Pyron

Well, 2 new members, Yeon Jung Hoon and Moon Se Yoon, and Kim Jongmin will be back at S4. Wonder if Defconn and Yoon Shiyoon will rejoin as well.

If Queendom 2 happens, I hope it's either just soloists or group.

I think giving and receiving criticism is fair as long it's reasonable and rational. Now I dunno what your work entails to make people criticize your lack of good memory and also the workplace dynamic to make a good judgement of the situation. They seem pretty rude to say the least if they wanna call out your mistakes in front of customers. Even if it's two months only. Usually places would fire people they don't believe will improve after a week or two if not days. If you and your co-workers are on equal foot, maybe you could have a conversation so maybe some understanding can be achieved. Now if they are really downright rude and you think they won't listen, maybe talk about it with your superior and see if he or she can mend this situation. Now if your workplace isn't good for this kinda conversation or your boss is part of the problem, it's basically endure the shit talk or quit. I have been on both sides I guess. I usually try to not be confrontational. If I have to do the criticizing, I usually try to give tips on how to improve. Now if the co-worker is just a burden (it has to be really bad like an addicted person level who needs to seek help or a shitty entitled person), I will just report to the boss and be done with. No personal feelings. On the receiving end in my case I basically try to improve and prove them wrong or just quit. I have done both depending on how willing their are in changing their attitudes as well. Some places will just have shitty people all around. No need to waste your life on them.

Maybe 2 ~3 years as a lurker.

Dunno if drama is what the forum needs really. I think people need to accept that forums aren't what used to be. It was the place to be to bring discussion (the good and the bad) in the past. Now there are more options and you can skip some of them. The lack of support when the site was dying probably just made the migration faster. It's not much different from anywhere. Most forums I frequented for gaming and anime had big losses as well and moderation style wasn't the problem per se. It seems a irreversible trend. "Drama" is more prevalent in other tools because it's easier there than in forums. It's like chat rooms at the beginning of internet. Forum is a tool that is losing its initial appeal as time goes. It's good for enthusiastic and hands on users than lazy platforms like twitter, but maybe not as good as propagate certain threads like FB, reddit, instagram, twitter, YT, and others. You can integrate everything, but chances are most people use a couple of them and don't keep up with all of them. Eventually even these will lose their luster as newer platforms become available. Too much drama may bring more of certain kind of users, but it will sure scare off other users as well. Moderation just needs to keep a good but delicate balance.

Anticipating!

Well, the word idol evokes worship/adoration and that's part of marketing, so it's natural that it will attract people who get way too invested in someone (as fan or anti-fan). It's not something that is exclusive to kpop. You see that everywhere. From sports, politics, gaming, and so on. They all capitalize our obsessive side and some people don't know how to control this part of their psyche. Add social media to the pot so they can broadcast their obsession to everyone to see.

I've been feeling old 30 years ago

Nations have no permanent friends or allies.They only have permanent interests.

Upvoted

I remember that episode. One take away I get from it is how unaware the attacker was about the consequences of misconduct in social media. Maybe SK netizens were more aware of consequences, they would be less aggressive in that space. We can't really expect people to learn by themselves how to learn to behave in cyberspace. They may be taught how to behave in public space and know the consequences of breaking the code of conduct in those spaces. However, in social media the only thing we do is sign up and not read the ULA. In the dawn of Internet, we had the netiquette, but I doubt anyone tried to follow it, much less read it. The only way to make people behave well in public is educating them and some deterrent laws. Leave it to personal responsibility and you get some vicious anarchy. Some people may love this aspect of Internet, but it's bringing some unintended consequences.

I guess they could try sue, but you have even less tools for that in the US I think. Also, the cost for the low chance of winning makes it unfeasible. Dunno if someone could try to do it as harassment or some form of cyber crime against insistent online harassers instead of defamation/slander. Again, cost and time make a lot of people not bother with it and seek blocking or just threatening to sue the attacker instead. It also depends on each state law. We see some cases like celebrities suing celebrities because of some beef they may have with each other, but it mostly a provocation tool rather than seeking justice from wrongdoings. Now it seems to be a pretty serious issues in the US and the law is pretty inadequate to deal with crimes and misconducts via social media tools. I see more news about people suffering consequences of cyber bullying (including suicide) rather than celebrities suing their cyber bullies. They have the money, but they just don't bother unless super serious and even so it will be time consuming to get enough "evidence" that satisfy prosecution.

