RokuKazami asks
Dear Simon and Martina,
I was wondering how you felt about Dongho leaving
I know that you guys are mad close homies with U-Kiss
So maybe you could provide some insight
Thanks, Yo~
U-Kiss. Mad props, Son.
So I know that a lot of you will be watching this video
because you know that we have a bit of a relationship with U-Kiss
So you're going to be wondering if we had any secret information
About why Dongho left.
As opposes to his reason
And the answer is Yes.
Dongho didn't leave because of what he said he left for
He is leaving U-Kiss because he wants to pursue his career
as a Brazilian pirate.
Captain Donghoooo~
Prettiest boy of the seven seas~
Yar, I will drink your rum and take those girls with that pair of my shoulders.
Stop girl! And hand over your ship!
As you can see that is Not the real reason.
And we don't actually have any more information for you apart from what we read in the article
Yes, we did not ask them.
We're not in a place to.
So for those of you who don't know
Dongho is from U-Kiss and he officially...
[S]Don't know, Dong-Ho
Coffee is working!
As I was saying, Dongho said that he left U-Kiss because
he is really worried about his health
and he really wants to just live a normal life
And he absolutely can not pursue that while being a K-pop idol
Now there very well could be other reasons as of why he left
But from what he suggested, let me just say...
I don't blame him.
I totally understand.
Now we don't want to make this TL;DR on Donho alone
but instead we want to focus on the pressures of the K-pop world
And Why someone might be tempted to leave it.
Because let me say...
If I was in the K-pop world, I'd leave after probably day 1.
I might make it 2 days, but that's about it.
I don't think you should have signed that 7-year contract then, Simon
Noooo waaay...
Now from our experiences and observations of the K-pop world
a little bit more behind the scenes than most people
We can honestly say that you couldn't pay us enough money to be a K-pop idol
because the Cons Clearly outweigh the Pros.
And this is just from Our perspective, for other people they might have different values and morals
but from what We value most in life, we would never want to be K-pop idols
Too many Cons for me
Shitty thing #1:
Work hours.
So I feel like most K-pop fans have a vague understanding of how hard the K-pop idols work
They Know that they work hard, but do they know How crazy their schedule is?
So most groups will have a few concerts a Day!
Not a week, a day!
Depending on their schedule they could be on a TV program
Or it could be an actual concert. It could be a radio show.
And they are just driving and bouncing from place to place every day
It's crazy!
They'll do one concert in the morning, get in the van, drive two hours away
do another concert, get in the van and drive three hours away for another concert
All in the same day.
No breaks, no nothing.
You're sleeping in vans, you're eating in vans, that's crazy.
So you know that we interviewed Crayon Pop a little while ago
and when they came in they were just So exhausted...
And after our event they were going to another event hours away
Then performing in another event and on the next day
SooZee ran into them performing at an event that she was going to
Back in Seoul.
That had nothing to do with K-pop
But they are doing all these different events that you may not actually know about.
That's tiring.
So it's like awesome that you have a successful song and single
But guess what? Now you're going to be working mad crazy hours to promote that.
Not only are you working really crazy sucky hours
But also the conditions in which you work also are kind of crazy and sucky.
Yeah, like that backstage. We've seen a lot of backstages and Green Rooms now
I was really surprised. You might have heard about K-pop idols sleeping on the ground,
or the benches or chairs, little posts like instagram photos of them falling asleep
in weird places. And that's because there's nowhere else for them to sleep.
And when people do Music Video shoots,
it's not like they shoot a music video in a course of 3 days or a week.
They get this all done in one day, non-stop.
They are taking split-shifts as of who is sleeping on the changing room floor.
It looks all cute and endearing when everyone's all snuggled up
But really, that sucks to sleep on floors!
That's not a restful sleep, my friends.
Even Brad from BuskerBusker, which was the most successful band of 2012
You would think that their Super Star status would treat them any different
But no. they worked Insane!
If you want, you can actually read the article about it in Vice.
It's crazy what these guys went through.
And that's not even Half of what happened.
They can't write Everything.
It'll be a Book!
Good lick being a vegetarian.
Whoahahoa
Here's some rice.
When I was still living in North America
I've been backstage a couple of times for TV-shows, or had friends who were make-up artists
Or people who did movie sets, and even the most basic movie
run by students. Will have catering
Small little indie sets have pretty decent food
that is being fed to the people there.
But in Korea, it just seems to be like... normal Korean delivery
And not even really good delivery.
Just whatever local delivery is around.
Here's a Donkas, here's a Kimbap.
It's the cheapest delivery.
Or if they can't get you delivery, they'll just go to a convenience store,
and they'll grab all the chips and cookies they can find and will be like
"Here, eat a bunch of chips and cookies before you perform."
What I don't get about it is that I understand that there is the actual TV-show
and there is the actual concert/venue that's hosting it
but then it should be up to the individual companies to say
"No! My K-pop group needs to have green vegetable smoothies"
"Or they need to have This kind of food. This is what they want backstage"
But you see this kind of thing falling through when you hear about girls going on diets.
CRAZY DIETS!
It's like...
One was recent with IU.
She had to lose 8lbs
and weigh what? She was 18lbs before, she's 10lbs.
She's a very small girl.
And her diet was like "I... for a day I would eat a potato and an apple"
And that's he whole freakin diet!
Why would you sound like GD?
A-Yo!
The point is that I think a company should be taking care of their K-pop idol
And if they have to go an a diet, it should be a healthy one.
