TH prefers to live an average anonymous life in South Korea over being a K-Pop star

Korea WUDC 2021 Open Semi Finals

MG | CG 

80+ | Culture

Tin Puljic

Youtube Link (Timestamped): Here 

Starting in 3,2,1

Characterization
OO bases their case on success & enjoy. Success is fickle & joy is non-existent, after that a lot of comparatives where the average anonymous person is better off.
Claim 

Why is Success fickle ?
Sub-Claim
Note that kpop is an incredibly competitive market -
Analysis
numerous stars exist at one time, numerous people want to join that market, this means that your success even if you're very successful now can end very quickly. One single scandal of collaborating with a rival group, one single wrong statement, one single sex scandal is something you can destroy your entire career. We see this in Europe with people like pewdiepie, with people like Tati. Note that insofar as this market is incredibly competitive, know that your rivals have an incentive to do this they have an incentive to set you up, they have an incentive to manufacture scandals even if this doesn't happen I think it's incredibly consistent stress insofar as you cannot enjoy your success because you're always worried about whether success is going to dissipate tomorrow.

Secondly, know that opening opposition saying there are trends literally proves that you can be a one-hit wonder. Now this does not guarantee your success in one year or two years time. This is why huge amount of these stars lose viewership after they leave for let's say compulsory military service which they are not exempt from in south korea which means a success in and of itself on their side of the house is not necessarily likely to begin with
But on the level of joy. If opening opposition concedes that these norms which are negative exist on both sides of the house, then they also concede that it's not just the industry that is toxic, it's the fans that are toxic. It is the fans that expect you to look one particular way, send you death threats and so on and so forth.
Impact

Which means that what you feel at the end of the day is you having changed yourself for someone else and this still not being enough.  In so far this adoration is what you depend on for validation and you're unlikely to get it and there's negativity bias towards these negative comments. I think you feel like bullshit.
I think they also defeat their own opt-out mechanism when they say you have this idea that you want to provide for your family and so on and so forth it's incredibly hard to leave and you feel guilty about leaving at the point where this is the avenue that you provide for your family so there is no walk out mechanism on the opposition. On the rebuttal to this which is ahaa there is liberalization couple of reasons why it doesn't happen first of all not there is a monopoly in this industry like yjc has pretty much bought out all of the lower companies which means they have no incentive to reform as far as there's no competition.
HYBE is one of the "Big 4" K-pop entertainment companies in South Korea, along with SM Entertainment, JYP Entertainment, and YG Entertainment.

Secondly, so many people want to enter this fucking industry because of the idolization that opening opposition uses as the mechanism for their arguments which means that there is the implicit idea that you don't accept these horrible conditions someone else will. So you are disincentivized against rebelling against this.

But thirdly there's path dependency - you've seen how previous stars have succeeded so you have an incentive to adapt to this if you want success but even if you do leave (Kpop industry) you're always going to be recognized on the street you're always going to remember this trauma and all of this. So it's not that you get to enjoy like your later life if you're traumatized and have to go to a therapist which you may or may not be able to pay. So we think opening opposition are not their best we prove success is unlikely repeal that joy is incredibly unlikely as for their own framework

Let's explain why we think the average person is better off. First of all, the average person gets to enjoy day-to-day joys and i think naomi gives a fantastic example for this you go to a you are a k-pop star you go to a concert and you sign this kid's autograph. you know on our side of the house you get to be the kid whose autograph is signed. The comparative within this interaction is equal in so far as both individuals are related the comparative is as the kid you go home afterwards you watch more youtube videos and you remember the best night of your life and you don't know what goes on behind the scenes for this particular star. Average individuals even if norms are negative on both sides of the house get to go to concerts, get to go to football games, get to spend time with their family, get to go for pines. They have day-to-day ways of coping with their lives which they can do without the additional stress and baggage that opening opposition concedes exist when they say that norm is on both sides of the house then comparatively these norms are worse for these k-pop stars give that they're always recognized, this is impossible to do. So on our side of the house you are able to have mechanisms to cope with the hard life that exists on both sides of the house on their side they've given you no coping mechanism apart from the fact that you have money they haven't explained how money asset offsets unhappiness

