Wren Graves (Featured Articles Editor): In an almost unprecedented move, one of the world's biggest K-pop groups, NCT, has fired its vocalist Taeil amid allegations of sexual misconduct. Details are scarce, but the scandal comes at a time of change for both the genre and the country.
For years, K-pop idols have attempted a dangerous balancing act, releasing a raft of behind-the-scenes content that fosters a sense of closeness with fans, while also maintaining a squeaky-clean image around the clock. In our increasingly digital world, it's harder to maintain that healthy appearance. Meanwhile, South Korea is facing what one politician has called a “national emergency” of sexual crimes, symbolized by recent news about elaborate deepfake pornography networks hosted on Telegram that targeted and harassed South Korean women.
To help us understand this, we turned to K-pop expert Mary Siroky. Mary, has something similar happened to you before?
Mary Siroky (Associate Editor): Yes, in 2019, the Burning Sun scandal broke out in South Korea, involving the exposure of chatrooms that linked several K-pop idols to stories involving assault and sex work at the Burning Sun nightclub. Among the figures implicated were Suengri of the influential K-pop boy group BigBang, who served as the manager of the Burning Sun club, and soloist Jung Joon-young. The latter went to prison after being found guilty of raping several unconscious women, as well as filming women without their consent before distributing the images and videos in chatrooms. He was sentenced to six years, but was actually released from prison in March of this year.
This scandal rocked the K-pop world. A big centerpiece of the story was the club itself, Burning Sun, which was located in the trendy and chic Gangnam neighborhood. Burning Sun gained a reputation as a VIP destination for celebrities seeking privacy during a night out, which then made it a destination for dedicated K-pop fans hoping to rub shoulders with idols.
Wren: Wait, is that Gangnam like in Psy’s worldwide hit “Gangnam Style”?
Maria: It's the same one! There's a statue of his hands there.
The immediate backlash was swift, and many clubs in Gangnam stopped hosting parties. Visits to the neighborhood dropped dramatically, especially from tourists. But years later, the scandal remains the subject of hushed talk; it is not something today's idols want to discuss. There is little evidence that Burning Sun has caused a major shift in Korean celebrity culture.
In fact, many women in South Korea felt that this incident, which also exposed the connections between the rich and famous and law enforcement in Seoul, was less specific to K-pop and more symptomatic of the problems that exist for women across the country. In an article for The Washington Post, Writer Haeryun Kang said: “The latest celebrity scandal has sparked anger among many Korean women, not because it is unique, but because the story goes far beyond K-pop. The patterns of male behavior are eerily familiar. The gendered power dynamics, which often objectify women and turn them into sexual tools, are exhaustingly repetitive.”
Wren: Five years later, the phrases “disturbingly familiar” and “exhaustingly repetitive” are still appropriate. More important than Taeil are the scores of young men (it’s always young men) behaving like perverts on Telegram channels. Deepfakes with sexual content They are a problem. Harassment that starts in chat rooms reportedly doesn't always stay there.
It is worth noting that the entire Telegram platform has been a hotly debated topic ever since its founder, Pavel Durov, was… Arrested in France Earlier this week, Durov was accused of a lack of moderation, of promoting the absolutism of freedom of expression even as he allows the proliferation of child pornography (or sexual deepfakes) on Telegram.
Maria: It's not yet known whether Taeil's removal from NCT is related to the current Telegram “emergency,” but his departure comes after a few weeks of South Korean women openly expressing their outrage at the toxicity in these chat rooms.
My feeling is that these two events lining up will boost the South Korean version of the #MeToo movement, which has been gaining momentum even before the Burning Sun scandal. Feminism can still be a dirty word in South Korea: BTS's RM was included in a notorious list of antifeminist watch list after recommending a book related to women's liberation, alongside Red Velvet's Joy, who was wearing a t-shirt with the slogan “WE SHOULD ALL BE FEMINISTS.”
I think something that has thrown so many people off with Taeil is that this genre, more than any other, encourages people to feel like they know those people through an absolute abundance of content. This is a sobering reminder that, as connected as listeners feel to their favorites, we only see what they want us to see.
Young women make up the majority of male idols’ fan bases. Young women are also the demographic most affected by what is happening with the violence spilling over into the real world through the communities that are fostered in these Telegram chat rooms.
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