1st article:
Jaebeom, the leader of the idol group, 2PM, announced he would quit the group on Sept. 8th. In 2PM’s official fan café, he wrote that he was sorry for everyone and even much sorrier for the fans who have loved him, but he would leave 2PM from today. It’s been only four days since the news article started to distribute to the public the fact that Jaebeom wrote some insulting remarks about Korea in his private blog a few years ago. Beside Jaebeom, nobody knows whether he really hated Korea or just tried to grumble his gloomy future with such emotional expressions while thinking about the delayed debut as a singer, as shown in his official apology about this case..However, it is clear that this case has become very serious within four days, resulting in his withdrawal from the group.


On the portal site, Daum Agora, ‘Jaebum resigning’ petition and even ‘Jaebum suicide’ petition were on the way, and some of the press began to describe Jaebeom as the second Yoo Seung Joon. Because of a personal article that he wrote in the past, Jaebum became a person who can’t even step on Korea. Owing to some private comments between him and his friends, Jaebeom has become the one who is never allowed to live in Korea. Spreading “responses of netizens” by the press without any rules and any moral standards.
It only took four days for both the press and netizens to make Jaebeom leave Korea so immediately by driving him into a corner with their harsh criticisms. Of course you could be disappointed in him and his past mistake. If Jaebum continued being in activities, he and other 2PM members might have felt this burden all the time. Just a reminder that even he is neither an offender nor a public officier. If you don’t like him, you will exclude him among your favorite celebrities. The broadcasting companies can decide whether he keeps appearing on their show programs or not, depending on the public opinion. He had already quit the program, ‘Nodaji’ from MBC ..
However, no one does have the right to force him to quit his singing career because he doesn’t like Korea, which is totally different from the fact that Jaebeom is an idol who is able to have influence upon many people. Whatever he does for a living, no one does take from him his right that he can do his works wherever he want to be. If a society excludes a person because of his or her negative comments about it, this issue will expand into the one about human rights beyond the one related to an idol star.. Therefore, his case is one of bigger social issues rather than only the issue in the small celebrity world. If the fact he irritates the public is the only reason he’s kicked off from a society, how could we say this is a normal society? You could say Jaebum decided his quitting by himself, but the time that he could really have for his decision is only four days. He didn’t even have enough time, or chance to consider on how his fans and the others are really responding to his issue.
Even right after Jaebeom’s withdrawal, some of the press wrote the article saying “idol management companies should learn the power of the public once again via this case.” But they said nothing about who exactly the ‘public’ was, or that the public’s offense would lead to him leaving the group. It could have just been the opinion of a few. However the media holds the most responsibility for Jaebeom’s situation which turned out like this in just four days, especially due to their role in enlarging the case instead of analyzing. Petitions on Daum Agora for ‘Jaebum suicide’ or ‘Jaebum leaving’ also were headlined through media and was enlarged. During this process, thinking about how bad Jaebeom’s comments actually were, and what kind of problem requests and petitions like this bring, was lost altogether from the argument. Whether it was something to skip over with a few disapproving comments about personal things he said in the past, whether it was something to receive an apology for, whether it was seriously enough to ask for him to quit 2PM, those issues were not addressed at all.
Media was quick to feed fuel to the fire by picking up words such as ‘expulsion’ ‘secession’ ‘the 2nd Yoo SeungJoon’ ‘abasement’. The situation even got to the point where fellow members were bashed for saying they would walk this together on their minihompy. Jaebeom didn’t even commit a crime, so is the support of members, who have been beside him for many years, something to insult because of ‘the netizens’ reactions’? There are no judges, only the opinion of netizens and the dlivery of those opinions.In the process the act of Jaebeom, an young overseas Korean who hadn’t even debuted at the time, posting personal comments widened into a massive incident.
Numbers from a few hundred to a few thousand netizens post their request on Daum Agora, and if media decides to report on this a tsunami-like mechanism is activated, possible shaking the entire life of a celebrity. In this space there is no room to talk about the rights of a human, not celebrity. All that is left is whether ‘the public’ can get the celebrity to do what they want, and the wins and losses of that. This is because the start of the whole incident was about the ‘tenacity’ of an idol who has come from overseas. All general comments made toward him was done assuming that Jaebeom was working in Korea even though he didn’t like Korea, and that he was different on the inside to the outside. So he was mocked by being called ‘a foreign worker’, and some replied to articles about him ‘If you hate Korea so much, go make money in your own country’.
To repeat, celebrities in Korea must never think a negative thought towards Korea even in their childhood, they must be exactly the same person inside and out, and their personal life must also be perfect. If not, or if they were caught doing something wrong, media and the public may ‘request suicide’ to the one person, and can submit it as evidence to the ‘criticism’. How, and who could possibly have the right to bash a celebrity for their personal thoughts, and things written in a personal space many years ago.
Jaebeom’s incident shows that a celebrity’s personal life can be used as a way to express a part of the public and press’ intentions, rather than be known for the problem it actually holds.. In this mechanism, things like common sense that a celebrity, furthermore one person’s basic human rights is more important than ‘tenacity’ ‘etiquette’ and ‘patriotism’, is lost. The only important thing is the direction of the public opinion, which is called ‘national emotion’.
So this is not the end of the Jaebeom controversy, it is the start. Jaebeom left to go to America, but the things that happened to do with him over the last 4 days contains many issues about Korean society.. Also, between the personal freedom of a celebrity and the opinion of the public, what conclusions should the media come to. This is not just a problem to do with a celebrity. It holds both the issue of the system that Korean society uses to progress an argument about something, and how we will look at the occupation of ‘celebrity’.
2009.09.09
글. 강명석 (two@10asia.co.kr)
사진. 채기원 (ten@10asia.co.kr)
편집. 이지혜 (seven@10asia.co.kr)

Second article:
A member Jeon YeoOk of political party HanNaRa Party/Grand National Party, conservative political party in South Korea, speaks up about the recent incident of 2PM JaeBum and criticisms against him about the posts he wrote on his MySpace page before debut.Jeon YeoOk spoke about it during her appearance on SBS ‘Current Affairs’ aired on 11th September.
She said, “Through globalisation, JaeBum’s recent MySpace incident arose but I thought isn’t it like closed nationalism with our own people casting him away like that? I thought that we should be cherishing instead of casting away a youth who wrote something in his own private space 4 years back when he was only 17~18 years old and when he is new to the culture that he was placed in. This is very heartbreaking.”
She added, “In my point of view, what JaeBum wrote on his MySpace page 4 years ago was something that he wrote in his private space when he was feeling lonely in this foreign land having to leave his home in the States. Isn’t it cruel to keep tracking and digging into this incident? To what extent should we protect the private life of entertainers? What he wrote was something private to him when he was still a trainee.”

SOURCE: for 1st article: 2pm-online,10.asiae.co.kr
for 2nd article: 2pm-online, sookyeong