The news of an “imitation girl group” who copies NewJeans in China, which gained attention on YouTube, turns out to be untrue.
Fake news in the entertainment industry is becoming more sophisticated, especially those posing as international news sources that are difficult to verify. Recently, a YouTuber posted a video titled “Shocking! Chinese girl group ‘Nu Jin Xu’ copies NewJeans exactly” on their channel. The short-form video has garnered a whopping 7.6 million views as of April 25th. Meanwhile, the YouTuber in question has been producing hundreds of fake news stories since opening the channel in October last year, accumulating over 142.5 million views.
In the aforementioned video, the uploader claims, “A NewJeans imitation group has appeared in China, and the world is in chaos”, adding, “China is once again copying NewJeans in an unprecedented situation.” The video then continues with seemingly plausible claims.
“What you see now is the debut stage of the Chinese rookie group ‘Nu Jin Xu’. They debuted with a Chinese song that copied NewJeans exactly”, the video also says, adding that the group’s goal is to reach the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart and enter the American Grammys like BTS.
Netizens who watched the video reacted with comments such as “Does China hate the US but still wants to enter the Billboard chart?”, “Don’t they feel embarrassed?”, and “Can creativity be this nonexistent?”
The video has since received over 7.6 million views and 40,000 likes, along with various comments.
However, according to Sports Seoul’s investigation, the group appearing in the video turned out to be a dance team called “985 Crew” that has been covering choreographies of Korean idols such as BTS, SEVENTEEN, aespa, BLACKPINK, and TWICE since 2021.
The YouTuber who sparked the controversy took the dance team’s video directly, added the name Nu Jin Xu, and created fake news that a NewJeans imitation group was formed in China.
Source: Sports Seoul
