3. Internship for The Next Superstar

          When I was young, I wanted to become a scientist with the ability to make an awesome robot like the ones in the Transformers series. A lot of my young friends dreamed of becoming a teacher, a doctor, or a scientist because those were the jobs that we saw from books and our daily lives. This is why I believe that getting positive influence from experiences is really important for kids. Kids are similar to sponges in that they suck up anything that they experience.

          I visited Korea over this summer and was invited by my friend to a dinner. He has a daughter who has turned 10 years old this year. I spent some time with her and asked her about what she wants to be in the future. She said that she wanted to become an idol star and half of her classmates wanted to become an idol too. According to current research I read, the most popular future job among the Korean youth is becoming a celebrity. Things have changed a lot from my childhood.

          From a realistic point of view, becominga superstar in Korea is way harder than they probably think. In order to become a star in Korea, they have to go through auditions with the serious competition and the entertainment companies take a look at their appearances, skills, potential, etc with serious consideration. Once they are picked by the entertainment company, they become unpaid trainees. Almost every entertainment company in Korea have their own training system with extreme schedules that have all kinds of lessons that they need to learn to become a star such as singing, dancing, acting, image making etc. The majority of these trainees from different companies prepare for their debut approximately 5 years from when they begin and the companies invest approximately $1 million for the debut of one team consisting of 4-5 members whether they succeed or not. In Korea, superstars are made, not born.
                                   
                           

          However, there are also problems within the years and years of intensive training system. The most of trainees start their careers in their youth and spend most of their time in the practice room with the huge pressure of surviving competition. There are so many trainees who dream of becoming the next big thing, but only a few of them make it. Rest of them will struggle with their lives after spending their entire youth while missing out on various experiences of life they would normally have. Also, trainees do not have a time to develop their unique identities. In order to become a true superstar, having his or her own unique identity is required. Things like having a unique style of music, acting, and songwriting will maintain their status as superstar. This is something that you can learn from others. This is also something that you should develop by yourself by attempting various things alone and experimenting. In this way, someone can develop their own skills and build their own identity. Honestly, I could hardly find uniqueness among the mass-produced current Korean idols. 

                            

          Japan and the U.S. where they have well-developed music industries in the world, have different ways of developingtheir stars. Japanese entertainment companies tend to let their trainees grow up as artists by themselves while self-developing and fans love to see their idols’ developmental processes. From their clumsy start to becoming a perfect star, that’s what they want to see and they become lifetime fans. The U.S. really cares about uniqueness and creativeness of their idols. A lot of famous musicians and artists developed their unique features by themselves and tried to express them. Finally they get famous and they try to keep developing their skills with creativity.     

                         
          I think Korean celebrities already have massive potential to become global stars because they have trained hard to become perfect stars and have various skills in different fields. If the companies gave a little more time to self-development and time for them to think about their identities, they will become perfect superstars with great uniqueness.