By Jae-Ha Kim
Substack
July 17, 2023
I’m not an influencer by any means and I’m not a celebrity. But I have dealt with trolls, starting from the days when they had to mail their vitriol through the USPS — all the way through present day, when haters can harangue you nonstop on social media. As I watched the female protagonist in the K-drama “Celebrity” experience suicidal ideation after being inundated with harpies spreading lies about her, it made me remember the first time I experienced something similar (that unfortunately still recurs to so many people).
The first time I was canceled online was in 2017, when I tweeted out a blind item that I thought was interesting.
A Korean entertainment company had offered me an interview with a K-pop idol. But their conditions included the following:
— I had to sign a contract agreeing to be sued if I wrote anything negative.
— I would also be responsible for paying the agency’s legal fees … to sue me.
— And if my article ran in a publication they didn’t consider prestigious enough, they would — you guessed it — sue me.
FWIW, their client may have been a big deal to them. And while I personally liked them, they were relatively unknown in the United States. But all that aside, there was no way I was going to agree to their outrageous demands, even if they were offering me a megastar. So of course I turned them down.
Any normal person who read my tweet would’ve thought, “Wow, that’s ludicrous!” But that’s not what happened.
For at least a week, tens of thousands of K-pop stans sat in my Twitter mentions spreading lies about me, misgendering me, attacking my family, trying to dox me, emailing the publications I write for, and threatening me — all because they were defending their favorite entertainment company 😬 that I never named.
It became such a big deal that bloggers such as Asian Junkie began sharing their input:
And it sparked a lengthy dialogue on Reddit. SeoulBeats covered it, too.
Though I hadn’t mentioned any names, various fandoms erroneously assumed I was paid by BTS to smear EXO and their agency, S.M.엔터테인먼트. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ And this then sparked an online war between the two groups’ fandoms. The more BTS’ fandom ARMY defended me, the angrier EXO’s fandom EXO-L got.
At this point, I was merely collateral damage.
At the end of the day, it’s worthwhile realizing that the most unhinged people are a tiny fraction of a huge fandom that is full of millions of fans, the majority of whom don’t cause drama just for the hell of it. But when you’re one person being inundated with tens of thousands of hateful messages, it is — to put it mildly — exhausting.
It was heartening to hear from people who felt strongly about the freedom of the press, as well as other reporters who had been offered these bizarre contracts and turned them down, too, because … journalism.
As for the others, who think journalists should just be press release machines, I hope they will grow out of that train of thought and mature, regardless of how old they may be.
What @exo_fanot9 — whose account has long since been suspended, go figure — doesn’t realize is that Korean talent agencies court western media, specifically journalists who write for U.S. publications. Why? Because the U.S. is the world’s largest music market. There’s money to be made here.
It doesn’t matter that these delulus don’t know who I am. The management companies and their publicity teams do, because it’s their job to know who writes for what.
Honestly? I have to turn down most of the offers I get due to lack of time; but also because I know I won’t be able to place them. There are a small handful of specific Korean groups that U.S. publications are interested in — and you can probably guess who they are.
Regardless, there’s always someone ready to spread rumors that are based on simply their imagination, not fact. Why? Because it’s fun for them to get clout based off hating on others.
And adults aren’t immune to venting their spleens, either. Sometimes, pampered wannabe-communists attack my parents for being immigrants…even though they themselves are immigrants, too. I mean… what great debating skills!
And sometimes they attack me for writing for western publications. Even though I live in the United States and therefore that’s where I work. They do, too! How one would conflate writing for the Chicago Tribune with Yankee men being enamored with me is beyond me. The sexism is obvious and disgusting. But, I suppose, that’s the point of trolls, isn’t it?
© 2023 JAE-HA KIM | All Rights Reserved
