Korea now has a movie called 12.12 : The day.
It deals the coup of General Chun Doohwan who launched a coup against an ineffective government. It was relatively bloodless, killing only a few, since the resistance was sporadic.
Chun Doohwan became the President, and he amassed a huge fortune, and his descendants are living very well.
Naturally the losers didn't really do well.
====
KPop in Dec 2010 was all in unison, with all genres now eradicated, and just one singer, who was a high school student back then, was resisting KPop at that time.
13 years ago, "Good Day was released.
Overnight, the KPop domination was over.
Lee Jieun's coup against KPop was so sudden and so unexpected that others had trouble stopping it.
Lee Jieun defeated Sistar, Kara and Big Bang in a very quick succession, and only DBSK, which was now re-debuting, brought by SM was able to stop her coup.
After the initial phase of the coup, Lee Jieun became a permanent fixture in KPOp, only SNSD stopping her. Later in 2011 she defeated SNSD and stood at the very top of KPop.
By some repots Lee Jieun is the wealthiest KPop figure of all (except for people who inherited money like Psy and Choi Shiwon, or company owners like JYP although she was also a company owner 2020-2022), outlived all of the 2nd Gen and now about to outlive 3rd Gen as well, and is set to fight it out with NewJeans in 2024.
Was her coup preventable is a question I began to inquire.
If there had been any vocalist who was as palatable as her, the person would have silenced the coup rater easily since her backing at that time was quite weak.
But , with no companies in command of defeating her, everyone just acted according to their schedule, which she exploited very well.
A weak willed establishment vs an ambitious figure usually ends with the latter winning.
No companies raised an opposition to Lee Jieun, whose ambition, hostility against KPop and the willpower to crush it have not been diminished after 13 years.
In fact, with both BTS and BlackPink operating differently from before, there seems to be no one capable of her running around like a bull in a porcelain shop.
The younger generation , with Lee Jieun being a Senior Singer, have to pay filial duty to someone who wants to destroy them, a very strange situation indeed.
The difference is there is now one Giant, Hybe, dealing with Kpop .
In 2010 SM was dominant but it was not the only company so there was no unified front possible, but in 2023, Hybe is too dominant so it could raise a force to contain her, or any challengers who might try to play the same trick like the 1,345 years old.
The improvement of tech seems to have diffused the threat of a coup by an unknown, although Fifty Fifty came close, but Hybe will always have to be vigilant about anyone else trying to pull the trick Lee Jieun or other would be coup leaders might play.
