Regarding SM Entertainment and K-Pop As a Whole

If you follow K-Pop related news, you probably would have seen the headlines regarding Sulli's sudden hiatus, Kris's sudden leave from EXO, Jessica's rather shady and also sudden leave from Girls' Generation, and now, Luhan's leave from EXO...

SM definitely is not having a good year. But all of this was inevitable because of the way they were treating their artists. A nice bite to the ass.

and Shitty Management

To give you some background info, Luhan stated the following as his reasons for nullifying his contract, according to Sina: 1) SM was not capable of giving good development plans for the future, 2) Discrimination in regards to treatment between the Korean members and Chinese members of EXO, 3) Unequal allocation of promotional activities between the Korean sub-group and the Chinese sub-group, and 4) Over-exhaustion physically and mentally.

I'm not that much of a fan of EXO anymore, but to see two members leaving within the same year, it really hurts.

I don't know what the hell Kim Young Min is doing, but he needs to get his shit together. SM stated that they didn't "see these lawsuits coming," which is making them look absolutely worse, to be honest. When you have two of your artists demanding to leave the company within months of each other and you say that you didn't see them coming, there definitely is a flippin' problem with you. No one is "pulling strings behind the scenes." That's just a stupid excuse. And instead of sitting around scrutinizing the actual lawsuits, gee, why don't you try to take initiative to change the company's ways so that these lawsuits don't happen again? It's not like this is the first and second time. This is the third and fourth time, to be specific. Jaejoong, Yoochun, Junsu, and Hangeng have all filed lawsuits against the company for similar reasons as Luhan and Kris. And SM still can't even consider that maybe there's something wrong with the way they run the company apparently, because it doesn't seem like they've done much since Kris's leave this year, since Luhan decided to follow suit. Ridiculous. Does it take a plummet in their stocks for SM to realize that?

I'm glad Luhan has spoken clearly about his reasons for leaving, and I am especially glad he put the inequality issue into light, because it shows the progress SM is having with this whole Chinese members issue, which apparently hasn't progressed much since Hangeng's lawsuit. Lovely.

Let me point out first before I get into more things... that I'm not really into K-Pop as much as I was four years ago. The only reason I'm still keeping up with it is because of my bias group, VIXX. But without VIXX, I probably would have dropped it by now. I appreciate K-Pop and what it has done for me, because K-Pop helped me feel a sense of belonging. With K-Pop, I belonged to fandoms, I supported my favorite groups, I met new people, I opened my eyes to Asian culture. I am so thankful that I discovered it, but...

K-Pop doesn't feel right anymore. It's not just SM Entertainment. K-Pop is becoming more and more of a manufacturing industry than an entertainment industry, and I am not happy about that. They're treating idols more and more like robots and less like artists. Yes, K-Pop, in essence, was always a manufacturing industry, but the issue was never this extreme until now. Groups are popping out left and right, so much that new groups are no longer something of discussion anymore. The groups that do miraculously catch the attention of the public, their schedules are packed. And most of these idols nowadays are not having fun while they work, they're being worked to the bone, and they're not even getting the most fundamental thing for humans to function: rest. And that is out of line.

2012 was the last peak of K-Pop as a whole, in my opinion. More and more people are getting into K-Pop, but K-Pop is slowly declining at the same time. It's really sad to witness this.