Throughout the last decade, K-Pop has become a world-wide sensation, blowing up the music industry and taking over the planet. In 2005, its popularity rose in South Korea and started to peak in 2012 internationally. Each era of K-Pop is different—starting with  the first generation in 1996-2002, the second from 2004-2010, the third from 2012-2017, and now up to the fourth that we are currently in. But as the industry expands, lots of issues are being raised by the fans.

First of all, there has been an increase in the amount of underage idols debuting. For a while, the singer, BoA (active since 2000), held the record of youngest idol to debut at thirteen years and nine months. In the summer of 2022, Lapillus’s Haeun broke the long-standing record, debuting at thirteen years and seven months. Although there have been a few idols in the past who debuted at young ages, they have become much more frequent now: examples include IVE’s Leeseo, NewJeans’ Hyein and CLASS:y’s Seonyou who all debuted at 14. Groups are facing more scrutiny because companies are giving young groups mature concepts with suggestive lyrics/choreography.

Nowadays, a lot of older K-Pop fans feel that 4th Gen is more interested in visuals and idols have no talent. There have been many issues involving groups like aespa and IVE who lip sync on live stage. Some feel that idols are a lot more focused on TikTok challenges rather than talent and that they don’t show their true personality on camera. Netizens are annoyed with the amount of scandals surrounding the groups and speculate that the companies are using scandals to help the group gain popularity.

The songs have also deteriorated in quality. There has been a lot of hate involving NMIXX’s songs because people feel like the lyrics have no meaning. Another popular group, ITZY, used to have a love yourself concept with songs like “Dalla Dalla,” “Icy,” and “Wannabe,” all highlighting that you should be yourself, instead of caring about what other people think of you. However, some of their more recent songs show that they are losing their concept with confusing lyrics talking about love. Some of YG’s groups’ songs seem like rip-offs, such as the song, “Pink Venom,” which took numerous lines from other iconic songs, and “JIKJIN” by Treasure takes lines from Blackpink’s “As If It’s Your Last” and “How You Like That.” Although Treasure and Blackpink are both under YG, it’s still disappointing that YG is reusing lines. “Boys Like You” by ITZY sounds very similar to Love Story. Additionally, there have been complaints about how many beat drops and changes of beat there are in songs.

Although the 4th generation idols are talented with good visuals and dance, everything seems to be so rushed. Even the song lengths are going down. It’s unfortunate to see that a lot of groups are dying and more new ones are debuting at such a young age. The song production value is also diminishing. In addition, a lot of people are focusing on the bad groups instead of the good ones, and now that BTS is in the military, K-Pop is entering a very dark age. K-Pop fans are clear in their concerns and are hopeful for a better 5th generation - one that sticks to the roots of what K-Pop used to be.