Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
Social media accounts selling personal information about idols and groups have become increasingly common of late, and EXO‘s Baekhyun recently decided to confront one directly.
Many accounts on Twitter and other social media sites offer to sell the dorm addresses, car numbers, ID photos, and photographs of past girlfriends of idols. To one such post that stated, “I am selling information about EXO,” which included information about their addresses and favorite bars/restaurants, Baekhyun used his personal Twitter account to directly reply. On January 5, he wrote simply, “Is it okay to sell other people’s information like this?”
Of course, now you can only see his reply and not the original since that was quickly deleted.
So why don’t companies do more about this is always the eternal question, right? Well Kim Sung Soo has an idea that makes a lot of sense.
On the CBS radio show “Kim Hyun Jung’s News Show,” cultural critic Kim Sung Soo said that a legal response from the agency to these kinds of information peddlers might be difficult. “If you catch the seller, then the buyers also become criminal,” he said. “However, those buyers are considered to be ‘fans.’ If you make too strong of a legal response, it could have effects beyond what the agency wants. The promotion period for an idol is quite short. If the contract is seven years, then the agency invests for four years and reaps the rewards for three. To the agency, this isn’t worth the risk.” The critic continued, “It was originally the agencies who would encourage the leak of information such as, ‘Certain idols will be at this concert or this broadcast company.’ One might say that the first methods by which fandoms became victim to criminals were taught by the agencies themselves.”
I think many had figured this was the reason for a while, but it’s nice that the media is covering somebody actually saying it out loud for once.
As is usually the case when it comes to companies, if you want to understand what seems like a puzzling decision (this time to not protect their artists), always follow the money.
