PB4 is going to be complete within small groups of 3-4, we received ‘institution’ as an area to be explore upon. We were very confused of what we are going to do upon this area, so we started with brainstorming of what do we think of when we looked at the word institution. I first think of schools, church and company, they are the most obvious institutions we see the most.
What are the others that might or seat on the edge of institution? Institution is a broad range, so we have to pick a specific area to focus on. Institution let me think of k-pop, Korean pop music is blowing all around the world and attracts different age level’s followers. Myself as one of them who are very addicted to K-pop, the movies, music videos, dramas and variety shows, most people are attracted by the idol groups. They can sing, dance, acting and they are good looking, before the idols debut, they have to pass audition of a particular entertainment. After they have entered the entertainment, they are arranged to learn to be a celebrity and this is what people called ‘trainers’ before debut. There is no time limit of training time, some trainers are lucky so they can debut within a short training time, but some trainers have been practice for more than 10 years. The trainers practice dance, singing, acting, how to show up in the public etc. everyday and they get an evaluation exam after a period of time.
Recently, there is a popular variety show called ‘Produce 101’. Which means 101 trainers were selected from every entertainment in Korea and combines to make this variety show, at the final chapter of this show, the judges will pick 11 from 101 to debut. Although this variety show creates a huge reverberation in the k-pop industry, lots of people have argued that as the 101 of them were select out from each company to the public, so they do not belong to any entertainment anymore. Amount of them are not even over 18 years old, so many people think they are not allowed to release songs and perform in the public as celebrities before they actually belong to an entertainment.
Kpop is an interesting topic to me as it sits on the edge of institution, but we can still argue it not include in institution just as a culture.