Katseye, America and the dark side of K-pop perfection

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0:46That's O-D-O-O dot com. The global girl group Cat's Eye kicked off its first world tour earlier this month, and our colleague Mark Savage went to check them out on the second night in London. It was an assault on the senses. In every respect, the cheering for the band started an hour before they came on stage. They were playing their music videos, and so everybody was cheering for their favorite member. But even there were moments where they had an instructional video on how to put the batteries inside the light stick that you could buy at the merch stall. And people were cheering for that as well.

1:24Cat's Eye is an attempt to see if K-pop can be replicated outside of South Korea. an effort by the biggest K-pop company in the world, Hybe, in collaboration with the major American record label Geffen. The group was formed through this reality TV show in which six members, including three Americans, beat out thousands of others from across the world. And in the two years since their debut single, Cat's Eye has built up a legion of fans. In the seats where I am, because I'm very old and need to sit down during a concert, it was all kids, kids and their parents. And those kids knew every dance move.

2:00They danced the entire show with them for two hours. So the venue was boiling hot by the end of it. But it was really, really interesting just to kind of experience what it's like. Because, you know, in a very short space of time, they have become the biggest pop group in the world after their label mates, BTS. Cat's Eye goes on tour here in the U.S. next month. And all the concerts are sold out. This weekend, they're featured as the musical guest on the season premiere of Saturday Night Live. But with fame comes notoriety. And as Cat's Eye's star has risen, the group has faced multiple controversies during its short time together.

2:41It's put an intense spotlight on the working standards of the K-pop industry. From the BBC, I'm Tristan Redman in London. And I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C. And today on The Global Story, can K-pop be replicated outside of South Korea?

3:08Regular listeners to The Global Story might have heard Mark Savage, the BBC's music correspondent last week on our show, talking about Ed Sheeran and the Macklemore drama. As it turns out, we had to invite him back this week because he's also the BBC's top Cat's Eye expert. Shall we do the Cat's Eye Stats Eye? Oh, let's do that. They are one of the top 100 most streamed artists in the world on Spotify. They are in the top 10 on YouTube. They've 21 million followers on TikTok, 10 million on Instagram. They played Coachella Festival earlier this year. They were nominated for two Grammys and they performed at the Grammys.

3:48They really have kind of taken over the conversation in terms of pop music and that kind of very global pop music that they make, but also sits adjacent to the K-pop industry, which is really where they received all of their training. What is K-pop, Mark? Well, as the name suggests, it's pop music that comes from Korea. And it's been through dozens of permutations over the last 20 years or so when it's really become a global commercial force. Obviously, the two bands that everybody knows are BTS and Blackpink, who are kind of hip hop adjacent. But there is a huge variety of music within the entire K-pop industry.

4:31it just draws in influences from all over the world and synthesizes it into this kind of bizarre Frankenstein pop monster that is initially off-putting. But once you're tuned into it, I find it some of the most compelling and fascinating music being made right now. Well, talking about the sounds, I have to lean into this fact because the lawyers will not allow us to play the music for rights reasons. So we are going to do an episode about Cat's Eye while we are not allowed to play their music. But you can tell us, Mark, what does their music sound like? And like, what makes a K-pop song exactly?

5:11Well, one of the interesting things about Cat's Eye is seeing where a song will go, because they will fracture off into about four or five different directions that you can't predict at the start of the song. This is where I'm like, this is not maybe for me. I had expected maybe more Golden, the very popular song that like all the kids have been listening to from K-pop team and hunters. I'm really going to date myself. But when I heard Girl Group, I kind of thought, ooh, maybe it's going to be like Spice Girls. Definitely wasn't that either. It was a lot of like repetition of the same word with a vibe that I could not place.

5:46Like musical genre wise, I could not place it at all. No, and I think that's kind of their calling card is that you don't know what you're going to get from one track to the next. You know, the early Cat's Eye stuff, songs like Touch and Debut kind of lent onto US R &B and hip hop tropes. But then at a song like Gnarly, Gnarly is very, very aggressive and in your face. But then the single that came after that, Gabriela, which was co-written by Charlie XCX, is this beautiful kind of Spanish ballad that leans on the Venezuelan-Cuban roots of Daniela, who's one of the chief singer-dancers in the band.

6:20And I think one of the things that's tricky about Cat's Eye is that you could like 25 % of what they do and absolutely hit the rest of it. And that's kind of something they've lent into as a band. What about the origins of Cat's Eye? Because spoiler alert to our listeners, they did not meet in school and play their first songs together in a garage. So how did they come together, Mark? What's the story? Yeah, the origin story of Cat's Eye is really interesting because they are a joint project. On one side you've got HYBE, who are one of the biggest entertainment companies in South Korea. They're responsible for BTS.

