Mongrolian

Seriously. On the one hand, it does demonstrate he's still bothering to make any kind of effort to cast them in a positive light (I've been wondering about Mr. Kim's efforts with regards to T-ara lately) - on the other hand, it's kinda like the "trainee refuses endorsement deals; focuses on singing and dancing practice" scheme I've heard he's done multiple times. Which means this is just smoke and mirrors - Mr. Kim/CCM tweaking events to manipulate the truth for effect. Because no matter what is true in this - and how those things are true - in the end the only reason this gets released to the news outlets is to make the girls look good. And that becomes problematic in that it demonstrates something about the company culture. To cut myself short, it's like if you gave money or food to a beggar and started telling people about it to try to impress them. And again, that company culture takes most of the credit for most of the problems that T-ara's had that the fans complain about - and the other problems are usually made worse by the company's culture. And the more things stay the same over there, the more troubles the T-ara members have to deal with, the more drama the fans have to put up with. At the very least, though, I hope the ladies have their fun, even if I more hope they find some way to improve their situation.

Was gonna leave it, but hey. I guess I didn't after all. Anyway, even if I guessed you were talking about the weekend, it still doesn't change that I was talking about the five days (depending on how you count it, inclusive on one end) from the 25th to the 30th. And, since I was made the point first, that kind of leaves me free to decide what I'm talking about - and in any case, the time frame I chose is one that includes the one you were talking about (and the one I thought you were talking about), so it still works. And that's kind of a convenient segue to just another tidbit I think is part of some of these disagreements, is that I think you make a decision about what you think other people are talking about (which is like, what we all do, just part of the process of using language), and then go on in a lot of detail and using very pointed language based on that initial decision, without leaving much room for "maybe that initial decision (as to what they wanted to say) was wrong." And when strong - polarizing - interpretations are made, and from that strong statements are made, the stakes rise and well, greater misunderstandings become possible. But then, maybe that guess of mine is wrong too, eh?

Hahaha. There should've been a line in there, like they should've been all "We now see the responsibility on our shoulders... we see now how even our smallest acts can later be reinterpreted by people looking to start drama... and we will now be constantly on guard so that none of our actions can be seized upon to mount a campaign of hatred against us..." If it needs sayin,' I'm not being serious, but hopefully you get the joke. Anyway, another thing to complain about with all this is that it still empowers the almighty faceless public, those shifting and myriad judges of everything. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll spare y'all my cultural analysis of all this. I get that it's still in service of the notion that they're trying to uphold certain standards of conduct - like how they apparently don't indulge in shocking behavior for its own sake over there - but still. Can't have it both ways, right? Ah, discretion. More I could say, but!

Well, there it is. Hopefully it turns things enough. I figure they apologize a little bit too much, but I gather that's also a cultural thing and not just, like, whatever else it could mean. But speaking of the roundly and resoundingly hated Mr. Kim, anyone else think Hwayoung's statement and now this are timed a little too closely to his proposed release date for Sexy Love/Mirage? The idea being that Mr. Kim kept them under fire until now, just so he could trump up a reaction to the comeback and release SL sooner rather than later. You look at it a certain way, maybe it's a cute way to try and time things, but when the cost has basically been, to let things spiral so wildly out of control from the Twitter thing until now, to keep the girls under all this stupid pressure and let all these people, like, do the internet version of running riot, to have the girls suffer all these professional setbacks, especially his ill-begotten and idiotically executed decision to fire Hwayoung, that's a man who either doesn't see the whole picture, or is just a ******* enough to ignore it all. Like, it may not matter much but I respect that man. Some stuff I hadn't thought about too. Dude, right? Just, man.

I don't know, I think there's something to language and culture in her being, as they say, vague. Because studying an East Asian language from an English background, you'll always hear "English is a language of the mind; Chinese/Japanese/Korean is a language of the heart" (like I think you'll hear that Italian, French and Spanish are more "emotional" than English, too). Part of the idea being that more is left to interpretation in Korean - which is just a cultural thing, but still, leaves an opening for things like this. So if she spoke that way out of habit, whatever, there are a lot of kids her age going to college who can't spell correctly or at least write using proper grammar, so I won't, like, care much. Well, beyond the fact that people are using that "omission" on her part to justify their continued idiot-rage. Still, less wiggle room for the hate squad, so hey. I also wish fewer people were saying "why she waited so long?" and all, but still, hey. And thanks for the work put in, Elly@diadem.

