
one of these videos. Um, there's such a disconnect between
that image that's being seen and then the actual human
being that is attempting to function within this system. Absolutely no,
I could. I completely agree with you. Yeah, yeah, same,
I think we I think we're all in agreement here. UH.

(51:11):
When you know, one terrifying aspect of this we have
to point out is you don't see this talked about
as much, but our neurological research proves that a person
in this age range, oftentimes their brain is still developing.
So being in this kind of situation can have lasting

(51:33):
effects on you know, on the structure of your mind,
which I know sounds crazy, but it is true. I'm
not being hyperbolic. There's there's one last thing we should
also talk about, and that's privacy violations in K pop
and abroad because, according to UH several social critics and

(51:54):
coldness and researchers, this sexism, this misogyny, UH that these
stars female stars in particular, but also males face is
a symptom of a larger problem in society. There's one
researcher that really stood out, Mano Lee, as a K
pop columnists and specifically talking about the problems that female

(52:18):
K pop stars face uh. Manto Lee says the following quote.
A lot of Korean women can relate to the issues
that female celebrities deal with. They have experienced it themselves. Many,
she says, feel unsafe due to the pervasiveness of molcha
m O l k A, gender based violence and victims

(52:38):
shaming and and molcha is weird. It's a portmanteau. It's uh.
It comes from two Korean words mole, which is Korean
for secret, and ka, which is the word for camera.
And so molcha means the illegal filming of women. And
it is a huge problem. And I mean this doesn't

(53:01):
pass unnoticed. I mean there's been widespread outrage over this
spy cam epidemic UH and almost cases of hidden camera
crimes were reported in the Supreme Prosecutor's office, and in
some cases camera were actually hidden in women's public toilets
and also motel rooms. Others involved things like filming UH

(53:24):
and sharing videos of women that had been taken by
their partners and former partners it's almost like revenge porn
kind of stuff that we think of in the States, right, Yeah, exactly.
There's there's one other thing I want to add, just
I don't know if people have heard about this. I
don't know how widely this has been reported in the US,
but I came across this where I was doing this

(53:45):
UH Strange News daily show. There was recently a huge
scandal related to this. UH is based on something called
the in room in t H and don't don't dive
into it unless you have a strong stomach. But essentially
what happened is a group of terrible, terrible dudes started blackmailing, UH,

(54:10):
blackmailing women, several of whom were miners in South Korea
and forcing them to film themselves doing very dehumanizing things
up to and including UH self harm, sexual assault, and
incest UH and then charging charging other people UH to

(54:33):
like they called them tickets to go into the messaging
group telegram, go into what they call these in th
rooms and watch these videos. UH. The main one of
the main guys got caught. UH. Several of the other
ones are still out there, and one of the big
conversations in South Korea now is about prosecuting the people,
the thousands of people who paid to watch these horrible

(54:57):
things that stories ongoing. We don't an answer, but that
just shows us that this uh this molcha, this this
illicit filming epidemic is huge. It's it's bigger than K
pop and you know, not a lot of things are,
but there is so there is just so much disturbing

(55:19):
and dark stuff here. This is just scratching the surface,
you know. And and remember we're talking about a profoundly
powerful industry. This is one that is more than capable
in many cases of protecting its own you know what
I mean, how much would an unscrupulous uh mover and
shaker in this industry get away with? You could skatee

(55:42):
K pop stars all along? But where where the big
names going down? You know what I mean? Well, and
they certainly haven't had their me too movement yet over there,
you know, I mean, it's happening right now, it really is.
It's beginning to happen. And the and the nth Room
case is one of the big things. There are a
lot of students that are speaking out now. Who are

(56:05):
you know, the trainee, the trainees, the ones going in
doing that like ten year stint right that we were
talking about. There have been several groups who have stood
up and said, hey, uh we these there are allegations
of sexual abuse, allegations of physical abuse, and they're just
coming forward and trying to get support while still existing

(56:26):
in this rigid system. It is a shame. And you
know this is this is where we leave off on
today's episode, but we have to be fair U. Currently,
K pop continues to grow. People love it and in
heck they should. You know, it's catchy, it's a lot
of fun. You know, the the music. If you're just

(56:49):
listening to music and you're a kid, you know, and
stuff you can dance to. H And this is also absolutely,
absolutely not to imply that K pop itself is rotten
to the core. There are hundreds of thousands of people
who are working ardently, day in, day out, and honestly
to make it in this industry. We all know entertainment's

(57:10):
brutal industry. And yes, there is a great deal of
disturbing behavior under the surface or behind the curtain, or
whatever phrase you want to use. People in power are
leveraging their authority to force performers to commit sex acts,
to force them to live in virtual poverty, driving them
to suicide, probably not purposely, but still driving them to suicide.

(57:33):
And more. But to that point at the like near
the top of the show, the music industry is the
music industry is the music industry. So industry right, So
we have to warn anyone who's too quick to criticize
South Korea's industry. Uh, lest you be quick to hop

(57:55):
on a high horse, remember many many entertainment industries across
the world, or in a glasshouse situation, you know what
I mean, We have to look at our own, our
own music industries. I mean, God knows the stories from
the US music industry alone, you know what I mean.
There there's there aren't enough trees to make the pages

(58:18):
we would need to write down those scandals. For instance.
You know, we've we've even got podcasts on our network
that's dedicated entirely to this is called disgrace Land. You
want to tell us a little bit about Yeah, sure,
it's It's a show hosted by a really talented writer
producer named Jake Brennan, and every episode is just about
you know, um, musicians doing terrible things getting caught up

(58:42):
in scandals, uh, largely of their own making um so,
it's it's definitely an interesting one. You've got things everything
from uh, Jerry Lee Lewis murdering several of his wives
and getting away with it to you know, Tupac core
story h too. There's a rapper by the name of
Big Arch who ends up involved in some light cannibalism,

(59:03):
um and and things like that. It's it's a it's
a really interesting show. And he's in the midst of
season four, I believe right now. Hey, another new show
you should be checking out is called Strange News Daily.
If you like this show, you're gonna love this one.
It's a it's a quick update on what's going on
in Strange News. Ben, you want to tell them about it? Yeah,

(59:25):
well until the until this House of Cards burns down.
Uh yeah, it's a it's a quick uh i'd say
five to fifteen minute look daily update at some of
the stories that haven't made the news. Like, you know,
it turned out that all the Dead Sea scroll fragments
in the Museum of the Bible are fake. There are forgeries.

(59:48):
We talked about updates that have happened really quickly. Comes
out Monday through Friday, available wherever you find your your
favorite shows, and you know, we want to hear from
you because we know they're statistically speaking, several of our
fellow listeners have to be K pop fans. The industry

(01:00:08):
is just that huge, So we want to hear from you.
What are some of your craziest K pop uh fan
or anti fans stories? What's your favorite group and why?
What allegations have you heard? What do you think the
future of K pop is? Tell us. You can find
us on Facebook. You can find us on Instagram. You
can find us on Twitter. Yes, we are Conspiracy Stuff
on Twitter and Facebook, Conspiracy Stuff Show on Instagram. We

(01:00:31):
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st d w y t K. You can leave us
a message. Tell us what you think about this episode,
give us suggestions for others, make us laugh, uh, tell
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you want to do, We're interested. Give us a call, Yes,

(01:00:53):
give us a call us. Know what you think, reach
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(01:01:14):
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