Can we stop acting like Starship Entertainment is not problematic?

I have been a Kpop fan for almost ten years. During this time, I've had the opportunity to not only get to know some amazing songs, but also to see how problematic this industry can be.

Any Kpop fan would tell you that most of the problems of this industry are caused by entertainment companies and broadcasters, and they would not be wrong at all.

However, I think that there are companies that are not under scrutiny enough for their problematic practices, and one of these is Starship Entertainment. Founded in 2008, it is home to successful Kpop acts such as SISTAR, Monsta X, WJSN, and Ive.

Since the Kpop industry has a plethora of problematic companies and practices, many Kpop youtube channels who normally call out them have seemingly glossed over a lot of questionable practices of Starship Entertainment, so I have decided to talk about everything wrong with this company. I will not talk about the group Cravity as I know very little about them.

Also, there are going to be slight references to issues related to body image and weight, so if those are sensitive topics for you, feel free to skip this article.

Chapter 1: Boyfriend (2011-2019)

Let's start with Starship's first boy group, Boyfriend, which debuted in 2011 as a six-member group and disbanded in 2019.

After being fairly successful in the first five years of their careers, after 2015 they halted their promotions in South Korea as Starship Entertainment prioritized their comebacks in Japan.

In the same year, the company debuted their second boy group Monsta X, and let Boyfriend basically disappear from the Korean entertainment industry. It has been speculated that the company had definitely shifted their focus on Monsta X, to the point that some of their songs are rumored to have been intended for Boyfriend.

Boyfriend kept declining in popularity in South Korea until they auditioned for the survival show The Unit in 2018. Only the leader Donghyun managed to pass the audition. He managed to reach the last episodes, but he ended up ranking 12th, which was not enough to debut as part of the boy group UNB.

The group ultimately disbanded in 2019 without regaining their former popularity in South Korea. Starship Entertainment could have easily prevented this by managing their Korean and Japanese promotions in a more balanced way. It is absurd that a company that had been capable of taking a group like Sistar to success has also been able to manage another group so badly at the same time.

Chapter 2: Sistar (2010-2017)

Sistar is Starship Entertainment's first girl group and first group in general. They debuted in 2010 as a four-member group and disbanded in 2017.

Often referred to as "the summer queens of Kpop", they are one of the most famous and best-selling Kpop groups in history. However, this does not mean that they were safe from Starship's problematic practices.

The issue that fans were complaining the most about when they were active was the company's alleged favoritism towards the leader and main vocalist Hyolyn. Specifically, they accused the company of promoting her solo songs and activites more than the projects of the other members. This, combined with the huge amount of lines that she got compared to the rest of the group and an article where the member Dasom claimed that the CEO of the company did not visit her in hospital when she was sick, but visited Hyolyn when she got injured, led to the latter getting a lot of hate, while the company did not change this practice.

Moreover, during Sistar's career, there have been several moments where Starship Entertainment seemed to not care about the members'health and well-being. For example, the member Soyou once fell during a concert and suffered form a minor back injury. However, she kept performing at other events even if she was clearly struggling with her pain, to the point where she was seen leaning towards Dasom for support. (Source)

Luckily, the members were close-knit and disbanded on good terms, because this would have caused so many issues in a group where the members were not on good terms to begin with. If you are familiar with Kpop, you might also be aware of the countless rumors about idols not getting along with their group mates.

Furthermore, after Sistar's disbandment in 2017, a new issue came up. As the members Bora and Hyolyn shifted companies, fans noticed that their birth dates on their profiles had been updated with their actual birth dates, which meant that they had faked their ages for the first seven years of their careers. (Source)

Later on, a friend of the member Soyou also revealed her actual birthday and age, which was different from the ones declared by Starship Entertainment. (Source)

Now, it is still unclear whether they were forced to change their birth dates or not, but this is just the beginning of a weird pattern that will recur with other groups as well.

Chapter 3: Monsta X (2015 - present)

The boy group Monsta X debuted in 2015 as a seven-member group. The final lineup was decided through the survival show No. Mercy, which aired from December 2014 to February 2015.

Even before they debuted as a group, there were already rumors surrounding the survival show. Some netizens claimed it was scripted, with the winners already being chosen before the end of the show. Some fans also claimed that the group's maknae Changkyun, who goes by the stage name I.M and was only 18 at the time, had been used for shock factor during the show. He joined the show on episode 8 and was seemingly not warmly welcomed by the other contestants, even by some of his future bandmates. While we have to be mindful of manipulation mechanics and evil editing, I.M himself said that there are parts of this experience that he would like to forget.

After their debut, the company put an extreme pressure on them to get their first win, even by not allowing them to use their phones. However, when I.M and Minhyuk injured themselves during the promotion of their song Hero, the company halted all the promotions and remained completely inactive, causing a situation that could have potentially been similar to the one of their seniors Boyfriend.

In 2017, they finally had their first win with the song Dramarama, but their popularity got jeopardized again after Starship Entertainment failed to organize an international event which eventually flopped.

In 2019, after the group had gained success after the release of Shoot out, the member Wonho got falsely accused of smoking marijuana when he was younger and of owing money to a friend, which led to him leaving the group. It is unclear whether it was his decision or the company's, but Starship could have done much more to protect him. One of his accusers, the former idol trainee Han Seo Hee, had already made up countless false rumors about other idols, such as Bigbang's TOP, so there was plenty of material to work on without letting Wonho out of the group.

