Yet Another BOSS RIIZE update – Total Uproar

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(Written October 16, 2024)

I can’t believe I have to keep taking my BOSS RIIZE binder off the shelf to put in an update.  Usually I take down finished binders every once in a while to review them and make edits.  But this RIIZE story isn’t ending.

RIIZE has always been marketed as an international band.  And the international fans are FURIOUS about what is happening to Seunghan.  American and European YouTubers I follow, who I didn’t even know were into K-pop, have been posting angry videos about the way Seunghan is being treated, and how toxic fans get to bully major labels into doing whatever they want them to do.  And RIIZE is caught in the middle of all this.

A quick breakdown of what I’ve learned over the past 24 hours:

When SM Entertainment announced that Seunghan would return to RIIZE, the rest of the group was performing at the KBS Music Bank Tour in Madrid.  From the fan postings I’ve been reading on Reddit, the Madrid crowd was excited at the news and chanting about how RIIZE was finally seven again.  Meanwhile, Seunghan was back in Seoul by himself, facing the huge fan backlash with no support system around him.  Cell phone footage is posted online of him walking to the SM Building, having to walk past all those funeral wreaths.  Later, fans got pictures of him leaving the SM Building in tears.  Alone. 

Two days after the announcement that Seunghan was returning, SM posted his letter saying that he was leaving permanently.  Everyone pretty much knows SM made him write that letter.  And the bullies celebrated, but the rest of the K-pop world was PISSED.

The K-netizen bullies may be celebrating, but the rest of the fans are boycotting.  They have cancelled all their orders of products by SM artists.  They have unsubscribed to SM social media accounts.  And starting yesterday, companies all over the world that sell K-pop music and merch have put a hold on selling anything by RIIZE to protest the way SM is treating their artists.  (SM has a loooong history of horrible band management decisions that I won’t get into right now.)

Caught in the middle of all this madness is RIIZE.  The six active members who were so excited about their friend returning to the group watched as their so-called fans bullied their friend until SM backed down.  SM did not take them off the tour.  Fans captured photos of them in airports on the tour with their faces covered in COVID masks and hats pulled down, but So Hee had clearly been crying in one of the pictures. 

They can’t be with their friend to comfort him.  Shops worldwide have stopped selling their merch, and even though it’s in support of Seunghan, it’s still costing them in sales.  And they have to continue on their tour, singing and dancing in front of audiences, many of whom participated in the bullying and are responsible for all this.  They are in the middle of an international uproar due to the mismanagement and cowardice of SM Entertainment.

Seunghan is one of many, many K-pop idols whose lives and careers have been destroyed by the toxic K-netizens who have been allowed to run rampant in the industry.  A few idols have ended their lives over such bullying.  I don’t know why Seunghan is the straw that broke the camel’s back, but it seems the world has had enough.  Maybe the reason Seunghan is the catalyst is because RIIZE has such a huge international fan base.  When you market your K-pop group to the entire world, the entire world pays attention when one of the group members gets mistreated. 

These horrible toxic fans have to be stopped.  K-pop idols need to be better protected.  And SM Entertainment needs to be burned to the ground.  Right now, the intensity is still building, and this story isn’t close to being over. 

Depending on what happens, I may be taking a break from these recaps once I’m finished with I-Land.  Knowing what I know about how idols are treated, it’s hard to get enthusiastic about survival reality shows that groom the next batch of kids to get thrown right into that hellscape of an industry. 

I’m going to leave my BOSS RIIZE binder here on my desk for a while.  There will be more to this story.  I’m just hoping that RIIZE, all seven of them, come out of this okay. 

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BOSS RIIZE update – Well, never mind. Everything is awful.

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(Written October 13, 2024)

The toxic fans have won.  Seunghan has left RIIZE again. 

After several days of death threats on Weverse, funeral wreaths being sent to SM, and awful rumors being spread about him on the internet, Seunghan has decided to leave RIIZE for his physical safety and mental health.  I don’t blame him, but I hate this. 

I hate how awful and self-righteous fans can be.  Not to mention violent and threatening.  According to the message Seunghan posted on Weverse, the funeral wreaths had his name on them.  Can you imagine trying to go to work and seeing that?  Especially  if you had done nothing wrong? 

