I know that the traditional music industry, since the times of the beatles (they could not claim to have partners or be married so as not to disappoint their followers) and probably before has treated artists as products. They have "asked" them to lose weight, not to show their sexual orientation, to cut their hair, to shut up, whatever. Good for business, but morally reprehensible (I think we can all agree on that).
K-pop goes to another level in my opinion. Minors who aspire to become members of a band (a band that will be assembled in an office evaluating the profiles of the most outstanding students) enter one of the academies created by the recording industry where they are trained and physically modeled. They are taught to be members of a band (their character in the band), they are taught to dance, sing and act and even usually perform aesthetic operations on them. If they succeed in this hell, they get to be members of a band and to the demands of their managers / record company we add the demands of the fans. There have been quite a few cases of celebrities who have committed suicide presumably given the enormous pressure they are under.
Meanwhile, what is the western and asian (afaik) society doing? Promote and consume the product. Despite being able to find the horrors of said product simply by googling k-pop abuse. Something a bit schizophrenic, if you ask me. You can find an article today denouncing the "wave of suicides" and tomorrow see one of those bands in the mega popular night show of your choice. Seriously, what the hell is this? Should we cancel them, abhor them, simply value its artistic value or what?
(I know, I feel severe prejudices for this type of music and I ignore many things about them, their context (south korea) and the music industry).