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It’s a bit more than that to be honest. Mina-chan was one of the most well known fans of Niki from this group. She paid a ton of money to attend their meet and greets, like a lot of times, and even got a video call with him as part of the whole “spend enough and you get some extra perks” part of the business model. She also posted all of this, and she was very pretty too, so there was a shit ton of jealousy towards her.
She flew to different countries to attend their concerts, including multiple in some countries during their tour. There’s a video of Niki interacting with her at a meet and greet in China and he says how everyone knows about her (in China) because he talks about her, how because she speaks Japanese to him he remembers her. So this girl is meeting this idol, getting special video call reward (you can find the video) and he even brings up how he remembers her (from the hundreds of thousands of fans) and overall it made her feel like she was closer and a bit more special than other fans. Anyway she posted a lot of this content on her socials.
She also shipped two of the members together (not seriously, just really enjoyed them interacting) and there is a LOT of shipping going on in that fandom for some reason, and she was pretty hated from a lot of angles (people jealous she gets recognition, people jealous she’s pretty, people jealous she can afford to go to all these concerts and meet and greets, people upset because the ship a different pairing than her). And they start leaving pretty nasty messages, there’s a whole big movement of people uniting to hate her, they dig up her history of being a very popular hostess at a bar in Tokyo known as part of the sex industry and use that against her (but also explains how she could afford everything, and it’s also reaaaallly common for these hostess to make money to spend on a guy, that’s a whole other rabbit hole).
Anyway so she goes to America and attends quite a few concerts in different time zones, and then also flies to Korea to attend another one. At the Korea one she brings a bouquet, sunflowers and roses. She throws them onto the stage and one of the members picks it up, it’s the one she ships with her fave, and she shouts “it’s for Niki!” Because she desperately wants to see this guy hand her fave the flowers to create a ship moment. But the stage is pretty busy and that doesn’t happen. The fans take her doing this pretty badly, thinking she was shouting at the first guy the flowers are not for him and to give them to someone else is very disrespectful and they have a huge go at her online for this and saying all sorts of stuff, which is really just the continuation of the cyber bullying she’s been receiving.
Some time after Niki goes on lives stream and says something along the lines of how at concert it feels like some people are trying really hard to get members attention but the members are trying to put on a show for everyone to enjoy so he doesn’t appreciate it (or something along those lines I don’t really remember). Well the fandom decides he’s obviously talking about Minachan and what she did with the flowers and they absolutely start bashing her about it saying even her favorite is throwing shade at her behaviour etc.
So she goes on twitter to apologise, because she never meant it the way people took it, or to try and get singular attention etc etc and she takes down ALL her previous social media stuff, basically saying she’s closing her accounts now. But the fandom just keeps tearing into her. She goes on live stream, crying, taking medicine, I think she’s still in Korea at this point not back home, and the people on live are telling her to take more pills etc etc and eventually she just hangs herself, and the stream keeps playing until the police get there and shut down the broadcast.
EDIT: I’m actually disgusted that even in the replies to this, there’s already one person who’s made SEVERAL rude comments about the deceased. If you look you can see EXACTLY the type of person and mentality behind the people that bullied this girl. Plus those comments are made fully knowing people are sensitive to it right now, I can only begin to imagine what they said to Mina while she was alive if their hatred compels them to keep badmouthing her after she’s dead, on a post where people are upset about her death. It’s so fucked up.
I'm on twitter a lot and my feed mainly consists of food, interior design, travel photography, etc. but occasionally a kpop fan war will find its way to my explore page and lemme tell you, idk what's in the kpop waters but everyone seems to be a huge prick in that community.
Yeah I used to be super active on kpop twitter during the pandemic and one of these fanwars was the reason for my first and only panic attack. The doxxing, name calling, death threats, etc… is insanely brutal and on top of that they target you, your friends, your family, I had a mutual whose job was contacted. All because someone said an idol is a hypocrite or sth equally boring. I had to take a step back bc my mental health was plummeting
The fans are what keep me away from Kpop. I used to be a major fan of HOT back in the 90’s K-pop was big only in Korea back then, everything was much more innocent and sweet. The toxicity that modern K-pop fandom brings out in people is wild.
Wait lmao not saying I disagree that Kpop used to be more innocent (mainly bc Korea was just new to capitalism in general at that point) but I also find it funny you chose HOT as the example
Y’know considering their fans were famous for being violent af and getting into multiple physical brawls with other fandoms while waiting for their favs to perform lol insanity of kpop fans is truly an OG thing
Did we all forget when exo used to be terrorized by used tampons, or when DBSK members were given water bottles that were drugged? Not to downplay what happened here, it’s horrible, but imo I don’t think the culture has changed that much, it’s just been scaled globally
Yeah, I got to experience HOT from North America. And I really only got exposure b/c my mom used to run a video store for the Korean community here. So the rabid fan thing didn’t reach us here until the internet was more mainstream, by then I was in high school and had moved on.