Take a look at the picture on the right.  According to Korean news outlets, there were 1,000 of these wreaths in front of the SM building.  All with Seunghan’s name on them.

All he did was have a girlfriend before he became an idol.  He’s a human being.  Humans fall in love.  He is not genetically an idol.  “Idol” is just a job title.  He does not deserve this.

I hate that these bullies have succeeded in getting him fired again and are probably now celebrating.  Like I said, I don’t blame Seunghan for leaving – I probably would, too. 

I also can’t imagine what this is going to do to the rest of the group.  They were excited about their friend coming back.  Won Bin had posted a message on Weverse, expressing his happiness and welcoming his friend back.  That message has now been taken down.  

RIIZE will probably resent their fans so much after this.  I can’t imagine being onstage, smiling and waving to the fans who bullied your friend and sent him death threats.  I wouldn’t want to continue in K-pop.  I’d just want to go home and disappear.

It’s not just K-pop, and it’s not just South Korea.  The world feels like it’s become such a stupidly angry, ignorant, violent place.  This is so depressing.

I hope that Seunghan is able to recover from this and find happiness and fulfillment in his life. 

And I hope that I can find some hope.

 

Yet Another BOSS RIIZE update – Total Uproar

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BOSS RIIZE update – Welcome back, Seunghan!

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(Written October 11, 2024)

It’s official.  RIIZE is once again seven.  I woke up this morning to headlines, Reddit posts, happy BRIIZE reactions, and anti-fans losing their minds.

Seunghan has been out of the group for ten months.  He’s missed a lot, including BOSS RIIZE, which I now do plan to recap if there’s a second season.  It will be good to see him back with his friends in the group.  He didn’t deserve to get kicked out in the first place.  I’m happy to see that SM Entertainment pushed back against the toxic fans, known as OT6 (named for their belief that there should only be six members, not seven.  Those who have hoped for Seunghan’s return are called OT7.) 

Of course, OT6 is not happy, and we are once again treated to news about how borderline criminally insane K-pop anti-fans can be.  They are actually leaving funeral wreaths at the entrance of SM Entertainment.  That, to me, sounds like a death threat.  And funeral wreaths are expensive.  According to PannKpop.com, nearly one thousand of these wreaths were sent to SM. How much money do these OT6s make?  Do they have actual jobs?  If so, do their bosses know this is what their employees are doing with their free time?  Leaving sinister messages at entertainment companies over boy band decisions?  If I ran a company and saw one of my employees on the news doing this, there would be a meeting with HR the next day.

It’s also a bit frustrating that Seunghan had to wrote a long letter of apology to appease the OT6.  For having a girlfriend before becoming an idol.  Unfortunately, he’s not the only idol who’s had to write apology letters to the fans for normal things like dating.  He also had to apologize for the fact that he smoked cigarettes back in high school, which is a bad habit but also none of anyone else’s business. 

Whatever happens going forward, this is happy news, and I’m looking forward to seeing performances and videos with all seven members back together.  What a nice way to end these recaps. 

Welcome back, Seunghan.  Enjoy your career and all the craziness that goes with it.  And if there is a season two of BOSS RIIZE, watch out for Eun Seok.  

BOSS RIIZE update – Well, never mind.  Everything is awful.

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BOSS RIIZE – K-pop Kismet

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(Written September 10, 2024)

I was about seven episodes into Shining SOLO when I received the following email:

You know, I’ve been generally ambivalent about the concept of a higher power.  But I’m pretty sure now that one exists, and it loves K-pop, has my email address, and knows that RIIZE is one of the first groups I got into when I got into K-pop almost a year ago.  And you’d better believe I’m going to recap this show, because I don’t want this higher power to feel rejected, since it now has access to my emails and could someday hack my phone. 

The email came from my KOCOWA account, but it’s also on Rakuten Viki, so I’m going to watch it there because I want to include viewer comments.  This is the most recent show I’ve done so far.  It’s currently airing in South Korea.  There will be a total of 12 episodes, and right now I have access to the first four.  Each new episode is available for streaming a week after it airs live in South Korea.

