Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
While there’s been plenty of disturbing news going around at the moment, it’s truly remarkable that the most disturbing might be that they’re going through with the Under 15 show that was teased (and covered here) last year.
Under 15 is an upcoming audition program to find a vocal-centric girl group for worldwide promotion, and it’s being put together by PD Seo Hye Jin, who is behind Mr. Trot, Miss Trot, The King Of Singers, and Korean-Japanese Singers Competition.
While there’s a history of success there, it’s making news for other reasons, as the program is recruiting children from 3-15 years of age from over 70 countries, and the PD wants the group to be younger than NewJeans‘ age at debut (16.4). When asked about the surprisingly young age requirements, the PD couldn’t be clearer that she believes the success of younger girl group reflects what the audience wants.
Conceptually, I thought it was disturbing enough, but the implementation is honestly worse than I thought. As the name implies, all the contestants are 15 and under, but as the lead picture shows, there are a disturbing number of them who are as young as 8 or 9 years old.
Out of 59 total contestants, their birth years are broken down as follows:
- 2009 – 9
- 2010 – 4
- 2011 – 11
- 2012 – 10
- 2013 – 10
- 2014 – 6
- 2015 – 4
- 2016 – 5
So at least 42% of them are pre-teens, and potentially as high as 59% of the contestants.
Honestly, I was uncomfortable even scrolling through the Instagram account to get those totals, and the more you see of the show, the more it’s difficult to imagine watching it.
Unsettling.
