In an unexpected twist amid the HYBE vs Min Hee Jin row, BTS’ Jungkook stunned the K-pop fan community after acting as a source of strength to NewJeans members.
On September 14, the youngest BTS member seemingly voiced his support for the girl group via the Instagram account dedicated to his dog, Bam. “Artists are not guilty,” he captioned the post as he shared a new picture of Bam. His words alone did the trick, inciting an uncontrolled frenzy among netizens, who presumably couldn’t look away from other symbolic mentions accompanying the text. Jungkook’s Instagram caption included five heart emojis and a flexed bicep emoticon.
The coloured heart emojis lined up in an intriguingly chronological order are usually used by NewJeans members to represent themselves. And so, fans quickly jumped to an interpretive conclusion that the ‘Golden’ album-maker was “Standing Next to” the young artists who share the same banner (ADOR) as the expansive multi-label company HYBE, which initially kicked off its operations under the name BIGHIT Entertainment – home to BTS.
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Debates ensue after Jungkook’s post seemingly addressing NewJeans’ situation
While some saw the meaningful gesture as a cause for applause, others believed that Jungkook’s SNS was hacked by NewJeans’ fans (Bunnies).
A fan commented: “Jungkook has been in the industry since he was 13. If anyone’s going to support young artists it’s him.”
Several others countered the claims, saying that the BTS member rarely typed out English captions for his posts. “This could’ve possibly been hacked by bunnies. The number of emojis and the English caption seem off.”
Hours later, another Bam pic followed on the same profile with the caption: “Don’t use them,” presumably again alluding to NewJeans being sandwiched in the messy feud between the South Korean multinational entertainment company and Min Hee Jin, who had to step down from her CEO post at ADOR in the aftermath of the contentious legal tussle with HYBE.
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Jungkook’s agency confirms his stance as fans say his account was hacked
More BTS fans charged that Jungkook’s account was hacked. However, others balanced out the debate by pointing out that the pop star couldn’t have voiced his support for the girl group on Weverse because HYBE staff often monitor that fan platform and could delete the post against his will. While at it, the person added in a lengthy explanation that he particularly turned to Bam’s Instagram page to post these comments as HYBE employees won’t have direct access to it. “If he was ‘hacked’ he would have clarified by now it’s been 5 hours. Respect Jungkook, he is entitled to have his own opinion!!,” the netizen maintained.
Akin to people defending Jungkook’s move, BigHit Music eventually released an official statement addressing the case at hand. Speaking of the “alleged” SNS posts on Bam’s profile, the company said, “We confirmed (with Jungkook) that the post was made out of the idea that young artists should not be dragged into disputes and used as a shield in any case,” per South Korean media reports.