Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
Assuming nothing else major happens (a bold assumption) soon in the HYBE/ADOR war, we’ll be back to our regularly scheduled programming around here after this. However, it seemed worth cleaning up all the stories floating around lately that relate to this mess.
There’s been a Min Hee Jin follow-up interview, stuff regarding her contract with HYBE, Bang Si Hyuk being accused of stealing ideas, BTS sajaegi allegations resurfacing, and … cult stuff, because why not?
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Alrighty, tracking back to Min Hee Jin’s press conference (post covering it was reorganized for easier reading, btw), she gave a follow-up interview after in which she clarifies her position on a few topics.
Responding to those pointing out that the styling for NewJeans is nothing new, she explains her allegations were more about the formula, not the concept.
Reporter: There’s people saying that anyway NewJeans used the Y2K styling.
Min Hee Jin: NewJeans was a group made based on early 2000s Y2K vibes, so people ask how can this be only belonging to NewJeans. I think that the argument is a little different. This is not what I’m saying, neither am I saying that I’m the greatest, what we made is the best, no. In this world and day, everyone has access to sources for contemporary cultural characteristics that came out before. What I’m saying that it depends on how you put things together with your own individual style, how you fit things together, in this generation of recreation. So to make it easy to understand, it is hard for me to say definitively, “this is mine,” in such a generation [of recreation].
Reporter: So you’re saying that, that was not what you meant.
Min Hee Jin: Yes, that was not my meaning. I didn’t mean something so simple and straightforward. I already said earlier that what they copied was my formula.
Reporter: So, the formula of creation, the formula of how they promoted the group, do you mean this?
Min Hee Jin: Well yes.
Furthermore, she denies that she accused BTS, TWS, RIIZE, and others of copying her, basically calling it fake news.
Reporter: There’s news articles that say that apart from rookie girl group ILLIT, Min Hee Jin also mentioned that BTS, TWS, RIIZE, etc, copied her.
Min Hee Jin: I mentioned this earlier, but even if reporters write about that, I don’t want to talk about it. Because I don’t know how they wrote it or how they investigated it, but I have never said such things.
And she also says that the media-play campaign against her by HYBE was designed to validate existing negative perceptions of her.
Reporter: So you‘re saying this is black propaganda?
Min Hee Jin: Yeah, so what’s so “black propaganda” about this is that they tried to make me into someone who‘s just greedy for money. “That’s why she wanted to usurp power. But she‘s also someone who’s egoistic.“ The public already has some biases against me. If I just say something with confidence, then they will say that I‘m weirdly super self-conscious. That I’m egositical, I have too much confidence in myself, but that‘s honestly just how I’m used to speaking. They really just churned out all the types of [accusations] that antis who don‘t like me will eat up.
Reporter: In the media?
Min Hee Jin: Yes. Then the next thing they do is make me into someone who has character issues. Then, someone who’s personality is problematic. Then, they try to create a frame that I‘m picking at bones, going with these angles. It’s so cruel how they‘re churning these out one by one.
Say what you will about the merits of her argument, but she’s currently running circles around HYBE at the PR game with stuff like that, and the public reaction proves as much.
Memes, sure, but this stuff has three million views.
It’s crazy out there.
😭😭😭 pic.twitter.com/iEWZetMdKk
— Asian Junkie (@asianjunkiecom) April 28, 2024
But perhaps more relevantly than the PR battle is what’s going to happen legally. Despite her somehow coming out ahead in the PR war, I was skeptical about what she was going to do legally in order to survive this. However, the Seoul Economic Daily recently acquired a copy of the shareholder agreement, and contrary to what HYBE said in their press conference rebuttal, they believe the non-compete would be valid until she discarded all her shares. That’s relevant because they say she would require HYBE approval to sell the last five percent, which means hypothetically they could keep her out of the industry in perpetuity.
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Still, losing the PR battle did have costs for HYBE, as the public turning on them essentially made people feel safe enough to unload any and all grievances against them.