Yee hee hee. Not to credit allkpop with too much, but in their reporting over the Eunjung-SBS/Yein thing ("the producers speak out..."), there's some common tropes between that and the Hwayoung contract termination. Most notably (or perhaps only?) is the part where the Yein company, or SBS, says that they thought that staying silent about the whole thing would be the best way to accommodate Eunjung in the aftermath of her dismissal. Also, the little threat about legal action seems familiar to Mr. Kim's own statements before, just because both sounded like empty threats (whatever happened to those lawsuits against media outlets anyway?). Also, referring to staff members being a part of the decision, though at least the Yein people don't claim that they were bowing to pressure from the staff members like Mr. Kim did. However, right at the end they do say that her removal was (at least in part) out of consideration for the other staff, acting, support and production-wise. Relatively good play on their part by calling out CCM, though, saying they have no trust in them, pointing out their inaction with regards to quelling the rumors and quieting the waters, and for (allegedly) being behind certain claims about the reasons behind Eunjung's dismissal - oh, and for claiming that CCM (or the acting agency) first offered to modify the contract, by which they not only CCM (or the acting agency) sound like liars again (by claiming that SBS/Yein demanded a contract change), but by making them (Eunjung's agencies) look like they have little faith in Eunjung, and that they were, um, diminishing her worth or something. "Good," because it's the obvious play, to react to the Haeundae writer's comments (who broke the silence and made it okay to talk about CCM being incompetent in this matter), and to try to put the blame on the company widely seen as devoid of credibility or competency. Only "relatively good," though, because it all sounds like a war of words only, with only half-truths behind it - because of the manner of delivery, it all looks snitty and retaliatory. After all, like I've said, they fell on a lot of the same tropes that we called shenanigans on before, and that besides the reasons don't sound all that clean anyway - I'm not sure exactly what inaccurate claims they're talking about, but in the end, the SBS/Yein statements still seem to say that Eunjung was removed because of the recent controversies. In fact, they may have even made themselves look worse, if I read correctly (and ditto for allkpop's translation and completeness of their transmission), because I think they just said they didn't release Eunjung for sponsorship reasons but simply because there were rumors circulating around her. Ah, it's a shame. If Korea really is trying to err on the side of "values" - over the paper chase... um, over making profits - then (in this case) they're not really doing so very wisely. You'll make mistakes on either side - whether for values or for profit - but it's always tough, you know? If, for instance, there are people who think that this is about not endorsing a mean-spirited person, they're ignoring or forgetting the fact that there's no evidence that she's a mean-spirited person - it's just that a lot of people are making noise (and who knows, maybe it's just a handful of people with multiple net ids repeating their own claims), meaning that the value called "truth" would be rendered a disservice. Worse, this could be about people who are in it for money, playing like they're in it to support good values, and just kind of failing at both and making "having good values" look like "being an ignorant and judgemental blankwad." Whatever, maybe in a few months there'll be another ponzi scheme in the news or something about unjust compensation for CEOs to make people decry money-mongering again.

Haha. I had the jokey thought that he's sitting on his hands like this because he figured the only way he gets out of this not looking like the worst guy in the situation is to let the mob mentality thing make the hater crowd like, go on the verge of losing part of their humanity, just so they'd look like the bad guys in the situation instead of him. As it is, I hope that enough people (T-ara?) remember him after the mob crew dies down. And yo, too, about him being a problem all along. But dude, ballsy chick, this one. I suppose, not being a celebrity herself, and other details about her profession and person make her less beholden to making nice with everyone in the public (like that guy who had to apologize for supporting Eunjung early in the month), but she comes off pretty strong after all the hemming and hawing I been seeing about all this. I mean, Soyeon saying it in a private interview (I mean by herself), and one not dedicated to the subject, isn't the same as having a specific public statement about the whole issue, made by all parties involved and in front of the cameras. Perhaps the most virulent anti crowders still wouldn't buy it, but there are, as in all things, shades or degrees of the "anti spirit" running through their veins. It's about playing for the public. Fewer people, anyway, will be able to dismiss such a statement out of hand, and at the very least, the wider public will have seen that, and can then react to that, instead of only having heard of or seen anti spewage all over the place. It'd be something like the difference between letting an orphan live in your house and taking care of the kid, as opposed to formally adopting that orphan. It becomes like part of the official record, and just like people will generally respect authority with very little reason (at least as a knee-jerk reaction), there is a similar respect for rites, for things given an official status. Again, there'll be that sector still hucking eggs at a stone wall, but again, there are shades to every thing. But, like, whether out from protective feelings for Soyeon, or from her own personal sense of justice, or even just because she's the sort to say a thing she has on her mind (my least favorite possibility, but then, she'd still have said it), good on her. Oh, and I just found out about the Tablo, or rather the Tajinyo thing, and that's a pretty shameful legacy for the T-jinyo crowd to tap into. At first I was all, "okay, so maybe some of them are getting out of hand, but the idea, 'we want the truth' is still at least a valid quest, even if they're taking the nobility out of it" and I was wondering why people were expressing disapproval. But seriously, now I know about that, and to use the plainest language possible, it's stupid to choose to draw from the legacy of Tajinyo. Just, dude. Seriously. Anyway, I can imagine certain variables that make her little outpourings not seem so noble and laudable as we're all taking it (including me), and some ways it could be spun against her, but yeah, yay yay.

