K-pop has caused men's group/girl group craze in many countries. Many children hope to become celebrities, and many agency companies also hope to make a big money by making famous groups.
But what followed was the agent's manipulation and abuse of young artists with poor self-protection ability.
What is outrageous is that the routine of agents using PUA to control idol group members is no longer a patent in South Korea.
Recently, the American hot boy group "Why Don't We" (WDW) has been on the hot searches on Twitter continuously. It's not because they released a new work, but because the underage boys in the group have been abused by their agents for many years.
5 years after their debut, their experience has been unimaginable.
Could anyone be surprised that there are still boy groups in Europe and the United States? Although the definition of boy band is not quite the same as that of KPOP's boy band, they all take the route that is young and pleasing to the eye. WDW is a popular boy group in the past decade.
Five boys were solo singers or yu tube singers at first. After a chance meeting, everyone hit it off and wanted to form a group. Because they have accumulated a lot of popularity in the oil pipes, WDW was noticed by two industry bigwigs and took the initiative to ask them to be cultivated.
One of them is Randy, a tycoon who has served as president of several entertainment companies. He has made many singers famous and helped establish the famous concert venue in London O2 Arena. Another younger one is veteran agent David. Several children heard that their musical dream might be realized, and they were very excited to sign a contract with them.
As expected, WDW's resources are very good. After the first single in 16 was released, it ranked among the top in the Billboard, won multiple nominations for the MTV Awards, and also won the Disney cooperation, becoming the best combination for the Youth Choice Award.
In a short time, their videos had an amazing result of 3 billion social media traffic and 700 million views.
There are quite a lot of fans, and they are so popular that they can’t buy tickets every time they tour. WDW's success was the same as the two brokers expected.
They appeared just when Kpop was rising in Europe and the United States, and the European and American boy band fell into a termination with the disbanding and recession of the group the day before yesterday, such as One direction, Jonas brothers and other groups, and these 15 and 16-year-old children made their debut, just filled the gap in the European and American boy group market at that time.
However, WDW, which seems to be successful, lives an inhuman life under the broker.
Last week (September), WDW official Twitter post complained about these experiences.
At that time, the two agents borrowed the management methods of Korean idols, and in short, they put ubiquitous control on them. After fooling children into signing unequal treaties, they almost have the same custody as the parents of these children, forcing their children to obey their words.
Before WDW, there may not be a famous European and American boy group who had to be forced to practice in the practice room for 8 hours a day before they could rest. Sometimes they had to run for 18 hours a day.
Agent Randy bought a small house and asked all members to live together for centralized management. Ordinary artists can arrange their own time when there is no activity, but these children must abide by a set of military training routines and daily requirements. I have to get up at 10 am (it's too difficult for a child who has been tired all day) , and I confiscated my phone at 10 pm to turn off the lights and go to bed.
Is it okay to look at it like this? All the tricks that the Korean group played with were the rest, but the rest was amazing. Randy, the older one among the two brokers, received invitations to other jobs, handed over all the management rights of WDW to David. Who knew that after David became the only one, his control over five minors doubled.
WDW members said in an interview with "Billboard" that they were insulted by David almost every day for 10-20 minutes, scolded loudly, and bullied verbally. Members must obey David's orders 100%, and if they do not obey, they will be punished mentally, emotionally, and even financially.
For example, there are rules everywhere in the small house they live in. The scope of their activities in the house is strictly regulated, and five people are required to squeeze into two very small bedrooms to live together.
Because the room is too small, one of the members can only stuff the inflatable mattress under someone else's bed, and sleep on someone else's bed board...
What's so annoying is that there are other bedrooms in the house, and even the living room and the second floor have a lot of space, but they are ordered to be inaccessible.
Moreover, this house is like a glass house in a reality show, with cameras aimed at their bedrooms for monitoring throughout the day. Even when they were not working, they were prohibited from going out, and they could not contact their friends and family casually. Without David's permission, they could not go anywhere.