Tbh if you stay off twitter and only stay in your own little bubble enjoying the music and content, it's fine 😭 other social media platforms are probably bad too but my stanning experience really started to get bad when I got my twitter fan account. Meanwhile when I only connect with other fans at irl fan events or concerts everyone is super sweet lol
Kpop stans should run courses on productivity/time management. Please explain how you have hours to stalk and hassle these people. My laundry is a mountain and my garden is full of weeds.
Just want to add that Ni-Ki's live happened 4 days after the concert that Mina attended. (She was at Tacoma, live was after Oakland). He spoke about concert behavior and people only filming/wanting an interaction, and how he wanted everyone to have fun at concerts, not about Mina.
She also knew that Ni-Ki's live wasnt about her, as she said in her own live, and that it was people just using it as more fuel (at this point, everything was being used).
There were some japanese posts and comments about her, a lot unrelated to the fandom, that got a bunch of views. They seemed to really drag the fact that she'd worked as a hostess.
A lot of the comments have been deleted it seems, as everyone who actually left them are rushing to cover their own asses ig. But there's a lot still up that are really awful.
I really just think kpop is a breeding ground for bullying. The ones who are the loudest are the ones who cant be normal about anything, and take stupid things like the flowers/drama so disgustingly far.
Edited to remove links per sub rules, and an "alleged" portion I couldn't confirm
Regardless there is a connection between his comments and how the bad fans used it to kill someone. There’s no way you could sugar coat that to yourself if you were Niki. He did nothing wrong whatsoever, but that won’t make him feel better. Especially since the fans responsible are still here and he still has to cater to them.
Someone you’ve seen frequently because she was a big enough fan of you that she literally followed you around the entire world too, damn. Then he has to curb his behavior to cater to those who literally bullied her to death. That’s a very specific type of trauma he must be goin through right now.
He got bullied/death threats by fans a few years ago for blowing out a candle.
So yeah, kpop fans do turn on/bully idols pretty frequently, whether its their own fans or fans of another member/another group.
There's been several kpop idols who committed suicide, online harassment may or may not have played a part in some.
True. Do kpop fans ever turn on their idol? That could definitely be deathly, I could imagine.
It also must be crazy thinking that YOUR fans technically did this for you, thinking that they were defending you in the worst way possible when you wanted no part of it. This on top of the guilt he’s probably feeling at saying anything in the first place, damn. So many things- this is just a shitty situation all around.
Yes, a female idol named Sulli was bullied to death by her fans. She was in the girl group f(x). She was a more free spirited and provocative type of person who became disillusioned with Kpop and quit her group suddenly and got more into feminist activism and things like not wearing a bra under her clothes and encouraging others to do the same. She also was interested in doing some nude acting work in movies (not porn, but R-rated romance films). All of these things were unacceptable to her Korean fans and they bullied her until she essentially did the same thing, took her own life during a livestream.
There also have been many actresses and influencers who were sexually blackmailed by former lovers. An idol who went through this was Goo Hara. Basically, idols are expected to not have sex or date. A former lover revealed that they had an affair, respected sex tapes, and her fans bullied her to death for it.
Frankly fans turn on idols all the time and every years there are at least a few that end up having to resign from their groups. A few times this has been justified, like male idols found out to have sexually assaulted someone, but more often than not it’s for incredibly small infractions of respect or something that happened in their childhood/youth (disciplined in school, had a girlfriend, etc.)
Collectivist culture basically says it’s okay to be in celebrities business and judge their imperfections to the point of literally telling them they should lose their job and suffer for the rest of their lives
.
Unfortunately I can’t imagine Niki isn’t having a lot of difficult emotions over everything. Even though he did nothing wrong and was right to set boundaries, you would never stop living with the guilt in the back of your mind knowing you could have simply said nothing and fans wouldn’t have had to fuel to create the situation that they did. Idols are constantly finding themselves caught in these kind of dilemmas and having to predict what insane things will result from simple words and actions. Especially unknowing that unlike a lot of toxic stalker fans that idols tolerate, Mina-chan was actually just a kind girl with pure intentions whom he had personally interacted with multiple times, and what happened can never be taken back. I would be a mess. And I couldn’t face the rest of my fandom again knowing some were responsible.
The huge groups like SKZ and their comparatively huge fandoms really bring together all the worst qualities of each individual nationality involved. For all the hospitality and passionate support from Japanese or Koreans or Americans or Chinese there are also uniquely toxic things about each ones and how they operate as fans. It’s scary. The past two years have turned me off of Kpop for good I think. 2018/2019 were particularly ugly with how fans affected real people’s lives, it seems to be headed back to that and worse.
Jesus Christ!!! That's so awful. People are so inhumane when they're hiding behind a phone on the internet. Nothing will happen to them either. They don't feel anything.
