This is another kpop inspired post however as I stated in another post I love to people watch. This includes celebrities.

So anyway, one thing about kpop is that the industry and fans are obsessed with beauty. Yes, I am including fans too. The most common insult nowadays is someone saying your fav is mid, or your fav is ugly. I find this so stupid because to be hired as an idol you have to be good looking or they will make you good looking (plastic surgery).

SM is famous for only hiring a certain type of beauty and there are idols who are known for their beauty. It is their thing.

Back in the day *in my grandma voice* there used to be a position called Visual. It still exists technically but the labelled Visuals nowadays resist that and eventually get rid of the title. And with Gen 5 I don’t think it exists at all but correct me if I’m wrong. But yes, Visuals their only role in their group was to serve face. They would get the most screentime in music videos but the least amount of singing lines. In the end they would usually become actors or MCs or if they had a good personality variety show hosts.

As I mentioned the Visual is a role no one seems to want anymore. Let’s start with Hyunjin.

When Hyunjin was a trainee he worked really hard on his dancing right? He also worked on his singing. However, his dancing really, he worked hard. He’s part of danceracha for a reason. I remember he talked about how a fellow trainee asked him why he was working so hard when he had a face like that, he would of course debut due to his beauty. Hyunjin did not like that, he said, “I rebuke! I will debut due to my hard work” (paraphrasing). He’s never wanted to be just a pretty face.

It even translates to his dancing. He is not afraid to make an ugly stank face whilst dancing. He’s not afraid to look crazy if the concept calls for it. Back in the day *grandma is back* kpop idols would always maintain a pretty face whilst dancing and singing. They never looked like they were exerting themselves, even if they were. I never noticed it was a thing until I saw idols start to emote. I was like, “OMD! That’s what I have been missing!”

We can even see his aversion to being a pretty face or having people focus on his beauty in his Artist of the Month. In his dance he starts off with wearing a cap. When he was asked why he did that, he was like I wanted people to focus on my dancing.

He never wants to stick to one image either. He changes his hair as soon as people get too attached to it. He’s cut his long hair trice whilst it was iconic. The first time was for Artist of the Month. The second one was the most shocking because he did a daring style that is hard pull off. That style still remains marmite with Stays however I feel it did its job, it allowed him to be free of the image people had created of him. Then the third time he cut his hair he went even more extreme, a buzz cut. This is my personal favourite of his short styles. Of course, there are people who may not like it but it doesn’t matter as Hyunjin likes it. He seems like the type of person who’s not meant to have just one look forever but people keep expecting that of him.

I love that he keeps changing things up. He keeps saying, hey, hey, pay attention to me and not my hair or my looks.

It’s pretty clear. He wants to be known more for his talent than his beauty.

My second example is Taeyong.  

I know he has talked about it like Hyunjin or mentioned it but I can’t remember what he said. I can’t remember the exact quote so if you do then feel free to add.

Anyway, he has an SM face. He even looks like Jaejoong and Jaejoong is one of the OG SM Visuals. Although, Jaejoong didn’t just hold the Visual position he also belted. But yeah Taeyong looks like him and it’s something that has been acknowledged.

SM deffo has a type.

Thus, he could have just relied on his face but like Hyunjin he was adverse to that. He also worked hard on his dance skills. Then on his rapping skills and his producing.

I find it so interesting that when he joined he had no dance skills. He could not dance at all. Then, with his work ethic alone and good dance teachers he was able to get to the point where he is now, one of the best dancers in the group. I’ll talk more about this point in another post as I have a lot to say about this.

He is also someone who is not afraid to mess up his face. In the sense he too makes faces when he dances and he’s not afraid to be silly and to show his flaws in content.

He draws attention to his skills, to his producing, dancing, rapping and singing more than he does his face.

The last person I’m going to talk about is Yeosang.

It is interesting that Yeosang has a birthmark and that it has never affected his face card. In fact, it enhanced his face card.

He is someone who has been told he is handsome, beautiful, gorgeous his whole life, I imagine. I mean, they made him Cinderella in Middle School play for goodness sake!

He is someone who fits into the Korean beauty standards and to add on to that he has a really gentle personality. That’s lethal, good looks and a Snow White personality… oh right! He was Snow White not Cinderella!

Someone on Twitter was like, in Korean, wow he has a SM face. If you’ve gotten this far into the post you understand what they mean. They were trying to highlight how stunning his visuals are.

Whenever KQ let him breath he attracted a lot of attention because of his looks. Also, because his beauty is androgynous in a way. He’s both handsome and beautiful.

However, his looks can also be a hinderance. The way he sees himself is not the way he looks. Or at least that’s how I understand it from the way he talks. I can relate to him because I feel like my face does not match my personality at all.

