These days, Suga (BTS) is in the midst of an unprecedented boycott due to a drunk driving incident. The global group’s rapper was caught riding an electric scooter while intoxicated, with a blood alcohol level of 0.227%—seven times the legal limit.
Suga was caught by the police after passing out in front of his house. Due to the seriousness of the incident, Suga is under criminal investigation and faces the possibility of prison time and extremely high fines.
Suga’s fall in front of his house has brought his illustrious career down to the bottom. From a globally admired idol, Suga has disappointed the public, and the audience has turned their backs on him. In South Korea, the wave of opposition to Suga’s illegal behavior is rising. This is especially true as the idol and his management company are accused of dishonest actions in their apology post on August 7th.
Moreover, Suga made this mistake while serving his military duty as a public service worker. The public is demanding that Suga leave BTS for tarnishing the group’s image.
Suga is being harshly criticized and is being asked to leave BTS.
In the midst of the outrage directed at BTS’s main rapper, some fans have made the controversy worse. The BTS fandom, ARMY, has taken actions that “add fuel to the fire,” defending their idol by attacking other artists. On the Twitter platform, BTS’s fandom has collectively posted defamatory comments about other idols to divert attention away from Suga. A typical “victim” in this situation is BLACKPINK’s Jennie and Rosé.
BTS fans called for hashtags like Jennie Challenge and Rosé Challenge. Additionally, they attached images of Jennie smoking and brought up the old scandal of Rosé being suspected of using drugs. This infuriated BLINK—the BLACKPINK fandom. BTS fans dragged BLACKPINK into the controversy for no reason, even though the members of BLACKPINK had nothing to do with Suga’s drunk driving incident.
Besides BLACKPINK, NewJeans, aespa, and many other groups found themselves in a similar situation. Some have described this as a “disaster for K-pop,” where many innocent idols are being mentioned just to protect one person.
Among them, SEVENTEEN—a boy group under the same HYBE corporation—also became a target. Several accounts originating from the BTS fandom were caught spreading baseless rumors to tarnish SEVENTEEN members. Particularly upsetting was the extreme curses directed at lead vocalist Seungkwan just because of a social media post.
Specifically, on August 11th, Seungkwan posted a promotional image for a beer brand on Instagram, along with a warning comment: “Abusing alcohol can lead to stroke, brain damage, and memory loss. Drinking alcohol during pregnancy can result in birth defects.” In South Korea, this is a mandatory condition when advertising alcoholic beverages.
BLACKPINK and a series of other idols “dragged into” BTS member’s drunk driving scandal, some even cursed harshly.
On the platform X, many BTS fans started attacking Seungkwan, suspecting that the idol was alluding to Suga’s incident. This sparked an intense fan war between SEVENTEEN and BTS’s fandoms. At its peak, BTS fans cursed Seungkwan with harsh words, even calling for comments to attack Seungkwan’s Instagram, demanding that he “follow” the late idol Moonbin. This post received 600 interactions and thousands of views.
Moonbin, a former member of ASTRO, was one of SEVENTEEN’s lead vocalist Seungkwan’s closest friends. At the beginning of 2023, Moonbin unexpectedly chose an extreme end, leaving deep pain for his family and friends. Seungkwan has often expressed his longing for his late friend.
The extremist remarks by ARMY have crossed the line for the K-pop community. People are condemning the fanaticism of the BTS fandom. Not only do they blindly protect their idol, but some ARMY members also harm innocent idols. This is not just an ordinary fan war between fandoms but a form of cyberbullying that must be eradicated.
Source: K14
