This is pretty long, just to forewarn you. If you’re going to proceed, maybe grab a drink and some snacks 😂
So there’s been over a year of pretty heated discourse around this subject. But international fans don’t seem to understand what actually happened, despite so much conversation going on. It keeps being repeated that he was kicked out for dating, but that is a massive oversimplification and just inaccurate.
The photos of Seunghan with his girlfriend were leaked mid/late August, and he went on to debut as originally planned just a week or two later in early September. He promoted normally, participated in a comeback, and was making good progress with public perception. He started to get cheers, fans were interacting with him, and he was being discussed normally across online communities. The situation was smoothing over nicely and everything was going as well as it could. If the dating was such an issue, things wouldn’t have calmed down this easily and quickly, and fans would have still been kicking up a fuss throughout his promotions.
Then in October there was a second leak of a group video chat between him, a couple friends, and a girl who the leaker claimed was his girlfriend. But fans were able to bury this leak quickly, because a supposed friend refuted the girlfriend claim and Koreans are relatively more sensitive to privacy issues concerning non-celebrities. Fans would have made this into a bigger issue had dating really been such a deal breaker. Instead, they defended him and quieted the situation down pretty much immediately.
The third leak, which was the critical leak that consisted of videos of Seunghan with his friends, happened in November. The response to this leak was overwhelming and incredibly negative, and much worse than the reactions to the first leak. The chaos that ensued from these videos was serious enough that it resulted in his hiatus. But despite this leak eliciting the worst response, it didn’t have anything to do with his dating life.
International fans don’t seem to realize or want to acknowledge just how badly Korean fans and netizens reacted to this last leak, and why the reactions were so severe. I’ve read a lot of comments from international fans saying that Seunghan was hated just for “acting like a typical guy his age”. Which I would say is true, but not necessarily in the way international fans mean it. The reactions to the last leak largely stem from what it means to be a “typical guy his age” in Korea nowadays.
We have been seeing a concerning global rise of misogyny and right-wing rhetoric in young men in recent times, and this has been very marked in Korea. Men in their 20s and 30s have grown increasingly and aggressively misogynistic. Nearly 70% of men in their 20s voted for the right-wing candidate in the 2022 presidential elections and this increased to nearly 75% in the 2025 elections. The odds are not good for the average young Korean man, and chances are uncomfortably high that the typical guy in this age bracket has misogynistic leanings, some veering into extremes. “Hannam” is the shortened slang of “Korean man” or “Korean male parasite/pest” that is used as a derogatory term for these men.
Women can’t even openly support gender equality without being subjected to harassment, if not outright physical violence. Just a few well known examples concerning female celebrities: Irene had photocards burned for reading a book about a woman navigating society’s sexist expectations of her. Son Na-eun got hate for using a phone case with the phrase “girls can do anything” written on it. Olympic gold medalist An San was harassed for having short hair, which Hannams see as a feminist statement. There was actually a fairly recent case of a woman being physically assaulted by a random man, all because he was incensed by her short hair.
Meanwhile, women in the same age bracket have increasingly gone left and have become more openly invested in women’s rights and active in calling out misogyny, creating an antagonistic social and political divide. Given that the Kpop fandom is predominantly young women, this subject has unsurprisingly been a heated topic of discussion amongst Korean Kpop fans. And I would say it all really came front and center in Kpop fan spaces with the tense 2022 elections, when the Hannam community helped elect Yoon Suk-yeol largely for his anti-feminist stance.
This is why the responses to the last leak were so negative; Seunghan came off like a typical 20-something year old Hannam. This is not to definitively say that he is a Hannam, obviously that isn’t just a snap judgement that can be made. But the way he talked, how he spoke to his friends, his attitude and mannerisms, and just his entire energy strongly gave off those vibes. There had already been talk about the photos from the first leak having an uncomfortable “gonna show the guys later” feel, and these videos compounded that impression. His “my/our Eunchae” comment was too reminiscent of that kind of sleezy, too familiar way men talk to/about women. Celebrities live and die by their image and reputation, and for someone whose target audience consists of women who have been very focused on these issues, this was disastrous.
