K-pop
fans both in Korea and all over the world are buzzing about Dongho's
departure from the boy group, U-KISS, which you can read more about
in here. Fans' (at least the Kissmes in Korea) reaction is that
they've kind of seen it coming, rather than downright freaked out.
I've
noticed a change in Dongho as well, but I didn't think it would all
come down to this. I numbly went to the Korean portal site, Naver,
upon hearing the shocking news (Dongho was -oh the past tense...- my
favorite member in U-KISS!) and came across an interesting article.
All other related articles were pretty much the same, announcing his
departure and why, but this one was different in that it went beyond
just Dongho's departure. Unless you speak Korean, this article won't
give you any clue about it's content so I'll briefly summarize it.
Kara
fans were devastated with the recent news of member Nicole's
departure and when you list all of the other former group members of
K-pop history, there's quite a lot of them. Dongho is not the only
K-pop idol to be overwhelmed with the life of a celebrity.
We
are still in the midst of a “K-pop boom” but the aforementioned
article talks about how more and more idols will quit. In fact, there
has been a lot of unnoticed departures in unrecognized groups for
various reasons such as they couldn't gain any more popularity,
they've realized their true dreams, etc. So we're in a K-pop boom but
this may all just crash.
My
say in this is that its' about time! K-pop fans – wave away the
impulse to inflict harm on me and listen to what I have to say: for
those of you who are “veterans” to the K-pop world, you have to
agree that you've been annoyed with the K-pop boom as well, right?
I'm not saying all rookie groups have no talent and that they
shouldn't be recognized for their hard work. But you have to wonder –
where is this K-pop boom headed? The competition in the music
industry has gotten to be so tough that it's impossible for you to
compete unless you're from the “Big 4” agencies: SM, JYP, YG,
or Cube Entertainments.
So
the article also talks about whether this will be just an
“organizational end” to K-pop groups or a “collapse”? And
then it concludes by saying that looking at how 50 idol groups were
promoting in one year, it's closer to a “collapse” to K-pop idol
groups. It's easy to say that the article is jumping to conclusions
because it's just Dongho they're talking about, but like I said,
there has been considerable amount of departures. Plus Dongho has
been pretty popular so the fact that he not only left the group
U-KISS but quit his career altogether seems to be a “signal” (as
the article is titled) that this could be the collapse of idol
groups. The life of a K-pop idol group is tough, really
tough, so we'll see where the K-pop industry will go to.
(514)
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