South Korea, in fact, every K-pop fan is in mourning. On 19 April, Korean singer Moon Bin was found dead in his apartment. The cause of death is still unknown, but the police say that it was most likely suicide. Moon Bin, 25 was part of a pop band called Astro.
His death has left fans from South Korea and the world across Santiago, Chile shocked. They cannot believe a successful famous and thriving pop star would take his life first, listening to the fans.
This is not the first incident of the alleged suicide of K-pop artists. Recently, Korean actress, Jung Chae-yul, 26 was found dead in Seoul. Last year, another actress, Yoo Ju-eun was also found dead in her room.
Why so many suicides in the Korean entertainment Industry?
After so many dead, it is clearly visible that there's something wrong in the industry, something that's pushing young people to suicide. The question is in one word, it's pressure.
The struggle, which is required to reach the top becomes unbearable sometimes. South Korea's K-pop industry is like an assembly chain only the best products make it out. It starts off with auditions. 1000s of children attend these events with their parents and the chances are decimal. The report says that 700 to one meaning if 700 children turn up, one gets selected 699 Children are rejected. They're trained in vocals, dance and Korean. The diet is bad, because it's about looks and not nutrition and the training is hard because it's about money and not having fun.
What South Korean govt is doing to stop suicides?
In 2021, the South Korean government unveiled a plan to aid in preventing celebrity suicides and the imitative deaths of followers after the ministries of education, health and welfare jointly discussed the issue.
Last year, over a thousand more psychological consultations, have been conducted by the Korean Creative Content Agency (KOCCA), according to government data. The nation's mental health organisation also started its “Heart Relief Bus” to more film sets and made provisions of giving financial aid and reimbursement for medical costs to entertainment professionals with unstable incomes. Still, these efforts from the government side not proving enough.
What reasons behind Korea’s high suicide rate?
The current government does not talk much about the question is what is the solution. Many South Koreans do not talk about mental health, they think it's taboo and it comes from conservative philosophy, which is derived in part from traditional Confucian social conservatism.
This mindset reflects in South Korea's overall suicide numbers, the highest among developed nations. Around 13,000 people died by suicide in South Korea in 2021 and the rate is 26 deaths per 100,000 people. In India, it's around 12.
Why South Korea needs its entertainment industry more than other countries?
Apart from the debate, what does the government do or doesn’t do to stop deaths in the industry? It is widely known that the Korean govt is itself one of the main stakeholders in this industry.
Recently, BTS, the most famous boy band performed in United Nations. During North Korea’s Kim visit to Seoul, a girl band called Red Velvet toured with him.
South Korea has been using its K-pop industry as a tool in its foreign policy for quite some time. It also benefited Korea’s tourism sector, a key factor in economic expansion.
In Korea, tourism contributed 4.7 per cent of the GDP in 2018 and is expected to sustain 1.4 million jobs, or 5.3 per cent of all employment. In 2018, travel exports made up 15.5 per cent of all service exports.
Hallyu, the “Korean wave,” which has strived to increase influence since the late 1990s, is what gives K-pop its capacity to be an expression of soft power on a worldwide scale. K-pop's popularity is the result of a Korean revamp of the arts and entertainment industries in order to overtly project cultural authority.