For starters, allegations of HYBE using sajaegi for BTS resurfaced because we’re apparently hitting all the K-pop controversy milestones with this scandal.
Recently, the verdict of A, who was prosecuted for extortion related to illegal marketing activities for Big Hit in 2017, is being spread online.
According to reports in 2017, A was prosecuted 8 times for threatening Big Hit officials to appropriate 57 million won by saying, “I have data on illegal marketing activities. If you don’t give money, I will reveal the information to the media.” A is known to have participated in fraudulent marketing for Big Hit and BTS.
Seoul Central Court explained why A was sentenced to 1 year in prison, “A’s crime is using secrets of his business partners to commit bad acts. However, we have considered that the victims also made the mistake of choosing fraudulent marketing, thereby giving the defendant an excuse to threaten them.”
As in the given judgment, the phrase “taking advantage of illegal marketing for blackmail” is clearly stated. It goes against Big Hit’s explanation in 2017, “A’s statement is one-sided and the illegal marketing mentioned is just a normal online viral marketing method.”
The controversy with netizens exists because they point out the court ruling itself states HYBE tried to utilize fraudulent marketing.
You’d think something from seven years ago popping up again might be some fringe thing, but it actually got reported on KBS.
In response, Big Hit Music denied the renewed controversy, saying they just wanted to pay for typical online viral marketing.
Big Hit Music, the agency of BTS, stated through the fan community Weverse on the 29th, “At the time in 2017, Big Hit Music was threatened by a partner company, and the culprit was sentenced to one year in prison for the charges of joint defamation and fraud.”
Regarding the controversy over music streaming manipulation, the BTS side denied it, explaining that the inappropriate marketing activities mentioned in the culprit’s defamation and threats were one-sided claims and that unconventional marketing is typically online viral marketing.
Netizens have not bought that excuse so far, and a lawyer asked to analyze the ruling of the court confirmed that the ruling was illegal marketing was used.
Then there’s the case of Duri, an editor for ZUZN (an erotic magazine), who accused Bang Si Hyuk of stealing the “wet” and “soft but romantic” concept for BTS’s The Most Beautiful Moment In Life: Anxiety photoshoot.
Duri actually had a thread with that allegation up since 2022, going on to say that she got nothing in return for providing him that idea, and later was ghosted after she applied for a position on the company’s art directing team. After seeing the Min Hee Jin’s press conference, she again talked about her experience of having ideas taken by Bang Si Hyuk around eight or nine years ago.
Of course, probably the biggest thing going around at the moment is netizens accusing HYBE and Bang Si Hyuk of being connected to the Dahn World cult created by Ilchi Lee. Quite frankly, there are a lot of stretches (IMO) going around at the moment with regards to that, as people tend to get overly excited whenever a conspiracy drops. However, we do know that Ilchi Lee founded Global Cyber University, who have BTS front-and-center on their official page, including bragging that they’re known as ‘BTS University’ overseas. The association is also something that’s been a bit of an open secret for a while, as there’s been posts from years ago made both in Korea and internationally questioning the school’s legitimacy and alleged ties to a cult.
With regards to those latter two allegations, it seems like HYBE’s response is to take legal action instead of explaining for now.
“It has come to our attention that organizational efforts aimed at tarnishing and slandering the artists have escalated in recent weeks. Furthermore, malicious attempts to defame, humiliate, and ridicule the artists or spread rumors and groundless information have become excessive.
The company views these actions as severe violation to the artists’ rights and will respond decisively, engaging with another law firm to reinforce our existing legal measures.”
Crime Scene Returns promo chance? Yes.
Wait, the amount of interactions on this. My mind. Watch #CrimeSceneReturns for more! https://t.co/3bhoLcDn85 https://t.co/utOmAMhqcZ
— Asian Junkie (@asianjunkiecom) April 28, 2024
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So yeah, I think that’s most of what’s going on right now.
It was already a mess and it’s only been getting messier.
