Mother Of God, Is This The End Of T-ara?
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 all bitches but srsly make the other members suffer as well for bullying her and shit but in return they make the victim leave the group!
and BULLSHIT u prob asked ur staff to say all this shit u fucken piece of ass, "In deference to the complaints by T-ara's staff of 19 people (5 stylists, 7 hair & makeup, 5 on-site managers, 2 team managers), Hwayoung’s contract as an artist will be voided effective immediately with no conditions."
And
I call bullshit!!! They kicked her out because she wasn't the popular one and it's a mean girls thing the other members got bad attitudes...It's all bullshit...but I wish her the best
And
I don't believe a darn thing that ridiculous CEO says. Complaints from the staff to cover up the bullying by the members? Seriously? And why did he feel the need to list who the staff members were and how many of them were part of the 19 that supposedly complained against Hwayoung? It's unnecessary information.
And
we apologize in saying that we could not forsake the arguments of the staff members. OH REALLY???!!... I didnt know staffs are more powerful then a CEO. CCM Please shut down your fucking company with all your lies and all your betraying all your artists.
And
lol apparently its got to do with the staff. huh, thats funny, cause that is a obvious lie right there.
And
Just read a article on CNN this week. South Korea #1 in bully related death (suicide). Read Seung-Min's story on CNN. The CEO should of been the adult in this situation. Ever heard of communication. As IDOLS they have so much influence. Bullying starts from the top (CEO) and works down (singers). It's all about $$$ for the CEO. All the K-pop groups are puppets!! They should all get together and fight the # issue in their country. BULLYING!!
Hwayoung was just kicked out of T-ara. But the narrative had coalesced several days earlier: long-time members Jiyeon, Hyomin, and Eunjung had tweeted their disappointment about another member, saying she needed to show "determination." This was interpreted by Netizens as being aimed at Hwayoung, who, with a hurt leg, had failed to perform at one of the group's TV gigs, and at a concert had only partially participated. Hyomin: "The differences in levels of determination^^, Let us all have more determination. Fighting!!!" Jiyeon: "The differences in levels of determination ^^, Always be humble ^^ and sensible ^^ I applaud you, acting genius ^^" Eunjung: "A position can make or break a person, but determination can make a person too. Sigh, it's unfortunate. You have to know to take care of the people around you." (See article at allkpop. I don't vouch for these translations. Or the article.)
This doesn't seem so outrageous to me, but on the 'Net it was taken to be three hotshot, bitchy, jealous members of the group bullying the young one.** And maybe people who follow these things more closely than I do have good reason to buy into this narrative, and to consider Jiyeon a bitch. Or maybe such people are just making things up. (Hwayoung didn't join T-ara until late 2010. There does seem to have been a diminution of Eunjung's mic time since then. Eunjung has, imo, the best voice in the group. She sings only a few lines in "Day By Day," just the refrain, but in those few lines she brings the crucial emotion of the song.)
There's a counter narrative that says Hwayoung was set to perform with T-ara on Music Bank and then pulled out at the last second, leaving the group in the lurch. Eunjung (0:47) covered some of Hwayoung's lines, did so with aplomb; but Hyomin (3:14) was assigned to later in the song, fumbled, was obviously uncertain, looking at a prompter who was holding up the words for her, later may simply have been embarrassed, and to relieve her feelings went to twitter. [EDIT: No, the tweets were two days earlier, after the Budokan concert. See update below.] But again, we don't know if this happened in this way, except for what we saw onstage. Soyeon was also out, members having to take her lines too. I thought they all got through OK, and Hyomin sounded fine; so what if there was a mistake? -Hyomin having tripped and fallen onstage last week, she might already have been feeling extra exposed and self-conscious.
[This vid isn't on YouTube anymore, and in case Dailymotion kills it at some point, here's a link to this performance on mp3.zing. UPDATE: That's dead too; here's one on Vimeo and another on bilibili.]
