On May 18, there's a hot topic in an online Korean community site that fueled a heated discussion among K-netizens and K-pop fans about involving idols. Several idols, whether male or female, were involved in various scandals and controversies, such as the most recent "Itaewon Club" controversy.
One of the Korean personalities who got involved as the controversy sparked is the former KARA member, Park Gyuri, wherein after she reportedly went to a club nearby Itaewon where a positive COVID patient was identified. Then, fans and netizens began canceling her, and they continued to throw hate comments against her despite admitting her mistakes and reflecting on her action. She was also called out for going into a gay bar, which several netizens think was inappropriate.
Meanwhile, BTS's Jungkook, ASTRO's Cha Eunwoo, NCT 127's Jaehyun, and SEVENTEEN's Mingyu have been revealed by Dispatch to have visited Itaewon as well amidst the mass infection of coronavirus in South Korea. However, compared to Park Gyuri, the amount of support coming from the four idols' fandom is greater than that of the netizens who were canceling them.
Thus, the angered writer summarized the controversies involving female and male idols with different levels of seriousness, comparing how K-netizens and fans are actually allowing "double standards" or applying a principle unfairly to two genders.
In the writer's post, she opened up some of the controversies wherein female K-pop idols were linked, such as Red Velvet's Irene reading a feminist book, the late Sulli getting criticism for her "no bra" campaign, victim-blaming the late Goo Hara for having a violent relationship, Chaeryeong being bullied for not passing the Korean Beauty Standards, Solar wearing provocative wardrobe, and many more.
Even if some of these things are not even worthy of being an issue, yet still, these female idols are being criticized and are continuously receiving hate comments for "trivial" things.
On the other hand, the writer also gave some examples with male idols involving drugs, gambling, prostitution, rape, watching pornography, school violence, theft, sexual assault, scam, etc.
Indeed, they are also receiving several hate comments from fans and K-netizens. However, there are still those who support them despite everything and tolerate their acts, treating their deeds as no big deal.
As the post went viral, various K-netizens expressed their views and opinions on how it is true that there are "double standard" responses happening between male and female controversies.
A netizen wrote, "For male idols, you just let time pass by, and they can eventually get back to work, however, for female idols, it only took one mistake for them to get hate comments throughout their life."
Another K-netizen commented, "A**y is always pretending that ** didn't write misogynist lyrics. While Jihyo (TWICE) is always getting several hate comments and being cursed for allegedly using a feminist slang."
Moreover, Korean netizens also discussed the expectations between male and female idols, wherein according to them, male idols are always getting more support than female idols even if they did something serious and are always given a chance to prove their innocence as well. In contrast, females are often called out even if they simply express themselves and live their lives.
On the other hand, the post, hopefully, opened the eyes of everyone, that people should treat every K-pop idols equally, whether male or female.
