PIMP MY K-POP

K-pop is big business.   In 2018, the seven-member boy band BTS (pictured above) contributed $3.5 billion to the South Korean economy through concert, album, music-streaming, and merchandise sales, along with a surge in foreign tourism.  According to Hyundai Research Institute, BTS’s economic impact last year was 26 times the average annual revenue of a midsize company in South Korea.  In 2018, BTS also took both the second and third chart positions for album of the year worldwide, solidifying K-pop’s (and South Korea’s) global “cool” brand.

YouTube video of the rapper Psy's 2012 video and song Gangnam Style.



So, it’s no accident that K-pop is a high-profile, protected industry that gets special consideration in South Korea.  In fact, K-pop has become such a vital economic sector that the Ministry of Culture has a separate department devoted to K-pop.  The musical genre has benefited from government investments in state-of-the-art, multi-million dollar concert auditoriums; refinements in hologram technology; and regulation of karaoke bars.

But this year could be different.  K-pop, with its techno beats, futuristic videos, and perfectly synchronized, squeaky-clean-looking singer/dancers has soiled its brand and threatened its fair-haired status.  This week, four boyish 30-year-old K-pop stars abruptly “retired” from their bands in the wake of some pretty seamy sexploitation scandals.  They face charges of brokering prostitution and chat room sharing of hidden camera porn of men (including one of the K-pop idols) having sex with drugged, unconscious women.  

Seungri of Big Bang, one of the accused

The scandal shines an unwelcome international spotlight on an unsavory societal problem in South Korea:  hidden camera porn, commonly known as “spycam” or “molka,” which predominantly affects women and is symptomatic of its misogynistic culture.  Tiny hidden cameras secretly film women in dressing rooms, bathroom stalls, and during private moments, like when they're having sex, and the films are then shared in online chat rooms or exchanged as gifts between male business associates.  

Yong Jun-hyung of Highlight, one of the accused

South Korea may be a modern country with an enviable trade surplus in advanced consumer electronics and dazzlingly fast Internet speed, but it lags terribly when it comes to equality for women, ranking dead last among other developed countries.  South Korea is so backward by this measure that, as reported by NPR yesterday, school curriculum teaches that victims are to blame for sexual assault.  Official police statistics registered more than 6,000 victims of molka per year between 2013 and 2017, most of them women.  The Korean Women Lawyers Association found that 89% of spycam crimes reported in 2018 were perpetrated by strangers. 

Choi Jong-hoon of FT Island, one of the accused

The boy band scandal is now exploding in several directions.  One of the detained K-pop stars, Seungri, is alleged to have supplied prostitutes to businessmen at one of Seoul’s toniest nightclubs, which in turn has raised questions of police complicity.   The business practices of the entertainment agencies that represent the accused K-pop stars have also come under fire.  The share price of one of them, YG Entertainment, has fallen more than 20 percent since the scandal first broke at the end of February.  The South Korean public is now demanding action.  A petition calling on President Moon Jae-in to crack down on predatory and corrupt practices exposed by the K-pop mess has gathered more than 200,000 signatures, and Seoul has promised to inspect every one of its 20,554 public restrooms daily, a herculean effort highlighting the extent of the problem.

Public Restroom Inspection in Seoul

Jenna Gibson, a columnist who has covered K-pop for years, notes:

There have been plenty of celebrity scandals before, including pretty serious charges like domestic abuse, but those usually ended being isolated incidents that faded from the public consciousness fairly quickly. This time, because Korea has been directly grappling with issues like MeToo, spy cams, and women's rights in general, there's no way they will let these crimes go so easily. The things these men have allegedly done hit right at the heart of the biggest societal divisions in Korea right now.  

Jung Joon-young, singer-songwriter, one of the accused

What seemed on the surface to be a wholesome, hip, and very lucrative music genre has revealed its seedy side, and the ensuing scandal threatens not just K-pop’s global brand, but Seoul’s too.  After the huge Asian financial crisis in 2012, South Korea made a big bet on soft power and threw its weight behind K-pop.  It tried to reinvent South Korea in the 21st century in the image of America in the 20th, where anything "Made in Korea" would be considered so universally cool that it would be in demand everywhere.  Now it’s looking like Seoul got pimped. 

Keep it real!
Marilyn