Dark Side Of The K-pop Industry
As more and more unpleasant issues and controversies have been exposed to the public, the K-pop industry is facing a crisis
Plagiarism
The conflict between HYBE’s girl groups ILLIT and NewJeans regarding plagiarism and defamation accusations is one of the issues that K-pop fans are paying attention to. The conflict intensified after Belift Lab’s CEO Kim Tae-ho uploaded a video to prove that ILLIT did not copy NewJeans. However, his efforts eventually resulted in an aftereffect and further fueled the dispute between HYBE and its label ADOR.
Kim Tae-ho’s explanation of plagiarism was considered a wrong move that aroused even more criticism. Instead of clearly explaining the main issue, he sparked more controversies by making comparisons with other groups such as BTS and BLACKPINK.
The legal battle regarding the plagiarism claims is currently being discussed by K-pop fans and officials. Regarding NewJeans and ILLIT, Kim Do-heon commented, “If ILLIT can bring more unique and impressive ideas, the public will know that the group is not a copy of NewJeans. I don’t understand why they keep trying to explain unrelated issues”.
Toxic fans
Amid their dispute, HYBE and ADOR are still taking strong measures against malicious comments. In June, ADOR announced their plan to sue haters who spread false rumors about NewJeans.
Source Music, another HYBE label, also showed their efforts to fight malicious commenters targeting LE SSERAFIM. This girl group was mentioned in NewJeans and ILLIT’s controversy because many believed that HYBE biased them and ignored ADOR. Belift Lab also filed complaints with the police to sue many Internet users for defamation and distributing false information about ILLIT.
The misbehavior of haters and toxic fans who don’t hesitate to make comments disparaging other idols to protect their favorite ones is also a dark side of K-pop.
New groups struggle to promote themselves
Unlike its splendid cover, K-pop groups have to compete with each other fiercely to imprint their names in the industry and gain the public’s love.
The plagiarism issue of NewJeans and ILLIT gained keen attention from the public because both groups debuted under HYBE, one of the biggest entertainment companies in Korea. If the same issue happened with rookie groups from small and unknown companies, it would not cause such a stir.
The domination of big companies leaves very little space for rookies to develop. As the media is full of articles about NewJeans, ILLIT, LE SSERAFIM, etc., promising groups like Young Posse or KISS OF LIFE have been struggling to make their names known to the public. Despite being equipped with full talents, both groups couldn’t even enter Melon TOP 40. Critic Kim Do-heon said, “SM, YG, JYP and HYBE can guarantee that the group they debut will be successful from the beginning”.
The gap between the popularity of 4th-generation girl groups has gotten clearer. While those from big companies easily captivate K-pop fans from their early days, groups coming from small companies have much lower possibility to succeed.
