Last week, every K-pop fan was shocked about the death of Sulli, a famous singer and actress in Korea. Although she was a popular K-pop star, she had long been the target of abusive online comments. According to Sulli’s manager, Sulli had depression because of the hate comments that she got recently. That was highly possible the main reason that she chose to kill herself at age of 25.
Actually, the problem of hate comments in Korea is always a serious topic to talk about because people in Korea can post something really disrespectful anonymously. I read some hate comments about Sulli before and after her death. For example, which is she is ugly. Moreover, a lot of comments on her Instagram are insult to her body. As a matter of fact, she encouraged women to forgo wearing a bra as a means to encourage breast cancer awareness. However, those haters just left comments such as “her body is flat, no curves at all.” And “If you keep not wearing your bra, your boobs are gonna be saggy.” Even after Sulli’s death, there were still people leaving hate and aggressive comments such as you supposed to die early. And they claimed Sulli just wanted to drag attention using her death. I have never seen such hate comments before, and I was really shocked about it. What’s more, not only celebrities, but also normal people in Korea will also get bullied and hate comments online.
South Korea has one of the world's highest rates of suicide which, according to recent government figures, is among the top causes of death for those under 40. And most people that choose to suicide are women in Korea. I think one of the main reasons is that Korean society still set a lot of limitation of what women can do in Korea and what they cannot do. Such stories happened everyday online. I still remembered there was a really good book called Kim Ji-young, born 1982 in Korea. This book is about a housewife who becomes a stay-at-home mother and later suffers from depression. It depicts the everyday sexism the title character experiences since youth. However, a part of people in Korea – most are men – state that this book is for feminism. Every K-pop star who had recommended this book before got harassment and bullying from those haters. Some of those haters will never realize that their words are killing people.
After Sulli’s death, major South Korean portal Daum will temporarily close its comments sections on entertainment news. This is actually a huge step to make. Many agree that the degree of insults that occur through comments under entertainment news sections has reached a level that harms the health of the public. I hope the whole society in korea can be more open to diversity and new ideas instead of just simply closing the comment sections.
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I also did a culture post about this. The mental health issues in Korea are very concerning, not just for celebrities, but ordinary people too. One of my classmates did the final presentation on mental health issues in Korea. It was shocking for me to learn that Korea has the highest death by suicide rates among all developed countries. Something has to be done about this.
I've learned about the death of Sulli as well, and I was really sad about it. Even worse, not long after that, one of Sulli's best friends, Goo Hara committed suicide as well. Before Goo's death, she was physically and sexually abused by her ex-boyfriend, who threated her with unconsented sexual tapes because she was a K-pop idol at the time. It is so heartbroken for us to know their death and the hate towards women in this world, even though we knew its existence long before such news came out.