(note: this draft was written two months ago, but left in the dungeon of my Google drive – I will be freeing old drafts in the coming days because my book project has squeezed me of all words and opinions!)


“If I am working late, they should too,” muttered my exhausted colleague one night, and I realised we had lost yet another one to the dark side.

Until I joined the workplace, my understanding of “boundaries” was limited to saying no to friends who invited me for drinks for the third weekend in a row. I had thought that was self-respect. Then came the new recruits – fresh out of college, with their parachute pants, strappy tops, and a fearlessness that made HR nervous as they would tell them to “just deal—” Deal with what? Just deal.

They came with the confidence of CEOs, negotiating salaries most of us would never dare to ask for. They knew their worth, they weren’t interested in “doing the most”, they rolled their eyes – many times at me for being the “millenial pushover.” I found myself both amused and inspired by these Gen Z workers (born after 1996, by my count). They would take long vape breaks and give me unsolicited lectures on boundaries: “You’re too nice. You’re an easy target.” Meanwhile, I sat there thinking I was being a “team player” by taking over my colleagues’ tasks whenever they were overwhelmed.

When the clock strikes five, these new workers are already halfway out the door. Text them on a weekend if you must, but don’t expect a reply. “Authority figures are social constructs,” one of them told me once. “Hierarchies are classist.” Somewhere between laughter and envy, I started chanting their slogans to myself like mantras: Not in my KRA. Not in my pay grade.

So what does this have to do with NewJeans?

Even after their apparent “erasure” (industry speak for a vanishing act following controversy), I still find NewJeans content on my feed. The Korean pop girl group, formed in 2022 under HYBE’s subsidiary ADOR, became one of South Korea’s fastest-rising global acts. In under a year, they released multiple viral hits, fronted campaigns for Levi’s and Apple, and defined the 2020s version of the “Y2K” aesthetic – a nostalgia more algorithmic than historical. I often wonder: how overworked were these girls to have built an empire in months?

I’ve been around the K-pop block long enough to remember when fandoms “felt” like cults of dedication, not battlegrounds of exploitation. I fell hard for SHINee in 2008 – specifically for Jonghyun (JJong). His death by suicide in 2017 broke something in me. He had battled depression and immense pressure to be excellent for years, and even in his final messages he asked for reassurance that he “did well.”

Then came the DBSK split – three members sued for unfair contracts, and the internet turned on them overnight. We were told they were “greedy,” that idols should be grateful for what they have. I believed it back then and blamed them for breaking up the biggest boyband in the (my) world. Now I see how naïve that was – how thoroughly we’d absorbed the idea that suffering was proof of sincerity.

Over time, the glossy façade peeled back. Trainees spoke up about being controlled, starved, isolated. YouTube documentaries laid bare the factory-like idol system and that popstars were engineered products. 

As I grew up, I realised it wasn’t a Kpop thing but that the same blind obedience that drives K-pop’s efficiency also drives corporate burnout everywhere else.

NewJeans’ implosion is the latest cautionary tale in corporate warfare. The group – global darlings with their hyper-polished Y2K aesthetic – became mired in controversy when they reportedly clashed with their management, claiming overwork and manipulation. They went rogue – sitting casually on an instagram live c. They wanted out; the company said no. Lawsuits followed, careers froze, and fans took sides. The narrative was swift and merciless: spoiled kids, ungrateful idols, a PR disaster. But really, what did people expect? These were girls aged sixteen to twenty…. fighting billion-dollar conglomerates. When the world says, “It’s a job, deal with it,” I can’t help but think that jobs are for adults. If the industry insists on treating minors as professionals, perhaps we should start calling it what it is: child labour.

Headlines focused on grooming, betrayal, and “ungrateful artists” but for me, it really exposed a generational collision: the old guard’s obsession with obedience versus a younger cohort’s insistence on autonomy. I see it everywhere around me too – they’re young and maybe entitled, but they put the world (as it is now) in perspective.

Climate anxiety wrapped in media panic, jobs and entire industries going into a blackhole (RIP print journalism), no regard for those who take the slow and sadistic journey of academia (RIP funding for education) – I truly do not understand how to bring optimism to my younger friends and relatives. In this bleak world, maybe a little entitlement and demanding “better” is more than what is due. Anyway, even as a millennial pushover, I reckon every generation that did something to make things better for younger ones were also called too “spoiled”, too “soft” or too “entitled” in their time.