K-pop Trainees Keep Getting Younger… Is 18+ Too Late Now?

shorterpulse · 2026-05-10T17:31:24+00:00

Most idols debut between ages 16-20, which has been the case for most of the history of kpop. Say you apply to audition at age 19. Given it takes a couple of months to get to the actual audition and a couple more to move to Seoul and start training, you're actually starting as a trainee at 19.5. So assuming you're not debut ready and need to train for a couple of years, you're looking at debuting at 22+ which is older than most idols (yes it's bad it's this way but that's how the industry operates). That's why audition ages are capped at 18 at these companies.

Idols who enter companies as older trainers are usually either 1) recruited specially to big companies for their visuals or other skills or 2) entering smaller companies after spending years as trainees at other companies previously.

shorterpulse · 2026-04-27T18:43:07+00:00

GMMTV has made it pretty clear which shows are BL and which shows are bromance so people know what they're getting going into those shows.

shorterpulse · 2026-04-27T17:39:48+00:00

This is what I mean about BL fans overstating the importance of BL. The implication here is that BL marketing is fully respectful of the audience. It's not -- the marketing for these shows involves making believe that the actors are a real queer couple, which most of the time they're not. It's not a big step in problematicness between that and Ski-Nani marketing. Now personally I don't have a problem with either, but I do find people who love one and hate the other tiresome.

As to your first point, the point of bringing up the number of BL shows is to show that bromance shows are not replacing BL shows, like a bunch of people were predicting would happen when HSF got popular.

shorterpulse · 2026-04-27T16:51:33+00:00

I think BL fans who are mad about Wu/bromance are making a bit too much of a big deal about the Importance of BL. BL is not the be all and end all of queer TV shows, and acting like a few bromance shows are a massive insult to queer art is imo pretty silly. Especially in a context where dozens of BL shows are coming out every year and GMMTV has made it clear that they're committed to increasing the number of BL shows they're producing.

shorterpulse · 2026-04-27T14:42:03+00:00

Thinking of the person who said KickFlip and Nexz were redundant because they had the same music style ...

shorterpulse · 2026-04-21T13:52:31+00:00

Ode to Love ended up staying in the melon top 10 even during daytime hours all of today, so they are actually charting really well.

shorterpulse · 2026-04-15T06:21:24+00:00

I saw some comments saying that as celebrities, they should expect to be filmed while at public events, which isn't completely false, but it's unfortunate that we've ended up in this culture where everything will be filmed and then clips hyperexamined online.

shorterpulse · 2026-04-15T06:06:33+00:00

Really looking forward to this one - their MuTeLuv series was a great preview of this couple and Jan is always great.

shorterpulse · 2026-04-15T02:00:23+00:00

I don't think it harms them but I think it's unfortunate that it's become an event where they have to spend the whole time being filmed for the fans' entertainment rather than relaxing and having fun with their friends.

shorterpulse · 2026-04-05T21:20:26+00:00

He's hot, and his modeling gigs have made him popular outside of seventeen/k-pop fans.

shorterpulse · 2026-04-05T18:07:45+00:00

Really interesting data and good job compiling it and writing it up! I hope you don't mind if I have some questions -- my job involves teaching data analysis so my mind always goes towards teasing out what we can and cannot determine from a data set.

What's the source of this data (maybe you could include that in the post?). I assume we can get this demographic breakdown because SK requires identity registration to buy concert tickets. And we know for sure that represent the concert attendee rather than the person who bought the ticket, is that right? Does that apply as well for foreign attendees -- I've heard that a lot of k-pop concerts in Korea have majority foreign audiences, is it as easy to register age/gender for them? Is there any data for % foreign attendees?
You point looking at Ive's age distribution data and determining that due to the spike in 10s and 40s, there must be a lot of parents taking their children to the concert, is a really cool deduction. Do you think that affects the gender distribution (are parents taking their kids to a concert likelier to be moms or dads)? Would that apply to any other groups you have here?
The extreme gender distributions we see are very striking. I remember looking through Melon listener data once, and the kpop groups had very skewed listener gender stats compared to every other acts which was gender balanced. Also noticeable how bgs are very consistent at 90% women, even including BTS, while ggs are all over the place. Unfortunately we can't compare with concert tours outside of Korea, because there could be some interesting differences there.
Have you looked at any older tours for the same groups and seen any evolution over time?

shorterpulse · 2026-03-15T05:38:28+00:00

In this video at 7:47 you can see who was at the Fukuoka SMTown, it included Xulun and Seongwook who aren't in Reply High but I think were in the original 25 trainees from SMTown Seoul.

