Imagine yourself in this guy's position. This guy, Jay Park, was born and raised in Seattle, Washington. That being said, 4 years ago, he left his family, friends, education and everything behind in his hometown Seattle to travel to Korea to train to become a star. Without a doubt, he had no guarantees of becoming a star, let alone have a future at all in Korea. Yet, to persue his dreams he came to his native country. If I were in his position, this would have been one of the most significant decisions to have made in my life, and needless to say, the hardest. This guy didn't know Korean fluently and had never been to Korea.
Now put yourselves in his position, would it be so hard to understand what kind of loneliness and hardship this kid would have been in 4 years ago? With regards to this, would it be so hard to understand that he could have said some negative things about Korea expressing his nostalgia and his yearnings for Seattle and all that he left behind? I mean, come on, it was on Myspace. Whoever took Myspace seriously? Ever?
Up until about a week ago, this guy was the leader of the hottest boy group, 2PM, in Korea. He overcame all his troubles and training in Korea to become the most wanted celebrity with the group's own tv show. Their song hit the charts and was number 1 in no time in Korea. Every girl and even guys loved him. Then one post from his Myspace 4 years ago was leaked to the public in Korea, and it took matters of hours for this guy to topple over and crumble in the hands of the nightmarish Korean "netizens" (citizens on online).
I think this is ridiculous. Koreans are infamous for saying some of the meanest things through their monitors and keyboards hidden away. So many stars with huge potential have fallen victim to these monsters on keyboards. I thought it was just so sad to see such a great guy, who no doubt showed his love for Korea far more than that one little Myspace post.
What do you think??
I remember I saw "Jaebeom" or "Jaebum" ranked incredibly high on twitter one night. I read-up on the matter and found it incredibly trivial. I think this is not the first but a trend of netizens pushing public figures to either resign, quit, or attempt suicides. I've always thought how interesting it was that South Korean internet users had such greater influence over public figures. With a superficial glance, it really does appear that the netizens are a more formidable force than that of major media conglomerates like SBS and KBS.
ReplyDeleteI'm curious what kind of social or cultural factors are involved aside from South Korea being a strong collectivist society. Is it because the majority of netizens grew up during a major political shifts of the 1950's-1980's when S.Korea was still under the influence of an autocratic rule of Park Chung-hee. I wonder why S.Korean critics are so outspoken and readily mobilized. Any thoughts?