Netizens Raise Anger Over The “Inappropriate” Concept And Styling Given To A Rookie Girl Group With Mostly Minors As Members

It seems as if the issue surrounding debuting underage idols has become one of the hottest topics in K-Pop. One group recently garnered a lot of attention as Korean netizens raised concerns about how age-appropriate their recent concept is.

CLASS:y was formed on the MBC survival show My Teenage Girl.

Although the concept was focused on teenagers, when the group officially debuted, many shared their concerns as most of the members were considered minors, with the youngest member Seonyou only being 14 years old.

When the group first debuted, the company M25 was praised for giving the members appropriate concepts, looks, and choreography for their age.

Yet, this all changed when the group released their latest track, “Tick Tick Boom.” The music video itself didn’t raise many concerns as the storyline was appropriate and there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with the outfits or choreography.

However, it wasn’t until the group started performing on music shows that Korean netizens raised concerns. In particular, at the end of October, the group performed on Inkigayo wearing bright red outfits.

When looking at the mixture of quite “provocative” outfits and choreography, netizens shared their anger at how inappropriate it was for the members.

On a Korean forum, one user had some extremely strong views about the performance. They explained that the combination of clothes and choreography was not appropriate and the age, especially considering many were still in middle school and minors.

They should at least change their clothes if they aren’t getting rid of the choreo. If they are going with these outfits, I wish they’d at least change the choreography.

They wore more revealing outfits at the other music shows. I didn’t want to make another gif, so I didn’t include them.

This might be ok if they were adults, but Kim Seonyou and Park Boeun are 15 (Korean age), and 14 (internationally), Won Jimin in the front is 16 (Korean age), and 14 (internationally), and four out of the seven members are middle schoolers.

 

In particular, many had extremely vocal comments about the concept and performance from CLASS:y. Many believed that the criticism was needed because there needs to be a level of strictness when dealing with minors on stage.

• “Do you dream of a world where society doesn’t deem naked minors as weird?”
• “I am not sorry at all. It’s better to be strict towards minors.”
• “They aren’t in their right minds. How can they make minors wear that type of clothes? Isn’t it too much?”
• “They can do concepts like this when they are older. There are concepts available that are suitable for them now. Why are they doing this (concept) already?”

The topic of debuting underage members in groups is something that has raised a lot of debates in recent years. With the rise of social media and increased expectations, many believe that there should be more control on idols debuting and safeguards in place.