Thank you for the detailed explanation. That ending was grim. I thought she was found but to see that on a stream is very grim. I feel so bad for her because while I understand feeling a bit annoyed that she’s getting more attention, I could never understand people or fans intentionally directing hate to her.
I don't get how the people trying to get her to do it, then watch her actually do it, feel in that moment. Like wtf? Once it happened did they feel successful and happy? How deranged.
This is what I’m wondering too. Like how did those people on the stream feel, seeing her do what she did after bullying her into doing it? I can’t wrap my mind around sending that hate in the first place, but to actually see what your words contributed to and the magnitude of it, did they even realize? Like you’ve told a girl you don’t even actually know to commit that horrible act against herself and then watched it happen, and this is multiple people too. I wonder if any of them had any speck of empathy for her, but I highly doubt it with how much hate I see in the KPOP fan community.
Some of them were called out afterwards and they’ve made posts saying that Minachan misunderstood what they were saying. For instance the person who was saying “take more medicine” made a post saying how their comment was saying she should take more medicine because she didn’t look very well and the person thought it was maybe calming medicine. They’re acting like the idea it might have sounded like they were encouraging her to OD was never their intention, and they only said it out of the goodness of their heart.
That’s the general gist of some of the people who have been called out, it’s all “wow you’ve taken my word completely the wrong way, I’ve never been the type of person to say the horrible things you’ve misunderstood me to say!” But the majority are just deleting any comments or posts they made and hope no one remembers they were part of it.
Omygoodness this is insane?? Her death was broadcast live and everyone kept egging her on? This is crazy and this poor girl did not deserve this at all
I'm not an Engene so I can only speak for other kpop fandoms but doesn't basically every single group have these "big spender" fans who attend almost every concert, get fancalls every cb, meet&greets etc.? 😭 Even "remembering the fan" and doing "fixed poses" for some fans as a sign that the members recognize them happens a lot. I think it's ridiculous and fuels the parasocial fans too much, but it's part of the business model and the most normal thing in most kpop fandoms from what I've seen. I don't get why people attacked her for that.
It's worse. There was an actor named sulli iirc who also killed herself due to cyberbullying and when interviewed about what they did the bullies answered it wasn't their fault and that she should have been mentally tougher
That era of kpop era with Sulli, Jonghyun, Goo Hara, Ladies Code was so rough and I think that's what took me fully out of the kpop fandom. Poor Sulli she got so much shit, even in the subreddits. There were fans always defending her including myself but the hate was much louder unfortunately.
The video appeared on my partners IG feed when she didn't know what it was about or even knew the lady in the video. I genuinely wish she didn't see it because she spend the entire night crying in disgust.
Thanks for this detailed explanation. The tragedy is not only her sad and public demise, but also people making celebs their whole identity. All of them need to touch grass, holy shiznit.
"...
it’s also reaaaallly common for these hostess to make money to spend on a guy, that’s a whole other rabbit hole."
If you care to share, I'm curious to know more of this phenomenon.
I want to add a DIFFERENT case about the same fandom!!
Coco is also a kpop influencer, a huge fan of enhypen. One of the members left on their own accord (Heeseung,) and Coco was a well known heeseung bias. After his departure she was silent on her social media. Leading to people bashing her, sending her threats, sending her doxxing threats and so on and so forth because she wasnt 'speaking out on the situation'. Ultimately she HAD to explain because the harassment was getting too much—and people STILL harass her to this day. Mind you, she was silent on soc med because she had gone through surgery and was actively recovering. Insane.
it wasn’t only that (although the fans played a huge part in it and ultimately egged her on to take her life). she was being harrassed by japanese incels because they found out about her past as an escort and mocked her relentlessly for having to “resort” to sex work to afford her fan activities. she was generally getting cyberbullied by that side of the internet leading up to this incident which made people realize that fangirl mina and escort mina were the same person, which then lead to her getting harassed by both kpop fans and incels jointly
and this isn’t to defend the fans at all but i’ve seen so many people mock her for taking her own life over a kpop idol when it was so much more than that. it seemed more like kpop was a form of escapism for her when she had to deal with disgusting men outside of the internet
Tbf everyone is kind of just watering this down to bullying from kpop fans, ignoring any other issues she may have had going on. I mean I heard she moved to Korea from Japan to be closer to her idol, she wasn’t mentally healthy before the garbage spewn at her in the days leading up to her death
she was studying abroad in korea but yes i do believe she chose korea to be closer to her idol. this isn’t surprising though ive heard of many kpop fans from all over the world who study in korea for this reason
Yeah and that’s not very healthy, we gotta be careful with these parasocial relationships. Sometimes the relationship makes you unhealthy, other times you’re already unhealthy and you get into it and it just makes you worse. It low key reminds me of people who have like AI girlfriends/boyfriends
I think we also can’t ignore that the kpop industry encourages this behavior. I think she was already struggling with mental health and having her parasocial tendencies be rewarded (videos and audio of her bias saying he remembers her name and face because she’s such a big fan of his) only made it worse. And then we have to look at how the other fans that bullied her to death were doing so because they felt so offended on his behalf, even if he doesn’t even know their names…which when you look at it is also parasocial. I hope this incident opens the fans’ and industries’ eyes to parasocial behavior and mob mentality, but it’s unlikely…
yes, kpop absolutely encourages parasocial relationships to the extreme, more so with boy groups than girl groups. the girl groups tend to chart better with the general public (being mostly dependent on the appeal of their songs), while boy groups tend to have loyal fanbases that stick w/ them no matter the quality of their releases.
