Posts by onwards

Quote from Taemin-Identity

Isn’t seulgi the most popular member?

Amoungst general kpop fans who aren't fans of RV maybe, but in terms of fanbase it's always been Irene. Until her scandal she was also the most popular with the GP and considering the reaction to her exhibition, she still has a bigger pull than you'd think with the GP.

I'd also point out China has been going through an economic crisis for a while now, so for Irene to sell this much despite the overall decline in sales across the industry since her members debuted solo and her main fanbase not being able to spend as much as they normally would is insane. Can't imagine how much she'd have sold if she debuted earlier.

Quote from Prongs

now they chase their parents since they are losing money and face, while has no shame paid dispatch to stalk their kids.

Employee b business was to bridge between the ongoing contracts and to ensure ador still the money receiver.

I will patiently wait for employee o explanation because fraudor has zero credibility explaining thing.

Honestly, all you need to know is that Ador is throwing its toys out the pram at employee B for doing their job and not lying to companies. Newjeans have announced they've left the company, so newjeans and the entire industry believe Ador no longer have the right to act on their behalf when it comes to signing deals. Why they want the employee to lie to sign these deals is obvious: (1) they want to do the same thing they tried to do with the LV deal they stole and gave to LSF, (2) when newjeans don't turn up they can not only hurt their reputation with potential endorsers but also try and claim newjeans breached the contract, (3) if newjeans does turn up they can keep agreeing to stuff on newjeans behalf and strong arm them into doing it and use it as evidence they are still under contract.

Employee B telling the companies is just basic business etiquette. If you don't have the power, don't lie but connecting them to who does have the power builds relationships that will be beneficial later. Clearly Ador didn't consider what would happen after they signed this deal with Omega (or anyone else) and made them mad and after seeing what they've done this year, they are deffo the type to thrown every and any employee under the bus to cover their own butts.

Quote from DaisyTheGenuine

Before there was Newjeans, there was Blackpink.

Same old nonsense, new target

And before that, it was EXO.

Quote from bbgc

Seems all too convoluted.

At one hand they assert that BTS is sui generis and even if not for Bang/BigHit, their success was unavoidable and then to hold that any damage to Bang/HYBE would impact the reputation of BTS - is just dissonant.

If at all, isolating BTS from the shenanigans of Bang/BigHit with JK's "Idols are innocent" is a better strategy.

Anyway, I find political conspiracies, religious delusions easier to understand than what goes on in Kpop, particularly with the ARMY.

Just was surprised.. will give up.

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That would be right....if they were actually fans of BTS. Problem is their fandom is plagued by success stans and those with low self esteem who use the success of BTS, and by extension, Hybe to pad their ego. To them, BTS becoming big because of their fan's effort makes them as fans feel important and that all their achievements are because of them. BTS's success is entwined with their self worth and when you're not successful or feel unworthy in your own life, seeing your actions (however small) lead to the success of others, or joining those who had that impact is a high most never get. They get an inflated sense of self worth and self importance because they 'made BTS' or being part of a fandom with such huge power makes them feel important and powerful. The kpop model does thrive on this kind of interaction, often encouraging it (hence all the fans getting mad when idols date despite the fans putting all the money in to make them successful) but what Bighit did with BTS took it to a new level, they actively weaponized armies which gives them a greater sense of power and it doesn't help that BTS take every opportunity to say they are where they are thanks to armies. Normal in the kpop space, but to those who need validation, its a high unlike anything else, especially because they are famous and doing this on a world stage.

Then Hybe becomes a huge company and armies feel even more power because this massively successful company is built on BTS, which is built on their joint effort. All of a sudden they can even own shares in this company they helped build. Feel like a failure in your own life? Not a problem anymore, look at the massive uber successful company you helped build and look it even has loads of huge american artists under it. Now you have even more bragging rights because you helped them buy a company with hugely well known american artists.

So its less about BTS, and more of some toxic people who clearly need alot of therapy feeling like a kingmaker only for someone to pull the rug from under them and expose the one thing they take most pride in as a fake and more toxic than everything else around it. They can't handle it so go to bat for Hybe even more.

Quote from Uni909

How certain are we that NJ termination of Ador's contract is valid and they are finally free? They are free in a sense, but it's still a ongoing case. And btw, have they left Ador's dorm and office for good?

They moved out of the dorm weeks ago, only relationship between them and the office is they are doing the final jobs signed through Ador before the end of the contract but seems like those are also done.

Contract is finished according to newjeans legal team. It states they can cancel if Ador breaches and fails to correct, which they did, multiple times. The contract they were under and the one that makes all other groups have to seek injunctions are different. As far as we know, no idol with their base contract has ended it which is why people are acting up, but fact is, their legal advisors and hybes legal advisors have read it, stan twitter hasn't.