What is this show about?  Let’s check the show synopsis:

The members of RIIZE – Shotaro, Eun Seok, Sung Chan, Won Bin, So Hee, and Anton – embark on a 1-night, 2-day trip to Gangneung and Yangyang in Gangwon Province.  But there’s a twist:  through completing various missions, they earn voting rights to elect one member as the “boss,” who gets to dictate the rules of the trip!  This dynamic travel story combines healing moments, competitive energy, and lots of fun along the way.  This 2024 reality-variety show was produced as a collaboration between LG Uplus’s STUDIO X+U and SM Entertainment.

RIIZE fans may have noticed that only six members are on this show, even though the group debuted with seven members.  The answer is toxic fandom.  The seventh member, Seunghan, has been put on indefinite hiatus while the label takes legal action against the anti-fans who have spread rumors about him online.  What was Seunghan’s crime?  He had a girlfriend before the band debuted.  Photos circulated online of the two of them kissing, and anti-fans also found photos of him smoking.  

Sadly, anti-fans do have incredible power to tear down idols in K-pop.  It’s the reason Wonho had to leave Monsta X, even though he was able to clear his name.  We also talked about Jay Park in the Hot Blood recaps.  The K-pop industry doesn’t want any hint of negative press anywhere near their idols, and if the rumors stick, it can affect the reputation of the whole group. 

Management has pretty much zero patience for bad behavior or even the suspicion of bad behavior, and if you get on the wrong side of the fandom, your career can end instantly.  K-pop artists have gotten actual death threats on suspicion of dating, smoking cigarettes, having one bad show, or even becoming friends with members of another group their fans don’t like.

This is kind of hard for Westerners like me to comprehend.  Can you imagine if the band Oasis had been a K-pop band?  The whole group would have been fired from their label after their very first interview.  Instead, the raging hate Liam and Noel Gallagher have for each other has always been part of the appeal.  In fact, in 1994, the brothers were being interviewed by the music magazine NME, and the interview erupted into a loud, expletive-filled 14-minute argument that was released as a single in the UK.  The recording was called “Wibbling Rivalry,” and at this writing, it remains the highest-charting interview recording in UK history. 

That would never EVER happen in K-pop.  SM Entertainment would have thrown the entire band into a van, put a brick on the gas pedal, and sent them off in any direction while burning any evidence that the group ever existed.

RIIZE has been the target of fan hate for other reasons.  So Hee was accused of going to a singles bar (he was of legal age) and having a friend with a tattoo.  Won Bin was accused of being a bully, which is a very common accusation aimed at idols, and that case fell apart pretty quickly.   Anton is still ridiculed for being a nepo baby, since his father is an industry executive.  He and Eun Seok were also accused of having girlfriends.  

I do not care about any of this when it comes to this group’s music.  I’m just sad for the pain it causes the group members, and the fact that Seunghan had to leave the group.  He was in the videos for “Get a Guitar” and “Siren,” and his dancing and visuals are absolutely insane.  He deserves to be in this group.  I was bummed to see that he wasn’t included in BOSS RIIZE.

I’m glad that the group is still powering on, and I hope the anti-fans are leaving them alone while this show airs.  I’m very interested to see what RIIZE is up to in this show.   Regardless of controversy, they are a talented, successful, and influential group.  They’ve been referenced in survival reality shows by aspiring idols, including trainees from Make Mate 1.  They still have fans and are some of the most incredible dancers I’ve ever seen.  I’m happy that they’re getting their own show, and I’m looking forward to recapping it.

And things just may turn out well for Seunghan.  Many fans were upset about him being put on indefinite hiatus and have been very vocal online about wanting him back.  In July of this year, an industry insider posted online that he would be returning to the group by the end of this year.  Seunghan has been seen out in public and reading fan emails instead of staying in hiding.  I’ve got my fingers crossed.  If there is a K-pop higher power up there, please make it happen.

In the meantime, let’s follow our boys on this adventure!  Ap-eulo!  (I think that’s how you say “onward” in Korean.)

Episode 1:  Dawn of a New Regime

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Let’s talk about Shining SOLO.

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(Written September 9, 2024)

Let’s get the main story out of the way first.  This show was a huge rating success, despite the K-pop fans being REALLY upset when the previews started. 

