SM reverses their decision; RIIZE Seunghan to leave the group

[raveinfection]

Comments

[kashiyaek]

well these past few years in kpop have been illusion-shattering in a way i haven't experienced in a while, and i've been a fan for at least 15 years. this whole thing, the parasocialness of the fans and the extent of mobilization against an idol who destroyed the boyfriend/girlfriend veneer, was straight out of the books of 1st gen. sometimes you think kpop is finally growing up and growing out of this bullshit, that there is SOME change in the industry (no matter how slow), and then they pull the rug out from under you. companies just have gotten much better at marketing, like pretending their idols are more involved in the creative process, or some kind of perceived authenticity (which is the trend now in the western market), desperation to appeal to the western market by detangling from "The Dark Sides Of Kpop", but the people are ultimately just as much of a commodity as before (if not more). i'm not even a fan so this probably doesn't warrant a reaction this strongly from my end, but between this + taeil + zionist bullshit + hybe monopoly fuckery + mhj/newjeans crap + fiftyfifty + lucas return + and so many other things i probably am forgetting rn, i'm pretty tired of it all.

hope seunghan can go onto better things, but i'm certain this will be a lifetime of trauma for him.

[setsuna16]

I'll never forget when I learned that they wanted to throw Joon out of GOD for getting a girlfriend. And he was like... almost 30 because homeboy is old as all get out.

[nigelwitthebrie]

lol I remember that…I had a Korean mean girl in high school who bullied me in high school and middle school. She was a Stan of GOD at the time, and she went berserk over Joon getting a girlfriend. Like all she would talk about was Joon and how he betrayed his fans or some shit.

[setsuna16]

I don't know why she would stan Joon. It's like stanning Danny Wood in KNOTB. Why THAT one?

[nigelwitthebrie]

She had horrible taste in kpop boy groups….she also stanned Moon Hee-Joon from HOT lol

[setsuna16]

There's NO hope for a Hee-Jun stan. None.

[varioussaints]

I had a conversation a decade ago about this with a Korean friend. She was a hardcore SNSD fan (probably still is, we just aren't in touch anymore). Her explanation about fan backlash over dating scandals was that kpop idols are products being sold with a specific image. All of their success is owed to their fans, so any deviation from that image is a betrayal. After all, if they break that image, why would fans want to buy them anymore? If they didn't want to be products and work under such strict restrictions, they should have chosen something else. I remember being floored at how matter-of-fact she was about the whole thing, as though we were discussing literal objects for sale at a store and not real human beings. Obviously, not every Korean fan views idols this way, but the longer I stick around, the more I realize how many fans (both inside Korea and internationally) do share her perspective. And it feels like the proportion of fans who feel like this is only increasing with time.

[nigelwitthebrie]

Even Still, your friend’s logic is still flawed….like so the idols can’t even have a life even before they got famous…the math ain’t mathing for me.

[varioussaints]

I completely disagreed with her then and now. Idols aren't born at the idol factory, they're regular people who trained to try and achieve a dream. But yes, that is the ideal, that an idol will live an upstanding life from the word go and have a totally neat and tidy past without anything that might have the potential to offend anyone at any point. That's why these pre-debut "scandals" are such a big deal, they ruin that illusion.

[butterflyblot]

it feels like the entire industry is beginning to collapse under itself

[belintuchiha]

That’s why I stan a group in a company that doesn’t have a dating ban lmao