BTS, Le Sserafim fans challenge 'HYBE is the reason why...' trend with humour after K-pop fans blame conglomerate for everything
These issues began after HYBE's recently revealed internal reports during its audit with the National Assembly.
HYBE is the reason why
In the past few days, the K-pop community has been divided between haters of the conglomerate HYBE and fans of the groups under its umbrella. These issues began after HYBE's recently revealed internal reports during its audit with the National Assembly. News channels also disclosed portions of the report to the public. The documents contained shocking information, including the company's alleged smear campaigns, plans to favour certain groups over others, and other controversial topics, which have triggered fan wars.
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Soon enough, fans of every K-pop group not under HYBE began blaming the agency for the downfall of their favourite groups. However, what has angered HYBE group fans is that HYBE did not even exist when most of these K-pop groups experienced declines. Fans of EXO were seen on X (formerly known as Twitter) blaming HYBE for the group not winning grand prizes since 2016, even though HYBE was formed in March 2021. Even BigBang fans were seen claiming that the "Burning Sun" scandal, involving several celebrities, including popular K-pop idols and police officials in a sex scandal in 2019, was due to HYBE.
In response to the remarks made by K-pop fans, supporters of HYBE groups, especially BTS and Le Sserafim, initiated their own "HYBE is the reason why..." trend online. Taking a dig at these accusations, many even suggested that climate change is also a result of HYBE.
HYBE's statement on all the issues:
The CEO of HYBE, Lee Jae Sang apologized on behalf of the company and said, "As HYBE’s CEO, I would like to apologize for the company’s internal monitoring documents. I would like to bow my head in apology to the artists, industry officials, and fans in regards to our internal monitoring documents that were shared during the National Assembly’s audit with the Ministry of Culture, Sport, and Tourism committee on October 24.
"The documents were prepared through the collection of various public reactions and opinions in response to industry trends and issues. They were only shared within some members of leadership [of the company] for the purpose of understanding the public opinion and the fans, however, the contents of the documents were extremely inappropriate. On behalf of the company, we acknowledge all of our wrongdoings and we take responsibility for the provocative and crude remarks made towards other K-Pop artists, the inclusion of the author’s personal views and evaluations, and the fact that these ideas were documented. In particular, we are very sorry and remorseful for the situations where innocent artists and members became misunderstood and were victims due to suspicions that came about through reverse-virality rumours that were not true. [T/N: reverse virality refers to spreading an idea with the intention to create a negative public opinion]
"We would like to respectfully and officially apologize to the artists who were mentioned in the documents and were hurt by them. We have also contacted each agency of the artists mentioned and apologized directly to them. We also sincerely apologize to our HYBE artists, who are taking the heat for their company.
"We acknowledge that the leadership who shared the documents lacked awareness of the potential issues they would bring and as the CEO, I have immediately halted the creation of future documents. I promise to establish guidelines and strengthen internal control to prevent something like this from happening again.
"Once again, I would like to apologize to the artists, industry officials, fans, and everyone who loves and supports K-Pop who were hurt by this. As the company CEO, I would like to say that I plan to comprehensively improve on past wrongdoings and will do my best for the continued development of the K-Pop industry through self-reflection and by prioritizing the rights and interests of the K-pop artists and fans".
Updated: October 29, 2024 12:18 PM IST
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