2013
Marker, paper collage
14×22

Is the price of fame really worth the cost of your identity?

Continuing the theme from the post about my distaste for K-Pop idols, take a good look at this picture. Can you see what Is wrong here?

Let me tell you something I picked up about the behind the curtains of the KPOP scene. It seems these young idol stars are bound under “slave contracts,” meaning they are required to put in twice as much commitment to their career as they were paid to become stars. Their contracting companies put in millions of dollars to “groom” these youngsters into sweet eye candies for the crazed adoring fans literally stripping them down head to toe til they are hardly recognizable of their past (sometimes they have shows where you can these stars’ old high school pictures, and I am just shocked at what ” transformations” they’ve gone through. They didn’t rank South Korea the no. 1 cosmetic surgery capital of the world for nothing) and dress them up like living dolls. And in turn the stars are locked into endless hours of practice practice practice and even more rehearsals in dance, singing, speech, media etiquette, and more, not to mention stringent schedules of concerts and events and TV tapings, as well as maintenance of their images by way of diets and exercises (I’ve even watched how these poor kids had to spend 30 minutes jogging off the measly calories they just wolfed down minutes before).
Now there has been criticisms regarding the treatments of the idol stars and courts have filed disciplinary actions against the agencies, but it doesn’t seem to have made much sent into this multi-billion dollar industry. Meanwhile new idol stars continue to pop out ever week, each looking ever prettier, younger, smaller, and unnaturally talented than their predecessors.

I chose to employ the paper doll cutout method to create this picture. I made five photocopies of a single pic of a girl then I painstakingly cut and pasted different hairs, outfits, and make ups on each figure. I feel it fits perfectly in context to this topic about pop idols. It also accentuates the overall bubblegum pop aesthetics of the KPOP scene, kind of like a living 2d cartoon that’s all fantasy and not really to be taken seriously.