6:56And then on the other side you have Geffen, one of the biggest, most storied record labels in America. They have Olivia Rodrigo and Guns N' Roses on their books. And those two companies decided that you could apply the K-pop model to a group that would appeal to a Western audience.

7:16They held auditions and they scouted talent. 120 ,000 people applied. 20 of them were selected to take part in a reality show that went out on YouTube that was called The Debut Dream Academy. Hi, my name is Daniela. I'm 19 years old and I'm from Atlanta, Georgia. Hello, my name is Yoon Chae. I'm 15 years old and I'm from Korea. Hi, I'm Megan. I'm 17 years old and I'm Chinese American from Honolulu, Hawaii. There's a Netflix documentary that follows some of this process. The girls know that they can be eliminated at any moment for any reason. I think everyone is a threat. It kind of followed them over a two-year boot camp, where they were put through classes in dancing, in singing, in learning foreign languages, and they were ranked pretty brutally by the executives at the record label.

8:06In the very beginning, the hits were there, but it looks really elementary. and basic. We tell you this all the time, but you can be so much better. And you can see just how Machiavellian some of the decisions behind these sorts of groups can be. But from that process, there was eventually a public vote. Believe in yourself, guys. Give it up for your new global girl group, Ketsai! Six members were chosen. Daniela, as I said, is Venezuelan, Cuban-American. Lara Raj, who is the main singer. She is of Indian and Sri Lankan descent. Megan is Chinese, Singaporean-American. Sophia Laforteza is from Manila in the Philippines.

8:52Yun Che Jong is the Seoul Korean member from Seoul. And then there's Manon Bannerman, who's Ghanaian-Italian and was raised in Zurich in Switzerland. And they recorded their debut EP in August 2024. And the Cat's Eye story has progressed from there. Do you know what this reminds me of, Asma? It reminds me of the auditioning process that you and I went through to work for The Global Story. Except the public didn't vote on us, you know. The public didn't vote on us, but there was definitely some Machiavellian intervention going on, I'm sure. Was there public criticism of how it played out? There definitely was a lot of commentary online and in the press.

9:35I mean, just to give you some examples, there was a moment when all of the girls were asked anonymously to select which other five of the trainees they wanted to end up in a group with. It's like you want to choose your friends and who you're close to, but you also have to be like smart. We're not forming a friend group. We're forming a girl group. And then out of the blue, the producers just told everybody who everybody else had selected. And so there were some girls that were not chosen at all. And it completely destroyed the dynamics between people. It affected their personal relationships.

10:13It really put them under a lot of pressure. And then just the K-pop system can be quite brutal. In the documentary about Katzai, you see scenes where they've been rehearsing for two or three days to perfect one routine. and somebody says to them, that's terrible. It's got to look like one person walking down the stairs, not six girls falling down the stairs. And you can see on their faces just how heartbroken they are. And of course that's showbiz. You know, people get criticism all the time and that's one of the tools that choreographers use for right or wrong in order to whip people into shape.

10:52But I do think the documentary exposed a lot of that in a way that helped people relate to the band and to root for them when they finally became public property. How is this different from the sort of genre of music entertainment competition that we've become accustomed to, like American Idol or The Voice? I mean, obviously it sounds more high pressure and high stakes, perhaps to some degree, but there's been this culture of music competition that's made really good TV and the public consumes it, the public likes it. But also, Asma, you know, like Simon Cowell, who we all remember from those shows, was known for being...

11:33He's tough. Tough. He was a pantomime villain in a lot of ways, but I think the words that he said on TV 20 years ago probably wouldn't cut it now. There's been a big reckoning in the Western pop industry about the way artists are treated, particularly on reality shows, but also just generally, you know, the amount of work that you're expected to do, especially as a pop act who often have to get up first thing in the morning and be on breakfast TV and give a concert at nine o 'clock that night and the cycle continues day after day after day. It's relentless and you never get any let up. But I think certainly that documentary to me exposed some tactics that would be frowned upon in the modern Western pop industry and I'm only talking about in the last five years or so when there has been a big reckoning over mental health.

12:23And I do have to say, you know, to the credit of Hybe and Geffen, you see in the Netflix documentary that the members of Cat's Eye and the people who didn't make it into Cat's Eye all had access to mental health support and psychiatrists throughout the training process. What has been the response of Hybe and Geffen to some of the public criticism about the way the contestants are treated on the show? Nothing that I'm aware of. And, you know, a lot of these companies companies tend not to make public statements about controversy like this. They often see it as fueling the fire if you start responding to fan criticisms.

