I was watching Small Talk Club, a new show whose first episode featured Jaehyun, S.Coups, Suho and Eun Ji-won. The episode is basically about them being leaders and the struggles that come with that. I’d recommend watching it because it was funny as hell, and it seems like the four of them have another journey or two coming.
But there was one part that really stood out to me.
At around the 59-minute mark, Eun Ji-won, the leader of SECHSKIES, starts talking about how idols need to be treated better. He basically points out that idols are the ones doing all sorts of things around the world, promoting K-pop and Korea internationally and contributing to Korea’s global status, yet “they only treat…” before the next part gets beeped out.
Obviously, we don’t actually know what he said because it was censored. But given the context, I immediately wondered whether he was referring to the difference in status and treatment between idols and actors.
And it made me think about how rarely I’ve actually seen an idol openly discuss this.
Maybe there are examples I’ve missed, but I can’t really remember many idols directly talking about the difference in how idols and actors are treated by the public, media and entertainment industry. Yet Ji-won’s comment makes me wonder whether this hierarchy is something idols themselves are very aware of.
One thing I’ve noticed over the years is how differently scandals involving actors and idols can sometimes be received. Obviously every case is different, so you can’t make a perfect one-to-one comparison, but there have been cases where an idol seems to receive enormous scrutiny for something while actors involved in comparable controversies are given considerably more room to recover or have their actions separated from their careers.
One incident that comes to mind is the whole Yewon–Lee Tae-im controversy in 2015.
Yewon, who was a member of Jewelry, got into a tense exchange with actress Lee Tae-im while filming Tutoring Across Generations. Initially, Lee Tae-im received most of the criticism because reports said she had sworn at Yewon. But leaked footage later showed that Yewon had, at points, spoken casually/impolitely to Lee, who was older than her.
Public opinion basically flipped on Yewon after that. There were calls for her to leave We Got Married, and the controversy followed her to the point that her appearance on Happy Together the following year was described as her first talk-show appearance since the scandal.
Obviously, Korean age and seniority culture played a huge role here, and I’m not saying the reaction happened simply because one was an idol and the other was an actress. But it’s another example that makes me think about how intensely idols’ behaviour and etiquette have historically been scrutinised. Something as small as the way an idol addresses another celebrity can become a genuine career-level “attitude controversy.”
That’s partly what I mean when I talk about the different expectations placed on idols. They’re expected to sing, dance, perform, constantly promote, maintain a carefully controlled public image and simultaneously follow extremely strict standards of etiquette. A relatively minor interaction can become something they’re associated with for years.
Then there’s the treatment at award shows, which has always been especially weird to me.
The infamous example is MAMA 2020. There were widespread reports at the time that actors attending as presenters were provided waiting rooms while idols—including artists actually performing at the ceremony—were reportedly left waiting in their cars. This was during COVID restrictions, which complicates the circumstances, but the controversy became so big precisely because of the apparent difference in treatment.
And we’re talking about an awards show that fundamentally relies on idols. They’re performing, attracting viewers and receiving the awards, yet there was still this perception that actors who were primarily attending to present awards were receiving better treatment.
There was also AAA 2021, where the difference was visually pretty striking during the group photo: the actors were seated on chairs while the idol artists were positioned standing/sitting around them. Even if there were logistical reasons behind the arrangement, the optics were pretty obvious and fed into the wider discussion about the perceived hierarchy between actors and idols.
And then there’s the way idols have historically been treated when performing at acting/entertainment award ceremonies.
There are so many infamous clips where idols are giving everything on stage while the audience of actors looks completely stone-faced. SNSD—the “Nation’s Girl Group” at their peak—experienced this. Rain, who was arguably one of the biggest Hallyu stars of his generation and had major careers in both music and acting, experienced similarly awkward audiences. There are plenty of other examples.
Obviously, not smiling or dancing during someone’s performance doesn’t automatically mean you disrespect them. But when you combine all of these things, it’s easy to understand why fans developed this perception of a hierarchy where actors were considered more “prestigious” celebrities while idols occupied a lower position.
What’s interesting is that I feel like this has changed quite a bit in recent years.
Another thing that makes the traditional hierarchy between actors and idols interesting is that, economically, it doesn’t necessarily reflect where the entertainment industry is anymore.
