An essay on why I fight for Wonho
I think there has been too much of this “why do you even care that much?” bullshit lately and I’d like to make things clear, at least for my part. And I am assuming many other Monbebes can relate.
Indeed, why do I care? Wonho was never my bias, I have always liked other groups too, I have seen hundreds of groups come and go, it’s just one member in that group and although I want him to return, I actually want this entire industry to burn down to ashes even more and yes, that would mean death sentence to all idol groups.
But first of all, let me ask this question in return: Why does it bother you that we care? Who gets to define what’s a useless endeavor? What makes you think I can’t simultaneously care for “more important” issues? Why the hell are you judging us for wasting time on this, when we all already know you wasted days watching that useless Youtube vine compilation, binge-watched that one Netflix series you didn’t seriously even care about, played that one stupid mobile phone game when you should have been sleeping, ate those two boxes of cookies that could’ve lasted you two whole weeks? Who are you to say things are useless just because it’s not your favorite idol group or whoever the fuck you care about, who’s under attack? Why do you think we have explaining to do, when literally none of this has anything to do with you personally and it’s literally you who fail to see the implications this incident had?
I don’t need to explain why I found a person inspiring as an idol and human being, why I found his background story motivating and moving and why I found his presence in Monsta X very important for the entire group’s mental health, group dynamics, success and happiness. I don’t need to explain why I find it upsetting that the people I cared about are torn apart because of no fucking reason, and that I can see that pain from their faces as they’re forced to pretend Wonho does no longer fucking exist?
I don’t fucking think I need to explain why I have empathy for a person who is under a police investigation just because. I don’t think I need to explain why I don’t find it fair that someone is under an attack for doing something that is not deemed as illegal in the most civilized, democratic countries. I don’t need to explain why I want to defend someone who’s kicked out of his group because of conservative internet trolls and a couple whose own background is about ten times more shady than Wonho’s. I don’t think I need to justify myself protesting for him, when he is fired from a job that has absolutely nothing to do with the things he’s being accused of. I don’t think I need to explain that unlike many others, I am indeed capable of reflecting this incident against the bigger context and see how flawed the entire Korean legislative system is.
But let me do your homework for you asshats and explain what this bigger context is. It’s the context where simply having an allegation of whatever kind placed against you is enough to ruin your entire career. The context where people are literally lying about a person’s background and have been caught doing that, but can still continue with the investigation. The context where people can be punished again and again for things they did ages ago, apologized for, moved on and learned from. The context where literal rich drug dealers, convicted criminals sitting in prison, their minions and ENTIRE companies (cough pdx101 cough) might be able to escape from justice, but this one unfortunate person whose existence is only justified by the Korean population if he is superhumanly perfect and flawless, is brought down for allegedly committing a crime that was not harming anybody and was committed six fucking years ago. The context where you can be punished for something so meaningless that it feels like there is indeed space for a conspiracy theory or two. The context that paints idols as literal gods and goddesses who are not allowed to have pasts, backgrounds, redemption arcs or flaws to their character. The context that is taking idols from their hard-earned positions just because someone influential enough had a personal grudge against them. This context where Koreans are not protected by their own companies or labor unions but can be treated like non-human playthings, chess pieces and pawns just for having human traits.
I don’t think I need to explain why I have empathy. I don’t think I need to explain why this bigger picture I see doesn’t only clash with my morals, but also potentially hurts hundreds of thousands of other people, because something like this could easily happen to them, too, especially if we now use this incident as an example of how things should be handled in similar situations. And if you as a person fail to connect the dots, if you personally fail to see why this is giving an ugly view into a ruthless society many of my friends and loved ones have no other options but to live in, I think that’s on you. That’s literally your personal problem, not mine.
Wonho was not inspiring because he was flawless, he was inspiring because he demonstrated character growth. He was not inspiring because he never did any mistakes, he was inspiring because he kept improving and kept sharing his love and gratitude toward his fans. He was not inspiring because he had wealth, connections and endless virtuosity, he was inspiring because he built his career from nothing and still remembered to explicitly thank his family, his friends, his loved ones and his fans every single day. That alone is something we can’t say from many other people.
And if you think my argument is flawed because I was biased? Yes. I am biased. It’s not suspicious that people care about stuff more when it turns out to be personally relatable. Stop fucking pretending you are so virtuous, wise and pure that you already fought against bigotry, oppression, discrimination and bullshit in its all forms, way before you were even fucking born. That does not give you more social justice woke points, it just makes you annoying. Just because some Monbebes woke up to notice how flawed, ugly, embarrassing and pathetic the kpop industry can be now that their own favorite idol is attacked, is not a bad thing if it leads to them protesting against similar incidents in the future. Just because people cannot fully grasp issues before it has something to do with themselves doesn’t mean they can’t now use that realization as a boost to change the entire society.
Yes, we intend to not bring only Wonho back, but also bring down the entire industry that made it possible for things like these to happen. Yes, we as human beings are capable of empathizing with people who we don’t have much to do with, but it’s not wrong if we fight even more fiercely when we try to protect our own. When was the last time you have done something similar?
If our movement brings light to the fact how little protections workers have in Korea, if our movement makes people see how devastating consequences bullying and baseless accusations can have on people, if our movement continues talking about the same problem that caused a person to commit literal suicide a month earlier? If our movement makes it transparent to everybody how much power all these companies have over their idols and how they can not only treat them like shit after trusting and rooting for them for several years, but also silence all the remaining members and force them to continue even if they’re at a breaking point? If our movement brings light to the fact that maybe, just maybe it’s not fair to punish people for things that they might not only NOT have done, but also are literally meaningless even if he did them ALL, especially because they happened before he ever even was an idol?
Well, I’ll call it a movement that exists for a good fucking reason.
One of my Korean friends, after being told about this, said that well, the only thing I now need to do is to change my favorite group and move on with my life, because I am literally just a customer and I can’t change things. And you know what? That is exactly the problem here. Without knowing it, she summarized the entire problem up perfectly with that one sentence.
She and so many other Koreans (and non-Koreans) consider idols mere products. They think idols are here to sell us a certain image of a perfect, successful person who does not really exist as a human being. Idols just represent something the Korean society aspires to be, but if enough people get fed up with them for whatever reason, just to bolster their own feelings of revenge and jealousy like in this case, idols can be dumped and forgotten in a matter of minutes. That hurting one idol does not really matter, because there are people lining up behind him to do his job even better. That being an idol is an endless cycle of improving oneself, requiring less and less time for resting, recovery, privacy and human rights and asking less and less forgiveness from the audience. That if you get an important position in the society, it’s on you if you cannot handle the negative publicity that might follow. That if you have done one mistake once, it prevents you from ever moving on in your life, because it can come and bite you in the ass whenever, arbitrarily, just because, even if technically you had already been forgiven long time ago. That people who have gotten money and fame do not earn those positions because of hard work, but because they are supposed to be superhuman. And because there is no such thing as a superhuman, every and any idol can be brought down whenever they show the smallest sign of humanity. Even if that sign of humanity is just them showing open solidarity and empathy for a friend and colleague that was wrenched from them for no reason.
She and so many other Koreans think the only thing they can do as normal citizens is to pretend this one “flawed, miserable” individual never existed, because they are powerless against the decisions of the companies, press and rich conservative trolls?
And for some reason, somehow, these same Koreans fail to see how that reflects the state of their entire society and how it affects their own rights as workers, as human beings. They fail to see this very, very crucial factor: that idols are more similar to everyday Koreans than they are to the entertainment companies, wealthy chaebol CEOs and a couple of filthy rich drug dealers who escape their own punishment because of their even richer dad.
Idols are NOT extremely wealthy celebrities who have a freedom to choose their own paths, influential politicians who can escape from scandals after scandals or sons and daughters of the company leaders and estate owners of Korea.
They are workers who have inhumane working conditions. They are faces to faceless, cruel companies who are intentionally hiding behind them to cover their own tracks.
Idols have no real rights, freedom or future, and thus, they represent us normal people. What you do to one of these idols, you essentially do to every single one of his/her fans. You take our dreams away, you punish us unfairly for things we tried to learn from, you take away our voices that we used to express our own oppression and challenge the status quo.
Idols are not us, but they represent us more than any of these companies, leaders, rich heirs and heiresses and CEO’s could ever do.
And that’s why I’m fighting for Wonho.
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And please miss me with that cultural relativism bullshit. I know injustice when I see it. I can distinguish suffering and pain even in cultural contexts I am not born into. Also? Maybe if Koreans don’t want us to meddle with how they handle their own problems, maybe they should have really been thinking twice before trying to buy the entire world with the help of their idol industry. We can hold companies accountable. We can demand change. Companies and wealthy shitheads are not representatives of a culture. We know there are Koreans with us in this fight.
And if this doesn’t change with us, right now, today… it will sit down with us until something like this happens again, and then the change will come in the shape of a fucking tsunami.
And what are you going to do at that point, stand in the fucking way, or pretend your past mistakes can no longer hold you accountable?