According to Koreaboo’s article, “Netizens Criticize YG Entertainment for TREASURE’s Alleged New Dating Reality Show (Fans are not happy),” ¹  the vague promos and quotes from insiders framed this show as a dating show in which final couples would win at the end.  Meaning the idols would actually be dating the girls and becoming coupled up, at least for the show.  Here are some of the social media posts from fans when the promos first came out:

• I hope that the ratings bomb and it doesn’t become buzz-worthy. I’m scared that the other companies will copy them. F*ck YG should just go out and KTS for doing this. How can they market it to fans by filming a reality dating program with influencers? Crazy ba*tards.
  (Note from me:  Just so you know how toxic netizens can be, KTS stands for “kill themselves.”  As horrifying a thing that is to say, it’s a pretty common insult online.)
  
  
• This is so shocking. I’m someone who truly is not delulu, but isn’t this still what we’d hate to see our favs doing the most?
  
  
• I think the members would hate it too, so why are they filming such things? Just now when fans asked Doyoung to give a spoiler on their upcoming contents, he said that his head hurts just by thinking about it f*ck…
  (Note from me:  Doyoung very likely was under orders not to give out spoilers for the show, so I think he gave an evasive answer.)
  
  
• YG earned too much off of BLACKPINK that they’re delusional about their standing. They don’t seem like they’re in the right mind. They need to tank to get a grip.

Netizens also felt this show was a desperate act on behalf of YG Entertainment because TREASURE was in a state of “nugudom,” and this show was “nugu behavior” on their part.  “Nugu” means “who” in Korean, and it basically means a state of being nobodies.  This feels like a desperate insult from the fans, the way we would call someone a total nobody in English, even if that person were famous.  TREASURE may not be famous on the level of BTS, but they have a huge following, albums that sell in the millions, and sold-out concerts.  

This kind of insult does make sense in a juvenile way.  Imagine being an adolescent girl with a crush on a guy, and that guy goes on a dating show and breaks your heart.  The natural defensive reaction is to call him a total nobody and say you never liked him anyway.  That’s how a lot of K-pop fans reacted to the news that their TREASURE idols would be dating on a reality show.  Which made doing this show a genuine risk for the group.

Fortunately for them, the risk paid off.  According to Wikipedia, it received positive responses from both critics and fans, especially in Japan, where several of the group members are from.  The ratings were high, and it was popular on streaming services not only in South Korea and Japan, but also in Taiwan and Thailand ².

I find that reassuring.  I know this is too much to hope for, but maybe Shining SOLO will lead a change in thinking for K-pop fans, maybe that letting their idols date is not so awful after all, and their entertainment company should absolutely not under any circumstances KTS.

Something else I found interesting (and really should not have been surprised by) is that several of the women on this show were actresses trying to make a name for themselves in show business, and this was a great opportunity for them. It was a somewhat risky opportunity, because they were initially facing the wrath of the fans, but given how popular the show wound up being, I’m sure it will be great for their careers. 

Here’s what I was able to find out:

Kim Ye Won, our fashionable model and sculpture artist from Part 1, was found through her entertainment managers at KPLUS.  She had already been on one dating show in Japan called Romance Before Debut.  She’s still currently modeling, and I assume still making sculptures.

Yoo Mi Ho, our cat-owner and queen of diplomacy from Part 1, went on to have a supporting role in the SBS K-Drama The Killing Vote. 

Lee So Won, our Part 1 Canadian who told people what they wanted to hear, was actually in a Netflix K-drama called A Killer Paradox.  She’s signed to Blossom Entertainment.

Lee Ji Yeon, the one who connected with Asahi in Part 1, graduated from Dongduk Women’s University.  When she came to Shining SOLO, she had played the lead role in a 2022 web drama Is there Equation in Love?  However, she seems to have left show business. 

Lee Ha Yul, our multi-talented artist from Part 2, is a new actress under a HYP subsidiary acting company.  According to a post I found on Twitter, she was actually training to be a K-pop idol but changed her mind to focus on acting.

I couldn’t find much else.  It looks like Ji Soo is still dancing, so I don’t know if she ever tried a different career.

And finally, at the time of writing this, YG Entertainment is playing it safe, insisting that none of the members of TREASURE are dating.  The show may have been a success, but now it’s back to business as usual.

¹  https://www.koreaboo.com/news/netizens-criticize-yg-entertainment-treasure-new-dating-reality-show/

²  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shining_Solo 

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