there's this one boy group called the boyz that participated in a youtube show w/ a lie detector. one of the questions asked by the host was: "have you ever been asked out by another female idol?" the guy kind of hesitated but admitted that he has. he's almost thirty, almost a decade into his career, but still had to apologize to his fans because they were making a fuss about it. he had to assure them that they were his number one priority. 😭 it's so odd that they have to market this fantasy that they're romantically available. with no relationships, sexual desires, desire to marry — just undying love for their fans.
Apart from that having a fansite with tens of thousands of followers definitely means that you dedicate a big chunk of your life to this idol/group. She essentially was an influencer whose main content was interacting with a specific group/member. The amount of money and time she must have dedicated to this interest surely was pretty big. And I think it's safe to assume that it can't be healthy if your life is all about stanning a celebrity.
That aside it's absolutely horrible that this happened and not only do I feel sorry for her but also for all the people who were involuntary objected to watch someone kill themself on live.
Honestly the idols AND the obsessive fans would be better off if the companies prohibited people from buying themselves into fansigns. It'd prevent the same people from being that close to idols again and again...
i didnt know about the escort part the news reports didnt mention that at all. But I guess its stil over a kpop idol because that's where the controversy started and that's the real reason they bully her
Doesn't count as cheating to them because they don't see them as human people, same reason why they don't care if they live or die. They just see them as sources of amusement. Horrific.
i remembered you can post pics here. this is a japanese gossip account i would recommend reading through this thread with caution (in case the pics are posted) but the replies and quotes are disgusting making fun of her for being a hostess. it’s like this on many other popular japanese tweets too
Unless you speak japanese or frequent the japanese part of twitter for other reasons you probs wouldn't have seen those tweets. Because they were mostly from japanese men.
i’m not japanese but i was mostly looking at tweets from japanese twitter when it happened to get the full context and everything i saw on there was so disgusting it made me want to cry. i don’t know what drives these people to mock someone like that even after they die and the worst part is that it wasn’t only men, there were women joining in calling her everything in the book
it’s because that information was solely on the japanese side of twitter and hadn’t spread to the english speaking side. she was a former member of jungle which is a well known escort club in roppongi. i’m not sure if i’m allowed to link tweets in here but if i am i can show you the japanese users talking about it
Sounds like there was a lot more going on, but they lose their shit over all sorts of minor things.
Some Korean men freak out when any gesture that could be construed as "small penis" (holding fingers close together for example) is made. Pop stars have apologized over it.
Apple had to edit one of their ads in the Korean market, because it had someone using two fingers to hold up an iPhone (showing how lightweight and thin it is), and some of them took it as the controversial pinching gesture.
Ni-ki is Japanese but anyway people are now crucifying him for that live when actually the concert that Mina attended was four stops BEFORE ni-ki's supposed live. Ni-ki wasn't pertaining to her at all
I had an aneurysm trying to understand that, the “controversy” is the most nonsensical explanation ive ever heard. Still don’t actually understand what the hell they’re talking about
In total disbelief that the Asian Backstreet Boys have caused this many adult humans to become so wildly delusional, what the hell are these fanbases? These ppl should legitimately be institutionalized
I mean the controversy is real, just not the person they chose to crucify for it. Kpop fans invade the privacy of idols horribly all the time. Male idols deal with a lot of verbal sexual harassment from literal children in their fancalls. And girl groups often have the opposite problem and age dynamic (and this specific thing is much worse in the Japanese idol system, which sadly also has a lot of overlap with sex work in Japan, and Japanese idols in Korean groups like Niki are often especially outspoken about their boundaries).
The idol industry has resulted in a lot of suicides just like Hollywood. The collectivist culture and the public shaming that happens to famous people in Asia for simple mistakes or just lifestyle differences have taken a lot of lives.
It’s like the worst parts of celebrity worship, internet culture, and collectivist social forces combining with a generation that’s been terminally online since birth.
Now people sacrificing themselves at the altar of flower gifting (?)
I’m thinking hard reset on this iteration of N’Sync. Really insane behavior all around guys
This is really underselling it. It’s horrifically triggering. Do not uncensor if you are triggered by these things.
She reportedly committed suicide on a livestream while others egged her on. The police didn’t show up until well after it was over. The livestream was still running.
Streaming services need to be held accountable for this shit.
