I bolded what you said that made this whole subject start making a lot more sense to me because I was just having trouble identifying a motive for using South Korea for a while. Then, I realized the motivation a parent would have to sell their child into something like this because of poverty and it all started to click for whatever reason.
I read a little bit on the current economy of South Korea and it looks like it has started to improve to the point that some people are questioning whether there should be international adoption from SK anymore. That would make it seem that South Koreans have a reason to support the role Kpop plays in improving their economy.
There was an article from BBC about the socially acceptable perspective towards the injustice that is present even without a discussion of symbolism.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-13760064
It basically says that these kids are enslaved to their contracts. They are like sweatshop superstars, which the general world is starting to see as an injustice because their popularity has increased.
It also says that these stars make basically nothing admitting that everything they do is manufactured. Everything has a cost from the clothes they wear to the person paid to pick out their clothes. It is interesting to me that people can realize that something is so manufactured, but reject the idea that it is designed towards an ideological viewpoint.
I have also found it interesting that so many of the boys are very feminized in light of the admission that this a manufactured industry. I wouldn't be surprised if many of them doubled as prostitutes. I read that many actors and models do this because they can actually make more money in prostitution than they can acting or modeling. It is almost like they are making commercial advertisements for this purpose.
There is definite, pervasive injustice present in this industry. Hopefully, social pressure due to popularity will help change this to some degree.
