Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
In a bit of minor news for the HYBE/ADOR conflict, it was reported that HYBE applied for a restriction on trial records access for their injunction case with Min Hee Jin.
Normally these are made public eventually unless restrictions are applied for.
According to the legal community, HYBE applied for the restriction on June 4, asking to restrict the records of the trial, including items such as HYBE’s written answers and various evidence materials. Restrictions are usually granted when important secrets about the party’s personal lives are written in the litigation records and when the party’s trade secrets are involved in the records. The court will decide if the application gets passed or not.
It was reported that HYBE applied for the restriction based on the evidence that Min Hee Jin submitted in the lawsuit, which includes KakaoTalk screenshots, as well as the contract for shareholders that was signed between HYBE and Min Hee Jin. They cite the contract as part of trade secrets, and quote that the KakaoTalk screenshots are of private conversations held between individuals, including third parties not involved in the court case.
Of course, if you’ve been following along with this case, you’ll know HYBE had already leaked some of those that were favorable to them, so making this request seems a bit bizarre in that sense.
However, HYBE already disclosed some of the KakaoTalk screenshots to the media during the feud with Min Hee Jin. This can include Min Hee Jin’s chats with her shaman friend, who is a third party to the court case. Hence, legal authorities have deduced that it will be hard for the court to grant HYBE’s application because HYBE revealed a portion to the media before the court trial.
The article also says the appeal against the injunction does not seem like it will proceed due to its “lack of practical benefit” and that observers are watching to see if they will continue to try to dismiss her from the ADOR board. I guess we’ll see if they can at least get past this legal barrier.
While I don’t know anything about how the law usually rules in these cases, it’d certainly seem rather nonsensical for one party to essentially request privacy after being able to use materials publicly for their benefit.
======
So yeah, just a tiny update there, and I’ll try to have a summary or something later about everything else going on, assuming there’s no rush of updates coming. Mainly though, I wanted to talk about fandoms on both sides of this issue and the constant complaining about bias whenever somebody doesn’t agree with their exact position.
Since I talked about people e-mailing and messaging me about not going all-in on the HYBE cult allegations before, as well as the whining over mocking LE SSERAFIM’s supposed conspiracies, I figure it’s also fair to talk about those who are calling me biased basically because HYBE lost the injunction ruling in court.
Recently, while I was browsing the K-pop subreddit mega-thread on this issue for information and to get a feel for perspectives, I came across a few people who took issue with me covering this analysis of Min Hee Jin’s injunction being granted against HYBE. One person even infers that I’m being paid by Min Hee Jin or something, which is … bordering on losing grip on reality.
And so on and so forth, you get the idea.
The problem is that following the entire ruling being released, I don’t see much that was incorrect in there, unless you really want to split hairs. Especially true since in my coverage I clearly delineated between the lawyer’s opinion/interpretation and what the court had ruled — and on pages 14 and 16 of the actual ruling in Korean, it uses almost the exact wording I used in the post. I even noted that contrary to what NewJeans stans were going around saying, I didn’t believe the judge’s ruling was relevant to whether plagiarism/discrimination/sajaegi actually happened in terms of its legal viability.
More to the general point, the person in that thread who seemed to lead the charge about my bias in the aftermath of that article also touts the weirdo making vaguely threatening posts about NewJeans, calls Danielle basically dumb, and refers to BTS‘s Jin as “Jin-sus”. And that’s just from like one page of their profile.
Very neutral arbiter of facts.
Seriously though, in the aftermath of legal rulings that don’t go the way of the side you support, it’s pathetic to go around calling everybody biased instead of looking in the mirror for a moment. Personally, I’m always willing to reflect, but if you’re seeing some kind of obvious and terrible slant in my coverage, maybe you should consider it’s not an everybody else problem, and that maybe it’s a you problem. Incredibly silly stuff.
You know what the wild thing is in terms of bias discourse? If anything, I’ve had to look back at my past assumptions that HYBE’s legal case was robust and their manner of pursuit of this was competent. The belief was that Min Hee Jin’s antics and PR, while entertaining at times, probably had an uphill climb ahead of herself legally. However, reality now seems to dictate I reconsider and that this might end up closer than we thought, and that perhaps my most prominent bias was that of believing in some kind of inherent competence I afforded HYBE that perhaps I shouldn’t have.
Guess we’ll see, but I haven’t stopped being neutral (aside from cheering for entertainment) just because your side didn’t get its desired outcome and you’re pissed about it.
