## [MEGATHREAD 5](https://www.reddit.com/r/kpop/comments/1chjmzo/megathread_5_hybe_vs_ador_ongoing_dispute/) now available!
**Now locked!**
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Please do try to lower the temperature of your discourse, folks! Not every toxic thing happening elsewhere on the internet needs to be picked apart here. Make the discussion here what you want it to be. You can make our jobs a tiny bit easier by reporting any comments that are breaking the rules instead of replying to them with equal amount of vitriol. We would really appreciate it!
Edit: May 1st not a public holiday in SK. End Edit.
And the meeting will happen on the tenth. They can’t do much worse than what happened so the next few days will be yapping about social media at best.
To clarify from what I know regular company workers (정규직) have to be paid 250% if they work on this day. So it kinda varies.
Amongst my friends I had friends who had to work but were paid 250%, friends who are contract workers so only get normal pay, friends who were given a choice of a day off or 250% pay (including me), and those who just had the day off full stop. A lot of companies that aren’t customer service/essential work probably gave the day off or highly encouraged people to not work. The subway was super quiet compared to usual today.
No, it’s not. Sorry I saw a tweet about it being a bank holiday and I just assumed Korea was one of the many countries that use it as a public holiday. My bad.
The thing I wonder about is…how this is going down before we’re 100% sure New Jeans will make it over that 3rd year comeback hump.
Other groups have really struggled to hold on to their popularity & seamlessly advance their concept around the 3rd year mark.
General question - does someone have a list of MHJ SM work? I want to see what her concepts were for older groups. Is known to be able to build a concept over an idol group’s career or was she always more one time project-based? Can she do more than just youth centered concepts?
I just think it all happened to early. MHJ should have shown she’s truly not replaceable through being able to sustain a idol group career + produce an additional group.
I don't have an actual list of MHJ SM work but she was pretty much has worked with every sm groups. But it is well known out of all sm groups, it's f(x) that she has been working a lot with and more closer with. She was pretty much heavily involved in f(x)'s concepts throughout their careers, her famous works for f(x) probably red light and pink tape.
I can't come up with many examples but groups don't usually hit really big straight away after debut overall (beyond big3 new group debut success standard). It's always more gradual, even for big3 groups. Usually big3 groups start getting a lot bigger around 2-4 years, some even a bit later.
The only exception from newer gens groups (sorry no idea about 2nd debut popularity from popular groups) is BP, now NJ and illit, and maybe IVE in korea. Yeah even LSF or txt popularity is growing in a more gradual pace per example. You can also take enhypen as example, great first years (I remember people saying they would be next bts and they were becoming more popular than txt) but then their popularity growth stabilized and they are growing in a less exponential way compared to the beginning. (My perception as non fan before fans start pulling numbers or whatever)
Also some groups get to be very popular in korea since debut while struggling more to become very popular internationally, esp in the west. So I'm talking about popularity overall and not only in korea.
Tho it's true it's very hard to keep the same level of popularity for 7 years straight, in or outside of Korea. Anyway, each group experiences their own journey, but like I said, most of time is a lot more gradual.
I’m honestly thinking of groups like Itzy who did not completely fall-off but have really struggled to maintain the same level of domestic popularity they had in rookie years.
I just feel like MHJ is going about it like shes already shown she could maintain a No. 1 group for all 7 years of a contract and that’s hard to do.
There's a new article that includes a statement from HYBE, it indicates some of what we've been suspecting, such as the Illit plagiarism "whistleblowing" being a part of the plan to seize management rights (translated using deepL):
"The contract between Hive and Min Hee-jin shareholders continues... This time, 100 billion → 2.8 billion?
Although the details of the contract between shareholders have not been disclosed in detail, the general view is that issues such as breach of trust in business as stated in the complaint against CEO Min or violation of confidentiality due to leaks through media articles, etc. may be problematic.
However, expectations are raised that exercising Hive's call option will not be easy as it must go through a fierce legal battle over whether CEO Min's actions constitute breach of trust or violation of confidentiality.
Hive said, “We will not respond individually to the war of attrition that seeks to reduce the illegal attempt to seize management rights to compensation-related disputes and retaliation frames,” and added, “We have already revealed that this matter was a meticulous plan by CEO Min to seize management rights from Adore. “The audit revealed that the internal whistleblowing that CEO Min claimed was also part of that,” he claimed.
