mattlakeman.org
Submission statement: Eternally interesting blogger Matt Lakeman goes on a (very) deep dive into K-pop. He covers the history of Korean pop music, obsessive fans, gruelling popstar cram schools and the corporate machine behind it all.
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Notes -
This strikes me as unnecessarily pessimistic, though I myself do not live in Korea and have only passed through there and therefore I cannot with complete confidence say that you are far from the mark. I do, however, live in Japan, which has--to some degree--similar cultural mores.
In Japan (and be warned: Incoming personal viewpoint not based on hard data and dancing perilously close to the most shameful generalizations of nihonjinron), as perhaps everywhere, it takes all types. You do have what used to be called kyoiku mama who were obsessive about education for their children and putting them through the grinder of cram schools to get into "top schools" (scare quotes because such schools are only "top" due to their bafflingly rigorous entrance examinations--once students are enrolled, the so-called 人生の夏休み or "summer vacation of life" begins, when the pressures and strictures surrounding high school and prepping for the Big Exam are behind them, and they are essentially guaranteed to both graduate and receive a job of similar clout as their school, regardless of academic performance.)
But not all mothers are kyoiku mama and not all students are obsessive about the status of their universities. The ruling class and future bureaucrats all have a school they typically attend (a public university, in particular Tokyo University), but your average joe (or joanne) who wants to work at a car dealership or electronics store needn't worry about shooting for that goal. From not quite birth, but probably from at least high school onward, the trajectory is set--and it's not all the doom and gloom of what you are characterizing as a "miserable wagecuck." Nor is "the prole life" seen as such a horrible fate.
I do not suggest here that everyone is happy--no more than they are perhaps in Hungary, or Australia, or the United States. But I would suggest that to the degree people outside Japan wring their hands or shake their heads about karoshi (death from overwork) or the punishing workweek of the salaryman, they probably make the mistake of imposing their own cultural norms and expectations on a context where they probably should not.
To get back to Korea, I imagine, as in Japan (and more and more in the US), fame is the magic fairy dust that creates an aura of wonder around even the most humble and banal personality. To be famous is to be notable (regardless of why), and in a society that to some degree perhaps values conformity (as in Japan and Korea) ironically this is an acceptable way to be a nail that sticks up. Thus: A certain percentage of families will shepherd their children toward this (for that vicarious fame-by-proxy) and a certain number of teens with any sort of performing talent will naturally be drawn to this particular candle flame simply because of the promise of glamour.
In other words, the pull needn't be a draw away from the workaday of the office society (which not everyone is a part of anyway) or some horrible anonymity in a suburb (in fact this is to some degree a goal to shoot for--a similarity to everyone else, a "joining society" [shakai sanka is the term in Japan]). The draw is that youthful aspiration, Fame, I'm gonna live foreevah, I'm gonna learn how to fly, etc. Not everyone has it; but a lot do.
Finally, the cutthroat aspect: Everything seems cutthroat. In Japan even getting a driver's license is an unimaginable hassle of paying thousands of dollars to go to driving school then take a test where the most infinitesimal missteps will cost you enough points that you fail--and are not told why. The typical Japanese professor at my university will administer an exam, mark it, release the scores, but not tell students which questions they missed. This is for you to go sort out in fear and trembling. Being on a cheerleading squad is cutthroat. Being in any sort of anything is cutthroat. It makes sense then that being in an idol group (which will have a cultural capital regardless of the fame of the group) is also going to be cutthroat. And all the other contestants are also vying not just against you but with you, you're all in the same boat, etc. etc. This imbues a great sense of group and belonging, to, at least Japanese, and I imagine to Koreans as well. I noted that in that blogpost many, if not all, of the informants of the author were not themselves Asian. They happened to "make it" in the groups for whatever reason, but the cultural expectations and norms of the process were not part of their own emotional disposition, for lack of a better term, and in the end they balked at experiences that someone more imbued in the culture would not.
For perspective, though, at least some top British universities do this as well.
Things being cutthroat in domains other than signalling knowledge of trends and class belonging presumably feels unusually unusual from a US perspective.
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I'll not dispute this detailed writeup, I'll just add that yes, what I wrote is pessimistic in the sense that, based on what I've read and seen, the current reality for the middle-class and lower-class in developed economies is that it's increasingly difficult to avoid sliding down to the ranks of the precariat, and also to leave it. Basically one needs to master marketable and specialized skills in order to reliably secure a middle-class lifestyle.
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