a little note about the recent situation with mina. 🕊️
i honestly don't even know how to put this into words. i only found out about everything surrounding mina recently, and i feel genuinely heartbroken knowing that i was so late to hearing about it. ever since march 10th (heeseung's departure), it feels like things have just continued getting worse, and even though i'm not an engene and i'm really only a casual listener of enhypen, i've still seen so much of what has been happening.
i've especially seen the hate jungwon has been receiving for speaking up and calling out certain fan behavior, and honestly, i think that's important to mention because this didn't just come out of nowhere. there has been so much entitlement and parasocial behavior surrounding the group, and now seeing what happened with mina has made me realize just how far some people have allowed things to go.
mina was only 26.
that's the part i keep coming back to. she was only 26 years old. she had gone to a prestigious university. she had her own life, her own future, her own people who loved her. and she genuinely adored enhypen. she was a fan who found happiness in their music, and it makes me so incredibly sad that something she loved became surrounded by so much hatred and cruelty.
she apologized. she apologized, and people still wouldn't leave her alone. people were cruel to her during her live, saying horrible things and even telling her to take more pills. i genuinely cannot wrap my head around that. how do you see another human being struggling in front of you and decide that your response is to make it worse? how can you type something like that, press send, and then go about your day?
and this is where i have to say that some people have become far too comfortable behind a screen. people say things online that i truly hope they would never have the courage to say to someone's face. they hide behind usernames and accounts and convince themselves that because they're online, their words don't matter.
they do.
words have consequences. harassment has consequences. choosing to repeatedly target someone has consequences. i don't want to sit here and pretend that i know every detail surrounding mina's death or assign responsibility for something i cannot possibly know the full circumstances of, but i absolutely believe that the people who participated in making her life miserable need to take a very hard look at themselves. you cannot spend days or weeks tearing someone down and then act like none of your words mattered.
and now i'm seeing people trying to put the blame on ni-ki, and that makes me incredibly angry too. from what has been reported, he never named mina, and there has been no confirmation that his comments were about her. people made that connection themselves, and now they're using it to shift responsibility onto him. ni-ki did not tell anyone to harass mina. he did not tell people to send her those messages. people made their own choices.
this shouldn't be about protecting an idol from criticism or defending a fandom. it's about remembering that mina was a real person.
and honestly, all of this over flowers. over fan interactions. over who gets noticed, who gets given something, who gets attention from an idol. things that are supposed to be fun. things that are supposed to make people happy.
k-pop is music. it's an interest. it's something we enjoy. it is not a reason to hate someone. it is not a competition. it is not something worth making another person's life miserable over.
mina should have been able to love enhypen without being made to feel like she had done something unforgivable. she should have been able to enjoy their music, go to lives, collect things, talk about them, and be a fan without this becoming what it did.
i'm honestly just so sad for her. sad that she was only 26. sad that she had so much life ahead of her. sad that she had people who cared about her and things she loved, and yet somehow she ended up being subjected to this much cruelty. and i'm sad that i only found out about her story so late, because knowing that this was happening while i was completely unaware of it genuinely hurts.
i hope people remember mina as more than this situation. she wasn't just “an enhypen fan.” she was mina. she was a 26-year-old woman who went to university, had a life, had interests, had people she loved, and loved something that brought her happiness.
she was a person before she was a fan.
and i really wish people had remembered that sooner.
please, please be kinder to people. you genuinely never know what someone is going through behind a screen. rest in peace, mina. 🕊️🤍 i hope you are finally somewhere peaceful, and i hope you are remembered for the person you were and not just for the circumstances that took you from this world.