Hope this isn't just a political move and it helps to mitigate the misuses of social media platforms. I'd like more action from the entertainment industry at large (some portion of it made some statements) as their are getting all the money and doing almost nothing in return.

I came from gaming and anime communities, some very specific too. Sadly, it's not that much different. Toxicity is just part of package it seems if you wanna be active in any community. The bigger the worse. Yeah, kpop communities have a unique flavor to it, but overall not that different IMO. On Kpop, yeah I'm with you. The ugliness in Kpop is too much sometimes. I'm still new with Kpop and I was kinda already cynical about it and imagine that it's not all flowers and glitter as most entertainment industries are ugly in the inside. Still it manages to baffle me when under scrutiny. Now back at SM. They are big and have resources, but it seems they simply don't do enough for the artists. Not just this case. Just in general. They shaped the Kpop industry. They should lead on better treatment of their artists and Kpop in general, but instead they lead on malpractices in idol industry. From slave contracts to unreasonable strict trainee regimen. SM seems to only listen to money and only lawsuits may move them to change their abuse. At least they can petition to get better tools to combat haters and harassers on social media. It should be in their interest to protect their artists the best their can even if they consider them just commodities.

I believe almost every entertainment industry in the world are just there to exploit as much as possible and sell an image. For instance, Hollywood seems very liberal and for progressive causes, but internally executives there treat their employees and artists as disposable things if they don't downright engage in illegal activities and crimes. If you really think about it, idol industry treatment of their employees and artists in South Korea is very sickening. I know the competition is cutthroat, but a lot of malpractices seem very avoidable and unnecessary. It doesn't help that most of the ones in control are old geezers who still think that outdated malpractices are still effective and necessary. They just abuse their position and SK social norms to exploit their artists. Once these artists reached their quotas in the eyes of these executives, they are just tossed aside. Who wanna support this shitty of an industry? If we as fans can do something is to say we aren't cool with these practices. I mean, sadly this isn't new or unknown. However, people need to speak up more. Otherwise, the entertainment industry will not change by themselves. It's sad that very small changes (if any at all) or conversations about issues just happen when a big tragedy happens. Artists who speak up are doing their part. Fans should do too. Now on personal level, I feel like boycotting wouldn't be a good tool, but speak your mind to these executives could be. Flood their social media and so on. I think this is an inexcusable situation. How many more we need to lose before real change happens? However, civility and reason shouldn't be tossed aside. Our hearts may be hurt or broken, but our brains need to do the work.

Looking at statistics I see double to ten times more higher rates to dying to unnatural causes (suicide included) for artists compared to normal population. pop and rock stars live on average 25 years less as well. Dunno how reliable are these numbers, but it's certain that celebrities have a higher chance to suicide than the norm. Money and fame aren't remedies for sadness and depression. Maybe they are worse as possession add more pressure. The more you have, the more you need to do to protect what you have. Also, friendship at this level may be rarer as you have less assurance for who is there for you truly instead of your fame and money. Especially with more prominent/senior artists. They already achieved a lot. Some may think they'd have less pressure because of that. However, in reality they may feel even more pressure. There aren't much/enough studies about this, but celebrities face stuff normal folks don't. For instance, the constant scrutiny and pressure of the public from being in the spotlight. We don't know the true extend of the mental damage those circumstances can cause. Most of them just wing it. Because they have more resources, we think they need less support which may be just the opposite. They may need even more help than regular folks. Also, artists tend to pursuit perfection of their art. I don't think singers/dancers/entertainers aren't different in this regard. This trait could cause mental problems. Also, with increasingly access to social media, they face harassment in a much higher level. Watching that show about hate comments with Sulli, they mentioned they can get paranoid and affect their relationship with the world outside. They can't even do normal thing like go to hospital as they may fear that private information may leak out (and more often than not it will like airport schedule and such) or it may cause misunderstanding and rumors that may jeopardize their career. In SK they have their own unique cultural and social situations that may contribute more to this as well. Idols have very irregular lives as well. They can't socialize normally. Their diets are very restrictive, specially at developing ages. And sleeping hours are very irregular. These by itself could cause serious mental illnesses over time if left unchecked (and for most cases they are left unchecked till it's too late). In reality mental healthy is still poorly grasped everywhere. We learnt a lot about the brain in the last decade, but we probably are still far from total understanding. Also, lot of us still operate on very outdated views of mental care. This is for the normal folks. For people in exceptional situations we probably understand their mental health even less. For suicide prevention, it has to be a collective effort in order to be effective IMO. I think in celebrity's case, we leave this to their discretion or think he or she should seek help individually. Again, I don't think this is effective actually. When this happens, it's usually the last moments and it's a die roll basically. Some may get lucky. Some won't. Prevention should probably be done in a larger scale and be a constant vigilance. Sadly entertainment industry can be the worse at talking about these issues.