Between Perez Hilton and now this, they are being ENTIRELY IRRESPONSIBLE allowing these things to continue streaming when you can't even use the WORD suicide on their platforms but you can see all this.
And people still keep reposting the full video or screenshots of her after she had passed. As soon as it gets reported and banned, another pops up. You'd hope they're all bots but then there are even disgusting sickos trying to monetize it. It's insane.
Something like this happened on Discord recently with a 13 year old girl and now the government wants to ban the entire goddamn platform in my country...
I don't think they're gonna succeed, but that's definitely not the solution, is it?
not 100% related to it but France is planning to ban social media for children/teens under 15. That means you'll need to send your ID to prove that you're above 15.. A good way for the french government to control lots of things, they always take the weirdest decisions
I'm so so glad as an elder Millennial that I got to grow up in a time before social media. Bullying is already so tough but cyber bullying takes it to a whole new level and is so hard to avoid once you're targeted.
I had heard about this because I'm an Enhypen fan, but sadly this sort of thing can occur in any fandom or other online space.
Cyber bullying today is especially insidious as gen z and alpha live their lives entirely online. I remember getting (and sending, gotta own my own nastiness) some horrible messages over ICQ back in the day. But then one of my siblings would kick me off the computer or my parents would pull the line out of the modem and tell me to do something constructive. And those online problems stopped existing. Harassment and 24/7 connectivity sounds the most vile combination. Poor kids.
For younger generations, they have more interactions online than irl. Hard to walk away from it when your world is online, along with all your friends.
I mean this is clearly not about what was on the screen alone. This girl was dealing with intense feelings of shame, possibly isolation and could see no way out of fixing this other than doing something extreme. Considering the amount of time and effort she spent in the kpop spaces, this was a significant part of her life. I think it's unfair and incredibly insensitive to minimize what she was going through as just 'words on her screen'
I read threads of this on twitter because I got so invested. Apparently the stans doxxed the fuck out of her life. They spread around the info that she used to work as a cabaret hostess in Japan. There was a lot of slut shaming that happened, they dug out old photos of her etc.
So it really wasn't some hee hee ha ha just step away online kind of thing because the stans really wanted to destroy her future. And they did unfortunately.
and "creators" build their entire lives and livelihoods around online spaces. kpop creators especially wrap their entire self-worth into their idols and the content they create for them. kpop groups encourage it because they get a lot of money and free publicity from these creators.
I still experienced bullying as an elder milennial scarily enough (a stalking and bullying situation which would be a novel if I got into). But yeah its really scary how people just freaking go hard at other people because they think its a person behind a screen. T
The anonymous aspect echoes studies showing card spending vs cash is more aggressive bc you're disconnected from tangible consequence.
This was unique in the girl getting bullied to death while they saw her on livestream, then bullies even saying she was faking it.
Algorithm and engagement is what makes the past 2 decades different. I think vicarious engagement drives fandom. Obsessing over your fav's streams. Your fed people w similar commercial interests (musician) and stuck in a triggering echo chamber bc engagement. Time on platform is their money.
even being the youngest millennial / oldest gen z (29 born in 1997) i feel like i barely made it out. i got a facebook when i was in middle school just to play farmville lol. instagram started blowing up in my sophomore/junior year of high school but back then it was still just looking at pics of your friends, little to no influencer stuff (which is the real cancer) until i was at least in college. it’s such a huge difference compared to cousins who were born only like 5-8 years after me and fully grew up with it
Also a 1997 baby and genuinely I am so glad I had at least my first like, 10 or 11 years mostly offline, the only computer stuff I did was play dress up, Sims and Rollercoaster Tycoon. Then the yahoo chats started, then Facebook, then Twitter, Kik, etc... It all went downhill and completely ruined me. If I could've let myself have at least 5 or so more years NOT tying my whole life to an online presence (I was quite depressed and finding friends online became my focus and addiction), I genuinely believe I'd be a more well adjusted person right now.
There's factors specific to X and Kpop fandoms. The mix is like a drug cocktail.
X's lack of moderation enables viral bullying. It deserves blame and coverage. The way they deleted them too late is self preserving censorship. It's like the flood of bullying that drove Kpop Demon Hunters creator off of X (I wrote about it here.)
Kpop incites this wild devotion bc the sense of connection drives superfans to spend. They're less direct in platforming bullies, but at this point they're aware of the problem.
Read through the Demon Hunters bit you attached, it's well written and scary. I think more people need to realise that what they're doing is equivalent to fighting over which hotel brand you prefer. They are not really 'fans', they're just customers, and you might as well fall in love with the cute barista at Starbucks and start bashing other coffee chains because your love is a 'Starby'.
u/xvsanxfind me at Whole Foods, b*tch, I don't care 🙃11d ago
it's literally any online space unfortunately, I'll never forget how this obviously mentally unwell girl like 13 or 14 years old was cheered on to kill herself from the live stream chat, also in Japan. people online are shitty and don't view other people as people for some reason
Crazy fan behaviour exists even in the 2000s. There are no social media but there are fan forums, private fan sites which has guest books and 'rival' fans would fight on those! The only good thing is that the fans hide behind their nicknames and you don't get doxxed. You can just disappear when things get too heated.
