TWICE Jihyo’s Trainee Era Clip Goes Viral Prompting Huge Backlash Against K-Pop Industry Practices
TWICE‘s Jihyo is going viral on X (former Twitter), but the content has upset fans.
On December 18, a fan account of Jihyo posted about an anecdote shared by singer Sunmi. According to her, Jihyo, who was an incredibly young trainee, would stay completely silent among other trainees and stand frozen. Whenever the older trainees tried to tease her or joke around, she would actually hit them. The OP (original poster) attached a rare video of a young Jihyo doing exactly that to 2PM‘s Taecyeon.
i still think of the time predebut jihyo threw a ball at taecyeon 😭😭😭🤣🤣 pic.twitter.com/WXcKtWdGUh
— Peng-u (@MinaPenguu) October 6, 2023
While the clip captured Jihyo’s cute antics in childhood, it also served as a jarring reminder to fans exactly how young she was when she entered the K-Pop industry. She joined JYP Entertainment in 2005 at the age of eight and trained for ten years before debuting. Before JYP, she trained at SM Entertainment for a year when she was around seven years old.
this is supposed to be a cute moment but i genuinely feel nothing but pain for her. was a child model, scouted when she just turned 7, spent 1 year at sm, 19 years at jyp, went through a survival program, had an average of 4 cbs a year for nearly 10 years as an idol…. my heart https://t.co/EOkne4IvU9
— 🔻 (@biglogdyh) December 20, 2024
The clip has now sparked a heated discussion about the normalization of children becoming K-Pop trainees and being thrown into a brutal work environment.
This is just extremely scary and saddening https://t.co/536XmedCu7
— rey⁷🐠𓏲 ๋࣭ ࣪ ˖ଳ⋆.˚𓇼 (@starrysoobie) December 20, 2024
Bitch this look like a child slavery wtf 😐 https://t.co/xS7xkwUbmf
— criticalASHtheory⛈️💕♐️ (@XSagitterrorist) December 21, 2024
the kpop industry needs to be heavily regulated bc there’s no reason a 7 year old should be training at this age https://t.co/aIxA9F52UN
— yami 🫧 (@yami125__) December 21, 2024
I am sorry wtf??? Do parents literally don't give a single fuck about their childrens?? This is literally child labour https://t.co/xOpn7U55Nx
— ⁷سارہ🍓 (@abowthv) December 20, 2024
Not only do we know companies are scummy, but what kind of parents would allow this https://t.co/kTf20y2I0l
— valentin (@gayIittlemiya) December 21, 2024
While debuting young as an idol is not a new phenomenon in K-Pop, recent discussions about its overreaching consequences have inspired more scholarly discourses. Read more about it here.