Sadly this has been old news for such a long time and still the harsh reality of anime industry workers didn't change much. Spreading awareness is important thou.

I guess we have to look our relationship with celebrities in general. It was never healthy to begin with. I think it can, but the more famous is the celebrity, the less healthy the relationship with fans and anti-fans it gets it seems. Knets are particularly nasty as it is reflection of some aspects of SK society like the higher standard they need to uphold, hierarchy/seniority system, and so on. Also, idol culture will compound more to this pressure. Still I read celebrities have double chance of suicide rate in the West. I can't imagine this in SK or Asia in general. Dunno what really can be done as this system seems to feed itself. The celebrities need to engage with fans and use social media tools and news for feedback, but at the same this just add pressure and can be too much for their mental health. Also, the true extend of social media tools on society in general is still quite new and we kinda are getting how negatively it can affect individuals. Cyber bullying (well I consider this hate on celebrities as it as well) is still not properly dealt with.

As a someone who had a family member who committed suicide, some of these reactions are natural. We try to rationalize and analyze everything and will always look at some past behaviors in hindsight. Also, it's hard to know what is the proper behavior. We tend to blame ourselves and some may get defensive because of that. That being said, I agree that using internet forums may not be the best venue to let out these negative feelings. Still it can't be helped in some cases. Just hope people will have some restraint about stronger rants.

Considering SK internet is one of the most heavily censored and monitored, I think the government don't need to do that much in this regard. A campaign about the true consequences of misusing social media could work. On that show Sulli was MCing, they said most commenters aren't aware of consequences to both victims and abusers. Abusers can have their records tarnished which can affect their lives negatively. If they knew their comments could have negative consequences, maybe it could work as deterrent. Also, private companies should have some censorship in place. I know censorship is a sensitive tool and can be horridly abused by those in power, but I'd not be against to these filters. These horrible hate comments are useless and just cause unnecessary suffering. Private social media companies should do more to remove the trash out of the system. Entertainment companies should be more aggressive on suing these hatemongers. Maybe the government could enact laws that could make this process easier and cheaper as well. Still we can see a fine line that could be abused in the name of a more secure social media experience.

Well that should be obvious enough, but social media gives a non personal barrier which gives a sense of security to unleash stuff you weren't aware about yourself. Also, not seeing how the other party is reacting contribute to this factor. We are social animals, but we evolved our social skills that reacts to some sensory inputs that social media doesn't offer. I guess awareness is a good start, but this phenomenon is still poorly understood IMO. Still this isn't new. Since the down of Internet communication, netiquette was a thing and people just ignored it. You can't gauge well how people will get offended as well. Even in real life, you don't mean much, but others will feel differently. With social media, misunderstanding are bound to happen more often. Internet rules of engagement are still the Wild West.

Dunno how skewed is our view of knet commenters with those sites translating it for us. For my experience, it's horrible, but other places aren't much better. We see xenophobia there, but again we have to assume they aren't expect people from other nations to read that. I check comments from people from other countries talking about their own issues and they also exhibit similar uncompromising xenophobic/racist comments. Being exposed to this in kpop sites seem not healthy. Just assuming similar awfulness should be enough. If you check celebrity related sites everywhere, it's not that much different. It's vile and toxic and that's why I avoid it. However, visiting here and have easy access to these comments don't see healthy. I personally trying to avoid it as much as possible for now on. Some things may be uniquely awful from knets, but again I can say the same to every other insert country-netizens. They all have uniquely awful things about them.

Oh God no pls...

Nope. Maybe very late at its life cycle. Since PS3 it's not worthy to jump in to any new console immediately even if you have the cash lying around.

Well it would be nice if this was his real intention, but it's pretty clear Trump made a deal where having troops moved to other assets was just an after effect that can be sold to his base. In the world of geopolitics decisions, these sentiments are just secondary.