Alright, KPoppers, trauma warning ahead. I apologize in advance for reminding you about the hellscape that is survival shows. If you are less familiar with the many woes that come with being a fan responsible for watching several months of competition and piecing together a new K-pop group, consider yourself lucky. You’ve been spared from watching entertainment companies establish grueling competitions to torment idol hopefuls for the bit.
Now you may be familiar with survival shows from the fan perspective, and it’s likely that some curiously masochistic part of you has always wondered what it would be like to be on the other side of the screen. Survival shows can be a fast way to get your name out there in the idol world, and you might even have a debut to show for the hours of practice and bullying from the people who are supposed to show you the ropes. The time has come to delete your voting apps and take a shot at the competition yourself, with this step-by-step guide on how to best prepare yourself to be a winning survival show contestant! Good luck, and may the votes be ever in your favor.
Step 1: Remaking
Before you willingly check yourself into the depths of a company basement, remember that at the end of all this you’ll be known by a new name. If your legal name is a snappy two-syllable set or is somehow already a single letter, you’ll probably get to keep it unless the powers that be decide it sucks. Either way, you’ll ideally be walking out of this show as part of a new group whose name will be drawn one letter at a time from a hat filled with Scrabble tiles. This method has famously given us groups like PLANB, EL7Z UP, and CLOSE YOUR EYES (yes all of those are real). If you’re not prepared for this identity swap at the end of your torment, you might as well save yourself the weeks of training and scrutiny and stick with your mediocre given name.
Step 2: History
You didn’t think you could stand out on a survival show by just showing up, did you? As soon as the official social media announces you as a contestant, you’ll be researched by Twitter’s finest detectives. Be prepared by establishing your background on the world wide web, so that one day in the future your fans can dig through your completely authentic Instagram and coo over your predebut photos. They might end up doing a little more digging than you’d expect and end up at a concert with your high school prom photo on a sign, but that’s just the depth of love and support you have in store! Start repaying that love early with a solid predebut history to discover, complete with archived dance challenges and maybe a dating scandal or two. Bonus points if you lay foundations for your survival show situationship by being a proud internet heterophobe.
Step 3: Start Surviving
It’s time to start filming! Be ready to make your grand entrance in the most memorable way possible, whether that’s by snagging center stage for your introductory performance or teleporting into the studio from inside a giant egg. We’re all in favor of making a creative first impression, which is exactly what you’ll need to do to solidify yourself as a one-pick. The clue’s in the name — your best shot at lasting until the finale is to make yourself the one person viewers will vote for in every round, even as their voting slots dwindle. You could accomplish this by wowing the industry-veteran judges during your individual challenges or showing how good of a team player you are even in your 25th hour of daily practice, but why go through the trouble? A well-timed wink on stage will get the fans talking more than any professional vocal run will. Your actual human personality only matters to your idol image if it converts into an iconic ending fairy, so put those expressions to good use!
Step 5: All Fall Down
There comes a time in every contestant’s life where they will be subjected to the true core of a survival show — eliminations. Remember those voting apps we talked about earlier? Those will be key in determining fans’ opinions of the best and most popular contestants, and then taking those opinions and tossing them in the nearest dumpster. Eliminations are by far the unruliest aspect of a survival show, and the rules can change at any time. One day you’re belting out a duet with your new friend, the next day you’re voting them out to save yourself, and the day after you’re both getting kicked to the curb because a judge hated your performance outfit. Such is life — but hey, at least the fans wanted you there.
Step 4: Divide and Conquer
Wait, you actually made it past eliminations? Look at you defying expectations! Up next is a series of group challenges, where front-running contestants pick team members they want to perform with, subsequently unleashing opinions from the fanbases of every remaining contestant about who they should’ve picked instead. Your goal in these challenges is to show fans how well you work together, blending performance styles and vocal skills in such a heart-wrenching way that even skeptics will latch onto your potential. Become the ones that got away — very literally, as your group might be eliminated all in one go if the judges feel like it. Evil never rests, and neither do you. Back to practice.
Step 5: Fin… almost
Every survival show makes its mark with its theme songs, original songs written for the show that are usually about running somewhere or popping something. These songs will worm into the ears of your faithful viewers, and your fate is in their hands as they choose which song they would just die to see you perform. Who cares what you think when it’s your survival on the line, right? This performance will be the last time fans will see you on stage before the final group announcement, so give it your all! Time to hit the practice room one last time, hone in every skill you’ve been yelled at to learn by now, and go out with a bang — or a boom, or pow. Whatever suits your songwriters’ fancy.
Step 6: Be Korean
Congratulations on making it to the finale! If you’ve made it this far, it’s probably a fair bet that you can sing and dance your way into a rookie tour. You now have one final hurdle to cross before stepping into that just-debuted spotlight — ethnicity. The true survivors of these shows are the ones that appeal to the audience in their country of origin, and opposites don’t quite attract here. Unless you’re sketchy enough to be interesting, or you’ve wormed your way into the one spot in a global group reserved for the token Korean-adjacent member, you’ll be booted from the top ranks under mysterious circumstances known as xenophobia.
“But wait,” you may ask, “what happened to all my votes?” Or perhaps, “What about my years of training and established fanbase?” Oh, silly silly you. Those vocals don’t stand a chance in the face of keeping the K in K-pop.
But don’t lose heart just yet! Rinse and repeat this process in a year or two, and bring your undeniable talents and slightly larger fanbase to a new survival show. You’ll be known as “that contestant from that one show” until the votes stack up just right and you make your debut! If it took the Jay Chang of Under19, Boys Planet, and Build Up fame that many tries to secure a top spot, you can stand a few extra years of being a contestant before you snag a place in the final lineup. Keep posting those song covers you have saved in your drafts; one day, you too will get the chance to sell your soul and sleep schedule to a group that will dissolve in a few years anyway. Fame and nostalgia will be yours!
