Mission K-Pop
2025 USG AudioCaty 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 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.
Foreign Idol
While K-Pop has been embraced all over the world, it’s still difficult for foreigners to find their place in the industry. Caty speaks Korean well, but struggles with communication at times. Haeryun wonders if this is getting in the way of her being cast by a K-Pop entertainment agency. Then again, there are very successful foreigners in the industry like Lisa in Blackpink.
In order to determine Caty’s place as an Asian-American in K-Pop, Haeryun traces the origins of the genre from Seoul’s underground nightclubs in the 90s to global stars like Psy and BTS. Then, both Caty and Haeryun meet the K-Pop girl group Blackswan, which is composed entirely of non-Koreans.
Consultant: Suk-Young Kim