Mother Of God, Is This The End Of T-ara?

[koganbot]

I don't have enough information to have an opinion* (which doesn't mean I don't), but I'm fascinated by how quickly public opinion - at least as evidenced by the outpouring of complaints on comment threads - has coalesced around a story that people can't possibly know is true, at least not yet. E.g.,

WTF? did not see this coming! i mean they are

Comments

[warthoginrome]

Despite being an adult, and not a "fan" type of person, I feel a little bad about this story. The script seems so inconsistent. What CEO fires his leading singer (at least for this comeback) for some temper issues with the group still in promotion? As I wrote in another forum, I wonder what he could have done if he was the CEO of some '70 rock band, managing artists on drugs. After all, we're only speaking of some young girls being pushed to their limits, no wonder if some of them have a breakdown now and then.
I may be wrong, but I have a high opinion of Hyomin as a person. It's hard for me to imagine her being involved in this bullying thing.
Anyway, he raised such a lot of mud that it will be difficult for him to cleanup the image of both the company and the group.

[koganbot]

Well, my main interest here, beyond wanting T-ara to continue to prosper aesthetically, is the reaction:

(1) that people are willing to call something "bullying" when the information given is way too sparse to justify that characterization (at least, I don't have nearly enough information to judge whether or not there was any bullying, the tweets themselves not seeming like bullying unless there's something else in the context that I don't know about that makes them so and makes them part of a long pattern of harassment; but again, is there actual evidence for any of this

[koganbot]

I too have a high opinion of Hyomin, but it's based on almost no actual knowledge of her; I've barely looked at more than scattered clips from Invincible Youth, for instance (mainly to add to my collection of Sunny's miraculous behavior in regard to chickens, pens, dangerous boys, and whatnot). Fundamentally, Hyomin has a relaxed look and a strong but engaging demeanor, someone whom you would expect to make a very good host of a diplomatic reception, except she's too down-to-earth to run with the hoity-toity.

[sub_divided]

That "Bullying starts from the top (CEO) and works down (singers)" quote reads true to me, but then a lot of Kpop acts are really incredibly dysfunctional. It's a whole industry of teen stars who lead carefully stage-managed lives (apart from on twitter I guess), after all. Anything could be true behind the scenes, including years and years of sanctioned psychological abuse. The unusual thing about this incident could just be that it happened in public, where we could see it.

Anyway if you want to tie this in with T-ara's art, there is Jiyeon always being cast as in with the gangsters. (Did you read the comments speculating that CCM is a front for the CEO's illegal side businesses? No idea if that is true, but man, that would be one elaborate cover.)

[koganbot]

I still think it's an important point that I don't know that there was any bullying. Taking on faith what Mat read about the CEO, Kim Kwang-soo, the guy was acting like a jackass with his false statements. But nonetheless, maybe he was sincerely trying to protect the staff and the group, and again, just because he's a jackass doesn't prove that he's fundamentally wrong in this instance. Again, I don't knowAs for dysfunction, based on my work experience I often wonder how any business manages to keep going. I would define "dysfunction" as systematically self-defeating behavior. But when it comes to T-ara, and what they're paid to do, the result seems far from self-defeating. Among other things, they've put out more good music, and more consistently good music, than any K-pop act I can think of. Of course, that's my taste speaking, but I don't think that the sound they make is different in kind from the sounds of SNSD, f(x), 4minute, and the rest. It's just good far more often. I've disliked maybe one album track and a couple of

[sub_divided]

I really think you're being far too kind in your interpretations. And that's because I think the T-ara dynamic is fundamentally abusive, starting at the top (CEO) and working down (singers). Not that I have any hard proof; it's just a vibe I get. Abuse can bring people closer together, which can improve the music, e.g. T-ara are always scarily in sync in their voices and gestures.

My definition of dysfunction is a mode of behavior that's out of step with the requirements of the world: within the group tears, repentance, forgiveness, promises to never do it again, perceptions of having betrayed that promise through some small action, tears, repentance, etc - the cycle of abuse - is a functional response, but as soon as you step outside that world you can't function. Meanwhile, within that world, you get worn down - so it's self-defeating in the end, even if not right away

[petronia]

This is quite sad news!

