I like K-pop because it's a perfect combination of:
- synthesized/cultivated very cute idols with nicely crafted outward personas (polite, humble, cheerful) who work hard and sacrifice for their groups ("teams") and show obedience to their elders in the group and their companies
- extremely catchy music, colorful concepts for each new album ("comeback"), meticulous styling, and insanely well-crafted music videos
- very engaging media ecosphere (livestreams, music shows with voting on apps, variety shows, reality shows, survival shows, awards shows, the Idol Star Athletics Championships, dramas casting idols, fan-meets, concerts, merchandise including light-sticks, fan cafe message-boards with unique access to the idols, direct daily YouTube content, 3rd party YouTube content (e.g., fan-cams, airport arrivals, formal greetings outside the TV studios before the music shows, etc.)
- the symbiotic relationship of fans to the idols, where the latter knows that he/she must meet fans' expectations for quality output, politeness and outward humility, professionalism, appearance, and decorum in exchange for their celebrity status and wealth
- the intimacy fans have with the companies that produce the idols and their groups; it's like being a fan of Tesla, and reading up on their new production models, concept models, launches, branding, etc.
It's all such a refined, ever-improving machine—and fans are aware that it's a machine, and that doesn't make its output, the product of sacrifice and lots of hard work, less fun/loved.
Scandals, suicides and the like are byproducts of the machine's output, and all the machine is iterating and focusing increasingly on looking after idols' well-being, with companies trying different things to make idols healthier and happier (e.g., JYP having psychologists on staff and serving healthy, organic food with an on-staff nutritionist and chef; letting idols take time off when they need to, as at an increasingly number of companies like Pledis, etc.).
The people who dismiss it, and say it's inauthentic, and say, e.g., "Japanese punk rock from 1982 is REAL music" don't get this "meta" perspective: we know what it is, and how it's made, and we're fine with it, because it's engaging and it makes us happy.
Being like Patsy and Edina/ a, sneering "In my day, we had real music: the Stones, baby — it was real and gritty: you'd wake up in a pool of your own sick dusted with heroin with Mick passed out on top of you" is tired and leaves one blind to the charms and distractions of the K-pop industry and its output.
It's like someone dismissing today's high-tech, refined luxury electric vehicles and saying "those aren't cars: you want a real car? Think the 1970 Camero, or the 1967 Mustang — those are REAL cars." It's just kind of needlessly closed-off and dismissive of the new music for what it is. It's not trying to produce classics: it's creating catchy songs that just get you through the week/month, with new stuff coming all the time. It's not haute cuisine from a tucked-away bistro in an otherwise obscure alley in Paris: it's more like ... Sweetgreen.
Disney movies are DIsney movies: we know what they are, we know they aren't high art, we know they're contrived and full of lies in their way, but they make some of us feel good when we watch them.