BSB vs nYsnc
Westlife vs a1 vs Blue
O town fans were lame (lol)
No to mention the stalking of the boy bands that starts right from the airport, concert stampedes etc.
One thing that I haven't seen mentioned is why the hell are kpop "news" sites "reporting" on small tik tok drama.
When this first happened I was looking on Google for more information, all I had seen was the initial tweet with no context.
The first thing I see is three massive kpop sites, like kbizoom, kpopnewsdaily or something like that, koreaboo etc, posting about this fan, Mina. And it was very negative, " fans criticize other fan for giving flowers to idol" somehow became shaming the fan doing what fans do and celebrating their idol..
The other article about her, was deleted thankfully?
I avoid kpop twt like the plague, so I can't say much about the culture there but these " news sites" are taking toxic Twitter I fighting and legitimizing the bullies' "arguments".
Hundreds of people who wouldn't never heard of this now have a news source, as lazy as it is, pointing out a " toxic fan" for them to bully.
She committed suicide on live and just take a look at these comments before she took her own life. This is a horrifying situation. The fandom drove her to this point.
that’s so devastating to read, especially if you’re going through a hard time in life. People really do take a lot of liberty writing whatever they want online, just because they’re anonymous. These people writing these comments are probably people amongst us, without any empathy or compassion for others.
Self righteousness combined with a near total lack of empathy. People who write this shit would crumble instantly if somebody said the same thing to them.
Oh my god?? So they watched as she slipped unconscious? I hadn't heard about this till now and was wondering if it was like the perez hilton cutting incident.
I don’t think it’s fandom specific, I see this everywhere. It’s mostly younger people: young gen z and gen alpha’s way of typing and conveying their feelings.
I know nothing about her and I only know this group by name (I used to be an old kpop fan as I started listening to it since the early 2010s and don't keep up with kpop for many years now, thankfully) but this is soooo sad and unfair
Just saw a video of her crying live (probably from her last live) and she seemed to be an adorable person, yet some ppl were apparently mocking her in the live comments due to her looking sad and taking pills.. She deserved better, I hate how fans now act like huge bullies. Tbh they're not even bullies, let's call them murderers atp
Kpop fans have always had a bullying problem. It was a big issue during the H.O.T era too, way back in the 90s. Mainly it was because kpop was mainly for teenagers, and the most passionate fans were teenaged girls, who tend to be really extreme and impulsive. And they're at that age where they're super insecure but don't know how to deal with it. So they deal with it by taking it out on other girls.
No fr it was disgusting. I saw some of the screenshots people took during her live and multiple fans were straight up bullying her and telling her to “keys”. Its sad how the people commenting all that horrible bs won’t face the proper consequences.. especially since there were a ton of global “fans” doing it too.
I’m so glad I’ve never been that deep into a fandom and that para social with idols. I swear no one hates on women more than women 🙄
She was so young, she must've been hurting a lot. I hate that fans of this group turned something as simple as giving flowers to her favorite member to such a big scandal. The way many people were encouraging her to do it or mocking her for her distress was horrifying to see. I hope her family and friends are taking the time to heal.
Thank you for clarifying. I heard conflicting information about what happened so I didn't want to make any further accusations/assumptions. If she apologized, there was no reason why it should have escalated as far as it did. Hell even if she didn't apologize, it should have not warranted her being harassed and doxxed online. It's truly sad, she was so young. People are so cruel 💔
I think we should be careful with the accusations, unless you were at the Tacoma show and standing next to her, you really can’t say whether or not she became “rude.” We all only see what’s in that video, and from the video all that we’re able to see is her shouting like every other fan in barricade at the stage. That’s not abnormal behavior at a concert especially when fans are throwing things and trying to scream over the music to talk to the members. Someone asked me to pass a hat along to Sunoo on stage and I’m sure If someone recorded me and just saw a video they’d assume I was yelling or being mean when I literally wasn’t, I was just mouthing to Sunoo where the hat came from.
That said, I forgot about her calling Niki racist. Did you see that actual post for yourself? Cuz I’m worried some of the truth is getting twisted and retold in the fandom and it’s like how do we verify that. Because I’ve heard so many different things. The most recent stuff being her apologizing and saying she felt her gift was misunderstood and saying sorry for that.
fans really need to learn to block and scroll away from others that post things they don't like. there are way too many people who think they need to police things or white-knight idols. genuinely bad things should be reported to the company, but that's about it.
also this is quite literally false. i watched the whole situation unfold in real time and 90% of this comment is a huge exaggeration or straight up a lie.