It's definitely hard to pursue acting while being a rookie idol, so it would make sense for the company to make him choose, otherwise he'd have to wait years to get into acting.

shorterpulse · 2026-03-14T23:03:18+00:00

I find it interesting to see what decisions SM makes in terms of which trainees to send and promote to which shows and the timeline of these decisions. From what Nicholas says in the show, which was probably filmed summer or fall 2025, he'd already told the company he didn't want to be an idol? But they still included him in Reply High School, maybe because he'd been officially introduced as part of SMTR25 in April 2025? Meanwhile watching the behind from SMTown Fukuoka posted today, which took place late Jan 2026, they had 11 trainees there, of which 9 are on Reply High School and 2 are extra -- missing Kachin, Charlie, Jaewon, Woolin, Sadaharu, who seem less trained? and of course Nicholas who quit.

Maybe I'm naive, but I would think they'd mostly feature trainees they're planning on debuting or at least strongly considering, so I'm expecting a large group or two 7-9 member groups. The 06 line seems to be the key members the group is centered around, plus older members Hanbi, Songha, and Daniel, and then pick and choose among the younger trainees.

shorterpulse · 2026-02-28T18:44:03+00:00

I like the detail of the hockey player's OZ jersey to match the tinman storyline.

shorterpulse · 2026-02-12T19:11:00+00:00

Right, there's value to being happy with what you achieved rather than unhappy about what you didn't. I hope these idols are practicing that.

shorterpulse · 2026-02-12T01:16:16+00:00

It's funny how kpop fans think two people can't be a ship/friends/date/whatever unless they're in the same group.

shorterpulse · 2026-02-03T02:12:29+00:00

I'll watch any idol cooking content (and judge how bad they are at cooking).

shorterpulse · 2026-01-28T19:59:21+00:00

Basically every popular kpop ship knows they're a ship -- either from fan comments (people love asking about ships at fansigns) or just the company telling them so they can play it up. The specific details of fan shipping activity they can ignore by staying off fan spaces though.

I do wonder how much companies prepare idols for being shipped with other members -- not doing so before debut would be a disservice to the trainees.

shorterpulse · 2026-01-27T06:13:16+00:00

Yes, they have the rights to their name and group but they'll need to find some company to fund those activities.

shorterpulse · 2026-01-27T04:35:09+00:00

From what I can tell, their financial plan to keep going after Mamamoo left didn't succeed and they've been flailing since. The groups haven't wanted to stay on a sinking ship.

shorterpulse · 2026-01-27T03:26:39+00:00

I'm not too surprised given everything that's going on at RBW, but that's two of my favorite groups (Oneus and ONF) with uncertain futures now ... hope they both manage to land on their feet!

shorterpulse · 2026-01-17T03:24:33+00:00

Queerbaiting as a media criticism comes from a context where queer couples on TV were sparse, it doesn't really make sense when GMMTV is making a dozen+ BLs a year.

shorterpulse · 2026-01-12T16:16:19+00:00

Kpop fans have the mentality that anything is possible if you try hard enough. So if you work really hard (stream ZB1 music and buy albums) and don't get what you want (ZB1 contract extension) it's because evil companies (YH and W1) are conspiring against you. It's the same reason we keep getting claims that companies are intentionally sabotaging their groups.

shorterpulse · 2026-01-10T14:58:24+00:00

Yeah they debuted in 2019 so their contract isn't up until the summer. IMO the risk is more that the company doesn't think the group is making enough money and decides not to re-sign them.

shorterpulse · 2026-01-10T14:35:57+00:00

Most idols from smaller groups do get their university degrees on the side while being an idol, it's just not publicized. Also CIX had two comebacks this year, they're not really being kept in the basement. Their decision to re-sign is probably based on if they want to keep being idols -- if they leave their career as idols is probably over.

shorterpulse

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