The Destructive Consequences of Netizen Comments

By now, you have probably heard about the suicide of Sulli, a former member of K-pop group f(x). When I first read the news, I was shocked and upset (like any long-time K-pop fan would be) to the point that I literally couldn’t concentrate at all the next day. I initially thought of it as being an almost complete parallel of the passing of her SM labelmate Jonghyun two years ago, and rapidly started making as many connections as I could between their respective deaths, but after reading more articles about the tragedy, I realized that Sulli’s case was so much more complicated and vicious than I had previously considered.

Not only was Sulli dealing with depression, but she also experienced harsh cyberbullying – and had opened up about the toll it took on her well-being through her show Reply Night and even through her private Instagram. Following her departure from f(x), she focused on her acting and became a sort of feminist icon who presented herself as carefree and liberal about her sexuality. This didn’t bode well with many Korean netizens, who criticized her harshly for breaking gender expectations in a conservative country, with some even engaging in sexual harassment towards her.

Idols and actors face intense scrutiny from the public whenever they fail to match up to standards of purity and perfection, and many have spoken up the hardships of fame on television or through social media.  Through forums like Daum, Nate, Pann, and Naver, netizens can leave comments on articles about Korean celebrities, but unfortunately, this gives them an avenue to chip away at entertainers’ mental health through hate speech, which shouldn’t be accepted anywhere. IP addresses are created solely for the purpose of harassing artists, and while Sulli had previously sought help from SM Entertainment for shutting down her online bullies, her company failed to actively seek out and identify malicious commenters.

The worst part is, even in the wake of Sulli’s death, the nasty remarks haven’t stopped. For example, netizens pestered Bang Minah of Girls Day, asking her whether she wanted to be the next to die after Sulli, which is extremely insensitive and makes me wonder whether some netizens are celebrating her passing and actively aiming to push more celebrities to end their own lives. Shindong from Super Junior is another notable example of someone who is currently being fat shamed by netizens and is giving in to their requests to lose a large amount of weight in order to be “healthier”. While Shindong has always been known as being on the bigger side compared to other idols, I see no problem with his unique body shape, and, as a matter of fact, gladly welcome deviations from the slender idol norm. And if he really needs to lose a bit of weight, he really doesn’t need to drop a whole 90 lbs in one go, right?

Although it is too late for Sulli, it’s not too late to prevent similar tragedies from occurring, and across Korea, actions are being taken to address and counter online hate speech. Many of Sulli’s fellow celebrities have shared their stories about mean commenters of their own and have vowed to take legal action against those engaging in defamation and infringement of privacy. Daum and Kakao have removed the comment section for entertainment news on their respective platforms in hopes of reducing negative mental health consequences for artists and entertainers.  Fans have started petitions to help identify malicious commenters by forcing them to use their real names. And even on a governmental scale, a “Sulli law” is being proposed to target anonymous netizens who leave malicious comments.

Even before this particular tragedy, netizens have left malicious comments for other celebrities, for no particular reason at all. To this day, we don’t fully understand what drives netizens to intentionally spread negativity and ruin the careers and lives of singers and actors, and whether anything can be done to foster more positive attitudes towards celebrities in Korean netizens before they even take to the Internet and interact with entertainers.  In any case, this hatred towards celebrities, who are human beings like the rest of us, needs to stop before anyone else dies, and hopefully Korea and the rest of the world will take meaningful action to make social media platforms a safer place for those who are vulnerable.

We NEED to talk about the mess that’s happening in K-pop right now

Disclaimer: This is a really sensitive topic, especially right now when it's still so fresh in everyone's minds. Also, I honestly don't know all the details about what's going on - this is just what I know based on everything I've managed to read about it.

This week, it felt like the entire K-pop world was falling into shambles. Scandal after scandal broke out relating to Seungri and the Burning Sun nightclub incident, which started when it was reported that women were being sexually assaulted inside a club, and a man was beaten by security guards while trying to save these women. Seungri was the co-founder of the nightclub along with Park Han Byul’s husband, Yoo In Suk.

While the Burning Sun controversy lost attention after a while, it came back into light a month later when it was revealed that Seungri was allegedly discussing hiring prostitutes for foreign investors with Yoon In Suk. Soon afterwards, he was shown to be participating in a KakaoTalk group chat along with several other men that involved sharing and watching sexual videos of women, taken without their consent. Singer and variety show star Jung Joonyoung was one of the main perpetrators in creating and sending these videos, and the most revolting part was that it was implied that some of these women were unconscious and/or drugged.  Other idols such as Yong Junhyung (Highlight), Choi Jonghoon (FT Island), and Lee Jonghyun (CNBlue) were also discovered to have been involved in either taking part in this group chat or at least viewing the videos. Seungri, Jung Joonyoung, Yong Junhyung, and Choi Jonghoon all announced their retirements from the entertainment industry one after another, and suddenly, all at once, K-pop fans all over the world got to see how truly vile some of their beloved idols were.

In the first few days of the scandal, I really allowed myself be angry and disgusted at everything that was happening. Why? Because these men not only did nothing to stop the hidden camera videos from spreading, but talked about women disrespectfully and didn’t even apologize to the victims. My friends and I became incapable of having conversations about anything else except for this huge scandal – along with other depressing world news that had happened throughout the week. I had to take down the Big Bang poster in my room because it broke my heart to know that they would never come back in the same way again. And every day, whenever I ranted with my friends about it, I used swear words and insults I’d never use otherwise, sometimes even lashing out at them for not taking all of this seriously enough. Truth be told, it was not a very Christian response to injustice. Anger is totally acceptable and even encouraged in these kinds of situations, but it isn’t productive unless it leads to action.

But even though I’m rightfully upset at these male idols’ perverted actions and tendencies, I never believed in the statement that “all men are trash”, even after #MeToo’s impact travelled across Hollywood in late 2017. I do believe the world has to change and put more emphasis on teaching men how to behave decently towards women, because women shouldn’t be perceived as mere objects – they deserve full dignity as human beings. All of us are capable of committing atrocious acts of evil – but we are all also capable of being good and kind, and most if not all of the men that I know are careful and respectful when it comes to what kinds of comments they make about me.  

The Korean legal system has problems of its own, and it would be an outrage if they didn’t at least get SOME jail time for this. If anything, the reputations and careers of all the male celebrities involved are ruined forever. I certainly wouldn’t want them to return to the entertainment industry, especially if they refuse to show remorse for their actions. But is there any hope for these disgraced idols? Well, thinking about what happened in the Bible, Paul the apostle started off as a criminal. He persecuted Christians and approved of the martyr death of Stephen - he even admitted that he was the worst type of sinner (1 Timothy 1:15). Yet God still transformed him and used him to spread the Gospel around the world. I won’t ever condone the gross acts people do, but a Christian alternative to simply condemning these men and wishing death upon them is “love the sinner, but hate the sin”. Maybe all of this "reflecting" that Korean celebrities keep mentioning whenever they have to write a public apology will finally go to good use here, and who knows, maybe God might truly spark in them a remorseful and contrite heart. 

A part of me wishes I could actually go and ask these celebrities what had happened in their lives that caused them to turn out like this, to put it in G-rated terms. Perhaps I might even want to work with criminals in the future so I can understand them better and help them work towards true change in character. I really don’t know at this point. And perhaps, hopefully, this mass unveiling of male celebrities’ behaviour will finally initiate that change not only in their personal lives, but in the nation of Korea as a whole.