So why is Hybe asking if the contract is valid or not? Well two reasons. One, legal cases are expensive, and theres nothing like prepping for a case only to be told pretty much everything is useless because the contract isn't even valid anymore. Second is likely the biggest reason why, it would screw Hybe over if Newjeans launches a claim for damages. When you claim damages, the claimant needs to put forward an amount they think the counterparty needs to pay them by showing what they lost out on and how much each is worth. Claimants will try to inflate the figure saying its reasonable and add all the bells and whistles they can knowing they'll be argued down by the counterparty and the courts will award something in the middle. So if Hybe claim for damages, only to get told the contract is over because of what Hybe/Ador did, they not only lost the case, but will have provided newjeans with a starter list of all they have lost out on, along with inflated figures of the worth of all those things and will have to argue that the figures they provided for those losses are too high (and what court is going to believe that?).

This is literally the only smart legal move Hybe has done from the start of this mess.

Edit - just to add, this is likely pushed by the legal team not Hybe itself. Lawyers have duties to the courts and the public to be fair and tell the truth etc, so asking them to basically say, the proof we got for these figures are inflated, we knew this, and we didn't check them is like asking them to request their legal licences get revoked for malpractice.

Quote from Prongs

Only stupid people who don't think kmca moves is no other than publicly blackmailing NJ.

I don't know what redittor celebrating about.

Kmca set themselves for public scrutiny. Especially when they don't call Hybe sajegi case in the past with "tampering".

Honestly the way Korea is protesting right now they clearly want a clean out, may as well clean out the music industry at the same time

Quote from Taemin-Identity

Yeah I think BPM ent. underestimated his touring power a lot, cuz he has a lot of shawols and solo stans and a lot more casual fans too… Venues in Europe were tiny

Or BPM didn’t have enough money to book those places? Who knows…

I hope they will upgrade all those small venues so most of his fans will be able to buy tickets.

Craziest thing is it was that much of a bloodbath....despite the lack of advertising AND people directly giving up trying to get tickets after seeing the venue sizes and prices. They heavily underestimated him

I don't want to see this, like yeah screw you SM but as someone who tried to get tickets in London, only for them to sell out in 15 seconds, I'm still fuming they didn't book 02 and give more of us a chance but your telling me LA got an 18k venue???? I should have tried looking at plane tickets

Quote from Yama-Chan

So about that Shinhan Bank contract. Looks like the tea is being spilled already in Korea:

HYBE is trying to media play and releasing articles in a way that insinuates that Shinhan bank was the one who cut them off. But from Shinhan's side, they refuted saying that they were over the contract expiry time so HYBE deleted the article of them media playing right awayㅋㅋ I can feel the inferiority complex they had over NewJeans' CFs. Sad

Doesn't this make the second time they started media play and had to retract? didn't they do the same thing about MHJ's interview with some massive Korean company and had to retract it fast to avoid making them mad?

Looks like even if Shinhan wasn't intending to renew, they might just do it out of pure annoyance at Hybe and to get rid of any damage Hybe may have done to their rep at this play. I bet its going to be a cold day in hell before Hybe manages to get one of their idols on a shinhan ad and I wonder if this is going to further hurt Hybes attempt to grab Newjean's ad deals for their own idols. Nothing says 'don't work with these fools' like them trying to media play your company to crush some teenage girls the entire country is supporting.

Quote from Yama-Chan

K

Btw there are articles hitting the streets of Korea. I can post my rough translation of one of them so people can get a sense for how that statement put out by the KCMA is landing

Popular music critic Jeong Min-jae's opinion on the Mkonhyup position statement declared excluding the New Jeans chart

Personally, I find this statement a bit absurd.

I agree that tampering has a negative impact on the industry (regardless of whether the New Jeans case can be viewed as tampering or not).

However, that doesn't make sense to arbitrarily exclude it from the chart.

It's not an act of directly disturbing the charts, such as hoarding.

It is important for charts to reflect reality as accurately as possible.

Moreover, even if criminals' use of music/albums increases, the chart reflects and records this.

This is because it explains the situation at the time and soon becomes a historical record.

The reason why hoarding or so-called ‘total ’ is not immediately excluded from the chart is because the reality at the time was that the ranking was improved using loopholes in the chart.

Of course, it is also the responsibility of the chart to complement this so that the chart can capture the popularity situation as it is as possible.

But for whatever reason, the chart organizer arbitrarily excludes data from specific artists and agencies?

It is an act of kicking public trust yourself.

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Honestly it'll be interesting what charting companies will try to ban them. It'll be funny either way and will deffo lead to an investigation into these companies. Not exactly a good look when they are losing market share to youtube music, apple music and spotify and Koreans are in the mood to protest.

