beautifulpersonpeach
(K/J) + M
A fun place to watch the fandom implode. I've also accepted there will be a lot of Jimin here.
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Do you think it’s toxic to be really annoyed MHJ showed up to her press conference about the corporate molotov lobbed at her dressed like a 12yr old? (That bothered me so much! She allegedly used a shaman to help with hiring, but she can’t get a PR rep to tell her not to wear a ball cap when trying to convince people she’s telling the truth?)
On a more serious note, is it normal for these CEOs/Creative Directors to be so close to the Idol/Trainee’s family? I thought it was odd she kept disparaging top C-suite execs from not contacting the parents directly. I think I would find it more weird to hear from them.
Though it seems pretty clear she either doesn’t understand the role of Public Relations or doesn’t believe in it. - Which brings me to one last quick question. We have heard that HYBE operates as a central hub for the subsidiaries, sharing HR & IT etc., do you think they also share a PR department? I would hope not, that would get messy with all the groups and their idols.
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Lmao!
Hi @stardust-wanderlust :)
Yeah… what I’ve been getting from the responses I’m seeing to her outfit (no it’s not toxic and you’re certainly not alone), is that a lot of people really don’t know who Min Heejin is. Or at least, don’t follow her as closely as I assumed given how notorious she is in k-pop spaces.
Min Heejin has accepted awards before in a hoodie and baseball hat. Like, I’m not exaggerating when I say everything about her is fairly unlikeable to Korean sensibilities, and frankly that of most other people who care about appearances (which is reasonable).
Granted, she’s had a rough week, she mentioned she hasn’t slept in 3 days, but that outfit is typical for her in both formal and informal situations. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was offered more ‘professional’ clothes for the press conference and she turned it down in favour of the green jumper and hat she wore.
On your other question, it’s not common… exactly. JYP is fairly close to the parents of a few Twice members, and Jakob apparently is to Jurin’s parents, but I’m not sure it’s exactly comparable to Min Heejin’s apparent relationship with the NewJeans members and their folks.
The scenarios also aren’t similar. Bang PD essentially abandoned the NewJeans project and left it to their liaison department to tell the girls and parents they were free to leave HYBE. Min Heejin felt hurt about how everything went down, bargained to get her own label for the girls, and tried to convince the parents and girls to stay with her in ADOR. I’m sure the initial selling point was that they’d be partly managed by the guy who founded BTS, but when that didn’t work out, she had to make the hard sell for them to stay with her instead, and that took building trust.
Another point I keep saying is that she’s a creative described by everyone who works with her as ‘eccentric’, not a trained executive. Keeping distance and delegating that kind of hand-holding is probably the prudent and responsible thing to do. But that’s not how she’s ever really done things.
Min Heejin micromanages every single aspect. Including parent relations. It’s not exactly weird, and not even really unusual, but most people wouldn’t do it.
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You've said you work in the corporate world, so in your experience is this a two-weeks kind of thing, and then we'll have some idea of the resolution, or is this a multiple-months kind of thing? Obviously I know the ramifications will be far-reaching so this is specifically regarding the potential management shake-up
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Hard to say.
If Min Heejin refuses to honor the shareholder meeting HYBE has called for on the 30th, HYBE will have to issue their own call which requires a notice of 30 days I believe. But they can always file an emergency injunction for an extraordinary general meeting, which will allow them to hold it with less than a week notice.
It’s not in anybody’s best interest for this to drag out, so I see the parties settling rather than going through a drawn out trial. So, perhaps she’ll accept a plea deal and go to prison, house arrest, disappear, accept a demotion - the possibilities are endless. But in that case, this could be done and dusted by the middle of May 2024. In time for NewJeans’ singles comeback.
But Min Heejin is a bit crazy. Whoever orchestrated this has practically destroyed her and I think the only thing keeping her from going completely ape shit, is NewJeans. If she chooses to go nuclear, then yeah we’re looking at months of… alladat.
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I'm feeling that rpwp is going to go more in a sexy nukim direction! I read somewhere that he was working with balming tiger a lot, but then there's also the Pharrell collab to look out for (which I think was meant to be one song but was hinted at possibly being more?)
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Oh I know!