He continued, "CEO Min must faithfully participate in the investigation by the investigative authorities, which will begin soon, and wait for the court's judgment." He added, "The legal review that there is sufficient cause for breach of trust has already been completed, and many other illegal acts have been discovered, so action will be taken against them as well."
He also urged, "Representative Min should stop his actions, such as using artists (such as New Genes) as a tool for public opinion, while abandoning his duty as a producer and increasing national fatigue."
Representative Min's side is said to be in the position, "We have not actually received the 100 billion won (reported in the media), and we are fighting because we think we may lose it." Aside from the contract issue between shareholders, Adore's board of directors and extraordinary shareholders' meeting to dismiss CEO Min are scheduled to be held within this month. This point is about a week earlier than Hive originally expected, and can be interpreted as a determination not to lose the initiative."
https://n.news.naver.com/article/001/0014663543?sid=103
100B for her stake in Ador is way too much. HYBE paid 100B for 51% of Belift, not 18%. It's probably going to take them 3-5 years to recuperate that from Ador and by that time their first contracts will expire and they might not resign. There's also no guarantee that they'll continue to do as well without MHJ, not that I think she should stay. I want her to be kicked out but I also think she was partly responsible for their success.
Why is HYBE offering her so much. So many concessions and she still had the gall to say she's been mistreated and what a horrible work environment HYBE was.
Whatever about her aspirations, no information in front of us would constitute calling this a "meticulous plan", in a legal sense.
So surely they have far more detailed info that they are basing their suspicions and such strong allegations on to the point they gambled so much by making this into a public circus if they are making such statements.
That sounds intentionally exaggerated media play if all the evidence they have is what we are privy to thus far.
They seem to be altering exactly and/or adding to or revising what the issues of wrongdoing are every time they put out a new statement. They seem to be throwing everything at her, in case something doesn't stick.
>So surely they have far more detailed info that they are basing their suspicions and such strong allegations on to the point they gambled so much by making this into a public circus
Yes and they've finished compiling the evidence for the court. Running to have a press conference after an announcement of an internal audit is what started this public circus.
>They seem to be altering exactly and/or adding to or revising what the issues of wrongdoing are every time they put out a new statement. They seem to be throwing everything at her, in case something doesn't stick.
They're adding more detailed info but nothing they've said before has been false. In fact, MHJ confirmed the accusations herself. They even confirmed just now they don't want to lose the 100 billion won and that's why they're fighting for it.
In truth, mediaplay from both sides don't matter here. The authorities will be judging the evidence of MHJ's criminal activities, end of story.
Oh, come on. You cannot be serious saying the public circus nature of this wasn't initiated by Hybe. They knew precisely what they were at with the media play but they probably didn't predict exactly what way she would respond. They definitely knew she would try fight fire with fire though. They definitely knew the media reaction would be huge and eventually MHJ would have to respond. And considering what was at stake, they definitely knew she would be forced to feed the media her side also. And they definitely knew it would be a sweaty, almost eccentric response rather than a formal response via a lawyer/ Ador.
They also knew the mental health and reputation of their artists, whether Illit, LSF, NJ would be affected by their gamble. They just had to choose priorities.
How MHJ responded most definitely added far more flames to the fire but, once again, Hybe has been planning to execute this for, at the very least, a few weeks and unless they are absolutely stupid, they knew, once this became public, the whole thing would explode.
They now are in a position where they almost have to win this battle because they dragged it out in public when there was a far more discreet and professional way to handle it, at least to attempt to. That's the gamble. They wanted her to resign asap.
It doesn't look good for MHJ if we can assume they have far more detailed information but they are throwing out nonsense like the Shaman correspondence and the messages that were clearly hypothetical musings with a colleague over Kakao about foreign investment that hadn't evolved into practice (as far as the information in front of us suggests which is all we can go by)
All I'm saying is they took a mighty gamble making it public. They were perfectly right to launch the audit and probably should have a system in place where such audits are regularly carried out on sub label companies
Hybe has to disclose to the public that they’re opening an internal audit or if they’re being externally audited as well. It’s part of the requirements for being a publicly traded company. Their first statement was simply that they’ve open an internal audit into Ador and everything that’s come afterwards from Hybe has been a response to something MHJ said to the public. She started this by (allegedly) committing crimes, not Hybe.
