Fans are angry at what happened to aespa as they went to the festival of a boys’ high school.
On May 2nd, on online communities such as theqoo and Twitter posted a post titled “Why people are talking a lot about aespa‘s appearance at XX High School.”
The post contained what the members of aespa experienced when they went to a boys’ high school festival in Seoul.
One Twitter user said on their account, “Four students went up to the stage and asked for a selfie as if it was not discussed during aespa’s talking time,” adding, “aespa still took selfies with them because they couldn’t refuse. One is reportedly not even a student there,” they claimed.
Other netizens also said, “Ningning even blocked the XX high school students because they put their phones up to take selfies,” and “The students reached out to touch the aespa members, so the teacher said, ‘You will be reported for sexual harassment if you touch them.'”
The controversy is spreading further as the people believed to be students of that boys’ high school posted photos of aespa members on their Instagram, along with reviews such as “I did everything except for touching them” and “Did you take pictures with aespa?”
According to some videos released, in fact, the members of aespa have had to attend the event without a proper security and only managed to pass through the crowd by holding hands with each other.
In the process, some students not only pointed their cameras trying to take photos of the girls, but also tried to hold their hands to initiate skinship.
When these videos and reviews were released, aespa fans criticized, “The agency should have put a proper security on the members’ safety,” “Isn’t this too rude?” and “The members who still laughed even in such situations are amazing.”
In this regard, many media outlets are trying to contact SM Entertainment to hear its position, but still haven’t heard anything.
Meanwhile, the high school that aespa visited is the high school where SM Entertainment Chairman Lee Soo-man graduated from. Prior to aespa, SM Entertainment groups such as Girls’ Generation, Red Velvet, NCT 127 and NCT DREAM have also gone to the high school festival.