Sexy Nukim is one of his best collab projects so I hope he leans more in that direction.
You’ve basically said what I think. The Pharrell joint was rumored to be with Joon and Jungkook, and based on a swap deal, meaning Pharrell featured on a BTS track and BTS featured on his. Not sure how true this is but yeah I’m looking forward to it.
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Do you think min heejin's relationship with newjeans is creepy? I'm not really a fan so I only see from the outside, but certainly the going narrative gives weird vibes
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Yeah I can see how many people find it creepy. But personally, I don’t. For me I think it’s one of several cultural differences where gender matters that gets lost in translation. It would probably take a whole post to explain lol, but as a short-cut, observe how Koreans react to those comments, and compare it to foreigners. There’s a reason it’s this latest shitfest, and not her ‘pedo’ controversy, that caught on with most Korean people.
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Do you think they'll stay the course with illit's concept as it is or try to accelerate some type of evolution? Unfortunately for the girls I think they'll be stuck with the 'newjeans copy' label for a long time if not for the full length of their careers, especially if newjeans has trouble recovering from this
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I don’t know.
I’m curious to see what they do as well. Now that it’s all out in the open, I struggle to see how they’d continue producing something that at least is very identical to NewJeans.
I feel that NewJeans next comeback which is themed around “luck” (ironic, I know) and four-leaved clovers, teased by ADOR since last year, already clashes with Illit’s debut songs and concepts, which might’ve been why tensions got so high recently.
But the group just debuted so we’ll just have to wait and see.
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I wish I had an intelligent question to ask at this point! It’s all gone so chaotic. And I’m sad that this involves so many girl groups and that people at Hybe couldn’t just picture a scenario where all of them could thrive. Do you think things are this toxic with the boy groups at Hybe too and they’re just not openly criticizing each other? Or are we as a society still really bad at embracing healthy competition between women?
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All the boy groups at HYBE are managed by men. All the drama around HYBE’s girl groups is caused by the mess of how Bang PD set up HYBE’s first girl group (NewJeans) with HYBE’s only female executive.
Bang PD clashed with her and brought in Park Jiwon who took over and debuted Le Sserafim, while using MHJ’s creative reputation and silence to boost the group, and clashed with her again by dismissing her concerns and using her ideas to debut ILLIT. (This example will step on some toes lol but) ILLIT’s debut was similar to if JYP owned HYBE and Bang PD had a sublabel there instead, when Bang PD wanted to debut BTS in HYBE JYP insulted Bang PD that BTS would never be successful with his approach, but when BTS was successful, then JYP created Stray Kids within the same label, while dismissing Bang PD in corporate meetings even as BTS became more successful.
Bang PD and Jiwon’s approach with MHJ was peculiarly chauvinistic and demeaning, rather than a typical corporate shake-up.
None of the boy groups have had such dramatic management overhauls. So yeah, I think they’re fine.
Hate to say it but if any of the men involved had done things properly, there’d be no bad blood.
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Thoughts on everyone's new favorite theory that bangpd had a thing for mhj?
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Lmao!
I think he’s just a bit of a narcissist who was love-bombing or otherwise laying it on thick to get something he wanted.
I’m just struggling to picture the mechanics given his height, width and thickness, relative to the outsized mass of her projected self-respect.
Or you know… yeah, she fucked him. Maybe.
I’m leaning more to the theory that Bang PD had a crush on her but the guy she was actually shagging was Park Jiwon.
And that’s only if she was fucking either of them. A huge part of me thinks the real kicker is that she didn’t put out for either man… and at some point they felt her utility was up.
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How are you feeling about rpwp??? The cover art was interesting to me. Idk what to expect!
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The music genre is described as “alternative” so I’m curious!
The cover art was also really cool but also, really ‘Joon’. He’s been teasing this project since January so he’s probably over excited for us to hear it.
I’ve missed him though. That press release came out just in time.
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I feel like a side effect of all of this mentioning of other groups, regardless of the context, nwjs is going to end up with a reputation for being isolated and kind of above-it-all(?), like in a you-can't-sit-with-us kind of way. Especially bc min heejin keeps mentioning them too. Is there a way for them to course-correct by interacting with other groups more or do you think this separateness is just part of their brand?