This is what one commenter claims (reporting what she read elsewhere online):
its basically about the musicbank incident where hyomin forgot hwayoung's lines. in the rehersal hwayoung had to sit on a chair and do her rap but instead on the live stage hwayoung said she was too nervous and so eunjung and hyomin had to memorize it really fast. and then thats where their tweets came from
I like Hwayoung performing, love her dancing on "Lovey-Dovey" and her raw chicken squawk on "Roly-Poly." But my bias here is to want T-ara to continue to do well commercially and to continue singing songs by the likes of Shinsadong Tiger, Cho Young-soo, Kim Tae-hyun, Kim Do-hoon, the writers being at their best when writing for T-ara, the songs being at their best when sung by T-ara, I really haven't figured out why. So 'cause I want the group to prosper, my bias is to side with Eunjung et al. Assuming there is a side.
I don't know the impact of the response, or the size. What I've seen so far is people overwhelmingly upset and ready to dump T-ara in the river. Those quotes up-top are typical, not extreme. But maybe they're only typical of people who leap forward and post online (5,000 comments in four hours to the allkpop article); going by the comments, I'd believe T-ara is in serious trouble with its fanbase. But again, I don't know.
Kim Kwang Soo, the Core Contents Media guy, seems to have a tin ear for politics. If the reaction really is as strong as it seems, he should have figured that he simply couldn't boot Hwayoung out of the group right now, simply couldn't. Not in the midst of the "bullying" narrative, not with everyone ready to sympathize with Hwayoung and blame Jiyeon and the rest, and not in such a way as to make it seem like he's tearing down Hwayoung further. He may be the boss, he may be utterly right in this instance (he has a reputation for being a ruthless bastard, but again, I don't know; and even ruthless bastards are sometimes right), but sometimes what seems logically right and best to you isn't actually for the best, given the situation. Sometimes you're just stuck. Apparently, he has no credibility (again, I don't know if this is fair; but even if it isn't, he has to recognize it's a fact, and work within that fact - in other words, I'm suddenly identifying with Mr. So-Called Ruthless Bastard as I'm imagining him, and feeling that I get why he did what he did, would possibly do the same if I were in his situation, not recognizing while I was in it that I was making the wrong choice). This from Wikipedia: "Core Contents Media responded to the whole incident by stating that the members' Twitter accounts had been hacked; however, because most of the members had tweeted on July 25th, the explanation did not add up." (Just 'cause it's on Wikip doesn't mean it's true. But if it is...)
*By "enough information" I don't merely mean "information concerning what happened this week" but also "what I'd know if I'd made an effort to follow the members of T-ara as personalities, as they act on TV and appear on talk shows and drop tidbits in interviews and say the right thing and say the wrong thing etc.," all of which is part of their job and part of the music so I'm not glad that I don't know this stuff. But one can't know everything.
**She's actually two months older than Jiyeon.
UPDATE (CORRECTIONS): Two mistakes in this write-up: (i) There seems to have actually been four members of T-ara who initially tweeted their disappointment: Hyomin, Jiyeon, Eunjung, and Soyeon. I'd said there were three. The allkpop article (which was translated and adapted from something called NewsPlus) only gives Hyomin's, Jiyeon's, and Eunjung's tweets, but shows a Webshot of a fourth by Soyeon, in Korean (the NewsPlus article is identical in this respect). Wikip adds Boram to the list, but the citation is to the allkpop article, which leaves her out. UPDATING THE UPDATE: Boram did tweet, but her tweet and Soyeon's weren't much more than general exhortations. (ii) The tweets came on Wednesday July 25, after the Budokan concert, but two days before the Music Bank show where Hwayoung was a last-second scratch. I'd initially thought they'd come after Music Bank. (Supposedly, with only a couple of others bands in the queue ahead of them at Music Bank, Hwayoung refused to or felt she couldn't perform. But I don't know enough to say that either of those are accurate interpretations of what happened. I don't think anyone who wasn't there knows. Maybe even the people who were there, including the principals, don't know.)
