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A
total of 80,000 people gathered at Jamsil Stadium in Seoul on Saturday
and Sunday to compete in the second regional preliminary round of the
talent search program "Superstar K" on cable TV music channel Mnet.
Traffic
along the boulevard in front of the stadium matched the level of peak
rush hours on a week day as the auditions ran all day from 11 a.m. past
9 p.m. at 27 booths. Those who took part had already passed a
preliminary round conducted over the phone with a success rate of 10:1.
A
total of 710,000 people across the country took part in the first
"Superstar K" audition back in 2009. This number rose to 1.34 million in
2010 and 1.93 million this year, equivalent to four percent of Korea's
population. The contestants varied in age from elementary school
students to senior citizens.
Seoul's Jamsil Stadium is packed
with contestants participating in a preliminary round of the talent
search program "Superstar K" on Sunday.
Koreans' desire to add
their names to the list of current celebrities has reached such heights
that 10 audition programs are now being aired on terrestrial and cable
TV stations. Most are divided into seasons and the same format is
repeated every year.
The deluge of audition programs has raised
concerns about their side effects, as many of the students who turn up
to compete do so at the expense of their studies.
"I need to be
studying for my college entrance exam, but this audition is crucial in
determining my future", said one 18-year-old female. "My parents still
don't know I'm competing".
Most
of the contestants said they wanted to challenge for auditions on
other channels, such as "Korea's Got Talent" on tvN and "Star Audition"
on MBC.
"Even if I fail, I doubt I'll regret having competed. I
plan to audition for all of the singing competition programs that are
planned for this year", said one 29-year-old office worker.
There
are even signs that people may be jeopardizing their professional
lives in order to compete, as they jump from one audition to another
with little regard for their employers in their bid to find a shortcut
to stardom.
Criminals are also capitalizing on the new trend of
audition fever. One person claiming to be a talent scout appeared at a
preliminary audition in Busan posing as a manager for famous
entertainers and received money from some contestants by promising them
fame and fortune.
At another audition in Daegu, a female
contestant alerted broadcast staff after being accosted by a man who
offered her a "special" audition. The man claimed to run a talent
agency that manages a famous girl group in the country. This prompted
organizers to put up posters at the audition hall warning contestants
not to talk to people claiming to be talent managers.
"Broadcasters
are being blinded by ratings to attract viewers and they are coming up
with their own audition programs, which is hampering efforts to
nurture new talents and promote mass culture", said Song Jong-gil, a
mass media professor at Kyonggi University.
"Once the popularity
of this fad wanes, the programs will be pulled off the air one by one
and I worry about the lingering side effects".