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It’s a shame but you’re right. A lot of people blame MHJ for it and I agree because it’s obviously her words. But anybody who has been watching her isn’t surprised she just came out and said it lol. It’s one reason I keep emphasizing her tone of communication in general, as well as ADOR’s. It’s unfiltered and unrefined. For her she’s just saying it as it is because it’s obvious to her that everyone sees it.
But of course, that’s nonsense.
It’s one reason I place bigger blame on Bang PD, because he’d know how she’d respond if she was blindsided and had no time to properly collect herself. Until the HYBE leaks on Monday she wasn’t blabbering about groups copying NewJeans or any of these grievances, she tried to resolve it in writing only within the higher ups at HYBE. They instead went nuclear and now those girls could likely be treated as pariahs both within HYBE and outside it.
It’s a very predictable outcome for anyone familiar with the personalities at the center of this, which is why the bulk of the blame rests firmly with the man that bears the most responsibility: Bang Sihyuk.
He’s a bitch. In my opinion.
But that’s been my view of him for years now.
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Maybe too simple of a question, but how are you feeling as a fan of newjeans? Are you optimistic at all or are you feeling pretty bleak? I guess as a fellow fan I'm wondering what is most realistic to prepare for. I'm assuming that the most dramatic options - like leaving hybe and being sued into the grave or disbandment - are unlikely, hopefully
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I’m mostly pissed off. Because like I’ve said, much of the actions HYBE took were unnecessary. But no point whining over spilled milk.
I’m not very attached to the girls but if you are, I’d suggest limiting how often you’re online, and spending time with them on phoning to show support to the girls directly. Their MV comes out today but there’s no indication HYBE intends to follow through with all Min Heejin’s plans for NewJeans for the rest of 2024. So…
I’m waiting to see what happens on the 30th. There’s no real precedent for what’s happening here, it’s not even really comparable to Fifty Fifty because it’s HYBE, not MHJ, that escalated this issue as a preemptive attack. MHJ doesn’t seem like she wants to leave the girls so she might accept a demotion (if she’s not kicked out and jailed outright) to stay with NJ, and NJ is unlikely to leave HYBE even if they want to otherwise their career is very much done - but it’s really a toss up I’m afraid.
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If you had to place bets on what will happen with this hybe/ador fiasco, how do you think it will resolve?
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Oh it’s a shit fest. I generally like wagering on k-pop but I wouldn’t touch this mess at all. Just as a matter of principle. The mudslinging has been quite nasty and worse than what we saw during the HYBE-Kakao-SM nonsense, and I suspect the reason is partly because the target is a woman.
The gloves were very much off from the start and there was no room for redemption.
Still, if you are thinking to place bets, HYBE will come out on top IMO. Everyone knows it. They’ve showed their ass too much to not fully commit to a win. They’ll kick her out and put one of their own suits in the interim. I have no real idea about what will happen to NewJeans. They are releasing an MV today, but HYBE might delay their album comeback that’s slated for H2/24.
I’m not someone who prays, but if you like NewJeans, I’d say you should be praying for them.
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Probably everyone's question, but what did you think of the press conference? Maybe I'm naive about MHJ's sincerity, but I felt pretty bad for her - she seems to have carelessly thrown herself to the lions, while also being weirdly shocked that business is business and hybe has multiple priorities other than newjeans. I'm also genuinely concerned for her well-being because of the number of times she mentioned people, including newjeans, seemingly being concerned that she'll make a rash decision to end her life (unless that was a mistranslation). That also seems quite traumatic for newjeans
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Neutral question: is this a quick ask?
Lol anyway, I’ve gotten a few asks about it but not answered because, well, I feel everything I’ve said till now covers it.
Her press conference went almost exactly how I expected it to go - like I’ve said, she’s not PR-trained or pretentiously tactful the way business people are, she doesn’t have the tone and mannerisms of a woman who defers to men in Korea, and to put things lightly she’s a bit eccentric, but she has a very high opinion of herself and her work, and has been essentially beaten and dragged down to the market square naked, by HYBE. Ofc her press conference would show her crying, cussing, wrestling the mic from her lawyer etc lol.
