In American pop music, often times, the bands form themselves with friends and or write their own songs or are discovered by someone. Even if they don’t have the vocal training, they still may be the lead vocalist In the band or will still lead the band. In K-pop, entertainment companies train their idols to sing, dance, act, and learn a new language for a few years or until the company is ready to create a new group. The artists can join the company and become a “trainee” and train in preparation to debut, sometimes idols are scouted at schools or elsewhere and if they take up their offer, they train to debut as well.

K-pop artists don’t have a lot of artistic freedom to write and compose their own music. K-pop companies don’t let them because they want to ensure their artists’ success to get as much profit as they can. It’s only until recently that certain K-pop companies have been letting their artists write their own songs and compose them. K-pop groups also have a different “concept” each album, meaning an album can be “comic” concept or there might be a “youth” concept.

In K-pop, companies of the artists sell “lightsticks” which are used by fans at concerts and music shows. The companies also may sell a wide variety such as artist mood lights, luggage, food, and more other than the basic shirts and sweater. Fans also sell fan-made goods such as artist plush toys and others to raise money for fan projects.

In American pop, there are casual fans, big fans, and extreme fans. In K-pop, there are casual fans, big fans, extreme fans, and sasaeng fans. Sasaeng fans are deranged fans that break into idol’s houses, invade privacy, somehow get the idols’ number, and worse. Normal fans, big fans, make projects for their favorite group or artist’s new album. They create projects such as getting 24 million views in 24 hours, or ones such as raising money to buy a large amount of albums. The Chinese fan union of the group EXO recently raised enough money to buy 74,000+ albums for EXO’s The War album. Fans also create banners and signs to hand out to other fans at their concerts.

Even if there are great differences, both sides share the same love for their favorite artists.