13:01So this group Cat's Eye is formed in 2023. And it sounds like in the span of just the last couple of years, they have become enormously popular. Can you chart how that happened? It was very, very quick. They released their debut ep late 2024 it had a breakout single on it called touch but they followed that up with a song in early 25 called gnarly which i mean it is teeth gratingly catchy it is the sort of song where the first time you hear it you think this is possibly an atrocity against music a war crime of pop and then you think but maybe i'll listen to it again and by the third or fourth listen i I was just like, I was hooked.

13:46I thought this is insanely good. It is so different to everything else. And that really set them up for a big year because it kind of had a week of absolute hatred online. And then the same reaction I had, everybody went, oh no, this is good and it's going to be in the charts. One of the other things Cat's Eye have been accused of, and it's an accusation that holds some water, is that their music is meme music. And so it exists to be clipped up into 20 second soundbites that will pop up on your feed over and over again with everybody doing the choreography and they are niggling little earworms.

14:22And I think that is part of what has made them popular is that these little clips, they pop up on your feed forever and ever and ever. Once the algorithm thinks you're interested, it won't let go. And very soon after that, they were asked to do an advert for Gap for their denim range and they had a day to rehearse it and it has some of the most intricate and impressive choreography you will ever see. Wait, they had a day to rehearse that ad. They had a day. Yeah. I mean, it is incredibly synchronized dance moves. It is. And that advert went incredibly viral. This has been one of the best things I've seen all year.

15:02It was addicting. Those girls are ethereal. Judging by everyone's FYPs, people are obsessed. That doubled sales of denim at Gap. Feel the love for Katzai. Welcome to my... And a couple of weeks later, they were nominated for two Grammy Awards. I gotta say, you performed at the Grammys last weekend. I gotta say, you stole the show. I don't care. You are unbelievable! And that was kind of the peak of everybody going, wow, this band has arrived.

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16:11Hello, my name is Maxie. I'm eight years old and I love Cat's Eye. So my daughter, Maxine, aged eight. Maxine, what did you spend most of the summer doing? Practising. Practising. K-pop is sort of a special dance because it's quick. Yeah. It's hard to learn. Yeah. Also, there are lots of specific dance moves to learn. Which is your favourite Cat's Eye song? Probably a song called Animal, which I also know the dance to. Maxine has been asking me for two weeks now, since I told her we were going to do an episode about Cat's Eye, she says, are you going to interview them? And I think I have to tell her that that is not going to happen, but you have interviewed them.

16:57Cat's Eye. Hello. Hello, aloha, annyeonghaseyo. What's that? Vanukan ete sen. Grüezi. Guten tag. This was last November. How many languages do you guys speak all together? All together? Okay. Fluently English. English. Korean. Tagalog. Spanish. Fluently. Fluently. It's like less than that. What was that actually like? What's it like, the K-pop vibe? Do you know what? In my experience of interviewing K-pop bands, it can be quite tricky because it's very controlled. They want you to submit questions in advance, which is something that the BBC does not do. and they're very media trained. You know, part of that boot camp experience is knowing how to handle difficult questions from the media.

17:45I will say there were no stipulations on the Katzai interview. There was nothing that was off limits. They volunteered stuff that I never thought they would. I think as time goes on and on, the stakes just get higher and higher. And like pressure from 360 all sides becomes more like heavy and intense. They talked about the death threats that they'd received. I try to tell myself sometimes that I'm like, it doesn't matter and what people say doesn't matter, but we're humans and if a thousand people are sending you death threats, it's jarring. The strange things that fans write. Sometimes on the internet we'll get lettered grading.

18:29Yeah, it's like a constant comparison between all of us. Based on how pretty we are, our singing skill, dancing skill, and then they'll rank it up and give us a percentage and then rank us. It's insane. To me, I think that that's so dystopian. A lot of pop bands, a lot of what you would consider more edgy pop bands aren't as willing to talk as that. They were very engaged with the process. And I think partly because the way that the media landscape works now, There aren't many places to sit down and do a serious interview. You're more likely to be doing a stunt, eating hot wings or, you know, ranking pub snacks.

19:10And so to actually ask them about the work, they kind of switched on. I really want us to have a song about the internet, but in a way where it's like, it's a universal experience that women go through. Like we're always getting compared to each other. I will say, however, in a sign at that point that they were already very tired of the treadmill. They'd just come from a day of promo in Paris. And Megan, bless her, I think fell asleep twice during the half an hour that we were talking to her. Wait, are you serious? Wait, wait, Mark, you were sitting face to face with them? Yes, that's right. Oh, wow.

19:44And she visibly just slumped in her chair and fell asleep? Yeah, it was a bit of a Donald Trump moment. I don't know that I've ever had someone face to face. Full sleep during an interview. How did you take that at the time, Mark? How did you take that, Mark? I felt for them because, you know, a long day of filming, following a long night of promotion with a concert to rehearse for the next day, my heart just went out to her, really. And I thought, we'll cut around this. It's not fair to, you know, let he or she who has not had a little snoozel in the afternoon cast the first stone, I would say, Mark.