WTF? did not see this coming! i mean they are all bitches but srsly make the other members suffer as well for bullying her and shit but in return they make the victim leave the group!
and BULLSHIT u prob asked ur staff to say all this shit u fucken piece of ass, "In deference to the complaints by T-ara's staff of 19 people (5 stylists, 7 hair & makeup, 5 on-site managers, 2 team managers), Hwayoung’s contract as an artist will be voided effective immediately with no conditions."
And
I call bullshit!!! They kicked her out because she wasn't the popular one and it's a mean girls thing the other members got bad attitudes...It's all bullshit...but I wish her the best
And
I don't believe a darn thing that ridiculous CEO says. Complaints from the staff to cover up the bullying by the members? Seriously? And why did he feel the need to list who the staff members were and how many of them were part of the 19 that supposedly complained against Hwayoung? It's unnecessary information.
And
we apologize in saying that we could not forsake the arguments of the staff members. OH REALLY???!!... I didnt know staffs are more powerful then a CEO. CCM Please shut down your fucking company with all your lies and all your betraying all your artists.
And
lol apparently its got to do with the staff. huh, thats funny, cause that is a obvious lie right there.
And
Just read a article on CNN this week. South Korea #1 in bully related death (suicide). Read Seung-Min's story on CNN. The CEO should of been the adult in this situation. Ever heard of communication. As IDOLS they have so much influence. Bullying starts from the top (CEO) and works down (singers). It's all about $$$ for the CEO. All the K-pop groups are puppets!! They should all get together and fight the # issue in their country. BULLYING!!
Hwayoung was just kicked out of T-ara. But the narrative had coalesced several days earlier: long-time members Jiyeon, Hyomin, and Eunjung had tweeted their disappointment about another member, saying she needed to show "determination." This was interpreted by Netizens as being aimed at Hwayoung, who, with a hurt leg, had failed to perform at one of the group's TV gigs, and at a concert had only partially participated. Hyomin: "The differences in levels of determination^^, Let us all have more determination. Fighting!!!" Jiyeon: "The differences in levels of determination ^^, Always be humble ^^ and sensible ^^ I applaud you, acting genius ^^" Eunjung: "A position can make or break a person, but determination can make a person too. Sigh, it's unfortunate. You have to know to take care of the people around you." (See article at allkpop. I don't vouch for these translations. Or the article.)
This doesn't seem so outrageous to me, but on the 'Net it was taken to be three hotshot, bitchy, jealous members of the group bullying the young one.** And maybe people who follow these things more closely than I do have good reason to buy into this narrative, and to consider Jiyeon a bitch. Or maybe such people are just making things up. (Hwayoung didn't join T-ara until late 2010. There does seem to have been a diminution of Eunjung's mic time since then. Eunjung has, imo, the best voice in the group. She sings only a few lines in "Day By Day," just the refrain, but in those few lines she brings the crucial emotion of the song.)
There's a counter narrative that says Hwayoung was set to perform with T-ara on Music Bank and then pulled out at the last second, leaving the group in the lurch. Eunjung (0:47) covered some of Hwayoung's lines, did so with aplomb; but Hyomin (3:14) was assigned to later in the song, fumbled, was obviously uncertain, looking at a prompter who was holding up the words for her, later may simply have been embarrassed, and to relieve her feelings went to twitter. [EDIT: No, the tweets were two days earlier, after the Budokan concert. See update below.] But again, we don't know if this happened in this way, except for what we saw onstage. Soyeon was also out, members having to take her lines too. I thought they all got through OK, and Hyomin sounded fine; so what if there was a mistake? -Hyomin having tripped and fallen onstage last week, she might already have been feeling extra exposed and self-conscious.
[This vid isn't on YouTube anymore, and in case Dailymotion kills it at some point, here's a link to this performance on mp3.zing. UPDATE: That's dead too; here's one on Vimeo and another on bilibili.]
