Single’s Inferno, South Korea’s most recent and most popular reality dating show, finished its fourth season in February. Riffing off the genre’s more typical competition tropes—lots of abs, drama, and love triangles—the show frames the contestants’ search for love as a means of escape from the “Inferno,” a deserted island and a “singles’ hell.” Find a contestant you click with, choose each other, and you’re allowed to escape for the evening to “Paradise,” hotel suites complete with everything that’s supposed to help you fall in love: deluxe beds, room–service dinner, and an outdoor pool. You get the idea.
Given the show’s popularity, each season is typically accompanied by waves of fanfare and speculation online, Season Four included. This much is standard. What isn’t standard, however, is a notable amount of criticism targeted at the cast; specifically, toward their appearance. “When I look at their faces this time, something about it is just not … right. It’s not of this Earth,” one TikTok comments. Other commentary online often reflects this take, pointing out that the contestants, although attractive, look the same, while others even call their appearances “uncanny.”
Maybe these kinds of criticisms can be written off as shoddy production—some online wonder whether the show has changed casting directors or that the novelty of the Inferno–Paradise universe has worn off. Or maybe, it’s something more: a microcosm of the effects of the complex, contradictory world of Korean beauty standards.
This isn’t new: Many articles and community pages are already devoted to the high and unachievable beauty standards in Korea. From the abundance of plastic surgery clinics to hyperspecific skincare routines and the obsession with being “milky white, smooth, glowing,” the global fascination with K–beauty and K–pop is rooted in an industry that thrives on an obsession with good looks. But maybe, it’s only now that we’re really seeing its effects.
In the first episode of Season Four of Single’s Inferno, contestant Bae Ji–yeon is the only one left at Inferno while the other contestants that were successfully matched with one another spend the night at Paradise. Attractive and slender, she, like the other contestants, fits conventional Korean beauty standards—except for her tan. Almost immediately, speculation spread online about colorism among the contestants. “The guys aren’t interest[ed] because of her skin and y’all know what I mean,” one TikTok points out, claiming that the “same thing happened” to another contestant in Season Two (where, incidentally, a male contestant came under fire for declaring that he liked girls with white skin).
Regardless of whether this is true, it reflects the consequences of one of the largest “pillars” of Korean beauty: the obsession with being pale. In her book Ugliness, Afghan–German writer and artist Moshtari Hilal argues that our ideas about human beauty are never personal, but rather determined by forces like war, power hierarchies, or economics. The same can be applied for colorism in Korea, which is often linked to Korea’s feudal past. Archaeological evidence from as far back as the Goryeo period shows that pale skin was associated with high class; the popular folk tale Chunhyangjeon shows the love interest Mongryong whitening his face with makeup to appear more attractive. This tradition has continued. Today, K–beauty churns out dozens of microtrends which often smack of colorism—the emphasis on shiny glass skin akin to “kkandalgyal” (“boiled egg”), for instance—just in different names. This also leads to the thorny debate surrounding makeup’s infamously limited shade range: In the subreddit r/MakeupAddiction, one user complains about the lack of accurate foundation shades in East Asian beauty brands. “Even with SPF everyday (which I use to prevent acne scarring not to lighten my skin) I cannot even use the darkest shade for many East Asian complexion products, and have never successfully found an Asian beauty blush that was not ashy.”
This is only one example, but the list could go on—from the perennial desire for double eyelids, to the obsession over weight, to the lack of inclusivity in clothing. If Single’s Inferno reveals anything about the pursuit of what Hilal calls “exclusive beauty,” it’s the cost of prioritizing desirability over individuality. Among the critiques of Season Four, a growing amount of online discourse is centered around the opinion that the contestants are, well, uninteresting. “At least have interesting people or maybe even one handsome man,” one TikTok argues, calling for the show to stop being produced altogether. “Why was the most interesting person on the show an accountant?” In another, a user comments that the reason why panelists don’t have much to say about each contestant in the latest season is because they all have the same mannerisms: “There’s nothing to compare or contrast or say different about any of them.”
When I visited Korea for the first time in six years, what struck me most wasn’t the usual struggle of not feeling “Korean enough”—it was the ironclad uniformity of beauty standards. The influence of social media microtrends and algorithms aside—because that’s an entire discussion on its own—my mother even comments how obvious it is to see what the standard is by just walking down the street. “It’s so clear what young people like these days,” she tells me, a little amused. It’s not just clothes, but also haircuts, makeup, and even mannerisms. There seems to be an unspoken, ideal standard for desirability, and everyone is in on it. People are attractive, trendy, and stylish, but not always unique.
Single’s Inferno, a program whose purpose it is to solicit interest by encouraging romance among attractive and desirable people, reveals the core of this tension. Every contestant is picked for their appeal to not just each other but also to larger audiences in Korea and beyond. But when the same audiences are arguing that they no longer find these contestants “interesting,” it brings into question whether we sacrifice individuality in the pursuit of appearing “attractive” as it is defined by standards as strict as that of Korean beauty. And, ultimately, is it worth it?
Alexa Chung notes that good style is a byproduct of good personality, and I think the same resonates when we talk about beauty. Not in the trite, “beauty–radiates–from–within” sense of an inspirational quote, but more so in the sense of what we call “매력” (“maeryeok”) in Korean. Its English equivalent could be translated as “charm,” but its real definition is more akin to “the power an individual possesses to pull in others.” One look at models like Sora Choi or Yoon Young Bae—both undeniably beautiful and embodying this power to pull in others—and it’s clear just how arbitrary and senseless it is to limit one’s perceptions to an exclusive set of rules. Perhaps if we place less emphasis in beauty and attractiveness on arbitrary standards and more emphasis on the unique patchwork of all that makes us interesting—the features we inherit, the people we love, the art and music we consume—that “pulls people in,” we can rethink how we define beauty in a more sustainable way. Maybe we won’t have to consider the pursuit of beauty as an either–or choice between desirability and individuality. After all, some kinds of infernos are not built on deserted islands: They run on tone–up serums and red light skin therapy.
