The singer's relationship is not the first time such a controversy has unfolded among K-pop fans in South Korea and Japan - with agencies reportedly keen to market their stars as being romantically obtainable.
It happens both in Japan and Korea..this is really insane. There was a celebrity weather forecaster girl in Japan and when she was discovered outrage was crazy
It's happening in a smaller scale as a Twitch streamer parasocial relationships too. Although not as extreme as the idol culture in Japan and Korea. But the simps in the west can go to crazy length too. E.g. Belle Delphine bathwater stunt.
That's the difference between the East and the West "idol" culture.
Tay Swift would just tell those guys to go suck a big one.
The Korea's idol industry treat their stars like livestock. Milking them for every penny they can. No doubt she was forced to apologize by her management company.
This was her trying to not end up in the hate lists. It’s a big problem in Korea and if you end up in the wrong end of the public’s attention you’re in trouble.
There’s a pattern that occurs in Korea: person becomes known, person becomes popular, people become obsessed. Then in a very incel way, a group reacts strongly to something random and unimportant that popular person did. This hate goes viral and suddenly millions after joining in. Next thing you know the popular person is in hiding under guard or has to leave the country. Then everyone forgets the whole thing and it’s like nothing ever happened except a few people having their lives ruined for no reason.
I don’t know enough to explain anything here, I’ve just seen a lot of articles like this.
You don't become a K-POP star just because you're pretty and sing well. These people also come from money and people with money in Korea typically have sent children to live in the US/Canada/Europe to get a bachelors degree. Many stay, blah blah blah. Point is, if you have money, you have somewhere to escape to.
Leaving the country is unreasonable but hiding under protection of guards 24/7 isn't? They're not criminals wanted across the world, just wanted in their home country.
It's a feedback loop. A lot of these fans have mysoginistic views, so they demand the impossible from women, the involved corporations have no humanist values, so they reproduce these impositions, which validates those views, which in turns provokes that a lot of these fans have mysoginistic views, so they demand the impossible from...
It's a part of kpop. I remember listening to a podcast about how some of these kpop kids get molded and it focused on a boy band that were discouraged from dating, and if they did date it must be secret. I guess one of the more famous boy singers got found out and it basically became like a national scandal.