My thoughts on the April situation (long post)

whilst you may be right my friend does the "truth" even matter now...

everything is circumstantial and the girls/the company are fighting it out in the court of public opinion

it is irrelevant what the real truth is only how the situation is perceived amongst the public...

it's very complicated and I guess we can't do anything but sit back and see what happens

Quote from Hopkinz

I know. People don't want the truth, they just want somebody to hate while ironically claiming the moral highground

and ultimately at the end of the day...we as the public/fans/bystanders will probably never know the real truth...

it's distorted by everybody...including the members the company the media...each other...

like even if they go to court over this...all it'll show is what the evidence shows not what the "real truth" is...since who knows how much evidence is forged/lost/forgotten etc etc

Don't the members' statements come from different persons and may also refer to different time periods? So the fact they're not monolithic doesn't necessarily say anything about whether they're deceitful or not.

For sure they didn't get along and she was bullied. More than that looks like not only the members hated her, but the entire company. At the beginning of the scandal, there was a boy from a group that disbanded and he also attacked her. More probably the company wanted to hurt her, since they didn't terminate her contract to let her be free, nor gave her some opportunities to make a living. Since they don't terminate her contract, nor she ended it, looks like they asked for a claim that is super expensive and none of them could pay it. All of these show me that even the staff supported the behavior of the girls, and most probably they knew about this. So yeah, the company should be blamed too, because they should have mediated the conflict from the beginning.

It's true that they were young and wanted to achieve their dream, and maybe they acted badly towards her, but even after all these years, they didn't change. As you said, if they apologized and discussed in private, and if the company terminated her contract and let her go, nothing of these would have happened. But as someone who was bullied for so many years, is hard to see that the ones who hurted you can't even say "sorry". In every bullying case, I said that it would be enough if the one who bullied would apologize and maybe paid for some therapy, I'm against kicking someone out of a group for doing something wrong in the past, but not even saying "sorry" and more than that, to pose as a victim? It's not okay.

Most probably, both the company and the members were sure that she will never talk since she doesn't have any power or money and just laughed at her. But looks like it's no longer the case. They themselves destroy their own careers by lying instead of assuming their wrongdoings.

Quote from Hopkinz

Fair point, but the fact that netizens keep refuting their facts shows that their narratives are probably not the most trustworthy.

I've seen netizens refute things that actually made sense in the past so I don't know. I don't care enough about April to read thoroughly what everyone said here and there. What I know for sure is that an accused someone is not necessarily oneself's best advocate. That's why lawyers exist. People, even when innocent, can do a piss poor job at defending themselves.

All I can say is DSP is obviously at fault in this story: the members were their signees and were children so it's their double responsibility to make sure things go as well as possible. Another thing I can say is Chaekyung and Rachel are collateral damage and nobody cares about them. For the rest, whether this one or that one is a bitch, I don't know.

the thing that pisses me off about this situation is that the girls couldn't just...apologize. all of this could have been resolved if they just said "you know what, we were assholes and we're sorry we made hyunjoo feel this way". but instead they're lying, digging up faulty "receipts" to prove things and just making themselves look worse, blaming hyunjoo when she didn't even start the accusation. he sibling did this on her behalf. its just not a good look for the other members.

Im gonna keep supporting April anyway. These school girl fights are irrelevant. I say this as a person who has been bullied. Im not gonna be best friends with the people who did it to me but I am also not gonna ruin their careers over it.

An interesting take on the matter of bullying accusations that I found on reddit. It's quite long so click the link if you feel like it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/kpopr…inst_alleged_bullies_are/

EXCERPTS

"I was the victim of early online bullying in the 00s and that's why this presses all of my buttons. If you asked me to tell the difference between a lot of y'all, some of the alleged victims, and my bullies? I couldn't."

"Once it's out there it's out there. Doesn't matter if it's a lie, it's there and it will be repeated and people will believe it."

"People can and do lie, more than y'all want to believe and about worse than y'all want to believe and the internet is an amazing tool for spreading lies and making it utterly horrifically inescapable. It is something else how y'all will accept bullying is a big problem in SK but then adamantly refuse to consider that online bullying exists and that lying on social media about someone being a bad person is a fantastic way to bully someone."

