In recent years, many members of the Korean entertainment industry have been more vocal about mental illness — especially after the deaths of several rising stars, including actor Yoo Joo-eun in 2022 and actor/singer Kim Jong-hyun in 2017. The community’s most recent loss is Moon Bin, a 25-year-old K-pop star and member of the boy group Astro, whose manager reportedly found him dead of suspected suicide last week.
Suicide in the K-pop community has received more attention in recent years. While nobody can pinpoint the exact reason these losses have compounded, there’s no question that the pressure these celebrities experience from a young age — including the burden of exporting Korean culture to the rest of the world — is a major contributing factor. On top of that, the industry pushes artists to be highly “likable” and have a variety of talents and skills, treating them more like products than real people.
Still, I can’t help but feel that this isn’t just a K-pop trauma. It’s a cultural one, too. In South Korea, suicide is a leading cause of death for young people, Time magazine reports. And the country ranks high in suicide rates globally.
As someone who is part of the Asian diaspora, events like this hit close to home because they’re part of a larger and unacknowledged crisis that exists in our communities. As children, many of us are taught that our achievements and service to others are more important than our well-being and that being depressed just means you’re not trying hard enough to get better.
For these artists, I can only speculate about the connection between depression and their apparent suicides. We may never actually know what led to their deaths — nor do we have the right to pry — but the conversations they have sparked are enough for us to take action. It feels evident enough that when we, as people of Asian descent, refuse to talk about mental health issues, those problems don’t go away. We’re just forced to…
Read the full article here
