Moore didn’t intend to be here, and it’s the last thing on his mind; right now he just wants his fiancé back, and his freedom. He’s been shuttered from the outside world for two months, and if he screws this up, it’ll be a long time before his next chance to escape.

....

K-Pop’s outspoken online community was in such a furor over Busker Busker’s dismissal that Superstar K offered to grandfather them back into the show’s Top 11. But Jang and Kim would have to drop out of college, and Moore would have to abruptly quit his professorship.

“I asked the show, if I leave my job for this, can I make money doing music? And they said probably not,” Moore recalls. “Don’t do this if you think you’re going to make more money than you did as a teacher, they said. Do it for the chance of having a story to tell.”

....

As soon as the band returned to the umbrage of Superstar K, the Korean entertainment industry’s peculiar darkness set upon them. Nobody had warned Moore of the autocratic living strictures upheld at the rural manor the remaining contestants called home. His phone and wallet were confiscated upon arrival, and he would remain confined until whenever Busker Busker lost. 

...

...he was force fed a slimming diet of salad and tofu. “Involuntary makeup” was an everyday ritual, and the show’s producers frequently aimed snide barbs at the musicians’ physiques. Weirder still was Superstar K’s daily request for the contestants—mostly in their twenties or late teens—to take advantage of their gratis Botox regimens. 

....

In lieu of music, Superstar K filled its subjects’ time with what they called “VCR.” This daily, filmed servitude entailed the occasional skit or cutesy “mission,” but moreover, a marathon of brand name endorsements—for which Busker Busker and their peers received literal slave wage.

“We were popular because we were on TV, but we couldn’t legally make money,” Moore says, underscoring a strange norm in Korean entertainment law.

....

 “We were at ‘amateur status’ in the broadcasting contract. So, like, Coca-Cola comes in and we spend all day doing a Coca-Cola commercial, but they pay the [show’s] company—not the artist. We were on the show for eight weeks straight, and we did commercials for eight weeks straight. We took home no money from that.” On some days their schedule would go “over 24 hours”—Moore, Jang and Kim soon grew accustomed to napping between takes in bushes, on concrete.

....

Perhaps the most ridiculous aspect of the artists’ sacrificial pact with Superstar K was that this same rule applied to music sales.

....

“Our sales were in the millions [USD]. One song, ‘Makgeollina,’ sold $1.4 million in a month and a half—and yet we saw nothing from that,”  Moore says.

....

"... ‘Contractually, guys, when it hits midnight on Friday, your deal dissolves and you’re free,’” Moore says. “‘But the company is gonna tell you otherwise.’”

....

 By the time Superstar K’s ominous bus appeared, Busker Busker had been awake for nearly two straight days.

....

 The other contestants, who had entered the mystery mansion, were served a new set of contracts upon arrival, and conscripted into another lengthy lockdown for “idol superstar training” on an “after-show” season. 

....

“I’ve never heard of anything under three years; the average is seven. And the big groups right now—miss A, BIGBANG, Super Junior—they do ten,” Moore says. “I think we just pissed them off enough that they didn’t want us in their lives for long.”

....

“The CJ time, those six months—I mean, it was like the TV show. It sucked. They booked us every day, all day, because contractually they could,” Moore says.