"Unleashing the internet on someone for alleged bullying isn't eye for an eye. It's worse. [...] The alleged victim becomes a perpetrator in a very sneaky way that allows them to escape culpability - because it takes it out of their hands and into the hands of the internet, they can bully without getting their hands dirty because technically it wasn't them. Every troll. Anyone with five minutes to spare. Antis. The gullible. They'll all swallow it up, exaggerate it and build on it, refuse to let it die even if/when proven false. It takes on a life of its own. They'll harass family and friends too, co workers."

"Just look at what y'all write and you should know why this is terrifying. For as much as you rally against making assumptions about alleged victims you immediately jump to conclusions about alleged perpetrators in the worst way - more often than not you're even making worse assumptions that the alleged victims aren't making themselves."

"Except unlike lazy dancing or bad singing or ugly styling, you can't fix it. You can't correct the record. It doesn't fade away and get forgotten. Because you're the target, you as a human being, and because the mob doesn't want justice it wants blood. It wants to punish you, forever, as much as it can. It wants to see you run away and cry and grovel for it to stop. It wants to see how far down it can drag you. But it never stops."

"Refusing to participate or calling out this stuff isn't sympathizing with bullies it's called having morals. A whole lot of y'all that are claiming to be victims have turned into bullies seemingly with the reason that it happened to you so someone needs to pay."

I think what makes me dislike DSP and subsequently April is mostly the narrative they are using against Hyunjoo to prove themselves right

They constantly victim blame, saying she was so weak willed and sick, then they now started to say how much of a toxic person she actually was

If they just, you know, made a statement, not confirming nor denying anything (as I doubt they ever will tell the whole truth) but utimately admited to the toxic enviroment and how it affected Hyunjoo, at least they could've gotten out of this, with a lot of damage, but at least this drama would just end. Obviously, also with a private apology to her that doesn't necessarily need to be reported to the media

Quote from Plushieless

If they just, you know, made a statement, not confirming nor denying anything (as I doubt they ever will tell the whole truth) but utimately admited to the toxic enviroment and how it affected Hyunjoo, at least they could've gotten out of this, with a lot of damage, but at least this drama would just end. Obviously, also with a private apology to her that doesn't necessarily need to be reported to the media

Being an idiot is one thing, being a bully is another thing.

Private apologies are fine but it's already too late. The genie has been released out of the bottle and it can't be put back in it. If anything, Hyunjoo's brother is at fault for throwing everyone at the wolves, even the members who were not part of the group back then. The rabid mod doesn't care about details.

know this is late but I still want to share my opinion.

I’ve read all about the bullying issue and I have to say I am beyond sad and disappointed. I am not a huge fan of April, I am DSP artist fan in general. So I support all DSP artists :)

When I first read about this I was shocked, I wanted to wait and see before make any further judgement. More articles came out and more opinions were shared. To be honest I am a bit pissed at people who had been comments leisurely. Most of them don’t even listen to April and don’t even know who Hyunjoo is. They just want to join the witch hunt and it is sad.

If you see previous case of bully, for example T-ara and AOA (Jimin and Mina) you can see there is a bit similarity and differences which I think is important for us to take note.

Fans made videos that showed April’s member bullied Hyunjoo, but you have to remember the video was edited to show only controversial and fun part and most of the bully video has been debunked. But haters only want to see what they want to see.

Staff and other artist came out and denied the allegation. Haters said of course they will support the company and April but really? the staff and artist are human too, they personally know April members, they were there when April struggle during their debut. They know how hard the member work for their dream. When T-ara staff came out and said that T-ara member never bully Hwayoung, why you believe them?

April member refuses to apologise to Hyunjoo. After reading their interview, I understand why. They believe that they apologise enough. Every issue Hyuonjoo’s brother brought up had been deal with. Naeun has apologised to Hyunjoo before why should she apologises again? Just to make her looks guilty and haters satisfied?

I think April member attitude toward Hyunjoo is understandable, I am an adult lady but if someone from my office kept dragging my department down by her/his attitude of course I’m going to be pissed. I’m going to write it in my diary and maybe badmouth him/her to my husband, it just an justified reaction towards that kind of negative attitude. I don’t understand why netizen act holier than thou. During this time all of April member were young girl, if the acted immature that is understandable.

I am not saying whatever Hyunjoo feelings is irrelevant, she feels like she was being bully by the member and her feeling is correct, because I’m not there to say otherwise.I just want the netizen to keep their stupid and immature opinion to themselves.You and I don’t know what happen, so why you are so eager cancel April?