I'm worried. I read somewhere today that EXO-fans worry about Tao and Lay and their fate. Actually I'm not worried about them in particular but about the overall effect that the lawsuits filed by Kris and Luhan will have on them, on EXO, on SME and in the end even on Kpop in general. Let me explain:

SME has a bad reputation and in parts deservedly so. However I'm a bit tired of teenage fangirls who don't know anything about the business who demonize SM as if they were the anti-christ. That's a far too simple black and white judgement that actually does more damage than it helps anybody.

First of all you have to differentiate the problems that occur. The cases of JYJ, Hangeng, Kris and Luhan, Jessica, Sulli ...

JYJ filed a lawsuit while being Koreans; there was no prejudice going on. This was about unfairly long-running contracts etc.

Hangeng, Kris, Luhan filed similar lawsuits each claiming unfair treatment for being Chinese as well as lack of medical care and high pressure etc.

Jessica ... well that was something completely different and it's not even clear right now who wanted her to leave. But anyway she obviously broke parts of her contract so her's wasn't reinstalled.

Sulli ... this had nothing to do with SM management but with harrassment by fans.

At least this is what I believe I could filter out of the information that you can get; all of which is of course already filtered at least once by more often than not amateurish translation. So always keep that in mind.

After all we don't know much about the truth.

However everybody is putting pressure on SM entertainment and thus on all their REMAINING artists. There are still 10 members of EXO left and I consider it possible if not even probable that they WANT to stay. Lay e.g. in my opinion is a humble and hard working person. Much more than Kris or Luhan he fits into the classic set-up of a Kpop-band which is most of all about being humble and working hard. Fans and greedy companies in China keep the pressure up on him and Tao to leave. But he should be free to decide on his own without being pushed this way and that way. After all he is a very good dancer and he gets the chance to work with the best choreographers in the world if he stays where he is.

Apart from that: of COURSE kris and luhan and any potential other member of EXO who leaves SM-entertainment GREATLY benefits from EXO's fame or even has his only fame coming from having been a member of EXO. And EXO's fame is a result of elaborate co-operation of musicians, stylists, choreographers, video-artists, calculating-managers, producers and directors AS WELL AS the actual members. It costs an incredible amount of money to create an album with a production-value of as high a standard as SM-material. And training 12 people over a period of many years providing teachers, training-rooms, board and lodging, transportation ... etc. is an investment that the company makes for future artists that they of course want to make money with. It's a deal, business. You can of course always say the contracts aren't entirely balanced or fair and I won't say that they are, I've never seen them, but what Luhan and Kris do can indeed be seen as exploiting what they achieved under SM management. They are exploiting EXO's fame, not just their own, thus exploiting what their fellow-members worked hard for and what they achieved as well as all the staff. And both of them have not been top artists within the group, not the best performers. There is no individual Luhan or Kris "fame" yet. This is something that needs time to build and they started big because SM made them big as members of EXO.

These lawsuits weaken EXO, weaken SM entertainment and take away resources from other artists. All those people who want SM to go down should keep in mind that it would take jobs away from an incredible amount of staff-people, it would make high-class famous and beloved artists "homeless" business-wise and the chances that everybody will just find another company that will be able to provide them with a similar production-value, musicians, choreographers and money for promotion is minimal. Groups will disband, artists will try to find their luck individually and careers might even be ended prematurely.

"But we only want them to be happy and healthy" is what fans claim.

Yeah well ... and what makes them happy and healthy? Losing friends, the stress that lawsuits and the search for a new company causes, having to take care of everything the company used to provide by yourself ... etc. etc.? Some might even suffer from depressions (I already have some in mind that I believe wouldn't artistically survive this, but I don't want to give names) and get seriously sick.

This is not a fantasy-scenario, it's actually probable and knowing lots of Korean people living in Korea I can picture pretty well what happens if Kpop-artists are robbed of their professional foundation. These people are performers, entertainers but they depend upon all the background-work that is done by other people who are provided by a vast company. They are capable of incredible achievements and work incredibly hard but they can't do it by themselves and the better the working-conditions, the better the performance.

JYJ has been hindered by SM in their development and promotion as well as performances. I'm aware of that. But as far as production-value is concerned they are apart from all other issues nowhere near the quality that DBSK was. That's a result of not being in one of the top companies anymore. Are they happy? I don't know, are they?

I've recently seen a clip from one of their live-concerts and thought "oh they should just quit dancing altogehter". It's not that they can't dance anymore, it's just the choreographies were lame. No offense, I still like them, but the overall quality of their stages isn't comparable to what DBSK used to do or TVXQ is still doing nowadays. And everybody in their right mind will agree. You still might say their songs are good. But it's not the same thing, not even close and they know it. I'm sure that every once in a while they have great regrets.

Imagining that SHINee would become a victim of a "bring down SME"-campaign makes me angry and sad at the same time. I don't want that to happen. They are doing well within the company and it fits them. They are certainly worked to the bone but that isn't even unusual for Koreans in general. Their career as a group will not last forever. They'll have to do their military service and it is questionable if they will still exist as SHINee afterwards. But all of them can build a good foundation for their later lives as entertainers during their years as a top-group now. Jjong, Taemin and Onew might be able to go on individually and well Key is someone who will survive anyways. Minho will probably have to rely on his acting and modelling. But taking away their foundation right now would be a throwback that could cost them years if not their career altogether. You might be a devoted fan but just watching them on youtube in old clips doesn't make them money. Producing an album that can be sold needs more than a talented performer.

And one more thing about China:

Without trying to generalize, China is a country that still relies a lot on other countries' achievements. Due to their political history they have decades of progression to catch up with and that's one reason why plagiarizing is common there in all industries. There is a good reason why Chinese artists go to Korea or other countries for training: it's better there.

I don't know if this is true but I think it is absolutely possible that Chinese music-producers are trying to lure away Chinese artists from their companies in Korea or other countries after they have received elaborate training. This may or may not be initialized by the artists themselves but it does happen. To express it brutally: they are stealing away skill. It's the same as headhunting in other business branches or even worse: industrial espionage. I'm not saying that this is generally the case but it sometimes is.

There is a reason why a renowned artist like Jackie Chan founds a Kpop-band rather than a Mando-pop-band: the conditions and skills in Korea are much much better and there is tons of more experience than in China.

I'm worried because if people keep putting pressure on Chinese artists to leave Korea and furthermore if China bans Kpop-bands because of lawsuits altogether, Kpop might suffer great losses. So great that the business might collapse. They haven't got enough fame among the rest of the world yet to survive without their biggest Asian fanbases. It has happened before. South-Korea is a very small country. People are working hard there and live under the constant threat of a war with North-Korea that would possibly wipe them out entirely. They are struggling and fighting to survive in a world with much bigger industrial countries with better resources, better business-conditions and infrastructure. And they are doing great at that. But as small as they are, they are vulnerable too. Steal away their achievements and you might make them collapse altogether. It has happened before.

So finally I would just like everybody to try to stay reasonable and possibly objective within the discussion about SM and SM-artists. I'm absolutely convinced that the company is not always treating their artists fairly but I'm also convinced that they don't try to them dry and throw them away. I want all the artists to survive and be happy but I don't think that leaving SM or bringing them down would lead to that.