Former idol trainee Gina Maeng spills the beans and tea.
For over 12 years, Maeng trained under JYP Entertainment, multiple Kakao Entertainment divisions, and more. Even then, she sadly never ended up debuting despite her enormous talent. But she did learn a lot about the K-Pop industry before she switched careers to become a travel writer, K-Pop lyricist and YouTube creator at Gina Everywhere.
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When she was a trainee, Maeng revealed that there weren’t any systems in place to take care of the mental health of trainees. Instead,
“It was all just about training and making trainees into good singers and good dances.”
But according to Maeng, things are finally changing.
Earlier this year, another former trainee—YouTuber Grazy Grace—also explained that the South Korean government’s new standardized contract for all K-Pop trainees mandates that companies have a duty to “help with treatment” for any trainee who develops depression. However, even in spite of this, trainees are still suffering. 2AM’s Jo Kwon also revealed that he suffered severe depression during his eight long years of training.
Maeng said that many companies now provide in-house or outsourced therapists, but trainees are reluctant to talk to them — and for good reason.
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“If you’re training and your company says ‘Okay, this is the in-house or outsourced therapist who will come and talk to you once a month and everything is privileged, you don’t need to worry’… Do you think the trainees will actually fully open up and talk about all these issues?”
Maeng further explains that no matter how trustworthy the company therapist appears, most trainees will still be scared to reveal all the stresses of training just in case the therapist breaks patient confidentiality and lets it slip to the company heads. If that happens, the trainee may no longer come across as a “healthy, ready trainee who can debut at this moment.”
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Maeng proposes,
“I think it’s better if the companies, instead of having a company therapist, would help trainees and artists to find their own [therapist].”
*Cover image via Instagram @thesummergirl_10
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