Although now I have more background that informs why this isn’t just business. Contrary to perhaps popular opinion.
The attack on Min Heejin is very personal.
I think that’s beyond clear to a lot of people familiar with this case, and that’s why the effect on NewJeans and ADOR is frankly concerning. Bang Sihyuk and Park Jiwon handled this in exactly the best way if the point was to destroy Min Heejin, and exactly the worst way if the point was to be professional and protect NewJeans.
Which, ironically, supports the basis of the issues MHJ had with HYBE in the first place.
Nasty work.
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For the anon who asked about endgame scenarios, I understand you’re super excited but your ask is way too long. I started reading it 11 minutes ago and I’m still not finished. Didn’t even know Tumblr allowed that character size in ask boxes lol.
I’m not saying this to pick on you. You have some interesting questions but it’s just swallowed up in meandering theories and minute details every other sentence, and before long I’ve forgotten what you original point was at the start of the paragraph.
How about we try this: you condense it into the shortest possible form as a quick ask - does this work? We can do quick asks for the next hour or so.
I’ll start. To answer your first question about the most batshit crazy endgame theory I have for Min Heejin, it’s this:
The non-compete clause HYBE placed on Lee Sooman expires in 2025. If Min Heejin has a good lawyer and has to do jail time, her sentence might likely only be for 16 months tops. Her revenge arc will be partnering with Lee Sooman to launch her own label where she’ll own majority shares or at least par with LSM, to manage her own groups. If HYBE is still keeping NewJeans running by 2028 when they’ll have to renew their contracts, we might see them choose to leave HYBE to work with her then.
Or maybe one of the BTS members establishes their label before then, which leaves us with another set of crazy endgame scenarios.
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#Daebak…
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I was a bit surprised to see that mhj specifically said that newjeans had approved the statement saying that belift had copied newjeans' concept with illit. I'm not the type of person that thinks that you're a bitch for asserting position or your value, so this isn't where I'm coming from, but, especially in an industry where it's so rare to see groups say anything negative about other groups, particular junior groups I would think, it was quite the strong, swift position to take. Do you foresee newjeans continuing to engage publicly with this scandal, and how would you think taking an active part in this would affect their brand?
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Ask 2:
bp in your opinion is there any chance that in this Hybe/MHJ situation there's a buried kind of double-blind motivation?
Like the kind i've seen attributed to E|on Musk, where he creates a big scandal to provide cover when he's doing something much shadier (and then maybe it gets out of hand, like the TwiX thing lol)
You've said you're pretty familar with the corporate side machinations - could Hybe be purposefully airing all this, sure to stick it to MHJ, but also to temporarily drive down stock prices for idk easy shares-repurchasing? Or even allowing a mess they can blame for having to report lower numbers to shareholders for whatever reason: boycott actually impacting profit, hedging against lower-than-predicted bts returning numbers, etc.
Or is this too convoluted of conspiracy thinking and BPD/HYBE/MHJ, and by extension from your recent posts basically 'corporate kpop' entire, are really just that transparent and petty?
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Ask 3:
Might be a stupid question because I honestly don't have any clue about corporate businesses and how they work. But in the light of this scandal and how BigHit/Hybe developed over the last years: would you say this is what you get when you become too greedy instead of concentrating on what you were good at?
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Ask 4:
in your opinion, is mhj truly an indispensable part of newjeans creative output? Also, do you see any way that hybe would let newjeans leave with its name and discography if they try to break their contract to go with mhj like some people are saying?
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Ask 5:
I’m seeing a lot of discussion about whether newjeans will try to leave with mhj and break their contract with hybe, but I don’t see this as a realistic scenario, and I especially don’t see hybe letting them leave with their name and discography. You mentioned that there are a limited set of options now, but is this even one of them? In my mind, newjeans as a concept either stays at hybe, with or without mhj in whatever capacity, or can’t really exist legally
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Ask 6:
Also this has given everyone (kpop stans, ARMYs, journalists) the go ahead to drag Newjeans in order to "defend" Illit, BTS, Riize, etc by throwing (again) dozens of plagiarism accusations and trying to discredit everything the group has done and achieved. And it was started by Hybe themselves... I have no words, bpp
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I think these six asks capture most of the talking points in the asks I've received since yesterday, so I'll use these to answer your questions.
