Variety Screen Time: An Idol’s Ongoing Battle
Competition and the competitive mindset are very evident in almost all forms of Korean pop culture. Rankings, surveys, and polls are treated very serio…
TV
Hidden Cameras: The Line Between Variety and Reality
Idols -- or entertainers in general -- and cameras have a very interesting relationship. From the start, idols are taught to eat the camera up. They ar…
From Humor to Song: Comedians in Music
To be a comedian takes wit, timing, a character, and the capacity to laugh at yourself, numerous times. It's a job I admire because it cannot possibly …
SB Exchange #18: Running Variety
Another week, another Exchange. But this isn't any normal exchange: today we take a look at one of South Korea's popular variety shows, SBS' Running Ma…
K-variety and their Over-Reliance of Guests
For a variety show to succeed, it needs to able to stand on its own with its own distinct charms. More often than not those charms lie in the main cast…
Shinhwa: Legendary Variety-dols
While idols can be charismatic on stage, performance isn't the only necessity for any idol group. K-pop runs on the devotion of fans, much of which is …
Reality Singing Competitions – When The Spotlight Fades
Like buses and really heavy rain, they never seem to come in a long while, and suddenly they all appear at the same time. Korean reality singing compet…
The Invincible Youth 2 Half-time Report: Improved but Still Flawed
I must admit to still being one of the small, but committed group that still stuck to Invincible Youth 2 and the eight girls that serve as the show’s c…
How Scripting is Ruining Running Man
It took almost two years and a terrible Big Bang episode for me to officially come to the conclusion that Running Man has lost its spark. The show that…
To the Wire: Thoughts as K-pop Star Wraps
By the time this article appears, the two contestants headed for the K-pop Star finals would have been made known. To those who have followed the show,…