Under the glare of cameras, Hong faces the press as they swarm around him. His apology echoes across a fandom divided over multiple controversies. Eventually, this leads to his departure from RIIZE, a male group that made its debut on Sep. 4, 2023.
BRIIZE, the group’s fandom, turned its back on Hong after a dating scandal and a controversial commentary on a private livestream about Eunchae of LE SSERAFIM. Many supporters of RIIZE mainly expressed anger as he used fans’ money to meet and date women when the controversy first emerged to the public’s attention. As a result, SM Entertainment announced that Hong would go on a hiatus on DATE .
Nearly a year later, on Oct. 11, 2024, SM Entertainment, the group’s agency, declared that Seunghan, the member at the center of the scandals, would return after nearly a one-year hiatus.
Consequently, RIIZE’s official X account saw a significant decline in its follower count: over 166k users, equivalent to around 20% of the entire follower population, canceled their support for the account and stepped up to start a mass boycott.
The news bewildered fans and triggered a mixed reaction from the K-pop fan community, since a rebound after a scandal was unprecedented in the whole history of K-pop. Idols like Raki, a past member of Astro, and Seo Su-jin, previously from (G)-IDLE, had left their groups due to scandals.
Even fervent fans of Seunghan expressed their concerns. Junior Jenny Lee said, “I knew that many people including the fans of RIIZE would not be happy about his return, so I was worried about him getting too much hate.”
Similarly, those not as familiar with Seunghan insisted his departure stay permanent, as he made minimal contributions to the group’s achievements. Elin Koo in seventh grade said, “If Seunghan joins in right now, then he is going to ruin all the accomplishments that the six members made. He didn’t make any contributions to where they are right now.”
The news created a strong divide within the fandom, consisting of “One True 7 (OT7)” and “One True 6 (OT6).” The OT7 group consisted of people who supported Seunghan, while the OT6 group didn’t.
However, some OT6 fans crossed the line. They sent funeral wreaths to the company with messages such as “Seunghan OUT” to imply that RIIZE would be “dead” with Seunghan’s return. A few of the slogans included false rumors from the past, such as the allegation that he dated a minor as an adult.
The form of protest was undeniably vulgar. Lee said, “I don’t think sending thousands of funeral wreaths can be justified even though he made mistakes as a K-pop trainee. He’s a human too, and I don’t think he deserves that level of [emotional] cruelty. ”
Not only do the ethics seem questionable, but the wreaths significantly interfered with pedestrian routes. Koo said, “It’s too much because I heard that there were more than one thousand of them in front of the entertainment company, and they’re blocking [people’s way].”
Due to the firm dissent, SM Entertainment ultimately claimed that Seunghan would permanently leave the group two days after the initial news that he would return. Nonetheless, even about a month after the initial announcement of his departure, some fans continued their protest on social media with hashtags, companies boycotted SM Entertainment, and iMBC News, a public newspaper, released an article in defense of Seunghan.
In response, SM Entertainment announced Seunghan’s solo debut, which will take place in 2025. Although the fans did not exactly hope for this outcome, the announcement ultimately pleased the supporters of Seunghan without disappointing those of RIIZE and brought an end to the controversy.
To understand the psychology behind the outrage, we must have an understanding of the “romance simulation” culture in the K-pop community, where fans fantasize about romantic relationships with their favorite idols. Sometimes, imagination crosses into real life, which results in a tangible problem.
Though normalized in the past, recent fans mostly denounce this trend and do not exercise it. As a fervent fan of K-pop myself, I believe that the romance simulation should only stay in one’s mind, or their private account on social media at most. After all, K-pop idols deserve the right to have private lives as humans just like us.
In the end, we must acknowledge that some K-pop fans react sensitively to their favorite idols’ love lives, and therefore idols must keep their love lives secretive to avoid hate. Despite this, the form of OT6 fans’ protest seems extreme, if not immoral and cruel.
In refutation of the ethical concerns, the proponents and leaders of the protest claimed that the wreaths solely targeted the company, not Seunghan. However, given that some of the slogans, such as the one that translates to “Seunghan, do you need more money to purchase alcohol?” address Seunghan directly, the argument seems fictitious.
Overall, although Seunghan cannot be free from blame, some fans took too extreme of an approach and spun an average K-pop scandal into a larger controversy that left a lasting strain on the fabric of K-pop fandom culture.
