NCT Yuta is in a sticky situation following his recent V Live.
Recently, Yuta went live on V Live to interact with fans; however, during the broadcast he revealed something that shocked his Korean fans. He revealed he was a close friend to a YouTuber named Rhee-kun.
He said,
“These days I’m also close to, not sure if you know him, he’s a YouTuber called Rhee-kun. I’ve been close with him lately. We met up yesterday too.”
The reason this became a huge controversy in Korean communities is the fact that this particular YouTuber is known for being anti-Korean and pro-Japanese. This is made worse because the said YouTuber usually makes terrible remarks about Korean women degrading them in his YouTube videos; he also reportedly used Sulli and Jonghyun’s names as clickbate titles. One of his YouTube videos is titled,
“how to have sex with a pretty Korean girl who has done plastic surgery.”
Due to the controversy, the particular broadcast is nowhere to be found, it’s been deleted. But clips of him talking about it still circulate online.
Yuta is a Japanese member in the group NCT; this made matters worse for him to say this publicly on Korean broadcast while he’s part of a Korean group.
This is a huge issue for K-fans because of the past history between Japan and Korea. This is why such a thing is not to be taken lightly by K-fans.
SM remains silent on the situation and Yuta has unfollowed the YouTuber on his instagram. Fans are demanding an apology and an explanation, and some even want him to leave NCT because he’s going to cause severe damage to their image due to his comments.
Fans even began sharing a template to send to SM to demand a response.
What do you think of this?
Omg!!! I have no words honestly idrk what to say, i mean i can bet it definetly hurted the k-fans but asking him to leave the group is sucha big thing i dont want it happen. Atleast he should pubically apologise about this matter and i hope this situation gets calm down soon. Yuta shouldnt forget he is kpop idol afterall.
Just to clarify and correct a few points, the VLive was never uploaded in the first place for copywright reasons (Yuta listened to a lot of japanese rock songs and japanese copywright is very strict), not because of the controversy which happened a few days after the VLive. The youtuber in question is korean and his content is actually neutral towards Japan and Korea (confirmed by japanese & korean fans), but the titles/thumbnails of his videos are controversial/clickbait. What remains problematic after this has been clear up is the mysogynistic content (but it was not the point initially). This whole controversy arised in the international twitter community, not the korean community. Even though it was started by a korean user (which by the way is believed to be a hater since the account was new, with no followers, and the information happened to be false). The international fans made it blow out of proportion without even checking the content and if that statement was true, and it’s finally the chinese, japanese and korean fans who had to speak out and clear the mess.
In my opinion, the problem in this whole “controversy” is not the fact that Yuta has problematic friends but how twitter fans are not fact-checking those type of statements and spreading false information by overreacting. I don’t have a twitter account but I was forced to go on twitter to learn what happened because people made it look like it was too sensible to even explain the situation, telling me to “just go on twitter”.. and when I got on twitter all I saw was the same discourse everywhere saying that “he should apologize for what he did wrong”, that “international fans have NO RIGHT to speak about it because this is a sensitive topic that concerns korean and japanese history” and “they should just SHUT UP”, but those same people were actually the ones making a big deal out of it more than korean and japanese fans. Basically they were voicing their (unnecessary and flawed) opinion out loud and sensoring everyone else at the same time, preventing people from searching and speaking the truth. The same people complaining that the youtuber used Sulli/Jonghyun for clicks don’t even realize that they helped spreading false information and damaged his reputation just by stating their opinion, which is one of the main reasons of Sulli’s death.. The whole twitter community is so toxic, even the ones who think they do good. You have the right to be angry at him because you think his friendship is problematic, but voicing your opinion without fact-checking, demanding his departure from the group or saying that he “did wrong” is just doing bad to a lot of people (him, the group and the fans). I’m sorry but you can have problematic friends and not being associated with their behaviours (i can totally attest for that). And I’m not even a Yuta fan so don’t come after me if you assume that I’m overprotecting him because it’s not the case.