Many fans of boy groups had talked about needing to take a break from stanning after the tense 2022 elections, saying that it was too upsetting to support male idols when men are making it very clear how much they hate women. So an idol reminding them of the Hannams they have to deal with in their day-to-day lives elicited a strong reaction, with little interest in giving him the benefit of the doubt and little reason to, given the statistics.
I think this made no impression on international fans because they don’t have the cultural context for it. They aren’t familiar with the political background or the societal landscape Korean women are navigating, they can’t pick up on social nuances and tells, they can’t peg a person by the attitude and vibe they give off. So they don’t see what Korean women see in those leaks, and aren’t really interested anyway. They’re far removed enough that they can just ignore it, because misogynistic Korean men don’t affect them. This is why an international fan tweeted “Korean women deserve misogyny” over this Seunghan situation and got tens of thousands of likes. So they can say that Seunghan was just being a typical guy his age, write off opposing views, and be unbothered. For Korean fans, he was acting like the type of 20-something year old guy who they have to be wary of in real life, during a period when the anger from the elections was still hot.
International Seunghan/OT7 fans are the major reason for why the backlash against him was so intense. Despite the mess, there was actually still a decent amount of support for Seunghan when he first went on hiatus, as well as many who were staying neutral. The content from the leaks were all from before the big change of plans for NCT and the next boy group, so these fans were willing to compartmentalize and overlook the leaks as an unrelated past. There was also the argument that people can’t judge his entire character just from how he came off in those leaks, and that people were being too unforgiving. But this support dwindled rapidly because of OT7 fans.
Watching Seunghan’s fans move was frustrating because it seemed like they never bothered to actually assess the situation to figure out what would be in his best interests. If they had looked at the company’s history with these types of cases, they would have realized that even with strong opposition from Korean fans, most idols continue to promote with their groups. Korean netizens joke that debuting under SM is like getting a government job with how strong the job security is. But Seunghan fans were being alarmist and working themselves up. All their consequent actions that stemmed from that fear-mongering actively stoked resentment against him and worsened the situation.
Celebrities don’t go on hiatus to actually reflect and repent for whatever hot water they’re in. They go on hiatus so that whatever scandal they’re involved in can die down. They wait for people to lose interest and be distracted by other happenings, then they resume activities once their scandal is old news. For idol members, a hiatus also means that their group can promote without the scandal hanging over them to lessen the negative impact on the group brand and other members.
Seunghan went on hiatus to wait for the scandals surrounding him to fade from public memory and for the issues to be resolved with the leaker, who was allegedly threatening to leak more material if he wasn’t removed from the group. And there was so much that happened during that time to take the attention off of him. But his fans wouldn’t let that happen. They kept harassing the members and pulling stunts, and news of that would inevitably spread among Korean netizens. And every time this happened it meant that all the drama with his leaked photos and videos would be rehashed, and of course the group name would be brought up in association. Instead of letting the group promote in peace to normalize things while his leaks get brushed under the rug, his fans kept reminding everyone of his scandals, over and over again.
This increasingly angered Korean fans because he continued to negatively impact the group, even during the period they were working to undo the damage Seunghan did. After steadily decreasing throughout the hiatus, there were two final straws that killed any remaining support for him. One was when the group went to Belgium for Music Bank, and some OT7 fan openly heckled a few of the members to their faces when they were out sightseeing. The second was when a Youtuber came forward to address how OT7 fans were sending them death threats to discourage them from interacting with group content on their channel.
This was when any and all support and neutrality dropped like a rock, and the fandom became loudly and resolutely OT6. Causing harm to the group is considered one of the worst things an idol can do. Koreans in general have very little tolerance for people causing problems for others, especially from thoughtless or selfish behavior, and this was what was happening with the other members being forced to deal with the fallout from Seunghan’s actions.
