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.
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