Fans Praise LE SSERAFIM’s Sakura For Speaking Out Against HYBE’s Dieting Expectations For The Members — And Criticize HYBE For Allegedly Mistranslating Her Words
LE SSERAFIM‘s Sakura is receiving praise as fans see how she spoke out against HYBE‘s diet expectations for her and for her members, while HYBE is criticized for allegedly mistranslating her words in order to soften them.
With the release of LE SSERAFIM’s documentary The World Is My Oyster, fans have gotten an intimate look at the difficult process that the members had to go through to debut. As an already experienced idol, Sakura herself had plenty to say about it, including about her personal struggle with preconceptions about her age as an “older idol” and with the damaging judgment she received for her singing.
She also got real about the grueling daily schedule that the members followed as trainees, one which often ended at dawn.
But after seeing episode three of the documentary, fans are expressing pride in Sakura for standing up for her members when it comes to the expectations the company had of them in terms of dieting.
Episode three saw the members join the management staff for a meeting to review their progress. The management team leader, Kim Hyeong Eun, stated the members had to learn strict self-management, referring to their diets during promotion periods.
Hearing this, Sakura got emotional, and honestly said, “We’ve been working so hard, I don’t want us to have stress about this.”
She added, “I’ve seen members struggle and be criticized for these things.”
Chaewon, who previously debuted with Sakura in IZ*ONE, agreed, saying, “I wouldn’t have any problem with the members having different meal plans…”
…as Sakura was making the case that each member should be allowed to eat and diet as they liked.
The other members also agreed, with Yunjin claiming that not only should each person take care of their own diet, but that their willingness to diet was also important.
Following the release of The World Is My Oyster, fans have not only praised Sakura for bringing up the issue and standing up against HYBE…
No but sakura flagging the “artists should manage themselves” when the higher ups talked about it (I think they were referring to dieting) is some power move right there. You just know she knows her stuff inside that meeting room.
— Chico (@kkurayang) September 17, 2022
As much as I’m pissed about this, this is just the harsh reality of the kpop industry. I’m just glad Sakura spoke up. Many idols couldn’t do the same things and had to do extreme diet, unfortunately. We can see our girls are healthy and can eat what they like from the vlogs. https://t.co/QB2EcgnNdg
— lee⁷ | is working and sleeping (@sserakzhh) September 17, 2022
…but they have also been expressing frustration with HYBE for allegedly mistranslating the documentary’s captions in order to soften her words.
A translation by Twitter user @TSaku1339 paints a slightly different picture from HYBE’s captions on YouTube, showing that Sakura was more critical of the company’s stance on dieting than the captions made it sound.
A more accurate trans
Not sure what's wrong with HYBE's trans team. They translated it poorly and changed its meaning, causing confusion for non-Korean speakers. Sakura's standing up for the group and opposing HYBE's diet control because they've never had weight problem bfore 🥲 pic.twitter.com/hwkKkk3bg6
— HARU|咲良単推し³⁹ (@TSaku1339) September 18, 2022
This is a controversial subject and HYBE is far from the first company to have such strict expectations from its artists, so perhaps it’s unsurprising that they might try to edit the footage of this discussion.
In any case, Sakura deserves plenty of appreciation for calling out the issue when she saw it!
Watch the full clip from the episode on the link below.