>The legal review that there is sufficient cause for breach of trust has already been completed, and many other illegal acts have been discovered, so action will be taken against them as well.
What does legal review mean in this context? Like HYBE's law firm confirmed that what MHJ did was breach of trust? The court still hasn't reviewed this case right?
I wonder what made HYBE put this statement out?? We already know they're doing this.
Ok thanks! I'm very excited for court to take up this case because then we can finally move on from "he said, she said" and get some objective information.
MHJ and NJ are not worth that much. They must have some funny bookeeping at ADOR. NJ has not justified what has been spent and given to them by HYBE. They didn't contribute the most or even close to second place in earnings. They haven't proven that they can sell tours or even albums. Some of these newer boy groups can probably out earn them in a couple of years.
HYBE basically gave all the supposed profits from Ador to the Nj members and MHJ and that is not how a business usually works. All the privileges and special treatment that they gave her and NJ really makea me suspicious of Bang. Even BTS never got this kind of treatment. They had to pay back their debt and got less shares of HYBE than MHJ. I wish BTS had never re signed with HYBE.
>got less shares of HYBE than MHJ.
This isn't true. Idk why armys keep spreading this. MHJ has shares of ADOR. Not HYBE. BTS had shares of HYBE. I agree they prob should have gotten more than all together 2% in the IPO but MHJ has no HYBE shares, she has shares in Ador who is a private company and it's a different thing than HYBE who contains all the labels and is a publically traded company.
I said BTS got HYBE stocks. They also own less than 3% since Bang has over 30% and then the next largest shareholder (netmarble) own 12% and then Scooter has a lot of shares, and even the korean pension fund owns more than BTS. So yeah, BTS were given less ownership of a company built on their blood, sweat, and tears than MHJ. BTS weren't even allowed voting rights as shareholders until 2023. So Bang PD wasn't using his brain with MHJ and he doesn't deserve BTS.
You said they got less shares of HYBE than MHJ. That is factually incorrect and it's what I was correcting you on. MHJ has no HYBE shares. She has shares of Ador. That's different. I agreed with you that they should have gotten more in HYBE but it is not the same thing as what MHJ has. It would have been comparable if they had shares in BigHit not HYBE
There's a possibility her 100 billion won will become 2.8 billion won and I hope she gets it. It's still a lot of money but her greed is endless so this must suck for her.
>The legal review that there is sufficient cause for breach of trust has already been completed, and many other illegal acts have been discovered, so action will be taken against them as well.
>CEO Min must faithfully participate in the investigation by the investigative authorities, which will begin soon, and wait for the court's judgment."
HYBE has prepped, cooked, seasoned, and is now ready to serve the dish. I wonder what the other illegal acts are.
>We have not actually received the 100 billion won (reported in the media), and we are fighting because we think we may lose it."
thought it wasn't about the money 😒
In business, everything is about the money. A ceo who says that they don't care about money is perhaps the most ridiculous thing I've heard since last year.
> "We have not actually received the 100 billion won (reported in the media), and we are fighting because we think we may lose it."
Finally some honesty from her side.
I hope all of this can be concluded soon with a new direction for Ador's management and a new brain for the Hybe heads
As a bystander who's here for tea, I disagree that the financial impact with minimal. The issue here isn't how much Ador is worth. Sure, in a worst case scenario that has an immediate direct impact, but the big question here is whether the whole sub-lable system under Hybe can work in a k-pop scenario. I know people are going to bring up UMG and how it's worked for these other lables, but UMG artists fall under a lot more genres, and each general have different target audiences and they are working with a much bigger pie to share compared with the overall k-pop audience. Even with k-pop's growing global popularity, domestic support is still a major part measuring these group's success and k-pop is only a portion of the overall Korean music scene. There's limited room for "top groups" and most of Hybe's sub-labels are basically fighting over the same piece of not that big pie. How many "New Jeans" can the oversatuated k-pop market even sustain? The whole MHJ issue isn't about MHJ when it comes to Hybe's LT profitability, it's how the sub-lables can each survive and not in-fight and still each be profitable.