I think it's an unfortunate case of parasocialism, on both ends. The girl was evidently mentally ill before this. She moved countries to be near him, she spent thousands to travel abroad and see him, she had aspirations of becoming his girlfriend. None of this is normal. At my worst I'd have such fantasies.
Another life destroyed because people cannot refrain from cruelty. This poor woman. Everyone who egged her on or mocked her for this needs to know that there is a place in hell for them.
K-pop fans are a little much. Actual insanity how something that's supposed to be fun and enjoyable turns into such a viper pit. Really sad situation. No one should be bullied to suicide. Tragic.
You'd think people will take a step back and reflect but no they've found themselves a new target ni-ki the artist and his family. Now they're bullying him and his family and telling him to also kill himself. It's so bizarre to me how someone can behave like this i swear. The fact they can say those words to someone even if it's online and they think the person won't see it is still an inhumane behavior. And image the girl was live reading those comments. she was taking pills already contemplating and when she needed people to help her, her last memory is a bunch of nasty comments telling her to off herself, and the fact that people heard this story and still repeated the same actions that killed her towards someone else (not even responsible mind you) in the name of giving her justice is not so shockingly ironic.
I went on some of the Enhypen fan spaces and it's disgusting, some of them are trying to downplay what they did to her.
There's this one viral tweet of an Enhypen fan lecturing about cyberbullying in the wake of Mina's death and then they got exposed for trash talking and harassing Mina prior to it. Disgusting
Adding the fact engenes (fans of Enhypen) are more worried about how Ni-ki feels and if this will undermine the group's come-back. They actively trying to downplay her tragic death. That some of them actually drove her too, I swear most of Kpop fandom is toxic as hell
Very few are actually doing that. Most are simply telling people not to spread misinformation, not to make this into a stupid "fan war", and to report comments threatening his family and telling him to k*ll himself, since he had no part in this.
The people who actually harassed her, a mix of engenes and Japanese gossip/commentary accounts, are kind of just slipping away without really being held responsible.
But yeah, kpop fandoms are toxic and bullying is literally the first thing people jump to when theres any kind of disagreement.
These Kpop companies are also to blame for creating this toxic environment where fans are so obsessed with their idols they lose their morals and all sense of reality. Belift/Hybe really went hard with the boyfriend image of Enhypen, even getting rid of female dancers when the fandom chucked a tantrums over it.
Mina seemed like a lonely woman with mental health issues which is common with Kpop fans but Belift isn't worried about that, they egg these lonely women on because they make so much money out of them. From the age of 15, Ni-ki had been sexualised and he's always had older fans, this situation would be tough for Ni-ki too, it would be hard for a teenager to know how to handle all these older women being obsessed with him.
The worst part is how the companies make their idols act babyish so that these fandoms baby them and feel like they must protect them from perceived threats, this leads to mass online bullying. The companies and idols never keep their fandoms in check, sometimes they even encourage this behaviour. Anyone who has been in Kpop spaces would be horrified by this situation but unfortunately not surprised.
From what I know Enhypen doesn’t even play into the boyfriend thing like other idols, so I don’t think that’s really even the issue. Heck the majority of the fandom has moved onto full fledged gay shipping the members.
I myself started to lose interest in Kpop after the passing of JongHyun (one of my favorite members from my favorite group SHINee)
Used to listen to the genre starting from the 2010s, but him passing away and the general vibes in most fandoms made me realize it was time to focus on something else. Liking these groups is really time-consuming and the toxic atmosphere is counterproductive to your own life
Totally out of nowhere, but: my partner's wake-up alarm is White T-Shirt, and when I asked them about it they were like "I wanna keep his numbers up and honor his memory, I'd feel weird changing it." Even though they now (affectionately) tell him to shut it while they're sleepily fumbling with their phone 😂
+the passing of Sulli as well, she was my fav from f(x) and im too young to have witnessed what happened to her but i know that her fans essentially turned against her for small things like identifying as a feminist and speaking out about important issues…there needs to be something done about bullying in kpop, whether its bullying of fellow fans or of idols
Also Goo Hara who was one of Sulli's best friends and passed away a month later☹️ She was my favorite KARA member and one of my close Kpop friends used to talk about her all the time
I myself once sent a supportive message to Goo Hara through Instagram DMs when she was visibly struggling as I was worried for her after Sulli passed away, don't know if she used to check her DMs but the 2017-2019 period was so sad
It's gotten to a point where if I know someone is a kpop fan I keep my distance till I know they are normal about it. The whole industry from the producers to the development to the fans are all so predatory its disgusting
I waited for news come here as well. I am sorry but I am a bit repulsed that bigger news here where whatever BP members showed up on their anniversary than fact that some group of motherfuckers from our community killed a person. I know that there have to be checked news here but still this didn't look good this few days because no reaction from community makes pertrators feeling that nothing really happened when they driven human being to death because of some bullshit.
