This may be the next #MeToo movement in South Korean entertainment and the stars in question are all young actors/actresses/singers. Since two weeks ago and growing wider in scope by the day, there has been a series of bullying accusations lobbed by former school era (elementary, middle school, or high school) classmates against certain stars. Jo Byung Kyu is dealing with multiple, though one was retracted but more came alone. Park Hye Soo who stars in the upcoming drama Dear M is facing accusations by a group of former classmates who have formed an Association to accuse her and demanding an apology. Soojin of G-Idle is facing bullying accusations along with being a rebel type student when she was in school, and her accusers also include former child actress Seo Shin Ae throwing confirmatory shade. Other names embroiled in bullying accusations include Kim Dong Hee, Kim So Hye, Minkyu of the group Seventeen, and even trot singer Jin Hae Sung. Each allegation is unique with different behaviors brought forth and so far it’s been denials from all the stars involved.
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Wow, so many people. I’m not going to make any judgments since I don’t know which ones are true or not but I’m just going to say that I hope the ones that are true, the victims gets their day and will be able to recover overtime. Bullying is a trauma that can carry with an individual for the rest of their life 🙁
And the ones that aren’t true, how terrible of them to make such accusations and slanders.
I hope the truth will be prevail in each case and that everyone calm down and don’t defend or attack an idol or the accuser too easily without substance.
All bullies should answer to their act of violence. Such behavoiur cannot be tolerated or condoned. Playground bullying culture is very infamous in Skorea…More needs to be done to protect vulnerable young kids.I really hope these allegations are taken seriously case by case.
To be honest, the first time I started to watch kdramas, I was surprised at the amount of bullying depicted in the SKorean society, not just in school but in the family and workplace settings. Seemed to me that bullying and physical violence were normalized and more prevalent there compared to other countries. If a parent hits a child at home even with just a small smack on the back or shoulders (as a form of ‘discipline’), what does that teach a child about hitting other children too? And once the child becomes an adult, it will be easy for him/her to continue hitting others too, especially if he/she comes into power. The society needs to address bullying and it starts with the family.
I still can’t get over some of the bullying from my early k-drama viewing days. I never was bullied and never saw much in my school days so it was really shocking to me. That and the whole age hierarchy thing were the biggest cultural differences.
Same
I understand where you’re coming from but many societies do use corporal punishment and don’t end up producing bullies. Honestly I don’t know what it is about Korean societies bullying is a serious problem. I’m from Tanzania and I can tell you Africans are very adamant with corporal punishment but bullying with our kids isn’t a pandemic
This reminds me of The Big Bang Theory episode where Amy and Bernadette find out Penny was a Bully. Lol if you committed the act, fess up and apologize.
Bullying allegations have been happening for years in a random, haphazard way but the flood of them has been something else. It is my understanding that the volleyball twins getting kicked to the curb as well as a trot singer admitting to bullying was the start of this new onset. Also, someone posted that Naver is going to be changing their protocols making it harder for these things to get attention so anyone who wants to dump an allegation is doing it now.
The reality is as a viewer/consumer of K-entertainment, I pretty much hope for the best for any victims but I don’t judge individual situations. Unless there are a whole bunch of people who make allegations, there is no way for anyone to know what the heck is really true. It might be wise for the idol industry to stop acting like these people are all super perfect.
Even the famous twin volleyball players of Korean national team is cut off from their team because of their past history of bullying. I was surprised at first but then I completely support it. We don’t need more examples where bullying is alright.
Judging from the number of news articles on Soompi, it seems that a lot of people are jumping on the bandwagon to accuse celebrities of bullying in elementary, middle and high school. I wonder how many of these claims are genuine, and how many are false: in which case, the victims of the accusation would actually be said celebrity since most of these accusations are based on just the word of the accuser, and said celebrity relies on their reputation for their livelihood. Also, false accusations make it tougher for genuine victims of bullying to speak up about their experiences and incidents and face their bullies squarely. My personal problem with movements like these that are just based on celebrity targets is that it ignores the culture of bullying and the enablers such as the teachers, school administration, people in authority, and other students who could and should have made a difference in the lives of the victims, but looked the other way. In many cases, they are not unaware that these things are going on, but had no effective procedures to address and stop the bullying. I’ve even heard of cases where the teacher put the bully and their victims together, so they can be ‘friends’ and work out their differences, making the victims’ life hell. There needs to be accountability from the school, parents and fellow students and a zero tolerance policy from the ground up to address this problem. I hope they don’t gloss over this, when the ‘fad’ is the over. Also, the criteria for bullying needs to clearly established, there needs to be a line drawn between normal fights and quarrels between kids (which is part of the process of growing up) and targeted bullying.
So many bullying cases of the celebs, what big news ‘some people’ want to bury?? I wonder if there’s any hidden agenda or just purely a certain movement???
this bullying me too movement all started with a confession from olympic korean volleyball player who claimed they got bullied in the team.The news were trending for a while and suddenly all the currently hot stars got their own rumours…which only they know if it’s true ot not.
Seo Shin Ae subtly throwing her dig to the female idol, makes me lean towards it being true. I don’t think she’d risk it, if this isn’t true. And besides the personal message of the idol was along the lines of….Yes, I did smoke and dress inappropriately back in middle school, but I don’t remember those specific actions (throwing, stealing) and I don’t think I’m the type of person to that.
Where did you read it? I want to read too.. can you share the link?
You can search netinzenbuzz, pannchoa ar dailynaver to read english translation of korean netizen
You can check out the Soompi article on Soojin personally address (also pann-choa, and the likes), it was mentioned there about SSA “possible”comment to the idol’s agency statement. She also posted Therefore I am by Billie Eilish, the lyrics are so apt. hence, knetz are connecting that to the personal statement of thee idol. Comments were saying that Defamation lawsuit in SK is pretty strict. So, even if it is true but no physical evidence, then you can get sued. And Cube is a stronger agency than SSA’s. With those classmate account of how Soojin did verbally abused SSA + SSA indirectly adding her hat into the ring despite the possible negative impact to her makes me lean towards the truth to this female idol being a bully when she was younger.
what an ironic for kbs drama and park hye soo. i don’t know if she’d bully or not…but kbs preferred her over kim saeron as fl, made ksr stepped down from dear m, and kbs told the media that ksr was dissatisfied of her being the 2nd lead., which gave ksr a bad name. and kbs also gave out all of their energy to promote dear m extensively (I’ve read that kbs want to give photoshoot, variety show, etc), and showed a favoritism to this drama over the other dramas like royal secret agents and river where the moon rises by not promoting the other dramas properly. now I’ve read that kbs cancelled many promotions that they intended to give to dear m team, and postponed the premiere. how should we say this? u didn’t see this coming right kbs? fans of dear m and playlist must be very pissed off with park hye soo now. and this issue might be a big slap to kbs.