i know many of you do not give a damn and that is a problem in its own regard but i am posting this in hopes that those who are unaware and who value their morals and their integrity over music will hopefully take something from it.
this seventeen album should be boycotted at all costs. i have been a carat for seven years now and i have a lot of love (as well as frustration) for these guys. i am endlessly proud of them for making it ten years in an industry designed to tear them down and wear them out, to take everything from human beings that it can— and then some. however i cannot allow this to overshadow the negative things surrounding this album, nor should you.
i will preface by saying that seventeen will not see a huge impact from a boycott. they make pennies on the dime per stream, $0.003 cents. seventeen are also far past comfortable financially, they are by all means rich, particularly woozi. they will be a-ok. this will not cause any damage to them outside of potential bruised egos, which is an unfortunate impact however not more important than the overall issues.
i also want to say that we know that boycotting is an effective tool to put pressure on companies to change their ways, but it needs to be an organized effort. it's not something you do for a few months and give up. it's also not something you pick and choose with — you don't avoid streaming songs and then buy a lightstick from the weverse shop because it was pretty, or attend a concert.
that said, you all should be boycotting hybe anyway. this is for multiple reasons. first is their employment and collaboration with people such as scooter braun, a staunch zionist who was outright thanked by the official israel twitter account. when scooter braun found out he was on the zionists in music twitter account, he said it was an honor and he never could've dreamed of such a thing happening to him. scooter braun has a long, problematic history i would encourage all of you to thoroughly research.
hybe has also recruited artists like johnny goldstein to work on their tracks. he is credited on enhypen, illit and txt tracks, and he has also worked closely with j-hope of bts. johnny goldstein is both a ccfp member as well as a former iof soldier. he is quite literally a child murderer and he is sitting in rooms with your favorite artists. that should infuriate you.
if that is not enough, consider the level of overwork that these artists have faced. seventeen is on their sixth album in approxiately 365 calendar days between whole group projects and individual unit projects. these all have one common factor: jihoon. he has produced six albums, short or otherwise, in one year. in one year, seventeen has also done one world tour, a japan tour, caratland, and headlined three festivals. does any of this sound sustainable for human beings? they are treated like products by their company, not human beings.
for these reasons there has been a boycott in place for over a year. many carats have chosen to break it out of 'love', but in reality, they are complicit in the mistreatment of their idols.
if none of this concerns you, there are also massive red flags with this current album.
first, bad influence, which makes up a third of the group songs on the album, is produced by pharrell who is a known zionist. in april 2024, in spite of the current social climate and despite readily available information, pharrell chose to accept an invitation to sing 'happy' to iof soldiers at a fundraising event. this is while carats in gaza are packing their photocards up while they flee their homes. pharrell made the conscious choice to be on the wrong side of history.
next, wonwoo's track credits el capitxn, who in march, took to instagram to brag that his company, vendors, produced a song for kanye's album which kanye himself said was based on 'antisemitic sounds'. they worked on the track ww3, which includes verses about epstein island, voting for djt, and 'rockin swastikas'. all he had to say regarding it was that he was 'proud of his boys' and 'they make it happen'.
you either stand in one of three places.
one, you believe seventeen does not have much autonomy. in that event, you should be angry and embarrassed that such individuals have their hands in their music, muddying everything seventeen is meant to stand for. you should not stand for it and the way to make a stand against it is by boycotting.
two, you believe seventeen does have autonomy and they have the ability to deny or to okay these things. if that is the case, you should feel frustration towards them for not doing their due diligence in these matters, when they are thirteen grown men with full, unrestricted access to the internet, when they have been called out for similar behavior before, when at least one of them has to know better. you can make that frustration known by boycotting.
or you don't really care, and at the end of the day you'll always be spineless, a so called 'real fan' who will buy into everything they do and reserve all your anger for those who want them to do better, who consistently call them out, instead of wishing they would make fewer mistakes. you will always buy the albums and the photocards and the concert tickets because you don't have the strength to be anything more than another cog in the capitalist machine. just know that you are not a fan, you are a consumer, and that your blind support and willingness to throw your money at every endeavor ultimately harms your artists before it helps them.
if you do care... take a stand. take a stand against mistreatment and overwork, against seventeen being pushed towards being another mass produced, western pandering act. take a stand towards seventeen's music having filthy hands involved in it everytime you look up. you should be embarrassed, you should be frustrated and you need to do something about it or nothing will ever change.
there should never be a time in modern history where we are proud for our favorite artists to work with zionists and people who shake hands with nazis. there is no excuse.
seventeen will survive losing streams and chart positions. they will live. and maybe their company will learn a valuable lesson for it. we have the power to do something and it's high time we wake up and do it, all of us.
nobody is saying you can’t listen. but instead of opening spotify up, download the tracks from a third party instead. they will be ok, i promise. boycotting takes no effort, it is literally an act of not doing something. if seventeen means something to you, this is how you should express it right now. please, i want better for them and you should as well.