Besides, all the members of Monsta X have spoken up about the company staff bodyshaming them and pressuring them to lose weight. (Source)

Considering what they went through, it comes off as no surprise that I.M decided to leave Starship Entertainment earlier this year.

Chapter 4: WJSN (2016-present)

WJSN, or Cosmic Girls, is Starship Entertainment's second girl group. Formed through a partnership with the Chinese company Yuehua Entertainment, this is Starship's first ever group with non-Korean members and, with the full lineup consisting of 13 members, its biggest group to date.

The group initially followed a very intricate concept: each member represented a zodiac sign, and the members were divided into four unit - Wonder, Joy, Sweet and Natural, hence the name WJSN.

The main issue with this premise is that, other than during the debut, the units have never been the main focus of the group and have lost importance over time. Another issue was that, just like Sistar, some members were forced to change their birth date to match it with their assigned zodiac sign.

Despite these inconsistencies in their concept, the group has always been fairly popular and successful, but this has not stopped Starship from treating them poorly.

Indeed, with WJSN Starship Entertainment has proven to be incapable of managing a group with so many members. From their debut, certain members were easily overshadowed by the ones with the main positions.

With the debut of the thirteenth member Yeonjung as a main vocalist, Starship had the opportunity and the potential of having two main vocalists - her and Dawon - with two different voices and skills, who could have easily complemented one another. Instead, they decided to focus on Yeonjung and Dawon slowly became quite underused compared to her skills.

Even during a lot of her solo projects and appearances, Starship would always make Dawon duet with Yeonjung at some point. It was as though they did not trust her at all, even though both of these vocalists are pretty much at the same level according to Kpop vocal analysts.

To make things worse, Dawon also went on hiatus at the beginning of 2022 because of anxiety. While the cause of this anxiety was never specified, idols struggling with mental health issues is nothing new and there have been way too many similar cases for us not to think about a correlation with Dawon's work environment. She eventually decided to leave Starship Entertainment a few months ago, while still remaining a member of WJSN.

The other imbalance was the treatment of the main dancer Cheng Xiao, who declared to be severely overworked as she did solo activites both in South Korea and in China. (Source)

This is probably one of the key factors in her decision to halt her activities with the group from 2018 to her definitive departure a few months ago.

Other members, on the other hand, were pretty much underutilized compared to Yeonjung, Dawon and Cheng Xiao. Two of these, the other Chinese members Xuanyi and Mei Qi, moved back to China as soon as they had the chance to participate in the survival show Produce 48 China, which skyrocketed their solo careers in China. Starting from 2018, they never promoted with WJSN again and definitely left the group at the expiration of their contracts earlier this year.

After the hiatus of Chinese members, more members of WJSN started to have more space in songs and, as the group slowly steered away from their original concept, new sub-units were formed, thus allowing more members to stand out. For example, the once overshadowed member Yeoreum is currently participating in the survival show Queendom Puzzle and has risen in popularity after covering Kai's Mmmh and for being capable to cleverly avoid Mnet's evil editing.

While I am happy that these inequalities are finally vanishing, I cannot help but wonder why it took Starship to have three members on hiatus before realizing that the others exist and can bring value just as much as the most overexposed ones. This shows that Starship is not capable of managing big groups, as they were already struggling to treat a four-member group like Sistar in a fair way for everyone involved.

Chapter 5: Ive (2021 - present)

Starship Entertainment's most recent group Ive debuted in 2021 as a six-member group and quickly became one of the best-selling and most successful groups in the fourth generation.

However, such a huge fame had its cost. From her predebut years, the member Wonyoung has received all sorts of hate comments because she ranked first in the survival programme Produce 48, which also made her and her bandmate Yujin famous.

Among the pointless hate comments, however, there was also genuine skepticism: Wonyoung had ranked first only in the last episode; she had remained consistently in the top 11 so she would have debuted with the temporary group Iz*one anyway, but it was hard to believe that she had suddenly gained so much popularity to ramp up to the first place, especially in comparison with another contestant, Sakura, who had consistently ranked first more episodes.

These suspects were proven not to be baseless when the vote manipulation scandal broke out and some employees from Starship Entertainment were indicted for the manipulation of both Produce 48 and Produce X 101's final rankings.

Aside from this being proof of a terrible work ethics overall, this means that Starship was more than willing to deliberately throw two teenage girls to the haters in the name of publicity.

After Ive's debut, the controversial practices did not stop there. The group was criticized multiple times for lip-syncing most of their supposedly live performances. This situation peaked when the members Wonyoung and Leeseo were caught lip-syncing during a performance where they were sitting and not moving much.

Needless to say, it was yet another case of Starship not trusting their artists'abilities. Sure, none of them is a main or a lead vocalist, but to act like they cannot sing at all is just an exaggeration. If they were so insecure about them, why not choosing a different duo from the group? The answer is simple: they want to push the two visuals of the group, but they do not trust their vocal abilities.

Final thoughts

Starship Entertainment is a company whose strategy is infuriating to look at. They are surely capable of building groups that can be consistently successful, but over the years they have become more and more desperate for fame at all costs and, at the same time, they seems not to trust their own artists at all, which results in inequalities, immense pressure, and young idols being thrown to the wolves for the most stupid reasons. As of now, they are still doing well, but it's easy to imagine that such a mentality will backfire in the future.

What do you think? Do you know or listen to any artist under Starship Entertainment? Tell me more in the comments!