The Wastes of K-Pop

In April 2023, when my favorite K-pop group Seventeen’s album FML was released, I rushed to Target to get my own copy of the album. After choosing to get one of the three versions, I carefully peeled the vinyl cover, opened the box, and took out each inclusion — the poster, the photo book, the CD, the bookmark, and, most importantly, the photocards. Hoping to see a selfie of my favorite member, I flipped them over after and yelped when I saw my favorite member on one of them.

For me, one of the most exciting aspects of being a K-pop fan is opening these albums. Often packed with the CD, photo books, and other inclusions such as stickers, these albums by K-pop groups contain photocards — pocket-sized selfie photos of the members — that are randomly placed in each individual album. 

When FML was released, it topped charts,  being named the biggest-selling Global Album of the Year in 2023 by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. So imagine my surprise when I saw photos of tens of boxes of the album in the trash!

While I have never actually bought multiple copies of the same album, I sometimes find myself debating whether I should in order to increase my chances of getting — or “pulling,” in K-pop terms — my favorite member’s photocard.

Although many music artists have shifted their focus away from selling physical records and instead onto increasing the number of streams on digital music streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music, many artists in the K-pop industry continue to produce physical albums. 

Especially when albums contain rare inclusions like photocards, fans will buy multiple copies of the same album solely for the photocard inclusions, often re-selling the rest of the album for cheap or even just throwing them out. 

Familiar with this behavior, the K-pop artists and entertainment companies take advantage of these hyper-consumerism behaviors by producing different versions of the same album and making certain photocards more rare. For example, the second album of the K-pop group NCT included one photocard of a random member out of 23, leaving the fans with only a 4.3% chance of finding their desired member in an album for which they were paying 25 dollars. Some artists and companies even treat their albums as raffle tickets; for each album a fan buys, they may enter for a chance to win a couple minutes to talk to the artists.

In a way, these K-pop artists and entertainment companies’ tactics have worked in encouraging people to buy more copies of their albums, increasing their sales and ultimately their profit, but, as the fans buy them only for the photocards — which are really just small pieces of paper — or to enter these raffles then tosses the rest of the albums out, significant amounts of waste have resulted from the K-pop industry. In fact, The Korea Times estimated that “1,395 tons of plastic waste were produced from CDs alone” in 2022.

Further, the original value of albums — the CDs inside them that allowed listeners to enjoy music — has been lost. Though the album sales are high, these numbers seem to have lost their meaning because of the predatory marketing schemes at play. 

As one of the fans who feel a boost of dopamine when opening them, I cannot deny that the albums are one of the most distinguishing aspects of K-pop culture, but as an increasing number of these physical albums end up in the trash, it is time to question how K-pop entertainment companies take advantage of the fans and damage our environment in spirit of hypercapitalism.