The sheer amount of spin happening in the media right now is ridiculous lmaoo. With the mention of BTS in the "escape files", ARMYs have predictably moved from shady bystanders to actively joining in the negative spin, spreading rumor articles and many are now attacking the girls themselves. But honestly, this is nothing less than what I expected. NewJeans is the most popular group in Korea, the 2nd most valuable IP only behind BTS, and Min Heejin is the brains behind the operation - an achievement she's insisted on taking full credit for since inception. Leaving the only option for whoever is masterminding this from within and outside HYBE, to destroy her reputation as an executive completely to diminish her value to outside investors, and weaken the fan support for NewJeans given how closely they are already associated with MHJ. And that's what is happening. It impacts every group at HYBE and nearly obliterates the viability of NewJeans.
For HYBE, it's a tolerable loss given there's only one year left before BTS returns and closes that earnings gap in mere months. Whoever took this action sees it simply as resulting in a numerical loss that can be soon corrected, but personally, I disagree, for the same reasons I objected to HYBE's acquisition of SM even though on paper it made numerical sense.
Anon in ask 1: I can understand your surprise but sad as it is to say, I expected that response from MHJ. She's a creative, not a PR exec or an MBA-credentialled suit. I'm not sure how familiar you are with ADOR's press releases in general, but anybody who reads them can tell there's almost no corporate doublespeak, no vague allusions, nothing that shows it's written by a typical media-trained PR person. Which is why most people, including you, take that statement to mean NewJeans agrees with MHJ that Illit copied them (it's a possibility), when in reality the language shows it could refer to them agreeing with MHJ's assertion that HYBE hasn't duly responded to her requests about inter-label discrimination, or other related matters. That's the kind of detail a trained PR person would be sure to include, to minimize the fallout to NJ, but just as with the press release on Cookie, the one on Minji's rival sasaeng, the response to Hyein's veneer rumours, and practically every press release ADOR has put out, the language is unsophisticated.
"Do you foresee newjeans continuing to engage publicly with this scandal, and how would you think taking an active part in this would affect their brand?"
NewJeans has so far not engaged publicly with this scandal. MHJ has mentioned them to signal any separation between them will likely be contested. It's leverage. If they do take an active part in this scandal, it will completely destroy their brand. Like, it's already on life support. Anything more and we might as well say their last rites.
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Anon in ask 2: I'd say that's not a conspiracy exactly but it is kinda pushing it. Anytime there's a stock dip it's a buying opportunity, and HYBE is always guaranteed to be a Buy so long as BTS is slated to return within 12 months of the stock event. But we simply don't have any clear indications that's the case now given the timing doesn't quite line up. If anything, that is more like the 4th order side-effect.
And yeah, people on the corporate side, not just in k-pop, are many times just that petty. But it's also true this case has been sensationalized in particular ways to appeal to k-pop stans specifically.
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Anons in ask 4 & 5: The options available are:
MHJ leaves HYBE and NewJeans stays in HYBE
MHJ leaves HYBE and NewJeans leaves with her
MHJ stays in HYBE but is demoted from her exec role and NewJeans stays in HYBE
MHJ stays in HYBE and keeps her exec role and NewJeans stays in HYBE
None of these options are good, but the worst of these evils is option 2. If the members attempt to leave with her, there's no pretty way to say this, but they'll be done. I'm not even going to waste time writing all the ways HYBE and k-pop stans as a whole will rip them to shreds, all I'll say is that whoever is attached to these girls should consider taking a 6 months sabbatical away from k-pop entirely once that news breaks. The law is not on their side and public opinion, especially after all the 'leaks' and spin from HYBE in the last 72 hours, certainly isn't on their side either. It would be career suicide.
"in your opinion, is mhj truly an indispensable part of newjeans creative output?"
