Recently, fans of BTS (also referred to as ARMYs), especially international fans, have been trending the hashtag “Min Hee-jin Out” following Jungkook’s update allegedly showing support for NewJeans.
The hashtag has since reached a rather significant number, eventually catching the eyes of HYBE employees.
This is shown via the employees’ update on Blind – a community for office workers that requires verification using company emails.
In particular, an employee wrote, “오늘 아미 실트에 6개월 묵은 암이 내려간드”, receiving support form fellow colleagues under HYBE.
The above statement, roughly translate to “ARMYs’ hashtag removed the cancer that I have got for the past 6 months”, included the word play “암이 내려가”, which basically turned “아미” (ARMY) to “암이” (cancer).
Basically, HYBE employees are linking BTS’s fandom name to a disease, all for a word play.
Such an action has thus drawn significant criticism from netizens,
Below are some comments from netizens:
- Wow, now they are referring to fans as cancer
- Does HYBE specifically hire bullies to work under the company because what is this?
- HYBE is the cancer of K-pop
- The very existence of the HYBE is wrong
- What the hell is going on in that company? Why are the employees there so toxic?
- Every time I see HYBE employees, I am amazed at how they are one with the company.