Honestly, let them. It'll be the perfect thing to encourage the last few Koreans who use melon etc to drop it like a hot rock and move on and will encourage the formation of some new award shows. Because you know this will lead to the GP ignoring these award shows even more, fans of groups not nominated will boycott, fans of groups who are nominated but don't win will say its all rigged because the KMCA is blocking them because their faves companies didn't pay that cheque.

Quote from Yama-Chan

The petition received 8.1k votes in single day

K-Tokkis made the brilliant strategic maneuver of bringing the petition to the crowds protesting for the president's impeachment

So the public had our back

Everytime I think k-tokkies reached the peak they out do themselves. Taking it to the protests is a boss level move. Especially considering most of the people protesting are of the older generation with alot more pull and power.

Quote from crystalblues

Ahhh I gotcha! I understand what you meant now. Yeah I honestly worry about someone manipulating and threatening the other members as a result of this. As sadly it is very common to punish the other members when a member of a group speaks up about something.

Especially since its still unclear if JYP is going to drag Republic into this, Republics reaction, the others being in debt to JYP and some of the members still being underage. This shouldn't be up to her to do, the government and police should have stepped in long ago and cancelled the contract as soon as the representative wasn't being listened to.

Quote from crystalblues

The US handles entertainment company lawsuits different than Korea. They do not need a police officer investigation to get the documents, the judge can order JYPE to hand them over or face jail time for obstruction of justice.

Not what I meant. The child endangerment, violation of child labour laws and intentional infliction of distress should be criminal charges not civil ones IMO. As in, the people who did it should be facing prison time for breaking US law, not skirting responsibility by letting JYP give out a payment for damages. The case needs to go before the judge before that order can be made, but if JYP deleted the video camera footage with the excuse of company policy or say it was never actually recording just made to look like it, alot of the claims regarding their living situation will be harder to prove and will be reliant on testimonies which is going to be hard on her and depending on what JYP do, they could even get the other members to testify against her. Yeah the contract stuff and financial statements will be clear cut since they'll have to provide that, but the rest like overtime violation...

Quote from DaisyTheGenuine

Minimum wage ($15.50-16 per hour) and overtime, which is what JYP agreed to.

Yeah that just isn't liveable in LA even if they got the whole thing. Thats around 2.5k a month for 40 hrs and rent average is 2k. The lower quartile in LA get $4k a month yet they were expected to live on and pay bills from $500? Thats just insanity. If they were getting garnished with that little what did they even get?

Quote from DaisyTheGenuine

Its a realistic point. Most of the things she can only prove with JYP's documents, including all the financial stuff, quite alot of it honestly needs police intervention and people need to get arrested. But do you really think JYP is ever going to let it go that far? Especially with Hybe praying daily someone else gets into a worse lawsuit with a former idol to get attention off them? They will be scrambling to delete stuff, pay her off and slap her and the rest of VCHA with a huge NDA.

Quote from DaisyTheGenuine

Well, that is quite literally what the legal document alleges but go off

Give them the choice to not live there at all instead of presenting housing as optional, then pressuring and threatening them to live beyond their means and confiscate their wages over it? I doubt if those girls were given their proper wages, they couldn't have found a better and more feasible housing situation for themselves

And as far as safety, one of the things she's alleging is staff would take them to locations and essentially leave them stranded there, making their parents drive hours just to take them home, somehow I don't think safety was a top concern

But then the question is what means do they have to live elsewhere? I feel like we keep going in the same circle. They owe JYP for the MV and album production so their wages will be garnished, have no time to get a second job, so they'd need to either get a loan to find somewhere to live, ask their parents to help them find a place or borrow an amount from JYP for accommodation. Not to mention I doubt their base salary would allow them to rent anywhere half decent, 3 of the 5 couldn't even rent somewhere themselves because they were underage. Not saying JYP didn't take advantage or treat them badly, but if I were in that situation, between being charged for rent that I don't know the total of and salary garnished to pay for it or salary garnished and asked to find somewhere to live in an expensive city, I'm choosing the first. Them presenting the house as optional is literally the least of the issues here and since we don't even know the price of the rent, we don't know if thats the major reason for the debt or them 'living beyond their means'.

Quote from DaisyTheGenuine

Obviously the alleged working conditions are horrific but if anyone's curious about the actual legal hot water JYP is in, here are the alleged violations:

—Vcha is guaranteed minimum wage as a base pay (+royalties and revenue shares) under their contract including overtime. However, JYP has the right to recoup those wages to apply to their "expenses" and they were not paid for full 12 hours they worked, only the 8 hours they were required to work. But they faced threats of punishment if they didn't go the full 12(wage theft, overtime theft, denial of mandated unpaid breaks)

—They were frequently given legal documents that weren't properly explained to them, some were in Korean, and only a few minutes to sign them.