Yee hee hee, we agree on something. It's nice to agree with smart people, it validates me. Except that you seem to hold T-ara more culpable than I would (taken as a whole), given that half of them were teenagers when they signed on - and even Eunjung seems to have started her entertainment career as a minor, and under what sorta sounds like a, uh, "helicopter mom" or something, I forget what they call it. Anyway, a kid gets raised to make certain assumptions, and I assume they've never taken critical thinking courses or one whit of what gets called a liberal education, so to a certain extent... yeah, but that's not a big deal. And anyway, they all still abide by the game, but again, blah blah. Anyway, I guess as for the older thing, maybe, "if you were an actor" and "you'd appreciate being dealt with in this way." There is a certain appreciation for a job well done (and I wouldn't go so far as to call this quite that) - of the game being well played. But I don't know if a sports analogy would do? Like this wouldn't happen, but a great soccer player getting benched and then transferred because the kit sponsor disagreed with the player's stance on a political issue and threatened to withdraw their support. Would that player have professional (and not just emotional or personal) grounds upon which to disagree with the decision? But even that's just sake of argument stuff, not what I want to get at. Almost PMed, maybe will if you want to continue along this line, but I'd be satisfied if we just disagree on this or that. I guess there's also the question of things being the way they are, and what we should do about it (things being the way they are). I've had the thought, the problem with being a good guy is that you've sorta got to succeed in spite of being a good guy, otherwise you're just a guy who makes it look like being a good guy's not a good thing to do (to the people who wouldn't choose to do so themselves anyway - you won't change any minds, maybe, being what I mean, or you'll just dishearten people who want to be a good guy). As for the corporate side, from a certain standpoint, the most effective way to win a war (and to keep from having to fight future wars with the same people) is to kill all of your enemies - like, all of them, without considerations of age or gender or whatever. But, we have, like, the Geneva treaty, or whatever kind of agreement it gets called, that keeps things from reaching that point - and international pressure from people more or less on the sidelines to remind everyone to play fair. Or now we do, anyway. It may be not so clear in the various areas of business, but there is some level of agreement as to what to call "business ethics." Like, the business world could be called the eternal struggle between descending into the absence of humanity and ascending into business models that would be unviable (and so leave everyone to starve, taken to a certain extreme). Like, hopefully we can still get all the things we want without just always being total jerks to each other, say, meet somewhere in the middle. But one of the reasons the SBS producer didn't do a good job, if we're talking about the game, is that he's the only one with an egg on his face (that might be seen as defending their interests, but it's not a very clean victory, as below). I'm not too well-informed, but do we know what product placement people complained about Eunjung's presence? Were they piano manufacturers or something, something relatively difficult to replace? Like why didn't SBS producer guy play a little bit of hardball back and say something like "we'll just replace you with another sponsor and then you won't get seen on tv anyway?" SBS guy dealt that one from a position of weakness, and now he and his production look like a mess, his product, the 5F show, looks at least that much worse, and again, so far he (and his staff, company, to a certain extent his talent) look to be the only ones taking negatives from this. Maybe, it might be said he picked the choice that (from his available intel) looked to lose him the least overall, but I don't know. I doubt that? Just before some onlooker gets at me for it, yes, Eunjung did lose the role (and undertook all the relevant shock from the whole situation), but on the bright side, there does some to be a positive spin on the