I actually came around to say that I thought of you quite a lot while watching Sunny, which

[koganbot]

I watched an excerpt from Sunny a few weeks ago when Subdee tipped me off about it; saw a gang confrontation and the living-room performance of "Round & Round." The latter had the ring of truth, raw like actual kids, whereas T-ara's "Roly-Poly" performance is the way these kids pictured themselves in their mind's eye. From your description, I really want to see the entire flick (it's on YouTube). It'll probably have to wait, though; first I'll be wending my way through God Of Study on Hulu. Watched episode one yesterday. Is in the Blackboard Jungle family, strong man reforms ghetto school, though it tries to walk a line between comic exaggeration and serious drama. So far is very clumsy in setting up the characters, here is Character Type A, here is Character Type B, and so forth, rather than people and their traits being worked out in relation to each other. But the exaggeration does make it possible for negative or recalcitrant characters to come off as potentially lovable

Sunny

[koganbot]

[askbask]

As our friend e.via wrote on twitter to the new anti-t-ara site, "is your new hobby the witch-hunt?".

I don't know anything except a few things: The CCM CEO has very transparently lied - first saying their twitter accounts were hacked and later explaining what the members meant by the tweets they supposedly earlier didn't write themselves. Later he claimed they'd taken legal action against someone claiming to be a BTS person, police said that was not true. So the CEO _IS_ full of bullshit.

Similar things have happened in CCM before, although the backlash is bigger than ever.

[koganbot]

This morning there does seem to be a change in the tenor of the comments. E.g.,

talisa_s 2 minutes ago
Gosh, stop bashing on Jiyeon now! She can't ALWAYS smile, she is just human too. But, the funny thing is, in the beginning when they said that T-ara was going to add a new member, everybody was like "EEeeeeeh, no, we hate her, bla, bla, bla" and now everybody is on Hwayoung's side. You guys don't even know how it really was but keep on calling the original members from T-ara the bad ones. I really don't understand these people....

axavier92 0 minutes ago
Just ignore. No one's gonna support you and they would only bash you. Just ignore them. We'll continue supporting T-ara no matter what.

Maybe people who don't normally post are now trying to weigh in, with cooler heads and more thoughtful attitudes

[warthoginrome]

The rumors about bullying are the key point. CCM can continue to classify them as fakes, K-Pop sites can continue to publish any kind of nonsense, but there are also professionals like the famous SBS pd that supported Hwayoung from the start, on his personal Twitter account (he apologized later). It's not so absurd to assign some trustworthiness to the story about a crying Hwayoung left in the hallway out of the waiting room of KBS's Music Bank, on July 27, when she allegedly refused to perform. Something bad likely happened in the group.
Disperding the shadows that are obscuring T-ARA is not easy at all, even for our Machiavellian adviser. I don't think that a "not guilty" declaration would be effective in this scenario. Tears are needed, and sincere repentance. Will they succeed in cleaning their image?

[koganbot]

The crying in the hallway story I read was so sparse that I couldn't make sense of when she was crying and why this was significant. But I suppose what makes sense to me hardly matters.

Putting back on my Machiavelli beret: sure, Jiyeon's a talented actress, she can cry. Give her an extra hefty bonus if she breaks down bawling in mid-sentence.

So they say

[anonymous]

Just a quick rundown of most of how this went down. All based on translated articles on T-ara World and Allkpop. At the end is just some commentary from when I originally came up with this - it was originally compiled to find inconsistencies in Mr. Kim's statements. Do what you will

Re: So they say

[anonymous]

Now for the spin doctor workshop. He puts on his nice father face and talks about his breaking heart and not scolding Hwayoung for her bad behavior

Re: So they say

[koganbot]

Oh yes, for all the reasons you say, he's extraordinarily culpable, and by firing Hwayoung he may not only have destroyed T-ara but destroyed Core Contents Media.* And there's the unwillingness or inability of anyone to step up and stop him, even though he's being so out-of-control and (among other things) incompetent. Don't want to go into all my thoughts right now: there are six people with the stature to counter him [I'm assuming Areum's not yet in the mix], but they're MIA