It shouldn't be this crappy work environment
where they're like "YOU'RE FAT! LOSE WEIGHT! DRINK THIS WATER!"
and that's it for five days.
What solid did you have today? "An ice-cube?"
"I had some air?"
It doesn't count. That's not good. That's not a healthy work environment.
And it's not a good role-model for the rest of Korean girls as well.
Why is it going on record like a normal thing you talk about?
These people are Idols. They are called Idols for a reason.
People look up to them.
So if they are giving these shitty diets to little kids, they are going to grow up eating the same stuff.
Another terrible thing about the work conditions which you've all read about
How about the fact if you brake your ankle or sprain you neck or get into a car accident
You still have to perform!
You are on stage, in a cast and in pain because if you don't perform,
you wind up screwing the rest of the group in your entire cycle.
That sucks.
There's no workmen's compensation, there's no sick-days
You've got to go out there and perform every day of your Life!
Part #2:
Privacy
What privacy?
If you sign up to be a K-pop idol, good luck having a dating life
Which seems to be something everyone forgets about.
I mean, wouldn't you want to date someone at some point in your life?
You're singing songs about boyfriends and girlfriends
and love, and life. But p.s. you're not allowed to date...
Based on what experience can you sing these songs?
And let's say you're dating ban has been lifted from you.
Are you just going to go out there and start dating?
Uh, NO! Because you may have crazy stalker fans that are going to MURDER ANYONE YOU'RE TRYING TO DATE
And it doesn't seem to be any laws enforced.
We hear all these stories about sasaengs
Who I'm not going to call "Sasaeng fans", because they are just stalkers.
They're not fans.
There are no anti-stalking laws nor restraining orders.
You have no privacy ensured through the law if you are a K-pop idol.
And I'm sure you guys know what happened to Jonghyun from SHINee
when people found out he had a girlfriend.
People freaked out, made him feel horribly guilty, they knocked down her fan-site
He ended up crying on stage at one point somewhere and begging for forgiveness. and that's really nice guys...
So you are allowed to sing and dance about love,
but you are never allowed to actually experience it yourself.
Sucks!
Sucky!
Point #3:
Living together~
And a lot of people don't seem to consider this.
That a lot of these bands live together in dorms.
I'm not sure if you've experienced the same thing, but
living with other people can be difficult.
If you have a brother or a sister you might not necessarily like them all of the time.
If you're in college or you're out of college and you're renting a place and you've got friends
even if you're really close with them, there are going to be times when you're going to fight
and you're going to get on each other's nerves.
Now imagine: not only do you see each other every day at home,
but now you have to be in a van with them.
And you have to be backstage with them.
And you have to be with them All the Time!
I would imagine that once in a while you get on each other's nerves
Especially when someone goes into the kitchen and eats your last container of Ramyun
or maybe uses your pillow for their feet
Or uses your toothbrush in your ear.
Not everybody here is best friends for life.
There are a lot of tensions that go on off-screen.
But they always have to maintain this image if being Happy Best Friends Forever!
And sometimes living together really freakin sucks!
But not with us!
Because we're Best Friends For Life!
Just be careful because my tattoo is fresh!
Air hugs!
The point is: maintaining your social image on camera and on stage
and during interviews even if there could be inner turmoils
must be really freakin tough to do.
So those are major reasons why I would not want to be a K-pop idol
And I am sure there are many more that we don't know about,
Like if I looked up at one of the contracts I would probably run away screaming and crying
So scary... 7 years... Sign your like away...
It's me the Meems.
So a couple of things we just want to say is that having observed a lot of fan-forums
and reading different websites as well as our website
We see a lot of people saying things like
"Oh, this rookie group isn't getting recognition they deserve"
"Because they are working so hard and it's not fair"
But that argument doesn't work on us because everybody works hard.
All these K-pop idols have insane hours and insane schedules
and a lack of privacy.
So for us to pity one band over the other isn't fair.
Especially when people say things like "Oh, SNSD, Big Bang they've made it and it's unfair that they're getting recognition. They don't need it"
You think They didn't work hard when they started?
How much would it suck if you work for five years to be this band
and then people are like "Oh, well now that you're big, um... sorry"
"Sorry, we've got to give a chance to somebody else..."
So we're going to talk about a few more different points on our blog post
Make sure you clock on the link here if you want to see some more extra thoughts about this subject.
And I have a question for you guys:
Would you Still want to enter the K-pop world as an idol?
Because we Do get a lot of e-mails from people asking
Even though you know all of this information and a lot of you already know it without us telling you
Do you Still want to do it?
So what is it that's driving you?
I'm really curious to hear that from you guys.
For some people all these Cons are not bad enough to get them off the path
For us, I know that I value my time, I value my privacy more than fame and fortune.
So that's it for this week's TL;DR
If you have a question for next TL;DR leave your question in the comment section below
Or check out the questions already asked and you can thumb them up to bring them to our attention.
Or head over to our blog post and thumb up that post as well.
And don't forget to subscribe for more TL;DRs where we tell you more about Dongho's career as a Brazilian pirate
Speaking of normal lives... Hey Dongho, you're looking for a normal life?
Come here to work at the EatYourKimchi studio~
I'm sure you will Love working here.
We'll let you eat all the good stuff.
Yeah, you're going to get fan-mail.
You can be in our videos.
I'll make you coffee, I'll make you tea.
I've got a job waiting for you here.
There's a puppy and a kitty you can snuggle.
Give ma a call.
I'll hook you up?
You don't even need to speak English!