Okay, I haven’t seen any blog posts about this so I’m going to make one, expressing my personal opinion on this issue. First of all, let me get this clear. I like T-ara, I think they’re a wonderful group of talented, attractive girls and they produce great music and despite all these unverifiable rumours, I’m still going to listen to them, if not support them.

Let me start off with the rumours. We all should know that despite what we see on broadcasts and variety shows, no one will ever know what really went down unless you were a T-ara member which I highly, highly doubt. The reaction to the bullying rumours was explosive with all (okay not all but most) their fan-sites going down, endorsements being dropped and a large online community of haters forming. We don’t even know whether Hwayoung actually bullied or not and the way the company handled the issue was sloppy and messed up. Now let me give you an example of friendly teasing in another group. I’m a sone and I’ve loved SNSD ever since I got into kpop. They’re always teasing each other and bullying the foreign members but we think it’s because they’re close and because they’re “sisters”. However, we will never know if our much-loved idols are just forced to put on a brave, happy face. Maybe all kpop groups are falling apart or maybe they love each other to bits. Who knows? That’s my point.

Now let me the whole bullying thing into perspective for you. Hwayoung was the maknae of the group and despite me being completely and utterly Chinese; my Korean friends have informed that the “maknae” is a submissive role in the group. It’s not always butterflies and unicorns, being the maknae of the group. It does not mean you’re doted on but rather, requires a high level of respect for your elders. This encompasses cleaning up after your unnies eat, choosing a seat last, handing out coffee and water, etc. Because Hwayoung was indeed the maknae, the so-called “bullying” edits are very flimsy evidence because many other idol groups treat their maknaes the same way. Letting the youngest choose last, and the whole rice-cake stuffing thing…. I think it’s completely normal.

Also, imagine staying in an idol group where thousands of highly competitive, talented, motivated teens audition to get a position in. T-ara had seven of these girls and in general experience, girls tend to be more… well there’s no nicer way to put it…. Girls are cattier than boys-most of the time. Okay so what if they didn’t have good work dynamic? All of you, I presume have been to school or even work and met some-one you didn’t like but yet, you still had to put on a brave face and acted like you were completely on good terms with them. Kpop groups are NOT formed by life-time friends jamming out in the garage of their mother’s house. They are chosen and usually, there’s one member whose promoted above all others and honestly, usually it’s not the most talented member. It’s the prettiest member. Let me name a few of them for you (keep in mind I’m a hardcore fan of all these groups but I’m trying to be honest with myself) Yoona (Snsd), Suzy (Miss A), Hyuna (4minute)…

Now imagine if this was your dream to be an idol and a successful one too. You live together, sleep together, ride together, do shows together, advertisements together, photo-shoots together, eat together, everything together! As a human and not a robot, I can tell you that I would argue with my group members. Hell, people I see like once a week I can still get into arguments with! And especially if one member is getting all the attention, once again as a human, I would probably get jealous and so would the other members. This would cause some sense of discord within the group which is completely and utterly normal. In some way, I think Hwayoung’s gonna be better off when she goes solo or whatever. If she didn’t work well with T-ara, then well too bad for her, it’s a dog-eat-dog world. BUT I do think she’ll be happier now that she’s out of the group.

Summed up, I think that we’ll never know what really happened and reacting so strongly to such unverifiable evidence is stupid and a waste of our time. Also, I think it’s human for kpop groups to argue and I have an immense amount of respect for them for working together and putting on such a brave face for us all. I think the thing we’re mad about is that we created a “perfect” fantasy of our idols and once they’ve spoiled that, we leave them lying brutally wounded, in the mud. It’s us, we’re the root of the problem, hard-core fans that have left all common sense behind us. I hope we can learn to respect our idols as imperfect humans and not be judgemental and impulsive in our acts. I think that way, they’d be much happier and much less stressed.