At that time, a member of the teenager was repeatedly instilled by David: "This is something that every artist has to experience. If you want to become famous, you have to suffer such a crime." So you dare not resist at all.
members once complained that the broker deleted
What's more, they couldn't escape. All windows will be locked at night, David is with them all day, staring at them 24 hours a day, and every night before they go to bed, he will also replace the electronic locks of all doors and windows in his home with a new password they don’t know.
That's it, David was still afraid that they would escape, so he installed an anti-theft alarm system on the house. He turned on the alarm mode after the lights were turned off, and anyone who opened the windows and doors would be found on the spot - these children were treated almost the same as prisoners.
What's more painful is that in high-intensity work and depressed life, they are also strictly restricted in their diet. These already thin teenagers can only eat the food David provides and even get fasted by David after making mistakes. For five years, members have suffered from eating disorders.
In the video of the members introducing the house, member Zach said that they actually don’t know what is in the kitchen or how to use kitchen utensils, because one is that they don’t eat in the kitchen, and the other is that they usually only eat instant noodles.
Another member Jack celebrated his birthday, her mother who lives in Pennsylvania specifically asked her agent to buy a cake for her son, but she bought a small cupcake . Jack, who was asked to lose weight, could not even eat this cupcake.
Under David's management, their refrigerators are almost empty except for milk and juice, and they are not the refrigerators that live in the homes of five teenagers.
And David's almost crazy diet management happened when Randy was still there. In a leaked recording of , member Zach ordered a bowl of salad with Randy's permission, but was caught by David.
David in the audio, in front of other members, cursed Zach, the youngest (only 15 years old at the time) in the group, swearing every word, shouting at the child: What do you think you are, who do you think you are!
Oil pipe blogger said that they were living in a military camp
Randy had been calmly asking David not to shout or scold the child, and told him, "He has the right to eat whatever he wants, and it's okay for him to order 6 basins of salads." However, David insulted him even more fiercely and said, "He has the right to have a P!" and threw things and smashed the door. Zach was frightened and sobbed next to him.
In an interview, the members joked: Sometimes they are too hungry and can only find ways to buy some snacks and hide in the quilt after the lights are turned off, and then flush the wrapping paper into the toilet. Because thrown in the trash can is likely to be found.
But after a few times, the toilet became blocked. When the toilet mechanic David hired picked up the snack packaging bags from the toilet in front of David and the boys. David had a black face in an instant, and the children were scared and sweated.They didn't talk about what happened next, but they could guess that what happened was the insults and terrible punishments. Living in fear every day, everyone is going to have a mental breakdown.
What's more excessive is that one of the boys later had a girlfriend and gave birth to a baby. The girlfriend wanted to post a photo to celebrate, but David did not allow it, and even threatened the member and his girlfriend, "If you told me that she was pregnant, I would definitely force her to have an abortion."
For these years, they have never dared to disclose these things to outsiders, for fear of being retaliated by David. Later they found the rational Randy for help. Randy was shocked by the abuse of these children, so she sued David to court and demanded that all his management rights over the WDW members be revoked. (He is not that good person, he is just relatively conscientious)
and WDW started a strike and decided that they would not continue working until David was dealt with. It is already very difficult to get to this point.
Although some fans have known their situation through clues over the years, only then did WDW members dare to speak out publicly. , and under the official recommendation of WDW, there are more niche idol group members who said: They have similar experiences.
The relationship between underage artists and agents is often extreme. Young children are not familiar with the entertainment industry and have no complete understanding of the world. Bad agents can easily exploit their desire for dreams to exploit, abuse them, and treat them as money-making machines.
Sadly, the entertainment industry is developing towards a younger age again. Even WDW only started to protect his rights after Randy's support, but not everyone who has similar experiences can meet people in the circle who are willing to help them. What's more, David, who chose to tell the truth, has been sued to court in the name of breach of contract, and his future is uncertain.
In this industry, where everything is expensive, I hope things can be handled properly in the end...
Source: British newspaper sister