Idols know what the job entails and all the restrictions it comes with, and they still willingly enter the industry. Fans see this as an acceptance of the terms, so they expect the idols to act accordingly. They don’t actually think these idols don’t have their private social lives, but they expect them to take necessary precautions to keep it quiet. Fans see this as a built-in part of the job and as basic consideration for fellow group members.
Meanwhile, Seunghan was publicly going out on dates and smoking in the streets and letting so-called friends get it all on video, even after being officially introduced as a member of SMROOKIES. He was taking no precautions whatsoever. He wasn’t some kid too young to know better. He was already an adult in the leaks and old enough to consider the consequences of his actions, not only for himself but for the other members he would eventually debut with.
With this in addition to the Hannam impression he gave off, it was pretty much game over at this point. I would say that these issues were actually the main reasons behind the unanimous rejection from the fandom as a collective. None of this is to say that Korean fans were right to react the way they did, or that Seunghan’s withdrawal was justified. This is to give a more extensive explanation for what happened, because international fans are hung up on a single factor that Koreans fans clearly showed they were willingly to look past. Of course, there absolutely is a faction of fans that is angriest about the girlfriend and acts like dating is a crime. And these fans are usually the most delusional and unhinged, which also usually means that they’re very loud. But there were multiple factors at play in the bigger picture and Seunghan was not kicked out simply for dating. In fact, we don’t know that he was kicked out at all. By his own words he chose to leave, but international fans ignore this because it doesn’t support their narrative.
International fan behavior is also something I want to mention here, because the levels of hypocrisy, double standards, and lack of self awareness were hard to ignore. They had so much criticism of Korean fans and did so much finger-pointing when Korean fans lost it after Seunghan’s return was announced, only to turn around and mirror all the same behavior when the tables turned and he announced his departure.
They had so much to say about how Koreans fans don’t believe or trust or respect the members when they were insisting that the Weverse post that asked fans to support Seunghan was actually SM’s doing. But when Seunghan posted the letter to tell fans he decided to leave, international fans immediately ignored that to insist that he was forced out. When the members said they had good communication ongoing with the company, these fans then insisted that they were forced to say that. They just pick and choose when they pretend to respect and trust the members, depending on whether or not they like what they have to say.
And there was so much outrage over the wreaths, which is justified in itself. But international fans spent months bullying the members, sometimes directly to their faces, harassing staff members who have no say in any upper management decisions, sending death threats to influencers, and even DMing one of the heads of their production center to threaten violence against his young children. There were international fans literally threatening to harm two little girls who look like they’re in the 4~8 year old range over this. But they turn a blind eye to this deranged behavior, and then want to act morally superior over those wreaths.
Honestly, so much of the international fan outrage looked like it actually stemmed from bruised egos. This situation turned into a battle of wills, and they wanted to prove that they could bully the company too. When they couldn’t, they felt like they “lost” to Korean fans and their pride was hurt. This is why there was so much focus on the label not caring about international fans and demand that Seunghan be reinstated to appease them, despite the fact that Seunghan himself said that he chose to withdraw.
This just shows a lack of regard for the person they were claiming to fight on behalf of. They saw what he went through and the vitriol against him. There was even a clip going around of a guy showing distressed body language, who the poster said was Seunghan after seeing the wreaths. But instead of considering the possibility that he decided to leave the group for his own mental and emotional well-being, international fans were dead set on forcing him back in because they were prioritizing their wants over his.
Even when they announced his solo, too many of these so-called fans were mad, saying “nobody asked for this” and flooding his tags with OT7 nonsense. Apparently it didn’t matter that maybe he asked for it? They didn’t even pretend to be happy that he was getting the opportunity to continue his career, they were too busy being angry that things weren’t going their way. And it’s clear that this debacle has made many international fans resentful and spiteful of the group, despite the fact that the members are essentially victims.
Of course there were normal and reasonable international fans, just as there were normal and reasonable Korean fans. None of my comments are meant to encompass every single fan. But international fans acting like they are morally superior makes me roll my eyes. International fans have different buttons to be pushed, but once they are pushed they’re just as crazy as anyone else. Everyone is bonkers here.
The end.
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