situation. Whether that is only apparent, and whether that will turn into future opportunities for her remains to be seen, but she has that opening to exploit, given enough savvy, luck, and will. As for the SBS team as a whole, they still do have a show to put on, just to be thorough, even if there's a lot of negative publicity - and then the old saying about publicity always being good... And just to end, is there the question of being humans first before being executives, actresses, sponsors, or like, scientists and geographers and whatever? To tone down the rhetoric a little, I guess it's kind of like being a dad who's fine with his kids hating him so long as they can survive better for it (it does, in cases, and it does not, in cases), or a dad who raises kids who have a healthy relationship with him but are perhaps less ambitious or otherwise able to make it out there (again, it's mostly a case to case thing). Anyway, you do need some of both, but of course, this hypothetical dad probably can't do both very well, and so on and so forth, "choices to be made" and whatever. Edit: Further on the SBS guy... Developing the idea, looking to the future, that SBS guy, what could he be trusted with? At best he might be useful as some kind of scapegoat guy - and depending on how SBS uses that, they might give him a nice golden parachute if he has to end his career over something like this - but for now he's just a guy who 1) caved under pressure/apparently negotiated poorly 2) apparently bungled in handling the announcement (at least a little) and 3) built negativity around his project. People forget and de facto forgive a lot of things, but at the very least some acting talent will have a distaste for dealing with him for a while. From (my assumption of) the point of view of the sponsors, he probably just looks like a ninny they can use/push around, and who might cave over this or that thing when it doesn't serve their interests, not exactly someone they can trust to do a good job or create a positive environment for marketing purposes. Again, such a person can be used, but... And just for speculating purposes, what exactly was it that just had to involve Eunjung's character so specifically? Again, like the pianos that every character uses? Some fashion label? Like if it was just a soda or other food product, one could assume they might not have so much sway in a project like this, or that they could be replaced or might be appeased by just having their product be only minimally associated with Eunjung's character (like she always eats/drinks other stuff, or doesn't stand next to the street-level ad in whatever scene, things like that). If we give free rein to rampant theorizing, one might even guess that SBS guy himself wanted to make the call about Eunjung, and built up the idea that he was pressured by sponsors as a mild cover story for doing so. Oh, and also on the last thing of the original post, about being "human first," there's also the question of what that means, but yeah. Lastly lastly, hopefully last edit lastly, these guys' decisions affect lots of people, and when they aren't "nice," it, uh, affects lots of people. When a person creates negativity in another person, that other person, he could go and get drunk and beat his kids, or she could get dissatisfied with life and start having an affair, or he or she could be a jerk in traffic or to his or her friends and so on and so forth, potentially creating more negativity in the people around them. The specific outcomes, of course, will depend on the proportions involved and the natures of every relevant character and good old chance, but they'll all have their causes (and then, of course, causes for those causes, and so on). I mean, "so people have a bad day," isn't just that. If a CEO lays a good worker off because he wants to put his favorite in the other guy's office, and the laid off guy goes and offs somebody, it's not exactly the CEO's fault (certainly not legally), but, like, there's the grey of everything again. Like the old joke goes, "maybe he just wasn't hugged enough as a kid," if that saying can ever be applied seriously. Anyway, all this as kind of a caveat to the idea of prioritizing profits - again, you said something about that, so it's not exactly for your benefit, but I like to run with a thought.