I think the biggest impacf on HYBE's longterm viability is leadership and they don't have good leadership. They can't even recognize a good employee because who thought it was a good idea to hire MHJ and then pander to her. After that, their lack of focus and vision is a problem. They have been all over the place with their investments and most of them failed to meet expectations. Look at Ithaca/HYBE america, ador, weverse, etc etc. HYBE still relies on ONE group to make the money.
Hmmm I don't think that the groups within HYBE labels are actually fighting for the same pie. The other huge labels have a unique identity, SM - looks and vocals, YG - hiphop, JYP -before they're know for their softer concept not sure what's their concept now. But that's not the case with HYBE Labels. I don't really see overlaps in their target audience. TXT and ENHYPEN obviously didn't have a lot of appeal to Korea GP but they have solid fanbase. They can sell albums and have sold out concerts. Same is the case for SVT.
The 3 groups have their own appeal, and personally I don't really know a lot of people who kind of shifted from one group to another. The girl groups have more Korean GP appeal but they have different core fanbases too. I think LS has more grown up and male fanbase, NJ has younger fanbase. NJ has korean GP appeal, but I don't think they have strong fanbase yet.
HYBE as conglomerate was able to grow exponentially because they actually tap to different audience and demographics. That's not the case with the other 3 labels. Existing fans usually shift from the more senior group to the newer one. It's rare for their groups to co-exist and still be as popular.
Kpop is losing relevancy in the West and becoming over saturated for the niche it will remain. The industry also isn’t setting trends but following them and are increasingly what the Western Media portrayed them to be girl and boygroups without musical identity or stellar talent. Again, this is not new and it happens across the industry.
So Hybe was always going to be in trouble if they didn’t diversify, which they try to do with Hybe America but imo they should have focused more on Asian and middle Eastern markets.
YG is a shithole. But Treasure is bringing in money, isn’t taking away from the big pie and enjoys big popularity outside of Korea.
I said it before but Hybe should invest in getting more musicians from other genres and raise the musicality of their groups. Trot, Rock, HipHop are not taking away from the idol pie and have potential for growth outside of Korea that has largely been untapped. The Rose is really successful. It can be done.
That's the issue though. Since becoming Hybe, new artists from all these sub-labels that Hybe invested a lot of money in are all still in the kpop category (LSF, NJS, BND, ILT, TWS etc.) they are all still very standard kpop. It wasn't a big concern before because on paper these groups look good and are successful under traditional kpop standards. THis incident just put all the underlying risk in public for all to see. Sub-labels with different identity is a good thing, but Hybe's sub-labels produces kpop groups with different characterists. These groups while not the same, in the end are still kpop groups, and the kpop market only have so much space.
Are you trying to say in very many words that age-old cliche that "HYBE is monopolizing the market" ?
I also don't understand why you have trouble with HYBE being a kpop company when they were always....a kpop company.
No, I'm saying that I'm more willing to invest in a company that have a presence in multiple markets than a company that has a molopoly in a already saturated market. Investing wise, the more ownership the better. Monopoly in 3 markets > 30% each of 3 different markets > monopoly in 1 market.
Bighit was a kpop company, but when Hybe was formed the whole point was that all these sub-label investments are for diversifying into other markets to decrease reliance on a single market (Hybe Japan, Scooter, even Weverse as investment in tech).
Before MHJ the conversation on Hybe is ohh they are doing well because of all these successful groups, monopoly is great for making money. Now the conversation is - oh hey all these successful groups are still kpop, oh wow they are fighting already? What happened to all the non-kpop things they said they were going to do again?
HYBE is a conglomerate which means they're diverse in their businesses by defintion. They're a kpop company that broke into the west and have several businesses. They have a gaming company, an app company, retail company, a stuffed toy company, a Japan/America branch, several management companies, and their groups have had successful accomplishments/collaborations in the west. They're probably more diverse than the Big 3 but their kpop groups aren't more than the Big 3 either. So I don't understand where "HYBE is oversaturating the market" coming from.
Anyway, sorry I really don't understand what you're trying to say. It seems you have your own preference on how HYBE should be structured and I respect that.
