The pressure of South Korea's celebrity culture

South Korea's entertainment industry "is enjoying massive popularity", with hundreds of millions of fans across the world, said the BBC.

But the death of actor Kim Sae-ron last Sunday in an apparent suicide has again shed a spotlight on the attention celebrities receive.

The circumstances leading to the 24-year-old star's death are "depressingly familiar" – ever since a drink-driving conviction in 2022, Kim had been "bombarded with negative press coverage and hate online".

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Her death was a shock but it was not the first to raise alarm bells about South Korea's celebrity cancel culture. And despite the pattern, analysts are sceptical that the tragedy will "lead to meaningful change".

'Condemned and ridiculed'

Kim was "one of the brightest young stars in South Korean cinema" before the drink-driving incident three years ago sparked a deluge of hate – from both cyberbullies and the media, said The Associated Press.

She posted a handwritten apology letter on Instagram and "reportedly compensated around 60 shops that lost power temporarily because of the crash". But her efforts "did little to defuse negative coverage and she struggled to find acting work".

Kim was "condemned and ridiculed for driving drunk; for talking about her financial struggles after losing roles; for taking a job at a coffee shop; for attempting a comeback in theatre; for going out with friends instead of 'showing remorse'".

Simultaneously, the young actor lost roles, "had her scenes cut from Netflix productions and was blacklisted by brands and media outlets", said Asia News Network (ANN). Any attempts to reconstruct her life were "met with further ridicule and online harassment" – a familiar story for the famous in South Korea.

'Double-edged sword'

Celebrity, or "idol", culture in South Korea is notoriously intense, with singers and actors held to high standards by both managers and fans.

Dedicated fanbases devote themselves to celebrities they admire – but Kookmin University sociology professor Choi Hang-sub told ANN that admiration is like a "double-edged sword". When fans become jealous or envious of celebrities, the attention can quickly become negative.

"Though public figures, especially celebrities, have always been held up to extremely high standards, it has gotten even more common recently to see celebrities get pushed over the edge, as people wish to feel a sense of power and pleasure from playing a part in condemning and destroying others," he said.

Online posts in particular are "notoriously harsh toward celebrities who make missteps", and the problem is only exacerbated for women, said Turkish newspaper the Daily Sabah.

Leading up to her death, Kim faced this pressure from "news organisations that capitalised on public sentiment" and from online commentators. In fact, her father "blamed a YouTuber" for her death, "claiming the controversial videos they published caused her deep emotional distress", said the BBC.

'Too scared to say anything'

Experts say South Korean media intensifies the problem, with entertainers reluctant to find treatment for mental health issues, "fearing further negative coverage", said the AP news agency.

And Kim was a clear subject of the media's scrutiny. "In the about 1,000 days between her drunk-driving crash in May 2022 and her death, South Korean news organisations published at least around 2,000 stories" about her.

She "expressed her fears about the media to reporters" in April 2023, too, "saying many articled about her private life were untrue", said AP. "I’m too scared to say anything about them," she said at the time.

Legal measures to protect celebrities from online and media-driven hatred have only stalled. After the deaths of Goo Hara and Sulli, two South Korean stars who died by suicide in 2019, "lawmakers proposed various measures to discourage harsh online comments. These included expanding real-name requirements and strengthening websites’ requirements to weed out hate speech and false information, but none of these proposed laws passed."

Heo Chanhaeng, executive director at the Center for Media Responsibility and Human Rights, said that the comment sections on entertainment stories should be shut down altogether to protect stars. "Her private life was indiscriminately reported beyond what was necessary. That’s not a legitimate matter of public interest."