Girls' Generation Stylist Underpaid? K-Pop Artists' Salaries Raise More Questions

Long-time Girls' Generation stylist, Seo Soo-kyung, who has been with the group since 2011, hinted about a deep-rooted problem in the Korean Pop Culture with regard to the artists' salaries. Apparently, K-Pop artists and the people behind them were underpaid compared to their counterparts internationally. Early this year, Korea's National Tax service found that female K-pop artists were paid lower than their male counterparts.

A major part of every K-Pop artist's career is television. The agencies behind them always wee to it that they have all the needed exposure for their careers to move forward. Girls' Generation stylist Seo Soo-kyung, however, revealed that K-Pop idols and their agencies were underpaid for their television shows and appearances as compared to international artists. This trickled down to other artists working with these stars and the agencies.

"K-Pop artists and people working with them, such as stylists and managers, are usually lowly paid, as K-Pop agencies don't get paid much from working with TV stations," the Girls' Generation stylist was quoted as saying by The Korea Herald. In her case, she started at a point where she renders services for free. It was only after three months that she was finally paid $265. Stylists like her were forced to earn more through other projects, like commercials and other forms of advertisements. However, ad agencies had the tendency to complain against stylists who were asking for higher talent fees.

Because of her personal experience, the Girls' Generation stylist has been aiming for better treatment for the future stylists. Since she has also been teaching styling at Chungkang College of Cultural Industries, it is her personal advocacy to teach them how to assert for pays that are proportionate to their artistic abilities. She says that she will start by teaching students on how to create highly artistic fashion content.

This revelation from the Girls' Generation stylist came months after the Korea's National Tax Service found that male and female actors and singers were paid differently. On the average, male actors were paid $39, 795 while their female counterparts were paid on average $32, 175. The same was observed between male and female singers - the former was paid $76, 204 on average while the latter was paid $31, 328.