Does the high suicide rate of Kpop scare you?

Yes, it does scare me.

I do think it needs to be seen in the context of high suicide rates in South Korea in general.

Kids who get bullied or don't get the grades society/their parents want them to get, but also young people struggling at work to older people not being able to keep up with changes in technology or not having a lot of money to retire with.

And a lot of it is about having to meet very high standards and get punished if they don't meet them (be it by an angry dad/teacher/manager, bullying classmates or co-workers or, in the case of idols: cyberbullying online).

At the same time, Kpop became this popular because of those high standards.

Idols train for hours and hours to get great at singing, dancing and working well with their group.

But they also know they have to be loveable and funny and humble, because otherwise they get punished for it too. So they get to an almost superhuman degree of perfection in all ways that make normal people adore them. This seems to be almost unique to South Korea. I cannot for instance imagine a young group of people from a Western country working quite this hard without making any 'mistakes' (like drunk partying, dating, being petty or having an argument) that make them less 'lovable'.

I remember that a while back online comments from even Japanese users (who are no slouch in the hard-working to perfection department) showed they were impressed by how professional Kpop groups were in comparison to their own groups when they were participating in a shared event. This 'perfection or else' is the foundation for Kpop's success.

This makes it very tricky to disentangle these high expectations from Kpop.

"According to the Werther effect, some people attempt suicide as a reaction to another suicide. This applies also for South Korea. According to a study, South Korea experiences a surge in suicides after the deaths of celebrities. The study has found three out of eleven cases of celebrity suicide resulted in a higher suicide rate of the population. The study controlled for the potential effects of confounding factors, such as seasonality and unemployment rates, and yet celebrity suicides still had a strong correlation to increased rate of suicide rates for nine weeks."

Thing is I don't think we know how high it is Like relative to its contemporary industries both in and out of the country. Like most people here follow kpop primarily, so can we say it's a lot or does it seem so because it's in our field of vision more than other industries?

Yes

I dont want to sound like a jerk, but, 4 people comparing with all the amount of idols is a high suicide rate?

More like the suicide rate of young Koreans in general. The pressure on this generation must be overwhelming in a economy growing so fast.

Quote from flowerteapetal

Yes, it does scare me.

I do think it needs to be seen in the context of high suicide rates in South Korea in general.

Kids who get bullied or don't get the grades society/their parents want them to get, but also young people struggling at work to older people not being able to keep up with changes in technology or not having a lot of money to retire with.

And a lot of it is about having to meet very high standards and get punished if they don't meet them (be it by an angry dad/teacher/manager, bullying classmates or co-workers or, in the case of idols: cyberbullying online).

At the same time, Kpop became this popular because of those high standards.

Idols train for hours and hours to get great at singing, dancing and working well with their group.

But they also know they have to be loveable and funny and humble, because otherwise they get punished for it too. So they get to an almost superhuman degree of perfection in all ways that make normal people adore them. This seems to be almost unique to South Korea. I cannot for instance imagine a young group of people from a Western country working quite this hard without making any 'mistakes' (like drunk partying, dating, being petty or having an argument) that make them less 'lovable'.

I remember that a while back online comments from even Japanese users (who are no slouch in the hard-working to perfection department) showed they were impressed by how professional Kpop groups were in comparison to their own groups when they were participating in a shared event. This 'perfection or else' is the foundation for Kpop's success.

This makes it very tricky to disentangle these high expectations from Kpop.

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U say this but u bullied me yesterday

Quote from OnceMidzy4ever

I dont want to sound like a jerk, but, 4 people comparing with all the amount of idols is a high suicide rate?

In comparison i’ve never heard 4 cases in 5 years from celebrity in any single western countries, and by celebrity i’ve already made wider range including actors and media public figure. If we use similar range in south korea, it’s higher than 4 cases because i remember an actor and a comedian from last year alone

Quote from hypernova

4 high profile idols in the last 5 years and a half is high. And it doesn’t take into account the countless people who dedicated years of their lives to being trainees and not making it.

Mmmm, yeah, maybe im wrong, i should know the numbers of idols and the total numbers of suicides. But, yeah, Kpop, despite of how special is, atleast according to that famous rapper, is still a very brutal industry for the people involve.

