A K-pop star turned his years-long work break into a productivity flex

• Male K-pop stars with Korean citizenship must fulfill mandatory military service.
• For most idols, that translates to around two years of hiatus-style career obsolescence.
• Not so for Seventeen’s Hoshi.

Welcome to the Hoshiverse, where one 29-year-old man can’t stop, won’t stop working.

Hoshi is one of the 13 members of the K-pop supergroup Seventeen. Since his teen years, he’s been better known by his stage name and the tiger paw symbol he throws up whenever he spots fans.

Now he’s known as Kwon Soonyoung, a soldier in the Korean army.

Kwon is undergoing a mandated hiatus as part of his years-long military service, which often results in a long work lull for most male idols.

Kwon enlisted in September for full-time military service.

Through some sheer force of will or extreme hustle, Kwon prepared multiple releases to roll out during his time away. That was on top of Seventeen’s regular activities — touring, producing their 10th anniversary album, and filming their variety show, “Going Seventeen.”

Here’s what’s been on his slate:

• One video every Monday morning, shot TikTok-style, in which he greets fans as they start their workweeks.
• “Hoshi TamTam” vlogs, filmed months in advance and rolling out now.
• Dance challenges and photo carousels are uploaded to his personal Instagram account about once every two weeks.
• Regular social media posts on Weverse, the platform that idols like Seventeen and BTS use to communicate with fans.
• A comic art-inspired photo book, “Hoshiverse,” has sold out its preorders.
• Three singles since he enlisted: “Take A Shot,” “Fallen Superstar,” and “Baby Honey.”

What he’s released in the eight months he’s been away could be what an active K-pop star releases in two to three years of work. He’s able to do this because he’s not technically working as an idol now — he just has a seemingly never-ending backlog of content for when he’s in the military.

On top of his assigned military duties, Kwon also somehow found his way into performing live, this time as part of the ROK Army Taekwondo Demonstration Team.

On April 16, he went to Norfolk, Virginia, with a South Korean contingent for a taekwondo performance at the Virginia International Tattoo.

He’s been a star member of multiple public taekwondo demonstrations since he enlisted — and a mascot-like figure on the troupe’s Instagram.

Other members of Seventeen have released projects during their military tenure, albeit at a less intense cadence. The band’s eldest member, Yoon Jeonghan, who’s wrapping up his military service in June, released a photobook, “Wanderlust,” and a Japanese single, “Better Half.”

Jeon Wonwoo, who enlisted last April, released “Gogae,” a Korean ballad, on his birthday in 2025. Both members also filmed vlogs to be released in their absence: “I-GOYA,” for Yoon, and “Every Wonwoo,” for Jeon.

Back when Kwon was actively promoting with Seventeen, he led the group’s dance team and was known for his flashy, fluid dance moves. In his absence, the band has wrapped its last big tour for the foreseeable future, “NEW_” — a 31-show, 14-city run that took the group’s nine active members through Asia and four US cities.

And while Kwon wasn’t there for that tour, which saw the group performing to close to a million people online and offline, he’s not going anywhere.

Seventeen remains one of the mega company Hybe’s top-selling groups. Its album, “FML,” holds the record it set in 2023 for first-day sales for a K-pop album, notching more than 6.4 million copies sold overall.