Caty Szeto is a woman with a dream: to become a K-Pop superstar. The 23-year-old Asian American is traveling from her home in LA to South Korea’s capital Seoul to attend a K-Pop academy. There she’ll do hardcore training in singing, dancing and styling. All this is to prepare for make-or-break auditions for K-Pop agencies like SM Entertainment, Big Hit Music and YG Entertainment. If she makes it, Caty could become a chart-topping idol like the megastars who perform to legions of fans and make millions. But this quest has its challenges. Caty finds out about ageism in the industry, where many new idols are in their teens. Then she comes face-to-face with incredibly specific K-beauty standards while navigating being a foreigner in K-Pop. Over just three months, our host journalist Haeryun Kang follows Caty to see if she can overcome these obstacles and reach K-Pop stardom.
From USG Audio, Novel and PRX, Mission K-Pop is an 8-part podcast series about one woman's quest to become an idol and how her journey illuminates the beautiful and chaotic world of K pop.
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Caty Szeto is a woman with a dream: to become a K-Pop superstar. The 23-year-old Asian American is traveling from her home in LA to South Korea’s capital Seoul to attend a K-Pop academy. There she’ll do hardcore training in singing, dancing and styling. All this is to prepare for make-or-break auditions for K-Pop agencies like SM Entertainment, Big Hit Music and YG Entertainment. If she makes it, Caty could become a chart-topping idol like the megastars who perform to legions of fans and make millions. But this quest has its challenges. Caty finds out about ageism in the industry, where many new idols are in their teens. Then she comes face-to-face with incredibly specific K-beauty standards while navigating being a foreigner in K-Pop. Over just three months, our host journalist Haeryun Kang follows Caty to see if she can overcome these obstacles and reach K-Pop stardom.
From USG Audio, Novel and PRX, Mission K-Pop is an 8-part podcast series about one woman's quest to become an idol and how her journey illuminates the beautiful and chaotic world of K pop.
Caty Szeto has a mission. She wants to be a K-Pop idol.
Caty’s always been into performing, especially dancing. But as an Asian American, Caty found it hard to see representation in the entertainment industry. That was, until she found K-Pop as a teenager. Since then, she’s dreamed of being one of those sleek and talented idols (think BTS, Girls’ Generation, EXO) in a genre that's had worldwide success. But she’s so far from K-Pop superstardom. So Caty’s about to travel from her home in LA to Seoul to attend a K-Pop academy - a school for idol wannabes.
This is Mission K-Pop, the true story of one woman’s quest to become a K-Pop idol through training at a K-Pop academy.
Consultant: Suk-Young Kim
Mission K-Pop
Caty Szeto is a woman with a dream: to become a K-Pop superstar. The 23-year-old Asian American is traveling from her home in LA to South Korea’s capital Seoul to attend a K-Pop academy. There she’ll do hardcore training in singing, dancing and styling. All this is to prepare for make-or-break auditions for K-Pop agencies like SM Entertainment, Big Hit Music and YG Entertainment. If she makes it, Caty could become a chart-topping idol like the megastars who perform to legions of fans and make millions. But this quest has its challenges. Caty finds out about ageism in the industry, where many new idols are in their teens. Then she comes face-to-face with incredibly specific K-beauty standards while navigating being a foreigner in K-Pop. Over just three months, our host journalist Haeryun Kang follows Caty to see if she can overcome these obstacles and reach K-Pop stardom.
From USG Audio, Novel and PRX, Mission K-Pop is an 8-part podcast series about one woman's quest to become an idol and how her journey illuminates the beautiful and chaotic world of K pop.
