Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
If you haven’t been following along with who the targets of ire from Korean netizens typically are, I wouldn’t blame you, but one that has minimal reasoning behind it is Red Velvet‘s Yeri. From dastardly acts like having friends to changing her style as she gets older to … uh, existing, there always seems to be something to nitpick for people.
Anyway, the point of this post is Yeri was featured in the July 2023 issue of Cosmopolitan Korea, and she effectively said she’s learned to tune those people out and live for herself.
Yeri then elaborated on how the public has a lot of preconceptions about her, saying, “This is a career where if your eyebrow shape changes a bit, you hear people wonder why you did angled eyebrows when they think straight eyebrows suit you better. In the past, this bothered me. I didn’t know myself and had no backbone. When I heard things like that, I wondered, ‘Should I only do straight eyebrows?’ but that’s living for others, not living a life for myself. I didn’t know very well because I debuted at a young age, but now that I’m older, I’ve come to think about living a life for myself. While doing things I want to do. Now, I no longer pay attention to thoughtless criticism from people I don’t know.”
Nice.
She explained that she experienced this shift in mindset at age 20 and elaborated, “This was the hardest time in my life. I didn’t know what kind of person I was or what kind of things I liked. While going to counselling and reflecting on myself a lot, I learned what I liked and disliked, and how to calm my mind. That period actually helped me grow more. But even then, I experience slumps periodically. My personal solution is doing something new. Even a little hobby is good. You have to protect yourself like that.”
In Yeri’s Instagram post wrapping up 2022, she wrote about wanting to “live clearer and brighter.” On what she meant by this, Yeri shared, “I want to have a clear and bright mind and heart. When working, what I think is most important is ‘I must catch myself.’ If I don’t, I will easily fall into a depression. Some people enjoy that sadness, and even fall deeper into that depression by listening to sad music. I tried that too. But I was scared. I don’t want to be like that. I think it’s really cool when I see people living clearly and brightly.”
Not everybody has to like you, but if you aren’t doing anything to hurt others, ignoring the noise from the dipshits and carrying on with living your best life is the ideal option.
She also subtly brings up a great point about debuting young in the industry and under the spotlight when you’re more impressionable, and basically mentioning the impact that has on molding people. Wasn’t any detail by her necessarily, but it’s a reminder that it’s likely the point all along of these companies with young kids/teens. Glad she seems to have found herself at least.
