Twenty years ago, Korea’s entertainment industry was rocked by the Celebrity X-Files scandal. A marketing company was retained to create a report on 99 models, idols and celebrities after interviewing industry insiders and reporters. The data complied included work history, private information, dating history, rumors on personality, set behavior, reputation, etc. It also opined speculation about an artist’s competency, appearance and long term prospects. When the reported was leaked to the public, there was outrage since the report was being used to determine who advertising agencies would hire for endorsements or studios to cast talent in projects. A few actors had to publicly deny that they were set divas, but instead the public started to believe the rumors to be true. It was a PR disaster for the firms involved.

HYBE is a major entertainment agency. It has a series of litigation and accusations stemming from its ADOR litigation and artist New Jeans complaints about their treatment by the parent company. The Korean general assembly’s audit committee obtained an internal company report that contained harsh comments about their own artists, but also corporate espionage and warfare to attack their competitors. HYBE’s CEO has apologized for the report, but it is another major hit to the public company’s business operations.I guess some businesses never learn. It really bolsters the recent trend for idols and young artists to lawyer-up early in their careers to protect themselves from abusive, toxic work environments that has been the norm in the Korean music industry.

Happy Friday, Beanies! And Happy Birthday to me^^

After overpacked with singing stages October Yuning slowed down big time to focus on other things, so this week we got only 1 performance from him - Tmall Double 11 Crazy Hi6 Night, where him and Da Zhangwei bopped through latter's old hit “Flowers”. Super silly and cheerful track, there isn't much of melody or actual singing, but they had the time of their life jumping around and even got some idols involved lol – these two geges are so annoying! *affectionate* Sadly, I couldn't find it in any decent quality, so forgive the microwave visuals.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BPHt-iO34c

Annoying dorks vibes is pretty much how their shared stages always go – when they're not dusting off old naughty rock bangers, ofc. Case in point - “Shine share”, another DZW's song they did on this Spring Gala. If I'm being completely honest, watching the vlog of LYN struggling to learn a dance routine for it was more engaging than stage itself, but they had a lot of fun once again AND it was Yuning's very first CCTV Spring Gala, he was so damn excited for such honor! Hope he'll do plenty in the future and maybe even with his own track someday, that would be great.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BJYnepYtNQ

Another time they had this “brilliant” idea to form a fake band with pseudonym, modulated voices, hidden faces and release a track without telling ANYONE. You can guess where it's heading, huh? Right – that single flopped spectacularly in charts, to their utter indignation. Granted, it was 3+ years ago – something tells me this trick wouldn't succeed nowadays. This surely deeply meaningful song is titled “Lying on the sofa for half a day” and I assume you don't need to wonder what it's about^^ The most shocking twist is that they even had a stage for it! With masks and, ofc, while lying on sofa. I guess TV censorship wouldn't be too pleased with bed, but sofa is safe enough, even when it's two dudes chilling on it)))
https://x.com/Bigsislilred/status/1754535742024589374/video/2

Overall, this friendship of their goes all the way back to Yuning's busking days – DZW was his very first celeb friend and big supporter at the time, appearing in livestreams (and dragging other singers there, bless him!). Here's them being semi-serious for once to perform Yuning's debut period track “Beggar” - well, 35% of it max, but that's the effort that counts! See, they can do proper singing when they want to! I'm still mentally in”Naked” era, don't mind me – half of that official upload 40K views must be from me...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYyml1sC6sA

NOTES FROM 9TAILEDFOX'S SECOND WEEK OF NOVEMBER 2024:

1. THIS WEEK IN LIFE NEWS

(a) Took a Mental Health Day this week to make it a three-day weekend thanks to the aftermath of the U.S. election results. My work email is BURSTING - so many people are stressed, depressed, and fearful of what's to come. My sister activists/advocates are reaching out for help and support for plans that we're collectively setting up to deal with the atrocities that are to come in the next 4 years.

(b) On the bright side, I completed my 3rd full Aerial Yoga flow this week, so that's something.

2. THIS WEEK IN KOREAN WOMEN'S NEWS

(a) As 4B takes the world by storm, South Korea is grappling with a backlash against feminism

Following the recent US presidential election, an unexpected phenomenon began trending on social media: young American women declaring their commitment to “4B”, a fringe South Korean feminist movement advocating the rejection of marriage, childbirth, dating and sex.

The movement has sparked intense global interest, with millions of views on TikTok and viral X posts heralding it as a women’s rights revolution.

Yet within South Korea itself, the picture is more complex and in some places the feminist movement is under attack.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/15/4b-south-korea-feminist-movement-donald-trump-election-backlash

(b) South Korea’s government matchmaking events slammed as ‘wasteful’ – women public servants forced to attend to boost number of attendees

To address South Korea’s declining birth rate, local governments are ramping up efforts to host matchmaking events aimed at fostering marriages and, ultimately, boosting population growth. At least 30 local governments nationwide running a total of 34 matchmaking programs this year alone.

The challenges facing these initiatives are not just about matchmaking success rates. Many local governments have faced difficulties attracting female participants, with some programs resorting to filling gender imbalances by recruiting female public servants.

https://theindependent.sg/south-koreas-government-matchmaking-events-slammed-as-wasteful-women-public-servants-forced-to-attend-to-boost-number-of-attendees/

I am intensely staring at a person who is very noisy with sandwitch wrappers. let´s see what happens

it is exceptionally warm here and I feel very off I am not comfortable. I feel like a plant growing in the wrong soil like this.

went to London, met other Tim Burton fans, visited Tim Burton exhibition at the design museum, it was a fabulous and heartwarming meetup. We just click so well, it is crazy how we havens seen so long but we instantly vibe with each other. it has been 23 years since we first talked on Tim Burton Collective forum. it no longer exists but waybackmachine has screenshots.

gawd im so annoyed. I have generally been very annoyed the past week. I don´t know if it is lack of vitamin D or my age.

a patron asked me to remove a dead cat in a plastic bag from her phone. but it was just her lock screen picture of a cute red cat curled up sleeping on a pillow

ok time to go and be annoyed at home now.