Fame, wealth, and beauty is a dream for a majority of individuals. The select few people who possess all these characteristics are also known as ‘celebrities’. Triggering a sense of envy in most, these stars at the same time gain excessive attention. In recent days, such overloading attention grew to exposure of the celebrities’ past actions, especially behaviors during their school years as bullies.
In February, an anonymous writer exposed the past of the famous volleyball player sisters Lee Jaeyoung and Lee Dayoung. The writer commented, “Since it has been more than 10 years I thought I would just try to forget about their brutality. However, seeing the SNS posts they upload without looking back and regretting their past, I hope that this writing of mine could let them truly realize what they have done.” The writer also added that the Lee sisters bullied about 4 other students by cursing at them and forcefully taking their money away from them. They said that the Lee sisters even used weapons such as a knife to force them into doing their wants. In response, the sisters admitted that they were bullies during their school years, however, that some information was not true. For this reason, the sisters plan to sue for the writer of the post. Meanwhile, the sisters are removed from all TV shows they took part in.
On the 22nd day of the same month, another anonymous writer wrote about the past actions of Mingyu, a member of Seventeen, a Kpop boy group. The writing began with a provocative title: Exposure of Mingyu the Bully. The writer wrote that “Mingyu used to hang around with the famous bullies of school since elementary school. During the first year of middle school, he laughed and threw a coke lid at my face while I was being threatened by a group of bullies.” On the other hand, Mingyu stated that all information was false and that there was a misunderstanding with the writer. About three weeks later, the writer deleted their post after speaking and going over the past with Mingyu.
The bright side of this trend of exposure is that the phenomenon can become courage for the unspoken victims of bullying as seen in the case of the Lee sisters. Although the sisters may not be seeming to reflect on themselves and their behaviors, they were able to lose their privileges and receive a righteous punishment from the victims. However, this trend may become a negative effect when the punishment is from a third person who only tends to insult and condemn the celebrity instead of criticizing. Also like the second case of Seventeen Mingyu, scandals created from mere hatred or misunderstandings with the use of false information may seriously harm the celebrity.
It should be carefully thought about what would be the right action to take in response to such a sensitive trend. The results of each case highly depend on the responses of both offenders and victims. Although there are both true and false cases of exposure regarding a celebrity’s past, it should be acknowledged that secondary assaults from mere hatred or want for attention can never be justified.
Yeonseo Shim, Staff Writer
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