Like all things that relate to celebrities, people have taken things to absurd lengths again and have predictably overblown the Seolhyun and Jimin history issue regarding Ahn Jung Geun. I was wrong about the reaction, as I figured that people would generally stop at mocking Seolhyun and Jimin for life for being such idiots, not unlike we all do to people who make mistakes (half shirt is not a mistake, ok?). Why didn’t I think this issue would end up extra and overboard? I dunno, I should honestly have less faith in humanity by this point, and I will reflect and return with a more cynical outlook.

Anyway, besides giving them shit about being dumb (which was totally fine, IMO, as I said), people were busy calling them sluts and whores and asking them to die and saying they should be removed from being ambassadors as if tourists give a fuck and telling companies they endorse that they will burn them in eternal hell if Seolhyun and Jimin continue to endorse them.

It’s all just a bit extra for what actually transpired, and I think one of the reasons international netizens are so willing to jump on board is that they don’t actually know what transpired.

See, but that’s the thing, I don’t think they were being disrespectful. I also think people are just assuming they were because Korean netizens in those translated articles said they were. That, of course, assumes those netizens represent all Koreans and not just select people commenting who might have an agenda or who might not have watched the episode or who might be just as dumb as anybody else.

Watch for yourself and conclude whatever you want.

Me? Like I said, a lot of this was quite dumb, but Seolhyun hardly even actually said anything and Jimin’s “insults” were being fed to her by a producer and Jimin simply repeated them as she was rushing to desperately jot down anything since she had no idea who the person was. The main crime here is ignorance, which is why I said they should get shit for that cause it’s amusingly stupid, but apart from that? I think most reasonable people can agree that ending an idol’s career and sending death threats and stuff is a bit much for historical knowledge ignorance.

—–

So that is where we are today, which is with a politician and a history professor speaking out and saying that while they did fuck up, they shouldn’t be condemned for it (hm, that measured type of take sounds familiar).

Minjoo Party of Korea Congressman, Kim Kwang Jin, has posted a post on his personal facebook with regards to the recent incident to which Seolhyun, a member of the girl group AOA, had issued an apology for. “I feel that (she) should not be so severely condemned for it.”

Congressman Kim Kwang Jin posted a photo collage of various historical figures on his personal facebook. “I majored in history when I was doing my postgraduate studies; I was also the Secretary General of the institute of Ethnic Studies and had spent the last four years speaking up for Ethnic issues.” “There are people who were unable to recognize the faces these historical figures” and “even though they know about the achievement and feats of the historical figures but people were unable to recognize them when they were shown the photos of these historical figures.”

Historical studies professor, “Seolhyun and Jimin, what they said was not right but this is not anything to condemn them for”

One of the points made by the professor was that Korean society doesn’t look good when it hits out at celebrities viciously like this.

The rest of the history professor’s post (it’s a long one if anybody wants to translate beyond rough details) was basically ranting about Korean education (celebrity high schools suck balls) and about politics (liberal scholar doesn’t like Park Geun Hye). So what he really wanted to talk about wasn’t even connected to this issue, he just wanted to use a hot topic to go off…

…so of course the top-voted comment on Netizen Buzz is joking that FNC Entertainment paid him off, probably taking a cue directly from one of the translated comments.

Was this professor paid off? Just going through nine years of public education means you should know this as basic knowledge.

Remember, the company who didn’t have the power to prevent this issue from being broadcast to begin with definitely forced a random professor to go on Facebook and rant about education in Korea and his personal politics that used Seolhyun and Jimin’s controversy as a tangential point.

On it.

It says an awful lot to me that the people who are basing their opinions solely off translated Korean netizen comments are the first to jump out and accuse Korean politicians and professors defending Seolhyun and Jimin as crazy or shills. Surely their logic (that relies on appeal to authority) would place those two on a higher platform than mouth-breathing comment sections, no? After all, if you are going to repeat the “stay in your lane” mantra over and over and just take the word of random Korean netizens on this issue, then why not do the same when non-anonymous educated Korean people speak on it as well? Ah, but I guess that doesn’t fit the narrative people want, does it?

—–

Going back to the main point, though, it always ends up like this, huh?

Reasonable people can take a step back, look at the facts, and conclude that Seolhyun (well, not really) and Jimin did fuck up a bit and do deserve some shit, but that most people are also being unreasonable witch-hunting tools about it with their over-the-top reaction.

Hopefully more people begin to see it for what it actually appears to be, but I doubt it. See, I did reflect and I came back more cynical already.