Can we now admit Chinese trainees are overhyped

  • The narrative before has been that Chinese trainees would eat K trainees alive, because they have so much talent or whatever


    But once put side by side it was observed that they aren’t better, and in some ways worse. Those that are talented are usually just not idol material. I’d say K and C idols are about even but Korean idols/trainees have the best balance of skill x visual x it-factor overall

  • godkingteshub

    Changed the title of the thread from “Can we know admit Chinese trainees are overhyped” to “Can we now admit Chinese trainees are overhyped”.
  • If they were raised traditionally and disciplined as such, yes, chinese work ethic per advertisement would have a crucible effect to raise the skill of the trainee. (note the "per advertisement," not "as advertised")


    Now-- There has been no "successful" implementation of that kind of discipline; they are not robots nor malleable stock metal so the idea that C-idols could swallow k-idols by singing better or dancing better due to their upbringing in china was pure dreaming at best.

    Edit: I will clarify that the line above this disclaimer is not saying that chinese idols are inherently worse than k-idols. I was merely stating that "Chinese upbringing is not sufficient to regularly pump out idols that are better than k-idols." <personal thought but connotation is fickle. please read all that I say on AKP for face value and face value only.>


    There have been cases of domestic C-idols that have had traditional schooling and discipline, gain a career aside from singing/performing/acting and switched gears once that was viable. Some of those have attained a reputation for being stalwart and adaptable in the face of adversity but no idol that was raised young for the purpose of being an idol has quite achieved that despite the heightened difficulty of their lives early on--korean, chinese, or otherwise.


    The c-idols mentioned above have had no competition against k-idols so there is no point of reference to compare the two. Further adding to the confusion, some other idols even fall in as both k- and c-idols.


    I must say that to hope for one type to be better than the other is quite well veiled racism (and possibly mild to the point of harmless but I'd avoid making that conclusion for now) The idea that one culture or ethnicity is objectively better than another at anything should be avoided unless an internationally peer-reviewed scientific study showed beyond a doubt that that is the case. Even the last time that happened it was quickly torn down by subsequent review and therefore invalidated.


    For me comparing the two countries is meaningless - although I do admit that chinese censorship and lack of strong indigenous culture leads to a lot of import of techniques from korea and thus muddies the water even further.


    Korean Idols have their proven track records as well and is arguably a great cultural export of South Korea as a nation. C-pop tends to stay within borders due to the sheer size of domestic consumers and sales numbers are quite hard to centralize due to distance and isolation. That being said the "deep" entertainment industry of china has been regularly joked to have power rivaling the PRC government itself and it has been shown to be a big headache for the government -- one can only speculate the size of that. Again -- incomparable due to lack of comparative evidence.


    edit and disclaimer:

    This thesis is not an admittance to the fact that there was a narrative pushed before that c-idols were better than k- idols.

    This thesis does not reach a conclusion that one country's idols are better than another. It highlights points to consider but ultimately concludes that it is perhaps not possible to reach a conclusion for that comparison or even ethical to reach such a conclusion for the comparison, not in that order.

  • I'm confused, who ever said that Chinese idols were all more talented than Korean ones? Are you referring to the fact that sometimes people mention how the Korean general public prefers to stan Korean celebrities over foreign ones, or that there was a case where a Chinese member was portrayed as a villain on a survival show? If you can give some examples that would be helpful.

  • i think the reason people say Chinese idols are 'better' (I've definitely heard this before in Asian communities, but I'm not surprised if you're only browsing in English-speaking K-Pop communities and didn't get this impression) because China has a massive population, so the people who rise to the top are supposed to be the very best of a huge talent pool, hence their visuals and talent should statistically be higher than those coming from a smaller talent pool.


    Similar to the Olympics - if you get a the top 5 percent of 1.4 billion people, and the top 5% of 50 million people, it'd be normal to assume that the top 5% of the first group would be 'better'. I know people definitely praised Chinese idols as being more technically skilled and have godlike visuals before. Not because the average Chinese person is better looking, but because they just have way more people to choose from.

  • i think the reason people say Chinese idols are 'better' (I've definitely heard this before in Asian communities, but I'm not surprised if you're only browsing in English-speaking K-Pop communities and didn't get this impression) because China has a massive population, so the people who rise to the top are supposed to be the very best of a huge talent pool, hence their visuals and talent should statistically be higher than those coming from a smaller talent pool.


    Similar to the Olympics - if you get a the top 5 percent of 1.4 billion people, and the top 5% of 50 million people, it'd be normal to assume that the top 5% of the first group would be 'better'. I know people definitely praised Chinese idols as being more technically skilled and have godlike visuals before. Not because the average Chinese person is better looking, but because they just have way more people to choose from.

    Summed up -- its more people under the bell curve. If you got more people in general , there are bound to be more outliers. Statistically speaking.

  • now this is making me curious about whether or not this kind of narrative was actually officially pushed by any of the major korean media/entertainment companies. There was a similar argument i've seen in the e-sports scene as well but nothing really confirmed as well.

  • The narrative before has been that Chinese trainees would eat K trainees alive, because they have so much talent or whatever


    But once put side by side it was observed that they aren’t better, and in some ways worse. Those that are talented are usually just not idol material. I’d say K and C idols are about even but Korean idols/trainees have the best balance of skill x visual x it-factor overall

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  • I don't remember any push of Chinese idols are super talented I remember that GP999 painted the J trainees as untalented for a minor twist I suppose, but it was the K trainees that were demonstrated in the show as having talent the most.

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