When you enter the K-pop domain, you come to realise quite early on that things aren’t just restricted to music alone. The high levels of productions and storytelling aspect also come into play while dealing with this entertainment industry. The NewJeans ETA controversy is the newest development on the calendar, and while music may just be about listening to songs for you, it’s not always the same for everyone else. It’s no news that people often push their own agendas through music and propagate a certain propaganda narrative through their supposed musical visions.
K-pop has definitely emerged as one of the most intriguing sides of the entertainment biz in the last few years, but it’s equally birthed some problematic subplots along with this boom. A lot of controversial material around this industry has popped up from time to time in the public’s eye. Despite K-pop now being pushed as a global phenomenon, there are aplenty instances of the people’s very favourite artists dealing out problematic content that have ended up either stereotyping certain cultures, or straight out disrespecting and appropriating them. As a counter, K-pop dilettantes have given into discussing such issues at length and even called out those responsible for misrepresenting a context in the name of aesthetic liberty or creative freedom.
Many artists, minor in age, are endlessly pushed up as the faces of a particular label, but no one can account for what happens when the camera’s flash goes off. Sadly enough, regardless of the location on the world’s globe, it’s always girls/women who have to bear the brunt of it all. And the same goes for girl groups and girl soloists pushing ahead to make things work. NewJeans is but another rookie girl group in the lot, led by the agency ADOR, i.e. a subsidiary under HYBE Labels.
This wouldn’t be the first time you’re hearing of the ADOR CEO controversy, but we must dig in again to shed light on the recent most happenings around the group’s name.
What was the NewJeans ETA Controversy About?
ADOR CEO Min Hee-jin has often been under fire for promoting questionable concepts for young K-pop groups. Back in 2022, NewJeans released their self-titled debut EP that brought along with it a track titled Cookie. The song has infamously gained a reputation owing to the underlying questionable lyrics running throughout its duration. The song’s name itself points down at a euphemism, just like the rest of it is ridden with sexual innuendos and connotations despite the artists singing the same being minor-aged girls.
At the time too, the agency released a long explanation to detail out the song’s meaning. However, it majorly backfired on them again because their words inherently implied that the fault lay in the listeners’ interpretation of the song, and not with their concept, which according to highlighted some other perception.
Also read: 10 Kpop Songs That Caused Controversies: War of Hormone by BTS, Cookie by NewJeans and More
Releasing on July 21, 2023, the NewJeans Get Up album has again become the target of a similar conversation. While surely, one of the previous claims related to their song ETA can now be rebuffed, the issue still hasn’t come to pass due to certain storytelling tactics employed in the Cool With You music videos, also starring Jung Ho-yeon and Tony Leung.
While it’s important to separate the artist from the person, following K-pop turns it all into a hefty ordeal, leaving you barely any room to distinguish between the two personae. The sad truth riding NewJeans’ fame is that the young girls’ identity is far from being described away from Min Heejin’s name. And netizens have already left behind their piece of mind surrounding her name, leaving us with harsh responses as the ones listed below.
The discussion around this issue started back in June, when the first teaser of the song video was released. While this particular video didn’t offer much to the viewers at the time, except the visions of a car being driven though sombre paths, its title invited major scrutiny from Spanish netizens and fans. They tied its connections to a terrorist organisation of the same name that used cars as their predominant vehicle to carry out their acts of violence. Fans started calling out the group as well the ADOR CEO for triggering their memories of the traumatic history. Long threads probing into the details were found in plenty on Twitter as well.
However, the final MV premiere today finally shut those speculations down, and proved that people may have read a bit too much into what was implied, this time for real. The ETA music video was ultimately designed around a youthful concept with a tragic undertone, but nothing associated with the aforementioned horrific claims. The video featured the members of the group tailing their friend Eva’s boyfriend Mikael, who was found to be cheating on her with another girl named Maria. Coincidentally, the same names were also linked to the history of the terrorist group in Spain.
Again, while the same names being linked to a questionable song title coming into picture does seem baffling, the video itself doesn’t foreground any such narrative that could prove those claims. The reason why many are still clinging on to this subject is because of the said CEO figure’s involvement. The various strikes against NewJeans are those that have bled through Hee-jin’s ill reputation known to the public. On multiple accounts, netizens have noticed several cinematic inspirations or interests she’s drawn from on her social media profiles, ranging from alarming Instagram posts referencing movies with paedophilic themes, to similar disturbing paraphernalia found on her studio walls.
Alleged claims of her mismanaging underage idols previously further filled netizens with fear of how the NewJeans girls would be treated under her direct supervision, and it has reeled out a long streak of red marks and strikes against her name ever since. Keeping that bit of the discussion aside, the ETA issue definitely blew up without any concrete claims to back them up, and misinformation spread like fire.
Also read: 2nd Blue Dragon Series Awards 2023 Winners: Lim Ji-yeon, Park Jihoon, Shin Ye-eun and Others
Some Tweets Posted About the ETA Concept Before the MV’s Premiere
Tweets Related to the Cool With You MV
This isn’t the first time the NewJeans members – Minji, Hanni, Danielle, Haerin, and Hyein – have been dragged down by their comeback concepts, and from the looks of it, it won’t be the last either. It’s a known fact that many K-pop labels have turned out to rescue their respective artists whenever their names have been under fire for pulling such moves. Standard official apologies have been dealt day in and out by companies, but only after being held responsible for their mistakes. And eventually, those formal words just end up lost in the heaps of other previously released apology letters, while fans inevitably await the rise of yet another blunder along the same lines.
Simultaneously, it’s also safe to say that regardless of how the actions of these artists may seem voluntary on camera, not all of them are at liberty to enact their agency behind the curtains. They’re held up as puppets in the hands of conglomerates that only view them as disposable shiny objects on their mantle piece, ones that will be replaced once their “prime” is out of time. It’s hard to turn a blind eye to this harsh reality, but that’s just the tip of the ice berg.
What do you think of this repeated focus on NewJeans in a bad light? Do you view this issue from a different perspective, or do you agree with how many other Twitter users have shunned the promotions? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.