20:22Exactly. Call it a siesta. Yes. Exactly. So Mark, when you interviewed the girls, there were six of them, all six members. And this was in November of 2025. But, you know, I've seen some of the coverage about how things have begun to crack. And in London now, there were only four of them on tour, on stage. That's right. What happened? So in February this year, 2026, Manon took a temporary hiatus from the band saying she wanted to focus on her health and well-being. and Manon is the only black member of the band. She was very quickly singled out for criticism. I don't think it helped that in the Netflix documentary there was a storyline where she was presented as less committed and perhaps lazy, which of course is a very negative stereotype that fed into some of that online hatred.

21:15Last year when I interviewed them, she told me that not only had she received death threats, but they'd also targeted her family. Oh, wow. That's really sad to hear. But it's seven months later, and we haven't really had any news or updates. She did say in April that she'd been having positive conversations with Hybe and Geffen, the two labels behind the band. But it's been very mysterious. And then in August, quite separately, Sophia, who is technically the band leader, she said she was also going on hiatus. She was going to miss the band's first date on the world tour in the UK and Europe. and her mother Carla has been kind of very open to talking to the media.

21:58She just said that she felt the management were looking after the band very well and that they had given her a break in order to allow her to come back with a positive attitude and full of health. And Sophia quite openly said in her statement when she took a break, you can't pour from an empty cup. So she's admitting, you know, the relentless schedule of being in this band, flying internationally all the time, performing every day, has taken its toll. And kind of by design, K-pop bands can struggle on without a member or two members because they're almost like Lego bricks, you know, or a Jenga tower.

22:39You can take one or two out and put them back in and things will keep going. So it's something that the Western audience is being exposed to for the first time because we expect our bands to be together all the time. And if somebody's sick, then the whole concert gets cancelled. In the K-pop machine, there's kind of an expectation that the band will continue without one of their members until they are ready to return. Is the K-pop model just unsustainable for individuals or is it the whole thing just such a juggernaut that it'll just carry on? I mean, I think in the last couple of years, we've seen the beginning of that reckoning that I've said the Western pop industry has had.

23:19You'll have heard the story of the band New Jeans, perhaps, who were also on Hybe Records. Their manager, who'd been their creative director, was sacked. And they kind of went rogue and set up a burner YouTube account and said, well, we're not going to continue promoting our band until this woman is reinstated. They then took it to a tribunal. One of the members appeared in front of the South Korean parliament to talk about unfair work practices. But ultimately, their case fell apart and the band have essentially been forced to get back together, minus one of the members, and are expected to resume their promotional activities later this year.

24:00But there is definitely a sign that people are pushing back against some of the control that is exerted upon these young women and men. Okay. Mark, you said something earlier that to me was really thought-provoking, and that is that these girls are seen as kind of Jenga blocks or Legos, that they are in some ways expendable. And I think there's something really provocative about how this type of music and maybe this K-pop genre can be kind of a natural fit for capitalist music culture that we have here in the U.S. And that is that, look, they have ultimately penetrated the global market. They've certainly penetrated the U.S.

24:50market. And I'm curious what you make of whether they have, like, cracked the code of how you just make music in a really profitable way. Because if these girls do burn out, it seems like they believe they could just replicate the model in two years with different women. I mean, I think that is probably what some of the executives at these companies think. There is currently a band being put together from some of the other 16 people who didn't make it into Cat's Eye. The industry is incredibly streamlined, incredibly focused on achieving commercial success. I do think that really, in any of these scenarios, the profitability doesn't come straight away.

25:36and so it's only when they've built up a head of steam and are consistently selling out concerts and consistently releasing new music that you get a return on that investment. So for a band to burn out in the first two years is not what anybody wants and I think that's why these hiatuses are encouraged or tolerated because you need the band to be healthy and to be engaged in what they're doing in order for it to be a success in the long term. I mean, the only thing I would say is that they have dragged along some of their label mates with them. So there was a song earlier this year that was a collaboration between Cat's Eye and Le Seraphim and Islet, all from the HYBE labels, all of whom have been on the receiving end of incredible hatred online for various reasons.

26:27and it is a clap back to all of the haters saying we have survived and thrived because of the hate that you gave us. As a result of Cat's Eye collaborating with these two bands, their streaming numbers went up and so a rising tide helps all boats, right? So I think it's probably a good thing because it's making fans pay attention to K-pop that wouldn't have before, but whether or not Cat's Eye are an outlier or a signal of things to come. I think we're yet to find out.