WHY TAEHYUNG IS NOT THE ONE TO BE USED
there is a real difference between being a kind person and being used as a pawn in someone else’s legal war. for tae who has seen his group get dragged for everything from hair colors to schoolboy concepts since debut, seeing similarities in kpop is not some big confirmation of plagiarism. it is just kind of the reality of how the industry works, you know. concepts repeat, aesthetics cycle, and people love to point fingers when they are stressed or emotional. recognizing that is not an attack on juniors. it is more like the perspective of someone who already went through the same thing. his words were not meant for the public. they were private empathy to a former coworker during a stressful moment,.. just a human reaction.
and like to be clear, taehyung is not even part of the lawsuit between HYBE and Min Hee-jin. he is not suing anyone and nobody is suing him. he is just a third party who got pulled into something messy. under south korea’s personal information protection act, private conversations of someone not involved are not supposed to be shared or used without consent. the court treated those messages as sealed for a reason, to protect people like him. when those logs got leaked to a reporter Lee Sun myung and published, it stopped being about fan drama and turned into a privacy and legal issue. so when he said he felt "bewildered", that actually makes sense. his private words were taken out of context and used for media play without him even knowing...
but he responded because it's his breach of privacy that no one respected and used, so him showing a clear distaste is human and very much needed. and it was also pretty intentional calling her "acquaintances" it acknowledges they worked together before, but it clearly puts distance there. it is him saying, "Uhm...we are not close, we are not aligned, and I am not part of this situation." he was setting a boundary after being dragged into something that was never his problem to begin with. and by saying he is neutral, he did more than protect himself. he also protected junior artists from getting attacked in his name. he did not let people use his kindness as a weapon to bully younger idols who are literally going through the same debut era mess he went through years ago. that part is kind of important, yk...It shows experience. he recognized the cycle because he lived it, and he chose not to pass that pressure down to the next generation.
and if you think it is okay or reasonable to publish his words or take them out of context, just know that every idol is in contact with people in higher positions, you know managers, executives, producers, staff, all of that. once we normalize this, any private message can be pulled out at any time and used for someone else’s leverage. it does not just affect him either. it creates a situation where any artist’s private empathy, frustration, or casual opinion can suddenly be dragged into court cases or media narratives that means nobody in the industry gets to speak honestly in private without worrying their words will be weaponized later.
and the way Tae handled the situation felt really grounded and intentional. he spoke up fast, clarified his position, called out the privacy issue, and then stepped back instead of letting it spiral into something messier. he did not drag it out or escalate it. he basically said this is my story and nobody else gets to twist it for me....so yeah. i really love seeing his growth and the way he is navigating the industry now. hopefully his kindness does not get dulled over time. it is still sad that he was one of the only ones who refused to let the media or the court use him as an artist the way they keep trying to push and frame every group. the way he addressed it shows that he is in control of his own words and his own narrative, and that was probably the only way he could speak on it without being used by either side as confirmation for their stance.
“this was part of a private, everyday conversation i shared with empathy because we were acquaintances. i had absolutely no intention of taking anyone’s side. i am very taken aback that this conversation was submitted as evidence without my consent."
