On Monday, March 23, Super Junior's Shindong faced backlash from netizens after putting his co-member Sungmin's photo on his newly released video thumbnail.
On the thumbnail of the video that he released through his Youtube channel Shindongdengdong, the male idol is flexing his new Macpro and on the thumbnail are the bubbleheads of his co-members Heechul, Yesung, Eunhyuk, Ryeowook, Donghae, Siwon, Kyuhyun, and Sungmin. However, fans and viewers did not focus on the Macpro itself but the thumbnail because surprisingly, the Shindong added Sungmin's photo together with the other members.
ELFs, Super Junior's fandom name, commented on the thumbnail, expressing their joyful hearts seeing how Shindong remembers his co-member who is currently not actively promoting with them.
"I'm screaming, Sungmin is indeed a Super Junior member!" A netizen said.
"Super Junior's Sungmin y'all," another fan wrote.
However, it was immediately taken down after Korean ELFs attacked Shindong on his YouTube's comments section, throwing negative feedback and hateful comments towards Shindong and Sungmin.
"How can you add Sungmin and forget the leader?" Asked an online user.
Aside from including Sungmin's photo, OT9 fans were also filled with rage after not seeing the leader of the group, Leeteuk, on the video thumbnail instead.
The video was re-uploaded then with a new video thumbnail, editing out Sungmin and replacing it with Leeteuk's photo.
A caption was also written by Shindongdengdong Wallala Production Crew along with the re-uploaded video, saying, "The video has been re-uploaded after modification because the Super Junior member is not included in the thumbnail and the main video. We apologize to the fans of Super Junior for not checking the details after the outsource editing. We will work harder on production and editing so that our fans can watch it with a pleasant heart."
In 2014, a number of Korean supporters of Sungmin turned their back against the idol after announcing his wedding. According to other fans, OT9 supporters were angry that Sungmin did not announce his partner while they were dating or even introduced her to the fans slowly.
However, according to the explanation of some Korean ELFs, Sungmin betrayed Super Junior and that his marriage brought chaos to the group. It was that year when Leeteuk's family experienced an unfortunate incident. Sungmin's wedding was set in December 2014, and it was also that time when they were too busy with their schedules, which was their last album before some members enlisted. Apparently, Sungmin's "inconsideration" is what made some Korean fans mad.
Nevertheless, if it's pure obsession or betrayal to the fans, it is still not clear if what really happened, causing all Korean fansites of Sungmin to close and exclude Sungmin from Super Junior's album and official site.
On the other hand, Shindong's real fans showered him with positive and cheering messages, through social media and in his YouTube Channel, not only because of the hate comments he received but after saying that Super Junior fans don't watch his videos if the members were not on it.
Watch the re-published video below.