@Emperor Ryu ...Um, where to start. I guess GRIMLOCK already took you to task, but you seem to have misunderstood very many of the points I was trying to make. Are there many people on this forum who dislike Hwayoung at this point? I've seen a number of negative comments about her since the outbreak, but only from maybe five people or so. In any case, I hope you haven't been dealing with those criticisms too badly, it seems to be getting to you. If anything, that weekend of the 28th I tended towards believing that Hwayoung was being singled out for something. Not that she was being "bullied" - and I hate how the use of that word has escalated everything - but that there was some disagreement where it was 1 vs x. And there's no good in pointing any fingers at Hwayoung either. I think she's only as media-savvy as the others, at best, so I don't think she would know how to reach out to the reporters herself to make a statement, and I'm under the impression that her Twitter is still tied up in her CCM life. I figure her silence is similar to that of the others - I figure she's made at least a verbal agreement with Mr. Kim not to say anything more about the subject, and now that she's more or less back to being her parents' daughter, I'm pretty sure they don't want her going public about all this either. She worked pretty hard to get as good as she got, and she started from far from an ideal start (being tossed in like she was). I liked her. Third or fourth favorite, even before all this. She got a raw deal from the outset, and it's just another on the laundry list of wrongs hurled at those girls. I don't know, let's get to it, piecemeal, I guess. -A typical thinking example of an modus operandi in a anti. Let me start by saying you don't seem to understand what I was saying - or, if you did, I don't understand why you would attribute it to anti thought processes. Let me reduce the language: I believe it is still Mr. Kim's standing order not to address the situation directly. I think it would be understandable if any of the girls were to defy those orders. But, all things considered, it would probably be best they did not, for the time being. As for tossing the anti-bomb around like that... Way to jump to conclusions on a head full of steam and with just the scantest of evidence. Funny, but I remember a certain segment of the population doing exactly that. -Yeah, I think we all like proof that this was all a stage play, instead of repeating it over like it's the truth or something. The more I go over your comments, the more smug you seem. Again, let me clarify: Either 1) the KBS producers of Shut up Family are like the producers of 5F, who lacked backbone and caved to the pressure from the advertisers, or 2) the Shut up Family producers are simply releasing the statement to test the waters, and then decide either way based on what the popular response is, while claiming they were always planning to do whatever they end up doing (either way making it seem like they were making some moral stance that just happened to fall in line with public sentiment). Let me skip one and get back to the America stuff afterwards. - Actually it was 3 days, not 5. That weekend, between the Friday announcement and the Monday announcement may be counted as three days, but there were five days between the posts on Twitter and the Monday announcement. But I'm not really sure why you're getting on my case about that and the accident thing - are you defending Mr. Kim and the agency? Because that was a list of the mistakes he's made with regards to the current controversy. If you look (more) carefully, I brought up the accident to say that people were willing to make those speculations because Mr. Kim has the reputation of being someone who just might do something like that. -What does the U.S. entertainment specifically have to do with the T-ara situation? So to take both of your questions about my America comments together... Like I said, if I were invited to discuss my issues with any of the American practices I don't like, I could say many things. But for the most part I wouldn't, because I believe in the country and in discretion. I am capable of finding fault with very many things. I could break out my laundry list of complaints about Korean entertainment - and even T-ara - but I choose not to do so because I'm not interested in bringing people down. But maybe I was a little too excited when I wrote that, so another rehash: Many English-speaking commentators on K-pop like that it is not (in short) as cynical as most of American entertainment, including American children's movies. Cultures are different, and that is reflected in the entertainment they produce - but unlike much of the world, Korea, like the US , is able to produce an entertainment product that is viable on an international level. You don't really respond to the rest in what I feel is a genuine manner, you kind of just insult me, so let me just just say that the US entertainment industry is not involved in the T-ara situation. I bring it up to say that despite its success, there are various flaws in American entertainment I could talk about - again, something that is true of Korean entertainment. But as Korean entertainment is new to this level of international exposure (and for other reasons), its position is weaker, and the scandal undermines its ability to be seen as a viable source of entertainment in potential markets. I didn't then point out the similarities because it would have had nothing to do with the point I was making. As for the international awards, there's something that could be said about how the Oscars always have the same kinds of movies nominated and winning those awards, and anyway, you don't seem to be challenging anything I actually said when you talk about that. As for the "Koreans and Asians" comment, perhaps you missed that little flap involving Kim Jaedong and others at an international venue and a bonehead in the background pulling at his eyes. Or maybe you don't read Youtube comments and about every third Kpop video having saying someone (ignorantly) saying it's some kind of rip-off of some American or European act. Maybe you haven't been exposed to many stories of intolerance, from every region of the world. That's the background to that comment. I guess Hawaii's a pretty laid-back place, maybe I sounded to you like a reactionary bigot or something, but I hope there's at least a greater level of understanding between us now. As for whatever else, I'll be discreet.

I guess I'm the only one who's a little annoyed at the reporter for breaking out his poetic license bag of tricks in how he put this together... Anyway, at the very least, the writing seems to be interested in casting Eunjung in a sympathetic light - no idea if this highlights any trends in general, but it could (?) mean or lead to a shift towards sympathizing with the members. To say nothing of the media using the ongoing story as a viewership/readership plaything; now on one side, now on the other, but that's, um, not uncommon, anyway.