Personally, I think yes. Every label at HYBE had similar initial monetary investment as NewJeans and ADOR had, and other groups from the Big 3 have had even bigger investments and resources at their disposal. There isn't a single group, both within HYBE and outside HYBE, that has yielded the same results as NewJeans in the same period of time. Illit comes close, but even with their achievements they haven't reached the same (positive) notoriety as NewJeans did at debut. All HYBE groups have access to HYBE's youtube channel, connections and resources, and yet the achievements of BOYNEXTDOOR, LE SSERAFIM, ENHYPEN, and even ILLIT, are nowhere near comparable to that of NewJeans. And I agree with MHJ that she's the primary reason why. Having access to resources is only one part of the equation. How you allocate those resources and what you do with it is far more important, and this is where MHJ and ADOR excels relative to other sub-labels.
NewJeans without MHJ will not be nearly as threatening to everyone else in k-pop, and I suspect this is one reason there have been calls for her to be removed from managing the group since their debut.
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Anons in ask 3 & 6: Yeah there's a fair bit of greed on show here. Generally, for a lot of people in this industry, greed is good... unless the greedy person is a woman. Because the only thing more central to nasty corporate tussles like this, more than greed, is ego.
I'm not trying to play the gender card, but sometimes I do wonder why there are no articles like this about people like Jaden Jeong and Simon Jakob given the reputation those men have in corporate circles, where top officials (in this case, within HYBE) are saying they cannot possibly work with MHJ because she is "overly and excessively opinionated". I'm highlighting this article because despite the initial paragraphs of spin, that bit is the only thing consistent with MHJ's claim that this attack from HYBE started because she'd filed a whistleblowing report on toxic inter-label competition and followed up an email that said quote:
"..is this deliberate obtuseness and unapologetic behaviour consistent with HYBE's founding philosophy of rebelling against unfair practices in the entertainment industry?"
I mean... in corporate Korea, I can see how they were sick of her shit and it was only a matter of time before she got the boot.
The insidious thing about spin is that it mixes the truth with lies, making it easy for people to accept it wholly. It's entirely possible that MHJ wants more compensation, more autonomy and independence, feels that Belift and other companies borrowed her ideas without full credit, and that she was unsupported by HYBE HQ. It's entirely possible that she took actions such as monitoring fan feedback of the group(s) she suspects and filing a whistleblowing report to build a case - according to both MHJ and others at HYBE, these are complaints she's apparently had since last year, but none of those things would justify HYBE's response nor is it enough to turn people against her.
What I find particularly interesting about this case, is that everything that decisively incriminates her of the more sensational and sinister allegations, comes from the person of VP L or CEO A - a person who only joined ADOR in January 2024, shortly after which HYBE received their first tip-off that MHJ was planning to escape. It's VP L who titles documents with the equivalent of "TOP SECRET DO NOT TOUCH" on company computers... the same guy that's supposedly a double agent working in favour of MHJ and ADOR but is situated within ADOR, not HYBE, where simple logic shows he'd be most useful. Unless he's situated right where he's supposed to be.
Anyway...
HYBE has requested for a shareholder meeting on April 30th where they'll likely table the motion for MHJ to resign regardless of what's found in the audit. Far as I know, she's completed the audit questionnaire but not surrendered her laptop as HYBE has requested. Given the play is for HYBE to kick her out while continuing to manage NJ, I can see how she'd rather die than surrender her laptop and hand over her ideas (and potentially incriminating info) to HYBE on a silver platter for them to use in her wake.
Every way this shakes out is bad news for HYBE groups IMO. So long as NewJeans keeps quiet and sides with HYBE, they'll be somewhat okay. But regardless of the fallout from HYBE cannibalizing itself, all HYBE groups have no choice but to take it on the chin and bide their time until BTS comes back to capture the attention back to them.
I hope I answered all your questions. IMO there's really no point talking more about this until there's a firm conclusion.
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Hi, do you think the stuff people are saying about MHJ and source music sounds at all plausible?
https://twitter.com/pimdoongie/status/1782735141535928697?t=qDeKiHqtABBQxzBi3rQOrQ&s=19
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Goodness no. Instiz is a garbage site, like TMZ but for misinformation. But I guess the historical revisionism, finger pointing and misinfo on that thread is the predictable step for k-pop stans to take given the drama lol.
I’m on the road right now so I can’t dig out the sources but here’s the timeline as I remember it:
- Bang PD hired Min Heejin in 2019 to oversee the branding for HYBE (his new company), and to produce the first girl group out of HYBE.