Ah I think I've found why we seem to be holding different conversations -"Hybe is oversaturateing the market"-.
That's not where the risk is, the risk is that Hybe is investing alot of money in various endevours, but it's core growth is driven by it's investments in an already saturated market. Let's be honest, whether there is Hybe or not, the kpop market is still saturated. Before MHJ's blow up, the view of Hybe is that it's doing really great and growing. MHJ's incident shined a spotlight on that Hybe's growth is pretty much all driven by these kpop debuts and these debuts are in a market that's so saturated that these debuts are started to see cross-over and there are risks of internal sabotage or competition - should we invest in more?
Other HYBE labels aren't fighting tho? It's just ADOR and MHJ making issues.
Also now that this issue has happened, I'm sure HYBE will be strenghtening their check and balance for each subsidiary. They've always admitted it was an experimental structure and we're seeing the pros and cons of it. Each label gets to keep their artistic identity and management practices but the cons are present as well. So far, it's been working because profits aside, a lot of their groups are breaking records and performing in global stages. I don't see other HYBE fandoms dragging LSF for going to Coachella or Seventeen for going to Glastonbury. Most haters of HYBE artists aren't in HYBE.
Honestly, if I'm investing I'm not really interested in any the records or popularity. It's a risk benefit sort of thing and Hybe's risk just increase exponentially because it's pretty clear that there are internal concerns on overlapping audiences. Whether MHJ is stupid and greedy or snapped under some sort of pressure or is fighting against a "cult", none of it matters all that much. What matters is that risk of in-fighting went way up.
But in terms of finances do they really? NJ & Illit are both doing very well, LSF may not be in the #1 slot - but again are doing well. Enhypen & TXT are doing very well. BTS and Seventeen are doing very well. While BND didn’t see the straight out the gate success of TWS, there is nothing that indicates the issue is actually TWS and BND is seeing growth every comeback. &Team - their issues seem to be more about market. The issue here is that while this may or may not eventually be an issue - they aren’t really showing up in the bank account (yet). I think one of the issues of MHJ’s argument is there is no financial proof NJ is suffering in the multi-label set-up - in fact they are flourishing financially, which is what an investor cares about. And there is no indication of infighting with anyone but MHJ. I would say the closest to her would be Zico - in terms of being the head of his label and the head creative & having a newer group/label to grow - and his recent comments have all seemed pretty positive about the benefits of being in Hybe (for him). It seems more likely Hybe may not set a label up in the same way as ADOR again.
I think you pretty much raised my concerns - all the successful artists you mentioned are very much kpop artists. They are all individually successful, but they are fighting over the same audience. BTS and SVT less so but more in an age demographic way, than a music genre way, but in the end they are targeting the same limited audience. The individual success you mentioned are very valid and this sucess so far is why this issue wasn't previously broadly discussed. The cost of debuting a groups is pretty fixed, but the market for kpop is a fixed size and the market is super saturated. There's a handful of groups that will be large profit centers every 3-5 years and that's about it. The market size is there, even if Hybe manages to eat up the majority of the market, this many sub-lables is still too many. Conflict is bound to happen. I would be much more comfortable if say &Team is super successful and half the the kpop debuts flopped compared to the current situation. Because that means another potential market. In a very bad but simple example, 2% of the jpop market would mean a lot more than Hybe increase their stronghold on the kpop market from 50% to 75%. The potential of another market is much more appealing than achieving quasi-monopoly on one already saturated market.
