While acting cute is in fact an integrated part of the idol job and at this point, it
seems like all artists have to learn how to pull off aegyo before stepping into the industry
where people will ask them to put on a cutesy face even in the most unexpected situations,
there are still certain idols who are hated for that and even accused of forcing out their
cuteness by being clueless and silly.
Kim Yoo Yeon (tripleS)
First having her public appearance on My Teenage Girl and quickly garnering attention for the
innocent, first-love visual and the impressive academic record when getting into Ewha Womans
University, Kim Yoo Yeon later managed to have a debut ticket with tripleS and stand
out as one of the most famous members of the group.
However, as the reputation ranking is often directly proportional to netizens’ strict
scrutiny, most recently, Kim Yoo Yeon has recently undergone disrepute when doing some
cooking content for the group.
After the female idol featured in several cooking sessions of tripleS, one snippet collecting
her questionable culinary skills was made, widely shared and fiercely criticized by netizens.
Basically, things all started with the scene where Yoo Yeon cracked eggs at the speed of
a turtle and when whisking it, she was also seen using 100% focus span to carefully and
gently do the task.
Her action was so questionable that even her groupmate had to burst into laughter, which
was believed by netizens to be done out of the second embarrassment for Yoo Yeon, and
question why she did things like that.
According to some, Yoo Yeon was just faking the clumsy actions since she could perfectly
crack the eggs without letting any eggshell bits fall into the bow.
The annoyance of netizens was pushed to the next level when Yoo Yeon moved onto her next
step: cutting spring onions.
Rather than holding the knife like every ordinary person and bending down a little bit to cut
the onions more precisely, she held the knife sideways in her palm and straight up kneeled
down to look closely at the onions.
As some netizens commented, the way Yoo Yeon acted to be so focused that she literally
had to put her face on the cutting board and slowly yet awkwardly tried to slice the onion
bit by bit ticked them off real bad because even a three-year-old kid knew how to do such
basic things and somehow, Kim Yoo Yeon, a girl who was not only over twenty years old
already but also has been living away from her family for a long period of time, had
no sense about it.
Then in another cooking session, she was also seen struggling just to open an instant rice
package and her groupmate had to offer to lend a hand in the end.
However, according to some, she wasn’t actually struggling but more like trying to fake struggling
because at every attempt to open, she always did it superficially.
For example, on the first try to open the seal by teeth, she didn’t even use any strength
and literally just bit the rim.
Then on the second attempt to open it with a knife, some said she acted as if the package
would hurt if she poked it a little harder.
What was even more confusing to them was how she didn’t put the ricebox on the table
to poke it easier but had to hold it in her hands as if it would break as soon as touching
the kitchen counter.
After the video went viral, many said that they found her culinary skills ridiculous
and considering how she was already 22, it was very likely that she was forcing out the
clueless, clumsy acts in hopes of being called cute.
Some even found Kim Yoo Yeon really cunning since they believed she was leveraging the
naive image that helped her gain a mass reputation on My Teenage Girl to further attract attention.
However, there were still people believing that it was very likely she indeed knew nothing
about cooking because of the scary academic pressure in South Korea and the way many parents
nowadays didn’t bother to prepare their children with soft skills.
That was not to mention how Kim Yoo Yeon also managed to pass into Ewha Women University,
aka one of the hardest and most prestigious universities to enter in South Korea, chance
of her having absolutely no idea about cooking for having spent all her youth in the study
room is also extremely high.
While that sounds hard to believe, many international students have confirmed in the comment section
that their South Korean peers barely got their feet into the kitchen and if they ever did,
it was most likely that they were there to heat up pre-made food by microwave.
Yet, the majority of opinions still found the defending ridiculous because one, Kim
Yoo Yeon has been living away from her family for a long time and unless her parents hired
a personal maid to follow her everywhere, she at least must have known a thing or two
about cooking to survive.
That was not to mention people always divide the chores equally when living in the dorm
so regarding how Yoo Yeon has been sharing the room with many other members of tripleS,
it also made no sense to defend she has never used knives to cut anything or open an instant
rice package to eat ever.
Leeseo (IVE)
If before, Jang Wonyoung was the only member of IVE to be accused of forcing out too much
cuteness in everything she does, now netizens have expanded their target to Leeseo and called
her cringe and fake everytime she does something a bit silly.
That was also what has just happened lately when IVE attended MAMA 2022, received the
biggest award of the show – Daesang, and Leeseo was chosen to deliver a tribute speech
on behalf of the group and could not contain the happy tears.
However, after the footage of Leeseo delivering her speech was shared online, people immediately
labeled her a fake idol who radiated pick-me energy.
There was even a video on Youtube particularly focused on the behaviors and expressions of
Leeseo when delivering the speech and surprisingly, it has garnered up to thousands of views and
five thousand likes.
In the video, Leeseo was seen clumsily trying to stand on her toes because the mic was “too
high” and rather than starting-off the speech as fast as possible due to the limited time
frame of year-end award shows, she forced out the words bit by bit and repeated IVE’s
fandom name twice.
As some pointed out, Leeseo seemingly even faked crying as there were no tears rolling
and probably because the action was so fake that she herself also couldn’t stand it
and had to burst into laughter.
Some eagle-eyed netizens pointed out the proof of her fake crying and real laughter was that
she tried to hide behind Gaeul to laugh but the mic could still pick up everything and
expose her cringe moment.
In the video, Leeseo was straight-up called a pick-me and embarrassing.
The OP even wished the six-member curse would happen to IVE and couldn’t wait to see Leeseo
leave the act.
Many in the comment also pointed out the fact that even Jang Wonyoung was over it spoke
a lot about how cringe everything was.
Obviously, it was hilarious rather than cute and while it was probably her image to play
the innocent role, many think it didn’t necessarily mean she had to put up such a
fragile and clumsy image in serious moments where thousands if not millions of eyes were
watching.
Still, there were offending opinions, saying that Leeseo was actually crying during the
speech because since she was just 15, achieving such a big milestone could indeed be overwhelming
and so, even if she didn’t cry, the overwhelming emotions were most probably real and she should
have never been bashed for that.
Last but not least, even if she faked crying, it was still extremely pathetic of netizens
to jump on the hate bandwagon altogether, bring a fifteen-year-old girl down and even
ask her to leave the group.
Jisung (NCT Dream)
Being the maknae of NCT Dream and basically growing up under the wings of his groupmates,
Jisung has always been treated as a little baby of not only NCT Dream but also all staff
members of SM.
That’s also why in the eyes of everyone, Jisung is always an adorable boy absolutely
clueless about life and probably for also knowing his image well, he has always done
silly things that are deemed basic life knowledge just to get complimented by other members
as cute.
While there are certain things he did that are lovable, netizens said most of the time,
Jisung seemed more like faking silliness to get attention.
On Youtube, there was even a ten-minute-long video compiling moments of Jisung saying things
that seemingly only kindergarten kids would say and doing things that were super childish
and confusing.
For example, in one livestreaming, Jisung said that the thing he had tried for the very
first time was…catching a bug.
However, what irks netizens most was the way he acted in the kitchen because there were
so many things he said and did that were basic knowledge.
When preparing the ingredients, Jisung asked the staff if he should wash tomatoes and vegetables
with dishwashing liquid and detergent and in another video, he even questioned if avocado
was a fruit and even went on Google to search for the answer.
Not only that, normal things like a hatchet comb and a tape measure could still scare
him and especially with the tape measure, people found it extremely uneasy to see Jisung
handle it like a dangerous thing that could hurt him.
Another time when he let go of the balloon, he later asked why balloons could go up, which
was the extremely basic thing that a three-year-old kid could also know.
As Jisung entered the industry at an extremely young age and usually, that should make him
mature faster rather than always acting silly like a kid, some believed he was just faking
things to appear adorable.
However, it was also ironic how Jisung he gets way less criticism than Yoo Yeon and
Leeseo just because he was a male idol.
One thing for sure is that when a female does the same thing, she would be heartlessly bashed
and labeled with all the ugliest nicknames.
So, do you think these idols were actually clueless and lacked all the basic skills and
knowledge because they spent all their time in the practice room, or were they just faking
it like what netizens claimed?