이Article at a GlanceThe conflict between South Korea’s largest entertainment company, HYBE, and former ADOR CEO Min Hee-jin is an event that shakes the very foundations of the ‘K-entertainment industry,’ which has long been obsessed with quantitative growth. First, the balance of power between entertainment agencies and artists has collapsed. In the past, entertainment agencies held absolute dominance—so much so that the term ‘Slave Contract’ became widely used. However, their power has weakened in the face of artists who now directly communicate with fans through social media and other digital technologies. Additionally, there is growing criticism of K-pop’s aggressive marketing tactics, such as random photo cards and other promotional gimmicks. Amidst these issues, some view the conflict between HYBE and former CEO Min Hee-jin as fundamentally a clash between auditory and visual artists. As K-pop marks its 30th anniversary, it is crucial to examine the structural issues of the system that created and developed K-pop, explore ways to enhance it, and carefully assess whether anything is being sacrificed or overlooked in the process.
There are several keywords that have attracted attention in the 2024 K-pop industry like a black hole: HYBE, ADOR, Min Hee-jin, NewJeans, and more They have all made us reconsider what the ‘fundamentals’ really are.” Some criticize HYBE for taking an internal issue to the court of public opinion first. They call HYBE a ‘company without principles’ for publicly releasing ‘illegally obtained private conversations,’ such as KakaoTalk messages, to the media and engaging in personal attacks. Others label former ADOR CEO Min Heejin as a ‘person without principles,’ claiming she achieved success with the parent company’s support only to later plot to stab them in the back.”
“Even If Everything Is Falling Apart Now”
Here, we need to remind ourselves that the collapse of the fundamentals—which our ancestors have cultivated for a long time and which we believed were so deeply buried in solid ground that they could not be moved—is the very situation of our society, or of K-pop, in the 2020s.
First and foremost, the very phenomenon of the recent global K-pop boom signifies the collapse of its foundation. In 2000, when China’s xiao huangdi (‘little emperors’) flocked to H.O.T.’s Beijing concert, the term ‘Hallyu (Korean Wave)’ emerged in the local media and was at that time considered merely an unusual syndrome that spread primarily throughout Asian countries with similar cultural contexts. That sentiment continued for a while. Even in 2002, when BoA became the first Korean artist to top the Oricon chart with her Japanese debut album, ‘Listen to My Heart,’ it was regarded as both an upheaval and a historic milestone. This was despite the fact that it was essentially almost a Japanese album, with production led by the influential local agency Avex and featuring Japanese lyricists and composers, with songs sung in Japanese. When this good news came from Japan—a market regarded as an impregnable fortress with the world’s second- largest music market and strongest domestic market—some used words like ‘conquest’ or ‘occupation,’ and this event shook the very ‘fundamentals’ we had believed in for a long time to their roots. At least, that was the case at the time .
