Four years ago, Park Jaebum, leader of rising Korean boyband, 2PM, wrote harsh comments on his MySpace page regarding Korea. Now four years later, he had forgotten what he had wrote before, had no idea that it’s coming to haunt him and affect his singing career. Recently, his MySpace page got exposed and his comments like Korea is gay and I hate Koreans were circulating around the internet like rapid fire. Soon, Koreans were criticizing him. He was guilty and apologized, explaining that he was young back then and knew little about the Korean culture and language since he was born and raised in the States. Four days after the controversy was blown out of proportion, he announced that he would be quitting 2PM and left Korea for America that same day. Fans of 2PM were taken aback and blamed the antis and netizens for the sudden departure of their idol. They were upset that despite the singer’s public apology through 2PM official fancafe, the public is still unsatisfied, deepening his guilt further and in the end, causing him to leave Korea altogether.
(Read more at this website: http://www.allkpop.com/index.php/full_story/2pms_jaebeom_calls_it_quits/)
The question is, can modes of communication like the internet destroy a person’s career within days? The answer is, it sure can and this incident is a proven example. When celebrities reach a certain level of fame, there are surely a group of people who are determined to bring them down. They dug out celebrities’ past through the internet, specifically through many networking sites such as Friendster, Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. If they find information about their favourite artiste that can be sensational news to the public, they spread the news quickly through the same way, the internet. Therefore, the internet is indeed a powerful tool because news can be transmitted fast with a click of the mouse. However, if used for the wrong reasons, the internet can also be a cruel tool especially to celebrities as that can potentially end their careers. This is exactly what happened to Park Jaebum. It’s a scary thought; you just need one person to find his MySpace page and the comments he made four years ago were front page news the next day followed by the headlines that he called it quits.
Through this incident, another question is raised. Why is it so hard to forgive and forget even after he apologized? In my opinion, you shouldn’t let the past interfere with the present. You should accept an individual as how he is today and not judge him by his past. I’m not saying that I condone Jaebum’s actions when he made that harsh comments, neither am I defending him because I’m a 2PM fan. I know what he wrote was wrong, but didn’t he admitted to his mistake and apologized for it? Afterall, he's human and human makes mistakes. Learning from his mistake is all that matters. No matter how cliché that sounds, that is reality.
It is heartbreaking to see a talented singer with so much energy on stage giving up on his dream because he felt that he cannot face the public after what he did. I just hope that through this, the media would give him a break and the netizens will use this time to find ways to forgive him.
The question is, can modes of communication like the internet destroy a person’s career within days? The answer is, it sure can and this incident is a proven example. When celebrities reach a certain level of fame, there are surely a group of people who are determined to bring them down. They dug out celebrities’ past through the internet, specifically through many networking sites such as Friendster, Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. If they find information about their favourite artiste that can be sensational news to the public, they spread the news quickly through the same way, the internet. Therefore, the internet is indeed a powerful tool because news can be transmitted fast with a click of the mouse. However, if used for the wrong reasons, the internet can also be a cruel tool especially to celebrities as that can potentially end their careers. This is exactly what happened to Park Jaebum. It’s a scary thought; you just need one person to find his MySpace page and the comments he made four years ago were front page news the next day followed by the headlines that he called it quits.
Through this incident, another question is raised. Why is it so hard to forgive and forget even after he apologized? In my opinion, you shouldn’t let the past interfere with the present. You should accept an individual as how he is today and not judge him by his past. I’m not saying that I condone Jaebum’s actions when he made that harsh comments, neither am I defending him because I’m a 2PM fan. I know what he wrote was wrong, but didn’t he admitted to his mistake and apologized for it? Afterall, he's human and human makes mistakes. Learning from his mistake is all that matters. No matter how cliché that sounds, that is reality.
It is heartbreaking to see a talented singer with so much energy on stage giving up on his dream because he felt that he cannot face the public after what he did. I just hope that through this, the media would give him a break and the netizens will use this time to find ways to forgive him.
i do agree.
ReplyDeleteif such an indirect communication medium can destroy a career,
how much are careers worth these days and what is the use of working so hard only to know that it can be easily tarnished?
Korean netizens can be a classical case study for fundamental attribution errors as they fail to look at situational attributes when something like this happens (i.e. cause of his comments). also, self serving bias takes place evidently as we see them judging themselves more tolerantly than others. have they not allowed an unintentional wrong message slide out of their mouths ever before? have they not erred in life before?
if this is the kind of habit the society is cultivating, then we'd better pray that such disgusting behavior is rectified before detrimental consequences occur. after all, humanity is the only attribute that makes us different from animals, the only attribute, that makes us human.
if we can't be passionate and forgiving as a dog,
then in this case, those netizens' lives are worth less than a dog's.