YG Entertainment is, again, under fire!
On March 25, various communities commented that Seungri’s merch was still being sold by YG’s official online shop, YG Select. They were under BIGBANG section and were easily found if you browse the site.
Hoodies, t-shirts, bags key chains, flip flops, key chains and other goods were shown at the site and available for purchase which upset netizens.
This led to criticism of YG Entertainment, many criticized the agency for making money off of someone who’s contract was terminated, others called the agency greedy.
I have visited the site on March 26 KST and found that Seungri’s merch were not available for purchase anymore, it looks like it was removed after various Korean news outlets reported on it.
Here are some of netizens comments:
[+1,875, -20] YG is blinded by greed, they need to fail
[+52, -0] ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ If they terminated his contract and kicked him out, shouldn’t they stop selling his fan merch too? ㅋ YG has issues.
[+30, -0] This definitely doesn’t seem like a mistake that a top 3 agency would make ㅋㅋ why are you still selling the merch of someone you terminated ㅋ
[+19, -0] This is just wrong… YG’s the one who terminated him and drew a line saying they have nothing to do with him and yet they’re still selling his merch!!! Seungri may be trash but YG is a much bigger evil than him!
[+15, -0] ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ YG’s so blinded by greed, I bet there are ba$tards still buying this stuff too ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
[+14, -0] There are still foreign b*tches on YouTube going “why are you being so mean to Seungri oppa ㅜㅜ until a judgment is ruled, Seungri is still the great Seungtsby ㅠㅠ” ㅋㅋ I bet YG’s trying ot milk the brainless idiots by selling this stuff still
My Personal Thoughts
Lets talk about this from YG and netizen’s perspective.
From YG perspective: it could have been a simple mistake or a slip-up. In media, they tried so hard to distance themselves from him and not comment on anything concerning him after terminating his contract.
It could be that the person in charge of the site didn’t remove it or forgot for some reason. An online shop is not the first thing that comes to your mind when you terminate someone’s contract.
From netizens perspective: I have been closely monitoring netizens comments on Seungri which seem to be mostly negative opposed to positive comments of support from some VIPs. I understand that from a ‘he’s not part of us anymore’ standpoint, they should seriously stop associating themselves with him. Why are they selling his merch despite trying to distance themselves from him? It may appear as if they want to make money off of him regardless, as if they don’t care about what he’s involved in.
Seungri is now hated by netizens, they’re not buying his explanations or excuses that he’s said through various interviews. Continuously denying everything isn’t really making netizens like him.
Now, my own thoughts: I actually believe it’s a slip up; there is no way on hell YG would want to make headlines for that, I just don’t see it. It could be that the staff was busy with many other things and forgot the online shop. It’s probably not their priority to look at. They did remove his name from BIGBANG Naver profile.
Still, for an agency who is part of the big 3, this is still sad that they couldn’t contain the hate surrounding them. Netizens do not like YG these days; I have seen comments of people telling others to boycott and what not. YG is also under special tax investigation, they’re not doing great these days.
I understand why netizens are criticizing them. On March 25, according to Korean media sites, the merch was still available, Seungri’s contract was terminated like two weeks ago, so…. I don’t know… it has to be a slipup!
