K-Netizens Attack A Rookie Idol For Being “Ugly” — But There’s More To The Story

His post has thousands of hate comments.
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Koreaboo

As fans of K-Pop know, it can sometimes be hard for idols to work in the highly judgemental industry. Idols and other celebrities that do not fit inside the beauty standard often deal with harsh comments from netizens picking apart their images.

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Recently, Korean netizens slammed a rookie pre-debut boy group member for being “ugly,” but there is more to the story than just judgment over his looks. On February 14, 2023, the pre-debut boy group IB147 released their first single, “Over Shock.” The group currently has six members and is a project created by HnA Entertainment.

IB147 | HnA Entertainment

Like other pre-debut groups, the members are active on social media, sharing the content of their daily lives and dance challenges.

@ib147_official

[#은 #결 #범수 주영] 🐈‍⬛🦦🐿️🦊 여러분 모두 파이팅하세요‼️‼️ #주영 #결 #범수 #은 #jooyeong #kyul #beomsoo #eun #ib147 #연습생 #trainee #overshock #부석순 #파이팅해야지 #shorts

♬ 파이팅 해야지 (Feat. 이영지) – 부석순 (SEVENTEEN)

Because of the group’s small Twitter follow of just under 1,500, online users could not help but notice one tweet receiving much negative attention. On May 10, member Yoonsang posted photos of himself outside in different poses.

IB147’s Yoonsang | @Official_IB147/Twitter
| @Official_IB147/Twitter

As of writing, the original tweet has racked up more than 10 thousand quote tweets, many of which insult his looks.

  • He looks like one of those ahjussi hosts you can find anywhere in the bar towns in the suburbs. It’s as if they picked the least beer-bellied one and dressed him up to play an idol.
  • This is a K-Pop idol? Are you serious? Are you sure he’s not some overdressed salesman on his lunch break about to take a smoke break? This can’t be a real idol.
  • What is wrong with this world? The “average” for girl groups keeps getting better and better but for boy groups… Get some work done or lose some weight or something. Like, work harder to be better.

Among the hate tweets, one seems to have triggered an avalanche of malicious comments. A Twitter user claiming to be a friend of a former trainee alleged that their friend was bullied into leaving the group by the other members.

Guys, this is the group that literally bullied my friend into quitting. The members got salty about my friend who was supposed to be the group’s center. LMAO. He said you can go public with this. It’s fine to share on your own accounts.

This tweet has nearly as much attention as the original, leading many to believe the bullying allegations led to K-netizens leaving hate comments. A day after the allegations, HnA Entertainment released a statement clarifying that no bullying occurred between the former trainee and current members.

| HnA Entertainment

Hello, this is HnA Entertainment.

We would like to clarify some things about the speculations surrounding our project team IB147. First, we have spoken with each and every IB147 member and confirmed that the rumors on social media are malicious distortions based on some things that happened between IB147 members and Trainee A between October – November 2022. We verified that two of the IB147 members and Trainee A have had confrontations in the past regarding Trainee A’s lack of skills and effort to improve.

However, there was no in-team bullying involved.Additionally, regarding the speculations about Trainee A’s debut, we had not decided on the final member lineup at the time.

Please note that all claims being made about the trainee’s ‘position in the group’ and more are false and far from what we, as the management, had decided at the time. Our contract with Trainee A is not yet legally terminated—although Trainee A has left the management on his own terms. To make things easier for Trainee A’s sake, we’ve been looking into terminating the contract without taking further action. However, we won’t be so lenient if it turns out that Trainee A is behind these false speculations about himself. We’ll pursue communicating with Trainee A first, but should it become necessary, we’ll also pursue legal action.

Please refrain from criticizing and/or sharing hateful comments about our artists, based on unverified information.

— HnA Entertainment

Following the denial, international netizens have left kind comments to offset the hate on the original tweet.

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