Tuesday, February 9, 2016

Changes in the Korean Entertainment Industry (Grace is back!)

Hello, everyone! I know it's been almost a year and a half, and I'm not even sure if I've ever had unofficial subscribers/followers on my blog, but I am back to blogging regularly! I'm grateful to find that people still visit my blog even though I haven't posted in so long.

A lot has changed in South Korea in the year and the half that I wasn't blogging. A lot has changed in my personal life too. I am no longer a high school student, I'm a college student now! As I skim through my last few blog posts, I see how lacking I was in my writing skills back then, and I'm determined to post better polished blog posts. I am excited to be back blogging again!

To start off my series of blog posts anew, I want to go back to how there have been many changes in Korea, I want to expand on particular the Korean entertainment scene and its changes as of this year, 2016. First off, as I was looking back on my previous blog posts I noticed how upset I was about Dongho leaving the boy group U-KISS. Now this previous-youngest-member of the group is married.

I also talked about the departure of members Nicole and Ji Young from the girl group KARA. Now the group has officially disbanded.

Asia's girl group who shine the best when all nine members are present together now has eight members.

These are just "mildly" sad news in comparison to the shocking news of other Korean celebrities. To generally describe the shocking news, I will just say that they involve lawsuits and I won't mention the names but will drop some hints. One singer is popular enough to have been in the first episode of the K-drama Dream High, playing the role of a popular singer. As I watch that episode again, after the scandal has been released, I'm saddened to think that he will no longer be invited to make such appearances in shows again. He's not a role model for rookie singers anymore. Then there's an actor who is so prominent that he's made himself known in Hollywood. I even used him as an example for celebrity endorsements in Korea and I don't think he's worthy for such considerations anymore. I had good images of these two celebrities and I can't look at them the same after these scandalous news about them.

To shift the unhappy mood, the K-pop industry didn't cave but continues to thrive even after a year and a half. In my previous "ancient" blog posts you can see how concerned I was over the future of the K-pop industry. I thought there were just too many boy and girl groups all the time. That hasn't changed, but an impressive number of boy groups and girl groups have pressed their way through all the competition and gained fame. To name just a few, there's BTS, AOA, EXID, and VIXX, Honestly, I haven't been keeping up with K-pop in so long, I just hear the really "big news" of K-pop. So the fact that those four groups popped up in my mind implies they're prominent enough. Like I said, I haven't been keeping up with K-pop so the level of fame of these groups are over my head, but I came to the point where I realized these newer groups are slowly replacing the older, kings and queens of K-pop. This saddens me too, although it's not the same as what I talk about in the previous paragraph. Maybe this just shows me how old I am.

So there's my very broad overview of the changes in the Korean entertainment industry. Famous names have been disgraced, older K-pop groups seem to be resigning their thrones to the rookie groups. Time flies.

No comments:

Post a Comment