SM staff caused controversy when stopping Sehun (EXO) from reading out fan’s username called ‘Kim Jongdae Wife’
Although this is a rather ‘sensitive’ nickname at the moment, many EXO fans are against the SM staff preventing Sehun from reading out the name.
Yesterday (June 23), Chanyeol and Sehun of EXO appeared in the broadcast of ‘SM Super Idol League’ to play ‘League of Legends’. This is an online gaming event with idols exclusively for Chinese fans of SM artists on HUYA Live. At the end of the broadcast, the two male idols took the time to read out the names of the top players in the final winners’ rankings. However, from this, an unexpected situation happened.
Accordingly, the fan in the 1st place of the rankings was nicknamed ‘KimJongDaeWife’ (Kim Jongdae is Chen’s real name). When Sehun was about to read out the name of this fan, he was stopped by SM staff. Although the staff didn’t say anything specifically, the ‘implicit’ gesture made Sehun understand and stop with a confused face. Sehun event turned the phone to the staff and skipped the announcement of the winner. An awkward atmosphere filled the room until Chanyeol immediately spoke up.
Controversy broke out only because of the “sensitive” username when Chen is already married
The fact that SM’s staff prevented Sehun from reading ‘KimJongDaeWife’ out has its own reason because Chen is currently married. The staff are probably worried that reading out the fan’s nickname will cause a lot of unnecessary fuss. However, this sudden action to stop the male idols caused Sehun and Chanyeol to be confused and also sparked arguments between EXO-Ls and netizens.
Many people claim that the user who named herself ‘KimJongDaeWife’ to play game during this time is quite thoughtless. They think that this fan is the reason that made the members feel awkward and unhappy when being “interrupted” by the staff. A group of Chinese EXO-L even directly went to this user’s profile page to attack, asking her to change her name immediately to avoid causing trouble to others.
Soon after, ‘KimJongDaeWife’ herself posted a status to explain the incident. Accordingly, she has long used this nickname when joining gaming livestreams. However, today she felt guilty for causing awkwardness for Sehun, Chanyeol and Chen. She also said she was sending a request to change her nickname but is currently having problems regarding phone number verification, so she is trying to get things done as quickly as possible.
The reason why many EXO-Ls defended ‘KimJongDaewife’ and criticized SM’s staff
For those who did not know the story from the beginning, they probably criticized KimJongDaeWife’ because they thought that she was an ‘attention seeker’ and embarrassed EXO. This is inevitable but, in fact, almost every EXO-L knew about this fan. She is an extremely famous fan in every EXO’s gaming livestream at ‘SM Super Idol League’. She has been using the nickname ‘KimJongDaeWife’ for a long time and was even remembered by members like Sehun and Baekhyun because she always topped the rankings after finishing the game. Sehun used to say he would ask Chen to be a guest for this fan.
Because of such interesting popularity, most EXO-Ls do not think that she was deliberately ‘trying to draw attention’ by claiming to be ‘Kim Jongdae’s wife’, especially when news of Chen’s marriage only appeared in early 2020. Many fans even feel grateful because she has continued to support Chen and EXO, not turning her back on the male idol like many others.
In the end, many fans turned to criticizing the staff for exaggerating a normal thing when this was just a fun nickname, with no malicious meaning. The fact that EXO members were able to read the fan’s name in the past, but now they had to ignore it makes many people dissatisfied. They also criticized the too sensitive fans who turned a cute story into an unnecessary controversy on online forums from Korea to China.
Besides, the story of ‘SM did not let EXO read the nickname’ Kim Jongdae’s wife’ also became a trending topic on Theqoo. Currently this post has attracted more than 500 comments. Here are some highlight comments from Knetz:
