On Friday, February 2, an anonymous netizen posted a snippet of a video call with ZEROBASEONE's Kim Jeyoung. The clip showed the idol waving goodbye to the person on the other end of the call, and once the screen went black, the idol could be heard saying the expletive “fuck” or “shibal” in Korean.
Netizens wanted to share the video with the internet and get their opinion, as OP thought it was inappropriate and disrespectful to the idol. While criticism of the idols' use of language mounted, fans quickly came to Kim Jeyoung's defense, suggesting that the netizen's post was a plan to bring him down.
The legality of the video is unclear, and there is no evidence of the idol saying the expletive, leading fans to believe that the netizen's post must be fabricated or generated by artificial intelligence.
Regardless, fans also pointed out that the idol looked uncomfortable during the fan call, and thus criticized netizens for only posting a snippet of the fan video call because OP might have been the reason behind the insults.
Fans defend ZEROBASEONE's Kim Jiwoong after a fan called him out on video cursing him online.
Kim Jeyoung, a member of the recently debuted nine-piece band ZEROBASEONE, formed through a reality survival show. Planet Boys, has gained increasing attention over the many years of his career in the industry. Before his debut in ZEROBASEONE, the idol was not only active as a K-pop idol in other groups such as INX but also participated as an actor in the BL genre, thus settling a massive fan base for himself.
However, there have also been cases where idols have fallen victim to hate comments. One such incident started during Jiwoong's recent video call with fans. An anonymous netizen took to X to post about her recent fan call with idols, and was only shown a few seconds into their call. After bidding farewell, the screen goes black, but the idol can still be heard saying the curse word.
read caption,
“Do you usually say fuck it after talking to fans? I'm not sure so I'm asking other Zerozes' thoughts.”
The camera is often covered by an external object in fan calls involving multiple K-pop idols, and the sound is muted when the phone is passed from one idol to another. So, Jiyoung's insults may have been captured in the gap when the camera was covered, but the sound remained unmuffled.
When a netizen posted the snippet with a comment criticizing the idol's alleged inappropriate behavior, many netizens criticized him.
However, as fans continued to debate the legality of the video, WAKEONE Entertainment issued a statement announcing that Jiwoong had not cursed after the fan call and that the video was most likely created with malicious intentions. They also stated that they would take legal action against those who tried to harm the idol's public image.
“This is not true. In order to confirm this from an accurate and objective point of view, we will use different methods such as digital media forensics to clearly determine the facts and protect our artist.”
In addition, fans were also criticizing and criticizing netizens who participated in directing hatred towards idols based on an untrue event.
