i feel kind of silly writing this, but i wanted to get it off my chest somewhere people might understand.
first i want to say that i think i have a pretty healthy relationship with kpop. i’ve never been someone who genuinely believes i know idols personally and i don’t think i’ve ever had the kind of parasocial attachment people usually talk about. at the end of the day they’re strangers and i’ve always known that.
but heeseung leaving enhypen affected me way more than i wanted it to. part of it is obvious he was my bias. actually he shared that spot with jungwon for me but he was always one of my bias. when everything first happened i was shocked and like a lot of people, i initially felt uncomfortable because it genuinely looked like he had been pushed out rather than leaving on his own terms. the truth is that none of us know what happened maybe we never will. and honestly i don’t think we’re entitled to know every detail, there are things that happen behind closed doors that fans simply aren’t meant to have access to and that’s okay.
what’s been harder for me isn’t even his departure itself, it’s what happened to the fandom afterward.
i never really liked engenes in general before all of this but it feels like everyone split into opposing sides overnight. people are constantly fighting constantly trying to prove they know the truth and constantly analyzing every word, every interaction, i have friends who like kpop too and suddenly i found myself surrounded by people speaking negatively about someone who had been my bias for years.
and it’s not even that people disagree with me, disagreement is normal, what bothers me is the hostility. every conversation feels aggressive now every statement gets turned into evidence every member’s words get dissected and interpreted in the worst possible way and honestly i’m exhausted. i know this might sound dramatic, but one thing that’s been difficult for me is realizing how little we actually know. i always understood that logically, but emotionally i still consumed content from a group that in my mind genuinely cared about each other. now there’s this possibility that things weren’t what they seemed and while i know that’s normal, it’s still unsettling, not because i think anyone lied to me but because it forces you to confront the reality that you really don’t know these people at all and somehow that realization hit me harder than i expected.
these days i find myself opening twitter and immediately wondering what the next discourse will be. what new rumor will appear what new comment section will make me feel worse and i don’t feel like i belong anywhere anymore. it feels like half the fandom hates him, the other half hates enhypen, and very few people are willing to sit with the fact that we simply don’t know enough to make the kinds of conclusions everyone is making.
i don’t want him back in the group and i don’t want to boycott anyone i don’t think i’m on a side i’m just sad. sad that something that used to be a hobby now feels stressful sad that listening to music sometimes hurts when it used to make me happy. sad that a community i felt comfortable in suddenly feels unwelcoming.
the thing that damaged my relationship with kpop wasn’t heeseung leaving but it was watching the people around me turn something we all loved into a battlefield.
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