- BigHit held Plus Global Auditions in 2019 for that purpose, the trainees were split between BigHit and Source Music, but soon all the female trainees moved to Source to streamline operations for both BTS and the new group.
- The plan initially was for NewJeans to debut under Source Music where Bang PD retained control, but it became clear they had creative differences. These differences were over things such as how much lore should be central to a group (note how BTS, TXT, ENHYPEN and other Bang PD groups have WEBTOONs for example), while MHJ has said on record several times that she hates how lore is used in k-pop, among other differences. ADOR - a separate label which was to be independent from Bang PD and HYBE, was created for that purpose.
- Bang PD continued his goal for a girl group that matched his preferences in Source Music. He used the remaining resources at BigHit and Source Music to achieve this, added trainees for the final lineup from Pledis (Yunjin) and Wizone (Chaewon and Sakura), while ADOR hired more outside help. According to an earlier interview by MHJ, each new label had the same amount of initial investment. The debt incurred by MHJ while at Source Music was moved to ADOR, Gfriend was operating at a loss during that time, but the launch of Le Sserafim was based on the same initial investment. And no, ADOR was not the reason Gfriend disbanded. Aside from the fact there’s no real motive, the timelines also don’t match up. That was a decision that came from the top.
- NewJeans was meant to debut before Le Sserafim, but their debut was delayed because MHJ said the girls didn’t feel ready. So they added a few more months to train. Le Sserafim had members who had been idols in the past which sped up their training time and so they debuted first, then NewJeans a few months later.
- MHJ and Bang PD have clashed on creative differences first at Source Music on the direction the new gg would take, then on the question of how successful NewJeans signature sound would be at ADOR, then on the belief that he is complicit in Belift plagiarizing her ideas to create a NewJeans copy in Illit… but none of that has had to do with the resources given to the sub-labels when they were established.
- Buddies have been looking for a scapegoat for Gfriend’s disbandment for years. Picking MHJ given everything that’s happened is expected but doesn’t line up with the facts.
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Okay so what I am getting is that MHJ is being targeted and pushed out. But what I don’t understand is why? Surely it’s not ONLY because she is pushing against the powers in Hybe? Is this all just because egos were being bruised?
I just can’t wrap my head around it all and why they would risk damaging New Jeans for all of this. But seeing how corporate executives (especially from the stupidity that’s happened over at SM) are I guess it makes sense…
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Ask 2:
But why would Hybe want MHJ gone, bpp? Or, why would the top dogs at Hybe allow this attack on her? She is clearly very good at her job, and is behind the success of Hybe's second biggest group (I put Newjeans over 17), and until now it seemed like they were ready to provide her with the funds, connections and freedom to grow Newjeans to even bigger heights. Trying to take her out seems so stupid and counterproductive for the future of Newjeans and Ador in general....
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I ramble. Sorry.
I mean, it’s still quite possible HYBE is right and Min Heejin is stupid enough to be guilty of everything they’ve accused her of.
But I want to highlight a few things I believe about MHJ and this situation. Some of them, such as the blind about the SM colleague who gifted her the ig pictures, I’ve talked about before in more detail, but here’s a summary of what I think about MHJ that’s influenced this outcome:
For Korean sensibilities, she’s an extremely unlikeable woman. Not necessarily because she could be cruel, harsh, or anything like that (though I wouldn’t be surprised if she is), but because of how male-like she is, down to how she expects (and demands) her words and contributions to be weighted. To put it mildly, she’s a freak of nature in Korea. It’s one reason I think she’s only gotten this far in her career because of how genuinely good she is at her job, and how often she insists on full credit.
But the first rule of corporate culture is that no one is indispensable, and it’s necessary to have friends in high places. The latter is easy to do if you’re a man, but near impossible if you’re a woman, especially for a woman like MHJ if I’m right about the kind of person she is.
The best thing for NewJeans and Min Heejin, would’ve been for these issues to be resolved internally. I’m sure everybody involved knows that. There is no outcome with things as they stand now, that doesn’t significantly damage NewJeans and MHJ. But the fact that the current scandal leaves only the current choices, and this is the result only because of a third factor: VP L, stands out to me. Meaning, if VP L wasn’t in the picture, chances are things wouldn’t have come to this point. Recall, VP L was apparently a fairly recent addition to ADOR.