There was actually some pretty interesting National Tax Service data released on this. According to a report on entertainers’ income from 2017–2021, the top 1% of singers in 2021 earned an average of ₩4.6 billion each, while the top 1% of actors earned an average of ₩2.3 billion each.
So the highest-earning singers were already earning roughly twice as much as the highest-earning actors.
And what makes that particularly interesting is the year we’re talking about: 2021.
That was still the COVID era. Touring—the area where the biggest K-pop acts can generate an insane amount of money—was massively restricted. K-pop was already huge internationally, obviously, but compared with today, album sales, global streaming numbers and especially the scale of touring were nowhere near where they would eventually reach.
Just look at physical sales.
According to Circle Chart data, the Top 400 albums sold about 54.6 million copies in 2021. By 2024, that figure was around 85.7 million copies.
That’s roughly 50-60% higher than 2021, and that’s despite 2025 actually being considered a down year for K-pop physical sales after the ridiculous peak of around 115 million in 2023 and bts was not active in 2025 unlike 2021. Furthermore, in 2025, many big sellers like seventeen, txt and enhypen only released one album explaining the decrease.
With bts back and the sales from this year, I can 100% with guarantee say that sales this year will surpass last year’s numbers.
Streaming has also continued expanding globally. Spotify reported that global K-pop streaming had increased 362% between 2018 and 2023. By 2024 you had numerous K-pop acts and soloists routinely generating billions of streams, with K-pop increasingly being consumed outside Korea.
But touring is probably the biggest difference.
2021 obviously isn’t remotely comparable to the post-COVID touring environment. Groups can now spend months travelling around the world playing arenas and, increasingly, stadiums.
So if the top 1% of singers were already averaging approximately 2x the income of the top 1% of actors in 2021, when one of the biggest revenue sources available to musicians was severely restricted, I’d be extremely curious to see the equivalent National Tax Service figures for 2024/2025.
I wouldn’t automatically say the gap definitely doubled or tripled because we don’t have equivalent tax data proving that. Actors’ incomes could have grown substantially as well. But I think it’s pretty reasonable to suspect that the gap at the very top may have widened, considering what has happened to K-pop’s physical sales, international streaming reach and especially touring since 2021.
And I think that’s partly why the old “actors are prestigious celebrities while idols are below them” mentality feels increasingly outdated.
Whatever someone’s personal opinion is on the prestige of acting versus being an idol, commercially some of these K-pop artists are now operating on a genuinely enormous global scale.
They’re selling millions of physical albums, accumulating billions of streams, filling stadiums across several continents and generating huge touring revenue while simultaneously acting as some of the most visible representatives of Korean popular culture internationally.
So going back to Eun Ji-won’s comment, I can understand why an idol—especially a first-generation idol who has watched the industry evolve for nearly 30 years—might look at all of that and wonder why idols have historically been treated as the lesser celebrities of the Korean entertainment industry.
There’s also a practical change in status. Mentioning or publicly showing appreciation for major K-pop artists can itself generate attention nowadays. You regularly see actors talking about groups they like, attending their concerts, doing challenges with idols, etc. The relationship between the two industries feels considerably less one-sided than it once did.
Another factor might be that the boundary between “idol” and “actor” isn’t nearly as clear anymore.
Some major actors started as idols or have extensive idol-industry experience. Yoona is simultaneously SNSD’s Yoona and a hugely successful actress. Junho came from 2PM before becoming one of the most prominent idol-actors. There are many others, and plenty of current actors also spent years training to become idols before moving into acting.
So younger generations of actors may simply be less likely to see idols as some completely separate, lower category of entertainer when many of them have friends, colleagues—or their own backgrounds—in that exact industry.
To be clear, I’m not saying Eun Ji-won definitely said “actors” in that censored section. We don’t know what was beeped, and I don’t think it would be fair to present speculation as fact.
But his broader point—that idols are doing an enormous amount to promote Korean culture globally while not necessarily receiving treatment that reflects that contribution—was interesting to hear coming from an idol himself, especially someone who has been in the industry since the first generation.
It made me wonder how much idols themselves actually think about the traditional celebrity hierarchy in Korea.
Do you think idols still feel some resentment or frustration about how they’re treated compared with actors, especially considering how much K-pop now contributes to Korea’s international cultural presence? Or do you think that old actor/idol hierarchy has mostly disappeared with the growth of K-pop?
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