If the idol career is so short why is it heavily glamorised and sold to young adults?

It seems kinda exploitative. Not just kpop even pop stars or influencers...I'm sure we might have atleast entertained the idea of being a pop idol as kids or teenagers but by the time we even make that transition, groups and idols were spat out and replaced by younger idols.

Though the long hours, saesangs and exploitation is known I wonder how they successfully manage to blind us into thinking it's all butterflies, rainbows and rolling in money. Ig it's the surface level... pretty clothes, trendy makeup and the love of people our own age. That seems appealing but it is cruel to pitch an extremely short lived career that many kids throw their lives away for. That's what bothers me. Why even create this want to be a celebrity if they are gonna chew and spit them out when if they worked that hard at another job they'd have privacy, freedom and even settle down in their job and family by then? I'm sleepy idk where I'm going with this.

Quote from gg-mouthpiece

I will say this honestly, if you are not going to debut in big 3 , focus on others things in life to be successful which would have less mental impact. I saw a survey that said it’s only 10% of the celebrity industry that earn more than average citizens while the rest earn less and some as much as citizens , it’s not that lucrative

Yikes. It reminds me of this. He had a good job but fumbled the bag.

I won't say this gen cuz people always been taken by celebrity culture. Like this whole fame thing tapped into this primal feeling of being wanted and loved and media in general tries to make it seem like this very essential thing. They give idols the taste of it like very aggressively promote them in the public eye and then get rid of them for a younger group before they know it. Besides big corporations that young people run to to be signed over and over I doubt anybody is benefitting besides maybe one or two stars in every industry. True that stat might not be far off.

Quote from Lulu_Key

Since k-idols idea is rooted in Japanese idol system, I speak from that.

Being an idol, was never meant to be the end goal or a permanent position.

Being idol is like being an intern in the company where you get to try bunch of different departments till you find one that suits you and you stay there.

Idol industry in Korea, experienced a big boom and became too profitable. So companies are trapping them in longer contracts and at some cases even limiting their experience in other areas so they cant move on to sth else.

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Ah this makes sense. Thank youu

Quote from the101

But I don't see how this is different than any entertainment industry in any country. Lots of people "chase their dreams" and come to work in the U.S. entertainment industry of all ages with success and failure and burn-out and good things and horrible things happening. It usually starts with "I just wanna dance" or "I just wanna sing" or "I just wanna act" or "I just wanna be famous." If you've ever been at a casting audition in the US, you can see tons of kids or teens coming out for a part. It's a grueling, sometimes demeaning business - but kpop is not exclusive in being this sort of machine.

Yeah I kinda clarified in the second line that this was not exclusive to kpop but for pop or influencers aswell. Yes its common in industries. Just the idea of fame being sold as a need when it's not sustainable bothers me a bit...