Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
Loossemble (and LOONA) members Yeojin and Vivi recently told an all-too-familiar tale from the K-pop playbook, one of extreme and company-mandated dieting to young idols. The pair talked about one incident in particular that had the people in charge of them confiscate everything that belonged to them, not only food but supplements as well.
YeoJin began by asking Vivi, “Do you remember that one time, unnie? When we were all on a strict diet, and they came to our dorm and confiscated everything in the fridge.”
YeoJin explained, “See, say that I ate a burger. But it was a month ago. It was an old receipt, and it came out of the pocket of something that I don’t wear often.”
“Well, that’s when hell begins. Someone will shout, ‘Everyone, come out at once!’. They confiscated everything. Our wallets, too. All the food in the refrigerator. Even condiments like salt and sugar. Even vitamin supplements and ginseng extract.”
After that, they said they were only allowed to eat two eggs and half an apple in a day, which I have to assume was temporary at least because I’m pretty sure that’s not enough to survive with their schedules. Regardless, that’s sorta bordering on torture, at least to somebody like me.
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While not an unfamiliar story from idols, many netizens, both in Korea and abroad, have called this out as terrible treatment by their company and have not incorrectly concluded it’s abusive behavior.
It’s also interesting because this mostly dovetails pretty accurately with the complaints of FIFTY FIFTY in regards to their highly restrictive diets, yet of course the reactions were 180 degrees the other way to that story. The primary difference is basically the assumption that there’s tampering involved with them, and thus it was relevant who did the dumping of food. We’ll see if that’s even the case eventually, but regardless, we should be able to agree that both situations are pretty clearly terrible whether it’s a norm in K-pop or not.
