Korean Pop Culture A common question asked during casual conversation is, “what kind of music do you listen to?” Yl answer that question with a few genres and if I include “K-pop,” people are either surprised or they have never heard of it. I have recently become more interested in K-pop music and culture after my sister, Brianne, returned from teaching English in Cheongju, South Korea for a year. SM Entertainment is an independent Korean record label, producer, and publisher. It is home to the original K-pop groups. SM Entertainment has sparked my interest in Korean pop music because, despite its porcelain outer core, the K-pop industry is tough in producing its culture. Its major focus is on marketing a perfect artificial world, In essence, Korean pop has become an iconic symbol of South Korea. SM Entertainment is a relatively new company. Established in 1995, SM is the leading producer of K-pop today. It isn’t just involved in the production of music for popular bands such as Girls Generation, Busker Busker, and F(x). It controls every move of their members and in turn lures its fan base. In a Korean culture video blog by Eat Your Kimebi, the hosts, husband and wife Simon Stawski and Martina Stawski discuss the daily lives of popular K-pop stars. SM has these bands performing multiple, maybe three or four, concerts per day. They sleep and eat in vans on their way to the next show. Rather than shooting music videos in three days to a week like the typical time range in the United States, they are all shot in one day. SM also has absolute control of the appearance of its stars. These porcelain dolls are the work of their producers and are forced a strict diet if their weight isn't acceptable to SM’s terms. Most undergo plastic surgery, even if they're in their early twenties or late teens. In an article, Made it in Ohio: Hozw Bradley Ray Moore Accidentally Conquered K-Pop, Jakob Dorof describes the hardships of the most popular band in South Korea in 2012, Busker Busker. “During that time, (the band member) was force fed a slimming diet of salad and tofa. ‘Involuntary makeup’ was an everyday ritual, and the show’s producers frequently aimed snide barbs at the musicians’ physiques. Weirder still was Superstar K’s daily request for the contestants—mostly in their twenties or late teens—to take od common diets forced on these stars a lettuce and water diet, two blocks of tofu per day, five days advantage of their gratis Botox regimens” (Dorof). The Eat Your Kimchivideo bloggers of just water, and the sweet potato and bean milk diet. SM entertainment forces these regimens on K-Pop stars in order to market its products in the best and fastest way possible, SM treats itsstars merely as products instead of people. These near to perfect faces are the ones who attract its fan base, and because of this fin base, SM continues to shape this image-based K-pop culture. My sister, Brianne, recollects hearing K-pop often as she walked the city streets of Seoul. She said that K-pop in South Korea is no different than the Billboard Top 40 in America, in terms of popularity. Not everyone enjoys the Billboard music, but it's always around. During her time in Cheongju, she joined a K-pop class where she, in a group of five or more, learned the ion this because had she not been in thi: choreography of a popular K-pop music video. I me class she probably wouldn't have been very affected by K-pop culture. When she returned to New York, she introduced me to her favorite Korean group, F(x). I was immediately interested in how perfect all five girls looked in pictures and videos. Alll of them were skinny, beautiful, and great singers and dancers, Their unrealistic beauty is what captured my attention and the attention of the entire K-pop fan base. There is a word in Korean to describe an extreme fan: ‘sasaeng fin,’ Sasaeng fans are excessively obsessed ones. They stalk their idols and invade their privacy with questionable methods. Korean video blogger Professor Oh describes common sasaeng. fan actions, “Sasaeng fans operate in an extremely organized network. Each fan is assigned a specific task. Older fans get jobs that allow them to gather private information, such as working at a credit card or phone company... popular K-pop stars have over one hundred sasaeng fans following around each member everyday... Sasaeng Taxis charge thirty dollars per hour for their fans to follow their idol. For five hundred dollars and up you can follow them the whole day.” This extreme behavior by fans isn't typically seen in other countries. While there are some obsessive fan bases, such as ‘Beliebers’ (Justin Bieber fans) and ‘Smilers’ (Miley Cyrus fans), most of them don't take such extreme measures to dissect the lives of their idols. It is the extreme involvement of SM in the lives of K-Pop stars in order to promote them well that has caused an outbreak of sasaeng fans. The more involved a producer is in the life of an artist, the better that artist is promoted. For example, the icons with the largest teen fan bases in the United States are . For example, Miley Cyrus was adored by her young fans as her alter ego, Hannah Montana. Her fans owned mostly by Disney. Disney is infamous for controlling the social life of its artist worshiped her ground as Disney made sure she stayed on a ‘responsible path’ by avoiding controversy and inappropriate content in her songs and on television. When Cyrus’ contract with Disney ended, she released her more mature and explicit personality through songs in her 2013, album, Bangers, angering and upsetting her Montana fans because she was no longer a perfectimage in their minds. K-pop stars are merely physically appealing images in the minds of their fans, SM uses this idea and amplifies it by putting its idols on strict diets and forcing them to have plastic surgery. This form of marketing, though probably immoral, is very successful. Korean pop is not merely a genre of music. With South Korea being a relatively new country with no ancient cultureof its own (much like America), i is an iconic symbol of South Korea, a form of marketing a perfect ‘world.’ K-pop is currently becoming more popular internationally and because of this, SM Entertainment is more determined to promote itself. ‘Due to its popularity, the world may eventually see a rise in this iconic symbol that is K-pop.Works Cited Darof, Jakob. Noisey. Music by Vice. n.d. . Eat Your Kimchi. n.d. . Professor Oh. n.d. .