Regardless of how widespread the body positivity trend becomes, one thing remains unchanged
in Kpop is that idols, especially females, must ensure their physique perfectly aligns
with the stringent standard of South Korean beauty.
That’s why when Kpop stars just put on little weight, and in fact, some just bounced back
to the normal BMI range instead of sticking to the anorectic image, they would be body-shamed
by not only netizens but also fans and the management agency.
Liz (IVE) After seeing Liz shine in the debut of IVE
for not only her visual but her vocal, everyone felt like nothing could stand in the way of
her being on the same popularity par as Jang Wonyoung and also being among the brightest
faces of gen4 idols.
Unfortunately, several months after the debut, everyone’s reaction took a 180-degree change
when Liz put on some weight.
What’s even sadder was that Starship Entertainment, which was believed to have already had a solid
and strategic plan to develop IVE, also seemed to be impacted by the negative public reaction
towards Liz, literally ignoring her in all following promotions.
This move of Starship Entertainment was seen most clearly in IVE’s latest comeback with
the pre-release track KITSCH.
Despite being the main vocal of IVE, Liz had 5.7 seconds to sing compared to the total
two-minute vocal line of the whole act, which was just about 4,7% in case you wonder how
little her line was.
According to many, this was a blatant disrespect and implicit body-shaming move of Starship
Entertainment toward Liz.
In the debut song of IVE, Liz was not only picked to have the opening line but also have
the most distribution but as everyone noticed, ever since the body-shaming wave toward Liz
gained momentum and the public interest in her also drastically dropped, Starship Entertainment
has done everything to hide her away, usually in a way of restricting her vocal distribution
to the least possible like what they did in KITSCH.
Liz was also body shamed by Starship Entertainment though she was limited the screen time to
the least.
Probably you won’t notice this if not being a Liz’s stan but in KITSCH, when the MV
was sped up and only back to the normal speed when it’s Liz’s part, it was only played
normally once at the beginning of the MV.
In scenes where she appeared along with others, fans also noticed she was either pushed to
the very side of the group or oddly blurred out like an unnecessary member that IVE could
easily do without.
So, how bad was the public reaction that made Liz an ironic body-shamed victim of her own
company like this?
When first showing subtle first signs of weight gain, she was already called out for looking
“worse” than the debut era and after changing her hair to black, the criticism packed with
way harsher words grew swiftly.
In her first appearance in IVE’s daily vlog, she made headlines for looking “unrecognizable.”
Appearing at a major event one month after that, Liz was again bashed for being “fat”
and one Pann user even listed out specific reasons for her to lose weight: one, she didn’t
look pretty, two, she stuck out like a sore thumb and three, her face was too big compared
to other girls’.
When wearing normal clothes, she was criticized even more as netizens said she looked too
peasant to be an idol.
It is heard on the grapevine that Liz was restricted from doing photoshoots for fashion
covers as people wouldn’t buy the magazines due to her down-spiraling visual and as time
passed, such rumors were only consolidated.
Appearing at Seoul Music Awards on January 19, she was bashed for failing to lose weight
and a month after that, the same thing happened when she performed in Japan.
Her attitude was later criticized as people believed she didn’t take the idol career
seriously enough to better manage her body accordingly
Personally, when I look at the number of times netizens have bashed Liz for looking “ too
fat” and mercilessly criticized her just because she didn’t look in a certain way
that they expected, it’s also not 100% Starship Entertainment's fault to hide her away so
much.
One, as this whole industry revolves around making money off idols’ image considering
such a negative reaction, it was sensible for them to push members who are more favored
by the many.
Besides, Liz herself would potentially bear more mentally harmful impacts when being in
the limelight too much like before so to a certain extent, Starship Entertainment has
also done her some favor with this treatment though according to fans, this was still nothing
but an implicit body shaming move.
Jiwoo (NMIXX) Despite having received showers of compliments
lately for shredding tons of weight right before the comeback of NMIXX, Jiwoo is still
one of the most body-shamed idols in Kpop history as people used to constantly call
her out just because she didn’t look as skinny as they wanted.
The hate she suffered from was most severe during the debut era of NMIXX as at the time,
public expectation was through the roof for the newest girl group of JYP Entertainment.
