ENHYPEN Jay and Davichi Kang Min Kyung are facing the countereffects of their apologies after controversial remarks.
Celebrities have heavy responsibility as each of their words and actions is quickly delivered to the public and has a tremendous impact. Due to such public attention, their remarks and action might cause controversy that has nothing to do with their original intention, but there are also many cases caused by the stars’ careless remarks or actions.
When various controversies arise, celebrities will post their apologies through SNS or their agencies and apologize for their careless behavior. As they know better than anyone else that an “ignorance strategy” will only worsen public opinion, posting a quick apology is the first step to prevent the situation from worsening.
However, posting an apology does not excuse all celebrities for their actions. Sometimes a quick apology just makes the scandal worse. An example is member Jay from ENHYPEN, who is recently accused of disparaging Korean history.
In a live broadcast with member Sung Hoon on Jan 10th, Jay was criticized for saying, “Honestly, I have learned Korean history to some extent at school,“ and “I like to study history, but should I say, Korean history kinda doesn’t have that much information.“
Jay continued, “It’s like, I just need to study for a few weeks and look through it, it ends too quickly. It feels like a short novel. Other countries’ histories are really endless. I’ve seen the history of all kinds of countries, and other countries just keep going on and on. In Korea, everything passed by at once from before Balhae, and something only happened after the Three Kingdoms period. Before that, I felt like everything went by so quickly.” He added, “When I studied, I even thought ‘Why did it end earlier than I thought,’” Jay’s remarks soon led to a controversy, as many think he just denigrated Korean Peninsula’s 5,000 years of history as “a short novel.”
As if he was conscious of public opinion, Jay tried to handle the situation by releasing his official apology through the fan community Weverse the next day. However, he made a worse remark in the apology, saying “For whatever reason”. His apology was mainly about acknowledging his carelessness in expressing personal views on Korean history. However, as Jay added “I was really shocked when seeing fans’ reactions after the live broadcast” and “For whatever reason, I sincerely apologize for making everyone feel uncomfortable”, netizens began to question his sincerity in the apology.
In the end, Jay ended up getting criticized more harshly after apologizing. The public rage at the content of his apology was as great as his first controversial remark about Korean history.
At the same time, Kang Min Kyung of Davichi was embroiled in a controversy over underpaying staff caused by the recruitment notice of her shopping mall. Kang Min Kyung caused a stir as she set the annual salary for experienced employees at 25 million won in the process of posting the job opening for her shopping mall. In addition, the female singer faced a crisis as the high dropout rate of shopping mall employees and the relatively poor working environment were also publicized.
Soon after, Kang Min Kyung also apologized in a long article. However, the apology only contains her realization of the controversy, clarification of the facts, and specific future solutions. Through it, Kang Min Kyung came up with specific measures, such as “increasing the starting salary by 30 million won”, “hiring a personnel manager”, etc.
What’s important when apologizing is conveying one’s sincerity instead of making excuses and unnecessary speculations. Of course, it would be better not to do things that would cause them to apologize. Even when being criticized, one can get a chance to make up for their mistake if they properly convey a sincere apology, recognize the exact situation, and express their willingness not to repeat it. That’s why a proper apology is very important.
Source: Hankook Ilbo
