I don't work in media anymore, but I still work with PR agencies, and I used to work in both PR and entertainment media. I wanted to send a message because I saw the journalist anon one.
A lot of the time I don't send messages because I'm 95% sure his team checks fan Tumblrs, and I don't want to give them ideas, especially if they end up pushing a narrative in a way it's not positive. To me, it often feels like some of them don't really understand him, either as a person or as an artist.
What I've said from the beginning is that even if we don't know the full truth, perception still matters. Rather than trying to control every narrative, I think they should focus on what actually makes him interesting: his work, his love of cinema, fashion, art, and books, as well as his personality, which a lot of people genuinely like. Similarly to what journalist anon said.
Their approach sometimes feels more like it's aimed at a young music fandom than at building a long-term film career across a wide variety of projects. I just think it's a missed opportunity because there's already so much there to build on and in the end he is the boss, it feel like people in his team are the bosses which sadly happens a lot in entertainment with executives.
Yeah I didn't want to say this but the kpopification of H's target demographic needs to be studied...
It's truly disturbing to see actual children who SHOULD NOT BE interacting with HR at all in the first place latch onto H like an idol and expect him to fit a similar mold and act insane when people point out that that's not who the fuck he is or would want to be.
I've never been in a kpop fandom (or have ever been interested even slightly) but what I know of them is... not something that should be replicated for actors in the West. The purity culture there is giving borderline fundamentalist and the way idols' lives are completely micromanaged is so dystopian it makes me nauseous...
Anyway! My point is a good chunk of the H solos are either active in kpop fandoms now or used to be until recently and you can 100% tell. And that is 10000000000000000% not H would want as a fanbase...