This is what one commenter claims (reporting what she read elsewhere online):
its basically about the musicbank incident where hyomin forgot hwayoung's lines. in the rehersal hwayoung had to sit on a chair and do her rap but instead on the live stage hwayoung said she was too nervous and so eunjung and hyomin had to memorize it really fast. and then thats where their tweets came from
I like Hwayoung performing, love her dancing on "Lovey-Dovey" and her raw chicken squawk on "Roly-Poly." But my bias here is to want T-ara to continue to do well commercially and to continue singing songs by the likes of Shinsadong Tiger, Cho Young-soo, Kim Tae-hyun, Kim Do-hoon, the writers being at their best when writing for T-ara, the songs being at their best when sung by T-ara, I really haven't figured out why. So 'cause I want the group to prosper, my bias is to side with Eunjung et al. Assuming there is a side.
I don't know the impact of the response, or the size. What I've seen so far is people overwhelmingly upset and ready to dump T-ara in the river. Those quotes up-top are typical, not extreme. But maybe they're only typical of people who leap forward and post online (5,000 comments in four hours to the allkpop article); going by the comments, I'd believe T-ara is in serious trouble with its fanbase. But again, I don't know.
Kim Kwang Soo, the Core Contents Media guy, seems to have a tin ear for politics. If the reaction really is as strong as it seems, he should have figured that he simply couldn't boot Hwayoung out of the group right now, simply couldn't. Not in the midst of the "bullying" narrative, not with everyone ready to sympathize with Hwayoung and blame Jiyeon and the rest, and not in such a way as to make it seem like he's tearing down Hwayoung further. He may be the boss, he may be utterly right in this instance (he has a reputation for being a ruthless bastard, but again, I don't know; and even ruthless bastards are sometimes right), but sometimes what seems logically right and best to you isn't actually for the best, given the situation. Sometimes you're just stuck. Apparently, he has no credibility (again, I don't know if this is fair; but even if it isn't, he has to recognize it's a fact, and work within that fact - in other words, I'm suddenly identifying with Mr. So-Called Ruthless Bastard as I'm imagining him, and feeling that I get why he did what he did, would possibly do the same if I were in his situation, not recognizing while I was in it that I was making the wrong choice). This from Wikipedia: "Core Contents Media responded to the whole incident by stating that the members' Twitter accounts had been hacked; however, because most of the members had tweeted on July 25th, the explanation did not add up." (Just 'cause it's on Wikip doesn't mean it's true. But if it is...)
*By "enough information" I don't merely mean "information concerning what happened this week" but also "what I'd know if I'd made an effort to follow the members of T-ara as personalities, as they act on TV and appear on talk shows and drop tidbits in interviews and say the right thing and say the wrong thing etc.," all of which is part of their job and part of the music so I'm not glad that I don't know this stuff. But one can't know everything.
**She's actually two months older than Jiyeon.
UPDATE (CORRECTIONS): Two mistakes in this write-up: (i) There seems to have actually been four members of T-ara who initially tweeted their disappointment: Hyomin, Jiyeon, Eunjung, and Soyeon. I'd said there were three. The allkpop article (which was translated and adapted from something called NewsPlus) only gives Hyomin's, Jiyeon's, and Eunjung's tweets, but shows a Webshot of a fourth by Soyeon, in Korean (the NewsPlus article is identical in this respect). Wikip adds Boram to the list, but the citation is to the allkpop article, which leaves her out. UPDATING THE UPDATE: Boram did tweet, but her tweet and Soyeon's weren't much more than general exhortations. (ii) The tweets came on Wednesday July 25, after the Budokan concert, but two days before the Music Bank show where Hwayoung was a last-second scratch. I'd initially thought they'd come after Music Bank. (Supposedly, with only a couple of others bands in the queue ahead of them at Music Bank, Hwayoung refused to or felt she couldn't perform. But I don't know enough to say that either of those are accurate interpretations of what happened. I don't think anyone who wasn't there knows. Maybe even the people who were there, including the principals, don't know.)