On Pann, the thread where a netizen said Jiwoo “must lose weight” if she wants to make
it big in the idol industry quickly went viral in the top 3 hot topics of the day.
Most of the photos used in this post were in NMIXX’s debut era and seemingly as Jiwoo
was also well aware of the public hate, she often hid parts of her body in the group’s
image.
When appearing on Weekly Idol, Jiwoo was also mercilessly bashed as netizens believed her
body weight took a toll on her dance moves, making Jiwoo stick out like a sore thumb compared
to other members when dancing.
Especially considering how JYP Entertainment let Jiwoo appear in the same dance cover video
with Jinny and Kyujin, implicitly confirming her as part of the dancer line in NMIXX, the
fact that she failed to execute moves sharply and juicily like the other two was also the
cause for many netizens to make fun of her.
NMIXX’s non-filtered appearance in the street also turned into a perfect chance for netizens
to bash Jiwoo’s appearance.
The only difference from the previous criticism was that, here, many put on a hypocritical
attitude, recognizing her visual but at the same time telling her to lose weight as her
body was so big that it blocked her aura, as her face was already super small so shredding
some kilos would definitely bring her to the top visual of Kpop and as a team player, she
shouldn’t shatter the perfect image of NMIXX just because of the weak will power always
failing to better manage her body.
Fortunately, things have recently changed 180 degrees as Jiwoo showed up confidently
with a new appearance post-weight loss.
After her attendance at the LOEWE pop-up store, it literally took her seconds to blow up on
the Internet as everyone was crazy for beauty.
She was now put on the same visual par as Sullyoon, the only member of NMIXX mass-voted
to be one of four visual representatives of gen4
Personally, I’m more than happy to see Jiwoo stop getting body shamed and how netizens
are now head over heels for her visual
Ryujin (ITZY) Similar to Jiwoo, Ryujin has recently shredded
lots of weight but those who have followed her since day one all know that she has struggled
a lot with the body shaming criticism thrown at her non-stop.
As she debuted with an extremely skinny figure and also managed to draw lots of public attention
for being the brightest factor on YG Entertainment’s survival show MIXNINE, the public automatically
assumed that was her ideal physique and they would never accept anything less than that.
Unfortunately, as Ryujin seemingly only managed such a weight for pursuing an unhealthy and
extreme calorie-deficit diet, she quickly bounced back to normal weight in ITZY’s
third promotion – WANNABE.
Since then, topics discussing her being “fat” started to circulate more on the Internet
and while fans might put on the defense mode, saying she looked healthy and refreshing at
the normal weight, most still agreed she looked way thicker than the standard of Kpop.
Especially since other members gradually lost lots of weight, she stood out even more as
a bigger member and according to some, this shattered the ideal skinny image of the group.
At this point, Ryujin’s stans started to notice how she often implicitly talked about
herself when it came to “staying thin” topics and as time passed, she shredded a
dramatic amount of weight that people started to feel alarmed.
In fact, even Yuna was taken aback by how small Ryujin has become and it was not only
until Yuna randomly held Ryujin when she lost balance that Yuna realized the crazy amount
of weight her member had shredded.
The comeback with LOCO was when people started to notice Ryujin’s new image and while some
outlets called it “alarming,” fans only found the reaction ridiculous because it was
also the public that made her so insecure that she had to opt for an extreme, unhealthy
diet in exchange for their love.
For example, when Ryujin posted a picture of her casually enjoying herself in 2021,
it was also one of the rare times netizens praised her for the “stunning visual”
rather than a “masculine tomboy visual.”
Then, the only reason they praised her was that she looked “thinner” and if that
hadn't tricked Ryujin into thinking the slimmer she looked, the prettier she would be recognized,
I honestly don’t know what had.
Ironically, when Ryujin is skinny, she is criticized for losing the “sporty aura”
and looking older for buccal fat loss.
At this point, I feel like I can never become an idol because my snowflake mentality can
never bear the pressure of being stoned regardless of how hard I try to please people.
So, why do you think these idols get so much hate just because of their weight?
Is appearance everything in the K-pop industry?