we all, as kpop stans, are constantly exposed to situations of overworking, starving and exploitation to group members and trainees. lately, i have decided to watch the popstar academy documentary on netflix, and one of my initial thoughts was the reocurring reference of the ‘lack of time’ and ‘rush’ the two labels were facing. now, the intensive training & development program was meant to last one year, which included some girls who had no previous experience in certain artistic areas such as dancing. when you are a huge record label like hybe you simply cannot deny how long you keep some trainees improving for prior to their debut. for example, txt’s yeonjun trained for 4-5 years before debuting in march 2015. so there seems to be no explanation for overpressuring innocent girls just so less than one third of them can be selected to be in a girl group, which btw will have schedules after schedules, tours, promotions, fan events, etc etc. in the beginning of the series, missy and other staff kept saying “oh we don’t have time” “we hope we can carry out the debut as expected” was it that difficult to not cram years worth of severe schedules into one year, all before a secret survival show that the contestants didn’t know of? and no deadlines, no expectations so the girls would have something concrete to work for? “how about we make them live together like a whole family, teach them how to complete each other, make them perform together as a group and then make them compete against each other for a dream they all have?” furthermore the consequences were also physical: lexie had injury which had to be treated with surgery, was on a weelchair for two days and came back after WEEKS of practice wasted, scared of missing out on the competition; emily with her foot fracture that unabled her to dance for 6 weeks (most of the time she was rank #1 in dancing). and the fact this is all normalized between the whole staff team is what upsets me the most. not one single bit of acknowledgement or accountability, and i’d risk pointing out a bit of manipulation. “you all have to be grateful because missy loves you more than you can imagine” well she for sure loves her paycheck a little more. this month, hxg announced an upcoming group that contains former dream academy contestants, which guarantees the preservation of their talents. however, they also mentioned that “the japanese contestants will participate in an intensive training program from october through december”. i sincerely hope these girls have previous experience because if hxg converts an already intensive 1-year t&d program (used in dream academy) into a 3-month one it would be the end of them. but as the excitement is bigger than the concerns, everyone seems to be supporting this collaboration and the survival show/training program. i am as well excited for the group but can’t help but point out how many things are and have been wrong here for a very long time. what do you all think? submitted by /u/F4LLEN_ANG3LL [link] [comments]