It’s true that Min Heejin wants more independence and exclusivity for ADOR. It was the one condition for her joining HYBE when Bang PD hired her in 2019. In my view, it’s clearly a point of pride for her. However, if another sub-label shows no respect for that independence and exclusivity, I can see how many, including MHJ, would think it’s meaningless. HYBE offers immense resources, but corporate tussles over more access to those resources while insisting on independence and exclusivity can easily become heated, personal, and nasty. Especially if the person demanding it is a woman with the ego of a man.
I’m sure several allegations such as MHJ wanting to gain more share ownership, are probably things MHJ has said at various points, though the practicality of her pulling it off while NewJeans is still such a young group is next to nil - something MHJ has also admitted. So MHJ has admitted to actually wanting more independence and ownership, (something she’s accused of by HYBE), but refusing that she planned to go about it now and in the way they’ve alleged. That’s part of what makes this scandal so insidious. It’s weaponizing an obvious desire years before the target can realistically develop the ability to act on it. I’ve seen people frame HYBE’s move as a counterattack, but in reality it’s preemptive. It slows down NewJeans’ trajectory, yes, but in a multi-label system that’s been revealed to have poorly managed and toxic competition, there are likely more people interested in seeing that happen, than the reverse.
SM Entertainment has a reputation for blacklisting artists and employees who cut ties with them. I’ve talked about this in more detail before, but just as it was during the CBX lawsuit when suddenly, blinds started popping up smearing the characters of Baekhyun, Xiumin, and Chen and it caught on because some truth was mixed with truly fucked up shit (the members eventually dropped most of their demands and settled with SM), and just as during MHJ’s ig scandal where the picture gifts from her ‘friend at SM’ resulted in a smear campaign that combined some truth with a rumormill of misinformation… those are the examples I’ll list for now but understand this is very common playbook with SM in particular. That nonsense about the Pink Bloods didn’t come from nowhere. A top executive could use that phrase unironically and publicly because the company culture at SM, more than any other agency, is patently cult-like, as admitted by their own employees over literal decades. There’s a sense that nobody can really leave. When another blind from 2021 mentioned that the sense of resentment and betrayal at SM was extremely high when MHJ moved to HYBE, it only adds to my view.
Something that informs my view is that VP L *moved to ADOR* before all of this happened. If it’s assumed he acted sympathetically, that is, wanted to help MHJ achieve her goals of being independent from HYBE, then anyone would tell you that him moving to ADOR was exactly the wrong thing to do. Everything he did at ADOR, he could’ve done while at HQ - the file he created with sale scenarios, the alleged showing of financial documents to MHJ, the supposed courting of investors. In fact, it would be more useful for ADOR/MHJ to have him remain at HYBE if the point was for him to have a hand in HYBE granting them more autonomy. This is like the abcs in business. It’s why the double agent always remains in enemy camp rather than move to the home base. The only thing his move to ADOR does, is incriminate them beyond doubt. And that’s what has happened. This is the most illogical thing to me about this entire scandal.
Min Heejin is naive and careless, and probably not much of a conventionally accepted ‘good person’. In my opinion. The thing about people like this is, even if they are innocent in reality, they are perceived by most people not to be. Because naive, careless, and bad people, deserve to be punished in any case. She’s a classic scapegoat and she has no one to blame but herself for being in this situation.
I like NewJeans, and despite everything, I don’t think HYBE wants them to fail. And like you’ve all realized by now, the fallout of this scandal isn’t limited to just Min Heejin and NewJeans, it negatively affects every single group from HYBE. The company will try to maintain normalcy for their groups. I suspect things will likely continue business as usual for them, unless somebody does something truly crazy. But like most other scandals in k-pop, they’ve become ‘tainted’, something that could only happen due to a group of people within HYBE who don’t genuinely take pride in the work created by the sub-labels in HYBE.
If Bang PD had any sense, he’d root out that group. He seems to still enjoy producing too much for me to think he’s part of that group himself, but I have no longer have illusions as to his limitations as a businessman.
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