To get noticed in the widely saturated sea of K-pop, the debut should be so innovative that it catches the eye of the attention-deficit generation.
New Jeans is the first group of this generation with their unique aesthetics and Y2K vibes that have surpassed their Sunbaenims in streams. Then, FIFTY FIFTY became an overnight sensation with just one song, breaking all records and entering global charts.
The point is, in order to even get a few seconds of recognition, the K-pop group and their company must come up with ideas that have never been done before. In this quest for such endeavors, the rookie group NINE.I, from a relatively unknown company, FirstOne Entertainment, released their debut prologue film that stirred quite a controversy. The film contained imagery of sensitive historical chapters such as the Holocaust and the American Civil War and hints of black oppression. Netizens were of the opinion that these were taken in poor taste, considering the context is used for a K-pop group.
NINE.I Controversy Explained
The trailer for their upcoming debut had a few frames that have been since removed after the backlash. Their company, FirstOne Entertainment, founded in 2019, curated the boy group consisting of members Jewon, Eden, Winnie, Minjun, Vahn, Vari, Seowon, Taehun, Joohyung, and Jiho.
The concept of the group seemed to be juxtaposing a futuristic concept with historical events, titled “The Birth of New Algortihm.” However, netizens showed stern opposition, stating that they are exploiting these sensitive subjects for “innovative aesthetics.”
The company took immediate action before the group’s official debut on March 30. After removing the clips and reuploading the video, FirstOne Entertainment issued an apology in the YouTube description–
“Hello. This is FirstOne Entertainment. We have an announcement about the video , NINE.I ( LO100 ) PROLOGUE FILM [ THE BIRTH OF NEW ALGORITHM ] , uploaded on March 9. Even though we used the images for inspirational purposes , we are truly aware that we did not engage with more consideration in making the video . We are extremely sorry for the images used in our promotion video of NINE.I , where we showed ‘ historical events and figures ‘ , which have changed the world , for storytelling .
We deleted all the images which caused hurt or disappointment. We will be taking time to ensure these insensitive actions never happen again. We sincerely apologize our video hurt our international fans, while we hope unconstructive internet trolling should stop. We appreciate our fans ‘ support and love for NINE.I and FirstOne Entertainment. Thank you. Will make every effort to provide brilliant content and stories about NINE.I”
Redditors Expressed Their Opinions on the NINE.I Controversy
| “I could see what they were trying to do, it reminded me a bit of the intro to Sense8, like they were trying to quickly show “this is humanity/history,” but ooooh boy did they pick the wrong images. they were right to take them down and apologize, it’s disappointing that it went through so many ppl and so many approvals and not a single one said “maybe we shouldn’t use pictures of ppl suffering and the worlds greatest tragedies as content for a music group’s mv?” It does kinda suck that they messed up that bad bc i watched the full video and it actually is really interesting. i’d be worried now to support them bc chances are their company is gonna mess up again, but if they hadn’t included those images i’m sure the debut would’ve gotten an ok amount of attention since the editing in the mv was cool.” “This is interesting because just the other day, I came across this 90s Shinhwa MV where I was very surprised to see a clip of Hitler and a graphic image of an emaciated body at one point (it’s brief but warning that it is pretty disturbing), among other things…I think it was supposed to be a social commentary song about the state of the world, but I was thinking about how (understandably) outraged people would be by the use of images like that in a K-pop MV today. And now this comes up and proves me right.” “The apology’s good. at least on the better end of K-pop apologies. i accept it. but i’ll keep an eye out for anything else the company does and if they slip up again then we can talk about this again. completely fair if you don’t wanna accept it, i just think realistically we get few decent apologies and whether you like it or not, this one seems pretty sincere. Additionally this has happened in K-pop before; companies including incredibly controversial stuff in their music videos, and it’s been just as controversial. i just hope kpop fans remain consistent and hold this over the company’s head, not the group’s.” “Eh I mean they removed it so not much else to be done here. I don’t really think it will have any negative affect on the group people will forget about it after they debut. Maybe some people will bring it up on Twitter occasionally but that doesn’t actually do anything. I think people massively overestimate how many K-pop stans actually care about controversies like this.” |
What is your take on this case? Do you think the apology was satisfactory enough?
Should K-pop be held responsible for the use of controversial history and hurting sentiments? Let us know in the comments section below.