He wants to be seen as strong, to be taken seriously and to be seen as manly. In one visual radio show he was asked to show his favourite feature and he showed his biceps. Back in the glory days of Yeosang being allowed in a gym he never failed to show his biceps when fans asked and you could see he was proud of his physical achievements.

He is a person who enjoys working out and doing exercises that others do only because they have to. He would skip to the gym I am certain!

However, he was told to stop going to the gym because the body he was making did not match his image. It did not match his face. Thus, he had to lose the muscle which is such a hard thing to do. Also, unhealthy, especially the way they do it in the kpop industry.

I felt so bad for him. They deadass told him he couldn’t do something that brought him joy outside of work for the image they had of him. Mind you, it’s an image he doesn’t even want. The whole reason he first started working out is because he wanted to get rid of the whole pretty boy image. The whole he’s so innocent and demure image. He wanted fans to see him, and to see he is multi-dimensional.

Plus, it did fit his face! (wait let me calm down, I am an adult… do you know that sound?).

Then there’s the debacle with his animal representative for their merch.

Thus, it is no surprise what happened recently. He had a solo dance stage at the MMA’s! I was so proud of him. I was also just so happy for him! He finally got given an opportunity. The dance he did was hard hitting, and he decided to wear a hat whilst doing it. Does this sound familiar? You can guess what I’m about to say next. He did that because he felt his face did not suit the dance style. He didn’t want to distract so he covered his face.

So again, the face got in the way.

Both Hyunjin and Yeosang decided to cover their face so that their dance would be the focus.

Now, in Ateez all of them give their faces over to the performance. They have a whole ‘demon line’ because of the facial expressions they be making whilst performing. Yeosang also does that. He does not hold back and he does not prioritise his visuals over the performance.

Contrary to popular belief Yeosang does not solely hold the position of Visual. He is also a dancer and a singer. He has expressed numerous times that he wants to sing and he wants to have important parts in songs. Sometimes, it is not the company that is the villain but the fans. They put him in a box of Visual or the shy-one-who-can’t-handle-attention or is insecure of his voice when he has never said that nor claimed the position Visual.

It is interesting that all three of these men have something a lot of people want, good looks. There is pretty privilege that cannot be argued. However, it seems like those who are pretty are kind of jailed by their face.

You have people like Marilyn Monroe and this one Tik Toker I can’t remember the name of. Monroe was beautiful and famous for it. She was also smart. She was kind. She was funny! She understood how she was perceived and could have fun with it. She did other good things in her life other than being pretty. Yet, she was mostly treated as just a pretty face. She was hurt by men. That famous grate/vent picture… yeah did not have a happy ending. I will not even go into what happened to her body after death.

Then that Tik Toker, she takes videos at an odd angle to make herself look ugler. She said she does it because otherwise people do not take her seriously. They look at her face instead of listening to her words. I can see this in the comments of other content creators who are good looking. Their comments are filled with people complimenting their face or body and not paying any attention to what they’re saying, even if they’re talking about a heavy and/or serious topic.

I also see this with lesbians. Men feel entitled to a woman if they are beautiful. So they feel some type of way if that woman is gay. Or you’ll hear them say something like, “Oh it’s such a waste”. It’s so frustrating like leave them alone! (To be fair I have heard straight women say this about hot gay men. It is also weird when women say it).

We as a society value looks too much. There is more to a person than their face. If we could be freed from the shackles of face cards society would be a better place. I honestly believe that.

I do like, however, that due to social media and celebrities gaining a voice we are starting to break away from the notion that they are nothing but statues for us to gawk at. We are seeing that some celebrities have terrible personalities or terrible takes. Or we are seeing that some celebrities are really insightful and wise and use their voice to bring about good. Social media, as many have said, has taken the power out of the tabloid’s hands and put it into celebrities hands so that they can manage their own image. We get to see them for the humans they are.

Kpop, I have heard it be said, is like old Hollywood. They are still in the trenches. They are still bound by beauty standards. I have talked about three men but for the women in kpop, no one is safe. They all have to be pretty. They all have  to maintain an image and a body weight. They have to be scantily clad (nothing wrong with dressing sexy but not everyone wants that) and cater to the male gaze. It is hard, very hard, to be a female idol.

In conclusion, what has beauty got to do with it? Why do we assign so much value to a person’s face? Why don’t we listen to their words more? Why don’t we value personality? Is it better to be ugly (to not fit society’s beauty standards)?

I think rather than being ugly it is better to be average. It is better to just blend in. I really liked how Meg Cabot would write main characters that had average looks and liked it. There are advantages to be average. Men leave you alone, for one, and people don’t bully you for not fitting the standards, for two. You’re not pigeon holed by your looks by either end of the spectrum.

Beauty has a lot to do with it and it is a problem we may never escape as a society. It all depends on how the next ten years pan out for us to know for sure if we’ll ever value talent and personality more than looks.

This publishes on the day of first Ateez London concert! Have fun!