I think this isn't exclusive to Kpop, we're all affected by popular culture in many ways. Video games became very popular in South Korea only after gaming machines were introduced by both USA and Japan, and
now the worst cases of video game addiction (VGA) and deaths caused by it are mostly associated with South Korea, even when video games weren't invented there in the first place. It shows how greatly a culture may affect another.
Before Kpop started influencing people worldwide, the Korean culture itself (early Kpop is included) was actually affected by Western entertainment and popular culture. I was one of those kids who wish to dye my hair blonde after high school because these guys were my inspiration:
And believe me or not, blonde hair was never a trend in South Korea before Western entertainment came along after 1994.
Moreover, the unrealistic beauty standards they are showing on Kpop only started to emerge in the raise of Kpop. If you take a look at early Kpop artists, it's like they didn't really give a damn on how they look, they were more focused on their works and nothing else. Sure, the elites' influence were already inside since the 1990s, but they didn't start messing with the fans' minds before they found the right formula: the so-called Korean beauty standards and all.
I've actually done some studies on this, this may be out of topic (sorry for babbling!), but it just saddens me that people (especially newer Kpop fans) start generalizing the Korean beauty standards and vanity as something born in the Korean society, out of the blue, and since God-knows-when, based on those Youtube comments. According to some literature, the Korean popular culture was heavily influenced by other cultures such as Japanese and Western cultures:
.....Anti-Japanese nationalism played a significant role in Koreans’ readiness to consider western ideals of beauty standards. Since the Korean liberation in 1945, much effort has gone into highlighting Korean self-identity and changing appearances as a way of differentiating themselves from the Japanese. Rather than a pure imitation of western features, people in Korea who have become obsessed with physical perfection, are defiant of any similarity to Japanese physiques and of psychological aversion against Japanese colonialism.....
Wang, Y., 2015. Behind South Korean cosmetic surgery: its historical causes and its intertwined relationship with Korean pop culture (Doctoral dissertation, University of Delaware).
.....Within this context, Westernisation has some influence on the visible signs of wealth. However, in the areas of beauty and cosmetics it is interesting to note that adopting certain norms has actually contributed to the creation of specific criteria of beauty that some observers call "hybrid", but which, in the Asian context, are considered to be of Korean origin. These well-defined criteria are particularly coded for women, who must present a face that is as regular and symmetrical as possible, with a "narrower lower face, large eyes, a small mouth and a fine, oval jaw line" (Rhee Seung Chul cited by Elfving-Hwang 2013). As for the body, the norm is long slender legs. These norms are relatively recent and not just the result of the authorisation, after 1994, to use Western fashion models in Korean advertising (which was banned up to this time, or at any rate, strictly controlled by the State). In Korea, the promotion of Western standards of beauty is part of the auto-definition of Korean beauty, especially in comparison with Japanese notions of aesthetics, from which a distance must be kept (or at least this is what is said in Korea).....
Gelézeau, V., 2015. The body, cosmetics and aesthetics in South Korea The emergence of a field of research.
Some note on the effeminacy of male beauty in South Korea (if you're wondering why the heck male celebs nowadays look so feminine):
.....Still, in Korea, where beautiful male pop icons are now commonly referred to as kkonminam (kkot = flower; minam = handsome man), Korean male beauty has, by any standard of judgement, taken on a distinctly effeminate quality.....
.....The emergence of kkonminam is frequently linked to the enormous rise in popularity in Korea of the yaoi genre of comics, following the lifting of the ban on Japanese popular culture in 1998. In the original Japanese yaoi comics, men are commonly depicted with somewhat elf-like features. They often engage in homosexual relationships, and are idealised as soft, sensitive and selfless.....
Maliangkay, R., 2010. The effeminacy of male beauty in Korea. IIAS Newsletter, 55, pp.6-7.
I agree with
@UnspokenSoliloquy, that it has something to do with personal and self confidence issues. Whether you let that bad influence affects you or not, it's really your own choice. Of course it's harder for foreigners to fit in the Korean society because they don't seem to belong to Korean cultural standards, but if you think of it, it really doesn't make sense because we all have our own culture and that's what really matters, right? Nothing is wrong with liking or learning about other cultures, it only gets bad when your obsession becomes unrealistic and you start degrading your own culture. I think that's what's happening to most Kpop fans nowadays.
