RESCENE's rise exposes price of media spotlight

Woni / Newsis

“Miracle” seems a fitting word to describe what RESCENE and its leader, Woni, have experienced over the past few months.

Member Minami's innocent cry of “Geoje yah-ho” in a YouTube video became a viral meme, while the group’s song “Love Attack,” released two years earlier, began climbing the charts. Almost overnight, RESCENE became one of Korea’s most talked-about K-pop groups, its music heard across the country.

For Woni and the other members, such attention was a first since their debut. Soon, however, they came to realize the dark side of fame and life in the spotlight.

Not long after the group began taking center stage, a series of rumors and allegations targeting Woni began circulating online. The first was a claim that she had used language associated with Ilbe, a controversial far-right online community, in a YouTube video.

Her passing remark in dialect — “museupno” — was called out by a producer at a regional broadcaster based in the area where the dialect is spoken. The accusation sparked a fierce online dispute over whether Woni’s remark was an authentic use of the dialect or a specific wording that signals familiarity with the online community. The controversy intensified when even politicians entered the fray.

Fortunately for Woni, a general consensus emerged that her remark reflected her use of dialect. Her birthplace, Geoje, also released a public statement saying that the expression is a genuine dialect term used in everyday speech in South Gyeongsang Province and should not be interpreted as a sly political remark. The controversy began to die down as public figures who had jumped on the suspicion changed their stance.

Immediately afterward, another allegation was made against Woni — this time, she was accused of being a bully at school. Presented with past messenger app conversations that appeared to support the claim, the controversy spread quickly across online, but was also soon extinguished when Woni’s middle school homeroom teacher personally created a social media account to deny the allegations, while also sharing pictures and handwritten letters from Woni that helped debunk the rumors that she had been a bully.

Ironically, the resulting attention to her school life revealed that the leader had in fact been a member of the student council and had led an anti-bullying campaign. The original post claiming to expose the idol’s true nature disappeared shortly afterward.

While her past was being unearthed, Woni herself remained unfazed and composed, confronting the controversy head-on with a witty and confident message to her fans: “My fans, don’t turn on me after seeing photos from when I ate whatever I wanted!” Her attitude won her even more support.

In the end, both controversies turned out to be unfounded. Repeated attempts to attack and tarnish celebrities with baseless rumors was not exempt even to RESCENE, a group from a small agency that miraculously gained attention just two years after its debut through an underdog success story.

This repeated scrutiny is worth reflecting on, as it is not a problem unique to RESCENE. Celebrities who attract public attention are inevitably subject to scrutinizing gazes, and minor faults can be inflated into something much bigger. But raising completely baseless accusations and engaging in reckless scrutiny is another matter — and something to be wary of.

This article from the Hankook Ilbo, the sister publication of The Korea Times, is translated by a generative AI system and edited by The Korea Times.