On October 24th, Kim Tae-ho, CEO of Belift Lab and Chief Communications Officer (CCO) of HYBE, appeared as a witness at the comprehensive audit of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and its affiliated public institutions, conducted by the Culture, Sports and Tourism Committee at the National Assembly in Yeouido, Seoul. During this audit, issues such as HYBE’s pushing album sales and allegations of ILLIT’s plagiarism of NewJeans were brought to the forefront.
Democratic Party Representative Min Hyung-bae disclosed a document after obtaining HYBE’s “Weekly Music Industry Report.” In response, CEO Kim explained, “As a company operating in the K-pop industry, we carefully monitor weekly public opinion about HYBE artists and K-pop in general,” adding that “this document is one of those reports.”
The revealed document, titled as an industry trend review, contained appearance-evaluating comments such as “debuting members all at once at an age when they’re bound to look unattractive, and none of them having idol-worthy features,” “showing notable tendencies related to appearance and sex appeal,” “surprisingly, none of them are pretty,” “considering how everyone was shocked by XX’s appearance at debut, it makes me wonder if SM’s aesthetic sense has changed,” and “other members are surprisingly unattractive.”
However, CEO Kim clarified, “I don’t specifically remember the contents of that document,” and explained that “we create many such monitoring materials.” When confronted about these expressions referring to minor groups, Kim Tae-ho defended, “This is not HYBE’s opinion or official assessment. We understand these are compilations of online comments gathered for monitoring purposes.”
Representative Min Hyung-bae repeatedly emphasized that these were contents from an official report. Culture Minister Yoo In-chon also commented, “The expressions seem excessive and inappropriate.”
Source: Naver
