2014 has not been kind to K-pop.
Or, rather, K-pop and people have always been like this, but it’s been so easy to bury skeletons when everyone focuses on the love of fans, an “image”, and all those things symptomatic of the entertainment system.
The latest shocker, of course, is the revelation that Kim Hyunjoong of former SS501 fame has been accused of assaulting a former girlfriend, injuring her seriously to the point where she said her ribs were broken and she needed six weeks of recovery time.
People are shocked to say the least, because it seemed to come out of left field that an idol who has mostly faded from idol limelight — who has gone on to “greener” K-entertainment pastures in the form of acting — is capable of something so heinous.
But it does make you question everything, doesn’t it? What other things other idols have hidden, how they have for years appeared in front of cameras in some loving form with some kind of pre-assigned image, concept, or role that makes people forget that they are more than those things. It’s scary to think.
Thoughts?
(Image via High Cut. I know the photo has nothing to do with Kim Hyunjoong, but it seems wrong to glorify him in any manner with a nice, photoshopped photoshoot image when such allegations are underway.)
