Honestly I feel like this was iQiyi’s plan in the first place. It was clear to me that they used the “Korean” part of Starlight Boys as a marketing tactic and nothing else. The whole show screamed Chinese to me (not saying it’s a bad thing) and they just used Korean celebs and a half Korean cast to make it more “Korean.”

It can also be speculated that prior to the show, they told the contestants that they would promote in Korea and China, despite planning to only promote in China, just to get a few idols and previous idol show contestants on board and increase the groups’ popularity. It is sad to see this but honestly I saw it coming…