13 In Arabic, the news outlet Al Bawaba (“The Portal”) reported that “Korean singer Kim Jonghyun sends emotional words to his sister and then commits suicide!” 14 In China, where K-pop is immensely popular, Jonghyun's death was covered by such outlets as Entertainment China 15 in Hong Kong, by South China Morning Post !6 and in Taiwan, by Liberty Times.
Similar reports were written on high-traffic K-pop-related websites, such as, 11 as well as music-related publications like Billboard 12 and Rolling Stone. When they share their private-life experience with you, they make you feel connected to the person, as if you know personally.” 10 “When I heard about this for the first time, I was with a friend, another K-pop fan, and we could not stop crying. An article in one of Israel’s most widely distributed newspapers read, “South Korea Mourns: A Pop Star Commits Suicide and Leaves a Letter to his Fans.” 9 A local fan writes in the comments section: Legions of fans mourned worldwide at the news of Jonghyun's death, which received coverage from outlets like CNN, 7 the Guardian, 8 The LA Times, The Washington Post, The Telegraph, The Daily Mail, Forbes, Newsweek and other major English-language publications‒a testament to the global nature of the Hallyu phenomenon (Hallyu is a term encompassing all of Korea's internationally popular cultural products, including films, dramas, games, and music). Despite his prodigious success, on December 18 th, 2017, he used a frying pan to burn coal in a well-sealed room, sent a good-bye text message to his sister, and died of complications from carbon monoxide poisoning. 5 In recent years, he had been actively engaged with numerous performances and recordings. 4 He won awards for his work-such as the 2015 MBC Entertainment Award-for the radio division. Jonghyun was one of the first artists from SME to become involved with songwriting and producing, penning hits for SHINee, other K-pop artists in the industry, as well as for his own solo releases. They are managed by SM Entertainment (SME), the leading company in K-pop. The five-member K-pop group is one of the industry’s most successful and enduring acts, the source of multiple number one hits.
Kim Jonghyun debuted in 2008 as a member of SHINee, roughly three years after he was scouted as a fifteen-year-old. Immediately after the news spread of Jonghyun's suicide, legions of fans pointed to his 2017 duet with Taeyeon, "Lonely," the lyrics of his other songs, comments made in interviews, and his final Instagram livefeed as revealing in hindsight his long struggle with depression. This suicide note, reproduced in part above, was passed from Korean popular music (K-pop) superstar Kim Jonghyun to the singer Nine9 (a member of the indie group Dear Cloud) before the twenty-seven year old star took his own life.
Keywords: Suicide, Jonghyun, 2 SHINee, spectatorship, netizen, K-pop, celebrity, South Korea Finally, we discuss the potential impact of Jonghyun's suicide on K-pop fans. Although this is the first incident of an A-list K-pop idol committing suicide, we propose that the nature of contemporary Korean celebrity, together with specific factors defining the lives of Korean youth, create an environment where suicide may become even more prevalent, escalating Korea’s suicide rate, which is already among the world’s highest. In this paper, we explore how characteristics of life in contemporary Korea-including a high suicide rate, and intense pressures in education and employment-compound with idols’ years of intense training in singing and dancing without adequate attention to physical, much less mental, health. This has made idols into incarnations of Korea and Korean culture, and brought the public’s powerful disciplining gaze to bear on these young performers. Jonghyun, and dozens more like him, is a type of Korean celebrity known as an "idol." In addition to being popular within Korea, idols are the public face of K-pop, which has become a worldwide phenomenon. For many people outside the South Korean popular music (K-pop) world, the December 2017 death of pop star Kim Jonghyun was a sad, but abstract event.
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