Korean Netizens React To Claims Of Cultural Appropriation In The New Concept Teasers For WOODZ (Cho Seungyoun)

WOODZ, better known as Cho Seungyoun, has recently released concept teasers for his upcoming album. As the teasers have him dressed in a traditional Plains Natives’ headdress, many international fans have stepped up to point this out as cultural appropriation. Due to the recent influx of feedback of cultural appropriation in K-Pop, news has spread to Korean online communities as well.

It seems that international fans have been uploading their concern to the official fan cafe in hopes that WOODZ or his team will take note.

With multiple posts about it, Korean fans and netizens have also caught wind of the situation.

Korean netizens have responded with mixed emotions. Some claim that this is inevitable due to the global era, and state a need to respect culture. Others are tired of the situation.

“Yuehua is f*cked up too kkk I remember how people were up at EVERGLOW‘s Sihyun for having dreads.”
“Sigh they live so tiringly.”
“It’s true that the headdress is something that exclusively represents the natives’ culture. In a Netflix drama, Politician, one political candidate used the headdress and the support for him fell greatly. That’s how sensitive of a topic this is. If they tell us not to do it, isn’t it better to just follow? Whether or not we can understand it or not isn’t the point…”
“No but what they’re against isn’t just a useless trifle. This is something really important to those that are against this.”
“The people who are saying that they’re tired of this are so ignorant.”

“This is inevitable as you live amongst foreigners. There’s nothing bad about being careful.”
“Is there a short summary that explains why we cannot do the natives’ cultures? I was wondering why are they like that since the foreign-roaches were going on about dreads back then.”
“In the American drama The Politician, there’s also an episode about someone using the headdress. It looks like it is a problem kkk”
“If this is the logic then only Black people should be able to do music that originated from Black people. It isn’t a simple issue that it’s “Black music” but that it contains the story of how they were discriminated historically.”
“It’s not that the foreign fans are cursing at him but they’re just asking for that one photo to be removed in advance… the comments are so severe.”

One netizen went as far to attach the following campaign poster with the comment, “They already even made a campaign to tell people not to do this, so why are people still fussing about what the problem is or asking why they’re against it?”

In an update, Yuehua Entertainment has issued the following apology and retracted the image from the upcoming album.