Quote from turtleneckjoon

In comparison i’ve never heard 4 cases in 5 years from celebrity in any single western countries, and by celebrity i’ve already made wider range including actors and media public figure. If we use similar range in south korea, it’s higher than 4 cases because i remember an actor and a comedian from last year alone

The period of 5 years can be just a coincidence. Now, i can tell you, the number of US musicians who kill themselves in 5 years is more higher than 4.
Without more data we cant say nothing concrete. Altought, Korea have a high rate of suicides, so by extension, we can say kpop have a high rate, but with just the info of this four suicides we cant establish the rate. IMO

Quote from OnceMidzy4ever

The period of 5 years can be just a coincidence. Now, i can tell you, the number of US musicians who kill themselves in 5 years is more higher than 4.
Without more data we can say nothing concrete. Altought, Korea have a high rate of suicides, so by extension, we can say kpop have a high rate, but with just the info of this four suicides we cant establish the rate. IMO

yeah sure, we have to establish a concrete data control if we really going to deep it, because we’re talking about idol, we can use certain age range.

Maybe it also feels so much more than any entertainment communities because we just happened to be so in tune with kpop and not so much with others (i.e. i really like music, definitely know pop music gossips but i can’t tell what’s going on in country scene)

Quote from OnceMidzy4ever

I dont want to sound like a jerk, but, 4 people comparing with all the amount of idols is a high suicide rate?

It's not high, it's insanely high.

Let's say there are 4 thousand idols actively promoting in Korea (I believe the number is actually much lower than this). 1 death per thousand people is an absolute disaster.

The country with highest suicide rate in the world is Lesotho, with 0,87 deaths for every 1 thousand people. Heck, Korea itself has a rate of 0,21

Quote from Icaro_Ribeiro

It's not high, it's insanely high.

Let's say there are 4 thousand idols actively promoting in Korea (I believe the number is actually much lower than this). 1 death per thousand people is an absolute disaster.

The country with highest suicide rate in the world is Lesotho, with 0,87 deaths for every 1 thousand people. Heck, Korea itself has a rate of 0,21

You have to count the not actives too. But yes, putting like that is very high. My mistake was thinking in the rates per 100.000 habitants. But there is not way 100000 idols exists, lol. My bad, i suck in mathematics

flowerteapetal u bullied me yesterday and are now ignoring me when i called u out, not nice

Quote from thebadguy

flowerteapetal u bullied me yesterday and are now ignoring me when i called u out, not nice

So you're a typical bully that loves to talk shit but doesn't like it when someone stands up to them for once. Bit pathetic that after all the shit you have said on this website, you even start complaining in another thread when someone stands up to you and points out why you behave in your awful way

Your last post to me in that thread was "U screaming pretty aight for me"

What did you want me to say to that?

You're blocked now.

Quote from flowerteapetal

So you're a typical bully that loves to talk shit but doesn't like it when someone stands up to them for once. Bit pathetic that after all the shit you have said on this website, you even start complaining in another thread when someone stands up to you and points out why you behave in your awful way

Your last post to me in that thread was "U screaming pretty aight for me"

What did you want me to say to that?

You're blocked now.

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Lmao 😂😂😂😂 im blocked wtf💀

U first bully me then block me too, bruh u r next level evil😭

It's not only there. I also follow Japanese music and some celebs in Japan died on similiar terms and its so bad. I remember when for example in Japan the actor and vocalist Haruma Miura passed away, that was very tragic. I remember that the YT-channel Asian Boss did a video later on where they asked people in Japan about his passing and how they view suicide themselfs and its sad to know that most Japanese people either know someone who tried to comid suicide or has done it or they said they wanted to do it to themselfs. Both countries, Japan and Korea have it bad for how strickt they get raised, what people think of them and what they think of themselfs. Some people try to escape in their free time, which is why you see so many freakingly dressed people in big cities in Japan cause they feel free when they do whatever they want, but many people still can't feel free like they wish, because maybe the job, the family, friends,... restrict them and so they might feel lonly and helpless.

I also heard about how high the rates are for some other countries and its shockingly. Greenland for example isn't that big but still has a high suicide rate because of the mostly weather and social impact that people have to be surounded by like feeling you can't do much, the allways cold weather, your mostly outfashioned thinking friends and family,... make it hard for some people. I remember I also saw a YT channel from Greenland once where a woman talked to a friend that is from Greenland and trans and her friend said its so bad for her, that she also almost thought of suicide once.

In bigger populated countries its often the social suroundings that make you feel this way, like it could be that people judge you by how you look and there are more people that could be mean to you, but also the job can play a big role. Many people who die on suicide in big countries have different reasons than those in small countries but at the end its still similiar to eachother. Most people do suicide in hope to escape from their problems, even if they don't realise that they will hurt their beloved family and friends by doing so.