Korean Fans Get Triggered After International Fans Remove “White-Washing” From Idols’ Photos

Korean netizens showed their outrage that foreign idol fans are “unwhitewashing” official pictures of idols by producing darker photos in an attempt to show their “real” skin tone.

The above is an edited version of BTS‘s Jungkook, and below is the originally released photo.

There have been thousands of pictures retouched by foreign fans because they believed the pictures were not representative of the idols’ natural skin tones.

Koreans were angry because they claimed the reproduced pictures portray the members with a skin tone darker than they actually have.

The image below is an especially noticeable instance.

Korean netizens accused foreign fans of using photos with yellow-tinted lighting to portray their supposed “real” skin tone.

Pictures that have a yellow light above [the idol] are being called ones with a natural skin tone.

— Korean OP

They are calling the occasional gloomy picture their ‘real’ skin tone.

— OP

Some foreigners also mocked Korean beauty standards.

Korean netizens claimed it’s discriminatory and racist to “un-whitewash” idols’ photos based on what foreigners think is their natural color while foreign fans claimed the idols are perfect just the way they are, so the photos shouldn’t have been whitened in the first place.

• “Koreans are white. It’s prejudiced and racist to say Northwest Asians are yellow and dark-skinned. These people are ignorant.”
• “I think they’re really on the edge of racism. Asian in the eyes of these people = yellow or dirty. They’re biased every time and always make a mess of it.”

• “You can’t tell me that you like the BTS which looks like ghosts on some pictures more than the BTS with their natural skin color, I mean THEY’RE SO BEAUTIFUL AND THEIR SKIN COLOR MAKES THEM MORE BEAUTIFUL. After seeing these pictures I decided to save and post only not whitewashed pictures when it’s possible.”
• “We do not tolerate racism, colorism, whitewashing, or other hateful behavior.”

But some foreign netizens did acknowledge problems with editing photos of the idols.

I think some of the non-whitewashed photos are darker than their normal skin colors? Some people re-edit the whitewashed pictures, making them a lot more tan than they originally are.

— Foreign netizen