Frank Kogan

I have this theory, which I haven't worked on much yet, that as AI takes over jobs and/if we move closer to a UBI model, people will move away from expressing their values or defining themselves through their work and concentrate more intensely on expressing their values or defining themselves through their leisure/consumption activities. You could argue it's happening already with conscientious consumption, people vowing publicly to refrain from reading white men for a year, etc.; I just suspect it will intensify. And if I’m right the criticism about stanning problematic artists becomes more potent: if I’m saying something about myself and my moral character by publicly supporting X, and X turns out to be a rapist or a pimp or just a jerk, then I can’t retreat and say, “Well, I wanted my support of X to say something about me, but not that.” (Or can I?)

This is really good, mind if I link to it from tumblr?

To specifically speak to the question of "why are folks OK with this" I have a few theories or at least related thoughts...

The first thing that comes to mind is the reason why we consume "personality" content in the first place. It's an antidote to what we're otherwise asked to do as idol fans, which
is to consume the product as if it were made by machines, not people. I remember when I was first getting into Kpop, after having been a fan of more "rockist" groups where the illusion of authenticity was a little more central to the narrative, being really turned off the disposable product vibe of Kpop. It seemed actively cruel to treat these human beings, who were pouring their blood sweat and tears visibly into the medium, like just another entertainment option, to be discarded once the novelty had worn off.

Lots of idol music is specifically about this even... about the cruelty of being thrown away by fans once you've outlived your usefulness. Like the sad ikea lamp commercial, the product looks back at you and asks, how could you? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jU-cori12KU) Except of course, idols are actually human beings and do actually have feelings, which is exactly what those "personality" shows aim to showcase.

(Some songs that are specifically coming to mind as being about need to hold on to the fans who are already moving on, or about turning yourself into a product to sell more, are 4minute-Volume Up, Infinite-The Chaser, TVXQ-Humanoids, BoyFriend-Love Style, Tara-Sexy Love, SHINEE-Breaking News, LEDApple-Let the Wind Blow, Girls Day-Don't Forget Me, Big Bang-Monster (video more than song), and a certain style of SM song the latest example of which is NCT 127-Superhuman.)

Anyway I'm not saying anything unique here about idol-as-product but I bring this up to point out that every single one of us is living in a world where we have to compartmentalize our consumption every single day. Think about the last product you bought, odds are it was produced in an unethical way and that a human being or multiple human beings had to suffer to deliver it to you at that price point. Tons of consumer goods are made by prison labor in China; generic drugs are dumped into the water supply in India; everywhere in the developing world workers and the community are suffering because of environmentally and socially exploitative factories; we all know it, but what in the world is the alternative to buying and consuming these things? You can't even know where your products are coming from - even the companies that sell the products don't know where they come from - due to how the supply chain works. In this kind of environment, learning how to ignore the provenance of the product and just enjoy the use you get out of it is almost second nature to us.

Not to mention, that with social media being what it is we are increasingly turning ourselves into products to be consumed by an uncaring world. How bad can the exploitation really be, if we are willingly exploiting ourselves? https://thenewinquiry.com/social-media-social-factory/

Now the thing with Seungri is uniquely horrifying because it concerns sexual exploitation, which is something very taboo and that really gets people who might be numb to exploitation in general. But this is the world we live in, you know?