K-Pop fans are asking the Korean Government Organization For Statistics (KOSTAT) to apologize sincerely towards their rude remark on Rain's "Gang" MV.
On 1 May 2020, the official YouTube channel for the South Korean Government Organization for Statistics (Statistics Korea) KOSTAT dropped a "smarmy" remark on RAIN's 2017 song "Gang" music video.
K-Pop fans clarified that the "UBD" unit used for this commentary simply refers to Um Bok Dong, the K-Movie Race to Freedom role from RAIN: Um Bok Dong.
When this 2019 film "flopped" with marginally more than one hundred seventy two thousand spectators, people on social media managed to come up with UBD's "measurement unit," the "blockbuster dealings unit" as a running joke to taunt RAIN - stating 1UBD to represent 172.212 views.
K-Pop fans slammed KOSTAT immediately after the comment began circulating for "lambasting a person it should serving and supporting as an official government agency."
Fans believed that "KOSTAT definitely overstepped its line with the remark" and started demanding to take full responsibility and apologize at the very least for becoming "unprofessional and disrespectful."
By May 4, 2020, YouTube of KOSTAT made an apology on its group page and clarified that the statement "didn't in any way plan to be malicious."
"This is the Administrator of the KOSTAT YouTube channel. I just want to express my apologies. I apologize I left a thoughtless message under the music video of RAIN.
I figured communicating with the Korean people would be a good approach. I'm sorry to be speaking about the high number of views with the UBD unit.
In no means did I mean the remark to be derogatory, but again, I take full responsibility and sorry for being insensitive and unprofessional. I got so focused on trying to connect that I went over the line with the remark to the citizens.
I pledge to do a better job of knowing what the people want and how I can interact with them much better. I am really sorry about the issue again," said a KOSTAT representative.
The apology, however, did not sit well with the Korean people and international fans. Netizens continue to point out just how reckless the "admin" was.
"UBD is, from the get-go, a word derived from insulting his film. It doesn't make sense you when you said you didn't mean to ridicule, blah, blah."
"Say sorry to RAIN! Are you out of your mind? Stop berating citizens!"
"Oh, and what? Why does this Youtube Admin of Korean Government Organization for Statistics need to interact and connect with the people of Korea at all?"
"Think of the KOSTAT YouTube admin being compensated with hard-earned taxpayer money from the citizens of Korea. What right has he got to go around ridiculing celebrities? Stop paying him out for being incompetent and unprofessional."
"Who is the administrator of KOSTAT YouTube to interact with Korean citizens anyway? This is not the job? You may literally say that's a half-a*sed apology and excuse. Who'd written it for him? It needs to be updated or written again!"
"For f*ck's sake, stop traversing the goddamn lines!"
"However, this does not sound genuine at all."