—Even the judge that the contract was petitioned to was highly skeptical of JYP's ability to liquidate their pay for damages but it still went through

—As required by California law, JYP had a child welfare worker to monitor the conditions. He was never in the room. Before him, they did have a monitor that did try to advocate for them but she was replaced.

—The alleged NyQuil incident was hidden from the welfare workerer and he was told it was food poisoning.

—Exceeding the legal working limits for minors

—There was a clause stipulating that JYP wouldn't film them without consent

— The living expenses that JYP is using as an excuse to seize their base wages are not recoupable in that manner, despite JYP insisting so

— inadequate disclosure of expenses and financial documents

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Yikes, so basically everything they normally do in Korea that we all said wouldn't fly in the US so they best be careful and follow the law?

Kinda sounds like JYP was dropped in it by Republic when the show didn't gain huge popularity, JYP had no plans in place for them and just used their normal Korean team thinking they'd get away with trying to recoup the expenses from the show. Especially the recouping base wages thing, thats deffo a thing they've probably gotten away with loads with their other groups in Korea. Likely it never was much of an issue because their groups have a tendency to break even really quickly and have loads of events to attend which helped distract them and boost the income.

Don't be shocked if we wake up to news JYP have paid her off and wants this to be settled out of court. This is a civil case right? not criminal? So JYP could do that unless the police get enough evidence from what she's saying and go further. But the fact that she went for a civil case kinda shows she may not have a whole lot of evidence to back her up. And why would she when JYP handled all the documents. Maybe thats why they group has been silent for so long? she first went for a criminal case, it was kept under-wraps because minors were involved, but got dismissed for lack of evidence.

Quote from DaisyTheGenuine

The property itself is worth $2.5 million and the girls did not get a say on where they could live. I'm only on page 6 but it's sounding like that rent (not disclosed yet) is contributing of the $500k that's her portion.

Ofc refusal to disclose financial documents and forcing them to sign conctracts, some in korean, with no time to review or interpreter provided is also being alleged

Wait, so you have no idea what the rent is you just think a house worth 2.5mill for (a minimum) 4 bed house in LA is too much and likely adding alot to the debt? Yeah I disagree. That property value seems average to me for LA, especially in this economy.

I think the majority of that money is going to be for the music and production costs. MV's are also way more expensive than people give them credit for and if JYP was footing the bill for all this because Republic abandoned the project, they may also have had to foot the bill for production and songs that Republic had sourced for the debut but asked for back from JYP. Rado the producer for StayC said it cost $1.4mill USD to make a gg a couple years ago so $3 mill total (likely adding interest to this debt), for 8 songs (buying, producing and releasing), 2 MV's, promotion, accommodation, transport, makeup seems completely possible to me.

The contract thing is horrible but not surprising, very typical kpop. Wouldn't be surprising if its the same in the west too. As for not getting a choice....again, not a surprise because what was the other option JYP could have given them? Each of them going house hunting for weeks around their schedules whilst living in hotels or asking their parents to rent them a place? Yeah it would be nice if they could have a look at a range of places and choose but again, none of them are from the city, all very young and likely have never done that before and there are many safety and logistical things for JYP to consider they won't know how to like security, distance to recording studios, dance studios, schools etc. I just think its a bit much to ask an 17yr old to do and consider whilst working at a new job, in a new city whilst becoming famous.

Quote from DaisyTheGenuine

Not $2.5 million

Over what time period? That sounds like they are adding the rent for the full 7 year contract with add ins for estimated bills. This lawsuit is going to be very interesting to watch either-way, we will get a very clear idea on how kpop companies work financially.

Quote from DaisyTheGenuine

Expensive lodging that's supposed to be optional but JYP staff pressured them to live there

And then billed them for it

I mean, but what are the other options? did they all have family in the area or something? they are all from different cities around the US (and Canada), none of them are from LA, at the time 3 were under 18 so needed guardians. So its either, get their parents to relocate or have at least 3 living in the same place with 1 employee. LA is expensive, none of them have money so who'd be paying the rent? Either their parents or its going into their debut debt with JYP because lord knows they won't have time to take second jobs to pay that rent. So yeah, it makes sense JYP would push to have them under 1 roof to pay 1 rent instead of 3, and they still ended up sharing rooms, so clearly, the place isn't huge or luxurious.

Not to be mean but, how cheap were they expecting rent in LA of all places to be? Unless we see that JYP was inflating the rent cost in this lawsuit, this one isn't really an issue worth arguing over.