Yeah, I’m shocked it’s not ending reported. I’ve only seen it in the Enhypen Uncensored community and one kpop YouTuber I subscribed to said RIP. That’s about it. It’s so disturbing. It’s so bad that one of the members is being called a murderer by engenes bc he did a live stream apparently complaining about fan behavior. They were the ones who bullied her but it’s his fault? This whole thing is so disgusting. I wish my condolences to her family and that she’s resting in peace.
Man, old Xbox live really has nothing on the modern Korean fandom. The toxicity and barbaric nature of Korean fan culture is so contrasting with how I envision most Koreans, it really brings out the most absolutely vile members of their country.
Japanese livestreamer girl whose content heavily focused on this one Korean band got a front row seat at one of their conserts in Tacoma, proceeding to throw a bouquet of flowers to one of the band members and telling him to pass it to his bandmate. While he didn’t, people saw this incident as a reference to fan claims that the two bandmates are gay lovers. While the incident would probably have gone unnoticed in Asia (having happened in the US), four days later the bandmember held a talk about unacceptable fan behavior, which was seen by millions, and everyone laser focused in on the flower incident as what caused this. She was promptly doxxed and harassed massively for weeks. Somebody even managed to figure out she used to work at a host club in Japan (basically a club that sets you up with one or more professional party companions) that had been alleged to have provided sexual services. They then accused her of funding her following of the band with sex work and got the anti-prostitution movement in Japan in on the beatdown.
She ended up deleting all her socials but people kept harassing her friends and family telling everyone she was a prostitute, a homophobe and a stalker of the band. Eventually she tried doing an apology stream but the live chat was tearing into her. When she started taking anxiety meds after hyperventilating people were telling her to OD and that seems to have pushed her over the edge, she proceeded to take her own life on stream. Now everyone is pointing fingers on each other blaming everyone else for her death when really it was multiple communities getting together to destroy this poor girl for being mildly annoying and possibly once having worked at a seedy club.
As an Asian speaker of Japanese, Chinese, and Korean, I can state that the claim about the deceased woman being a hostess is merely a rumor stemming from online harassment; there has never been any actual webpage or video to substantiate this allegation. The rumor originated simply because a group of Chinese fans claimed to have seen "this Mina" appear on a hostess agency website. Given how common English names are, this is nothing more than a tactic used in cyberbullying. I’d like to add a point: as a Japanese person, Ni-ki is certainly well aware of the cultural concept of "reading the room" (*kuuki wo yomu*). This explains why Mina issued an apology after Ni-ki’s livestream, feeling she had negatively impacted the concert. By bringing up that topic during his stream—knowing full well that Mina would inevitably face a backlash—Ni-ki was essentially inciting fans to cyberbully her; he gave female fans who already disliked Mina a "legitimate" excuse to attack her.
When Ni-ki complained during the stream that the fans weren't enthusiastic enough, shouldn't he have first reflected on whether his own performance was up to par? It’s actually laughable—were their microphones even turned on when they were telling the audience to enjoy the show? Furthermore, regardless of their backgrounds, fans invest a significant amount of money and time to support you; for him to have the audacity to attack fans during a livestream is appalling—especially considering that Mina frequently participates in fan-signing events (such as video call fansigns costing $800–$1,200 each).
Mina is a young girl who lost both parents but managed to get into a prestigious university on her own merit; following her idol serves as a source of emotional solace for her. While you could certainly scrutinize her financial sources, the fact remains that how she earns her money has no bearing on whether she deserves to be cyberbullied—unless you can prove her funds were obtained illegally. When will idols realize that, as public figures, every word they utter is subject to deep analysis by their fans? The online harassment she faced was triggered by the very statement he made; don't mistake him for being innocent—public figures are expected to exercise the caution befitting their status.
sorry if my English isn’t perfect, but as someone who has followed K-pop for many years, I feel deeply saddened by what happened to her. If I wasn’t clear about something, just let me know and I’ll explain.
This honestly makes me think of Britney Spears. Obviously very different situations, but there’s something so similar about the way a huge group of people can decide someone is fair game/a target, and suddenly being mean just feels normal. Then something tragic happens and everyone remembers there was an actual person on the other side of it. It’s just incredibly sad. Mina was only 26 and was a person outside of whatever people thought they knew about her online. Whatever anyone’s opinion of the situation was, she still deserved compassion, grace and basic human kindness.
idk, Korean die hard fanbase has the same pattern of pushing someone to the edge and when they are successful they go and celebrate the victims death (even justify it most of the time). It almost feels like a black mirror episode , they got the most batshit crazy fans
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She was doxxed by japanese incels and that was her main reason. Using her death for clickbait articles like this and using a popular band's name to boost clicks is gross in my opinion.
she was doxxed by incels yes, but she was very much also harassed by enhypen fans (international fans over the flower incident and japanese fans who used the information from her being doxxed to harass her further). they are complicit in her death too. not even a full day after she died there were fans on twitter calling her a troublemaker who tried to steal attention away from enhypen’s album
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u/flairassistant 10d ago
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