But the second response to this is we have to characterize Korean society and this is why Lovro(GW) asked that POI. In korean society, an average day-to-day life is glorified as part of Confucian culture- it is the idea that caring for your family, fulfilling obligations to people near to you, settling down with a job and living a peaceful life is something you should value. Because the value of peace is connected to the spirituality that koreans are taught transgenerationally through their families and through the educational system because this is how you achieve spiritual equilibrium if you live in harmony with others. This means that one money in and of itself is not something that is valued insofar as it's not conducive to you fulfilling the idea of peace but

Secondly it's something that you as an average korean strive towards and probably desire a middle class life because you see your family, your grandmother your grandpa telling you about how maybe times were better before when there was not this much individualism. It's probably

inculcated in you believe in the spiritual culture.

But secondly, we say most Koreans have economic security and it's not just the idea that Korea is a developed economy. “Chaebolization” is good, opening opposition. I would agree there's maybe corruption at the top but chaebol's majority of the korean economy because koreans work in family units and tables families are recruited as specific working units in specific sectors and given that they are operated largely through more of a public system than a private system, it's incredibly unlikely you get laid off insofar as this is not a competitive industry but a large republic run industry. This means that most people have economic security. And insofar as chaebols are inherited between families this means that families who are employed in a previous generation also get to inherit their spots which means that in a huge amount of situations you have the ability to pursue education, to go to these trips to enjoy all of these nice things because you have some money savings there's no harm to being a k-pop star

But even if corruption is a problem, reform is incredibly likely because recently there has been a huge anti-corruption wave within Korea. The previous prime minister was deposed because of this, the current is unlikely to win a future election because he's being targeted as passive for not reforming this because even if corruption is a problem it's likely to become egalitarian over time.
In February 2018, Choi was sentenced to 20 years in jail for corruption, influence-peddling and abuse of power. She was earlier found guilty of using her position to solicit favours for her daughter’s shaman-esque cult- “Church of Eternal Life”.Choi was found to have had used her presidential connections to pressure conglomerates - including Samsung - for millions of dollars in donations to two non-profit foundations she controlled. In August 2017, Samsung's de facto head, Lee Jae-yong, was jailed for five years for bribery and embezzlement. He was later freed in February after an appeals court reduced and suspended his sentence. Choi received a presidential pardon in 2022.

But we also think it's going to become more equilibrium into other ways. First of all, look at korea given the confucian culture I mentioned earlier is also a strong welfare state. There are things like minimum wage laws, there are things like unemployment subsidies, there are things like public housing stuff there's a huge amount of people in south korea have public housing these are policies past dependent and bipartisan on the left and the right wing which means that even if you're not a high middle class as Hamza(DPM) says you still have access to baseline security

POI
Before I get into identity liberalization, opening opposition….
“Confucianism might have been true during like the 1900s during the dictatorship but due to the fact that it was associated with Park there's a lot of backlash to that because it's interacting with forms of oppression meaning society has changed over time to appreciate forms of uniqueness more”

No Naomi, literally was the opposite. The catholic church was associated with oppression because this was the religion of the colonizers confucianism is the original korean ideology and part of the reclamation of the korean identity was arguing for these values this is why apart from a south eastern south korea where people are buddhists which is a religion most south koreans are not religious which means that even though they're conservative in terms of things such as beauty standards and how you're supposed to look they're not necessarily conservative in terms of identity suppression and this is likely to change over time
Deemed factually incorrect by editor 

FACT CHECK: Unlike many other countries in Asia, Korea was colonized not by Western imperialist powers in the late 1800s and early 1900s but by Japan and previously under the “control” of China. One of the most important factors leading to widespread acceptance of Christianity in Korea was the identification that many Christians forged with the cause of Korean nationalism during the Japanese occupation (1910–1945). During this period, Japan undertook a systematic campaign of cultural assimilation i.e spiritual reverence towards the emperor. As christianity acted as a tool for rebellion against such practices.