SM Entertainment is drawing flak after being spotted using BTS J-Hope's TinyTAN character to promote "Dear U" during a corporate briefing.
Keep on reading to know more.
SM Entertainment Uses BTS J-Hope's TinyTAN Character to Promote 'Dear U'
On November 9, a post was shared on the popular online community forum, The Qoo, which pointed out that SM Entertainment had used a BTS TinyTAN character during their corporate briefing for Dear U.
Back on October 22, Vice President of Dear U Lee Hak Hee held a corporate briefing session for their initial public offering (IPO), where they discussed about Dear U's plans to create more content under the SM Culture Universe (SMCU) metaverse through non-fungible tokens (NFT).
Lee Hak Hee then explained their plans to expand the service platform "Bubble" to a metaverse platform, which would allow users to be able to replace their Bubble profile picture with a metaverse character.
Dear U featuring TinyTAN character J-Hope
And while explaining the plan, an image was shown to and used as an example for the concept. However, fans noticed that it was BTS' miniature characters, TinyTAN - in particular, J-Hope's character.
TinyTAN is a trademarked brand launched by HYBE back in October 2019, releasing characters that are based on the BTS members themselves through music videos, products, and more. As the TinyTAN characters closely resemble the BTS members, fans are easily able to recognize J-Hope.
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BTS J-Hope's TinyTAN character
More importantly, Dear U is a competitor of Weverse, a global fan community platform operated by HYBE and its subsidiary Weverse Company, and in which BTS is active on.
As a result, many have criticized SM Entertainment and Dear U for using TinyTAN to promote their own app. In addition, fans have also raised suspicion that Dear U had used TinyTAN without receiving permission from HYBE, as the latter wouldn't have let a competitor use their brands for marketing purposes.
BTS' TinyTAN characters
Some have also pointed out that SM Entertainment's own girl group, aespa, have their own metaverse characters which the label could have used instead.
Following the backlash, Dear U has taken down the video. However, neither Dear U nor SM Entertainment has yet to respond with an explanation regarding the issue.
SM Entertainment's Lee Soo Man Talks About NFTs, SMCU, and More
Meanwhile, SM Entertainment's founder Lee Soo Man announced their plans to go into the NFT business during his talk at Solana's "Breakpoint" conference.
During the conference, Lee Soo Man gave a more in-depth explanation about their plans for NFT, Pink Blood, CAWMAN, and SMCU, which will eventually lead to metaverse in the future.
READ MORE: Lee Soo Man Explains Concept of CAWMAN and 'Pink Blood' + Introduces NFT's Role in K-pop
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Written by Robyn Joan
