K-Pop Idol Makes Money For The First Time Years After Debuting

OH MY GIRL’s Mimi recently opened up about the reality of idol earnings.

The girl group member appeared as a guest on the first episode of Lee Eun Ji’s YouTube show Mudaepo, alongside Swings and Kim Dae Ho. During the episode, Lee Eun Ji asked Mimi when she first made “real money.” Her answer surprised many.

From my very first settlement, I was already in the negatives. Girl groups cost a lot of money. Just by default, they cost a lot, and unless you do really well, most of the time, you’re in the negatives.

— Mimi

Mimi also added that because she did not have many individual activities early in her career, she did not earn what she considered her first proper income through idol work. Instead, her first meaningful earnings came years after her debut: through YouTube.

“In my case, I also barely had any individual activities, so my first proper earnings came from YouTube,” she said.

Mimi debuted with OH MY GIRL in 2015. In 2019, she began running her personal YouTube channel, Mim PD, where she uploaded vlogs showing her eating, relaxing, and sharing her everyday life. According to Mimi, the channel eventually became the first place where she earned money from views.

A lot of people enjoyed watching my vlogs, where I ate and showed my comfortable daily life. That was the first time I earned money from views, and to me, that was a really huge amount. I mean, it’s still a huge amount now. So YouTube is very precious and meaningful to me.

— Mimi

Mimi currently has around 547,000 subscribers on her YouTube channel.

Watch her latest video here: