Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
A while back, I was sent a link to an Instagram account that seemed to be peddling the personal information of K-pop idols, and I wrote about it because I didn’t know what else to do about it except try to expose it so maybe it could be shut down or something. But I didn’t think too much of it because there wasn’t any evidence it was legit, so I figured (well, I was hoping, really) that it was all some kind of bullshitting for attention.
But yesterday, Taeyeon came out and said she was getting harassed non-stop by sasaengs.
On April 14, the idol uploaded a screen capture on her Instagram of a list of calls she’d recently received. The list is full of nothing but unknown numbers, from a variety of sources. With the photo, Taeyeon simply commented, “This isn’t good for you or me.”
And that was followed by comments by Taeyeon that this was happening throughout the night and that they needed to stop.
[TRANS] Every 3 minutes… For several days, early morning, afternoon, day… If I knew they disliked me this much https://t.co/3S0NQl2VwL
— 💗 Stella 💗 (@SonexStella) April 13, 2016
Further evidence that this was happeneing was provided by sasaengs themselves, who were posting up pictures of what they were doing.
"Why are you asking me this?"
" Please don't contact me about things that have nothing to do with me." https://t.co/VBSYnIMVVV— 🏹 (@snsdhags) April 13, 2016
But it wasn’t just Taeyeon, as other idols like Tiffany were also targeted, which makes me think the sasaeng trading stuff was actually legit.
https://twitter.com/noftaeng_/status/720299096221704193
Apparently Joy was getting roped into this as well.
ประสาทน่ะเธอ… pic.twitter.com/EVVR8u33A3
— ◡̈ ᴿ (@tabbiebie) April 13, 2016
While sasaengs being involved in these activities is unfortunately not a rarity, and you do see stories about this pop up on news sites from time to time, what made this seemingly new is that it seems to be coordinated by international sasaengs this time.
And as people try to shut accounts down, even more pop up.
Please report these Instagram users @.bd_jk and @.sasaengmera. They're exchanging idols' phone #'s, including Twice. pic.twitter.com/RzSxYYXlo8
— tzm (@_tzumato) April 13, 2016
The worst part is that there’s basically nothing any of us can do to stop these people.
One can participate in the ongoing effort to shut down these social media accounts trying to share this information, but that seems to be a battle of attrition that reasonable people will always lose against unreasonable people. Worse yet, since this doesn’t appear to be based out of Korea, I’m not sure what the artists and the companies can do in terms of legal action against these people with the mess that is trying to sue/charge people across international borders.
I mean, the information is already in the hands of the worst possible type of people, so one can only hope that more don’t get roped into this and that the novelty of this wears off sooner than later.