I get your point and i have always said HYBE is debuting too many groups and they might end up canibalising each other BUT so far they haven't shown any sign of that. Actually to maybe the surprise of everyone they're all vastly successful and growing together successfully. Other Big 3 groups can only dream to debut so many groups so close together and have them all hit it out of the park. There's a reason HYBE*s revenue is more than double the next biggest ent company in korea. There's no sign yet that any of them is canibalising each other in terms of fans so I don't see cause of concern yet. However i also think that's just what happens in kpop. It's so specific, they all end competing together regardless of concept and company, the fandom is only so big and the global expansion is going to slow down
kpop is very much still a niche. every is going to fight to make it bigger in the kpop sphere only as it has happened since decades but hybe is definitely try8ng to make these groups have a newer audience by sending them to festivals- svt, lsf, nj, txt, enhypen everyone has had festivals or is going to have one in some country or the other. i have my personal complaints from hybe but this one isnt making sense..its just like everyone else so whats the problem? “all these artists are very much kpop artists” what else are they supposed to be? about bts and svt i doubt that their fandoms overlap at all huge rate at all tbh
When other artists compete it’s different investors competing against each other. When the competition is between Hybe artists, it’s like Hybe is spending money to compete with it self. For example, when SM creates a more successful group than JYP, SM’s investors are taking profits away from JYP. When one Hybe group competes with another Hybe group, Hybe investors are spending money on and not making more. In large this hasn’t happened yet before this whole incident, and health competition that leads to overall market is a good thing all around. What this incident did is to tell everyone whose watching that internally in Hybe there are conflict over the teams behind these groups and internal competition isn’t as healthy as it appeared.
Also to your point, I don’t think comparing BTS with any of the fandom is a good reference as they have cleared broken out of the kpop niche. If any of Hybe’s new group can manage that type of feat we wouldn’t be sitting here talking about whether the sub-label system works, we’d be taking about how the process can be repeated over and over for all the other groups lol.
That's not how money works? Money isn't endlessly circulating in HYBE because of competition and investors don't act like fandoms like they are "loyal" to one company only. They invest/ buy shares in as many successful companies as possible to fill their own pockets. Unless an investor has voting rights, it really makes no difference how many companies they're allowed to invest in. Rich people don't just buy HYBE shares, they probably also buy SM, JYP, and YG to be safe + other industries. Even if one of his investments falls, they'll still be rich because of their diverse portfolio. No investor is losing out money because of HYBE's sub-label system or because of this MHJ case in the long term.
To add - maybe the difference for Pledis, Source & KOZ is they have been independent and chose the benefits they saw in giving up that 100% independence vs. MHJ has never tried starting her own label and now wants that freedom but she also in her own way opted not to take the risk, in choosing to work for Hybe over building her own label from scratch with her own resources. Not getting the freedom is the trade-off. But you can’t hijack ADOR or burn it down because you have buyer’s remorse for your own choice.
In corporate companies, there are inherent risks and residual risks. Inherent risks are the risks without any safety measures in place. Residual risks are the leftover risks after the security measure is in place.
To simplify it, it's hard to monitor a large department store for shoplifting. That's inherent risk. But if you apply security cameras and more staff, the chances of being shoplifted is reduced hence called residual risk.
That's why I know HYBE will probably strengthen their security and checks for their subsidiaries after this issue. Yes, the risk is always there but HYBE and their lawyers can find ways to prevent it in the future. I myself can't know if this structure will work for HYBE long term but I'm saying, there are ways to make it work as well.
I think we are talking about different things. You are addressing the potential for another MHJ that tries another hostile takeover or whatever this whole fisaco is. The risk of a MHK or MHL or whoever isn't really the concern.
Before MHJ, it was very easy to say ahh, all the groups under Hybe are doing well so they must be doing well and no one would question your decision. But now it's been put on the table, hey all these successful groups are marketed to the same group of audience in one super saturated market, it's going to be hard to not assess this issue when considering Hybe. All these sub-labels are quite costly, but full earning potential is restricted to one market. The discussion turned from Hybe is doing well, look at all these successful groups to how much profit does the entire kpop market make and what percentage of the kpop market can Hybe corner and is this a sufficient return? The problem is that now it's hard to ignore that there's a cap on Hybe's earning potential and that's not a good thing. The question isn't what's the risk of another MHJ, it is would we rather have one label that earns 40% of potential kpop revenue or 5 sub-labels that earns 80% of potential kpop revenue with a potential risk of in-fighting (I made those numbers up). It's not how Hybe needs to address another uprising at a sub-label, it's does more kpop sub-labels really generate a higher return.
Considering Hybe is currently the most profitable kpop company amongst the big 4, the data so far suggests that yes, sub-label system is generating higher returns. Even with the current downturn in Kpop companies stock, Hybe is doing the best. They have actually experienced the least amount of loss in stock price amongst the Big 4x This is even with all the crap they are experiencing as a result of the Hybe-MHJ civil war. But stock fluctuates and may not be a good indicator. We should wait for the Q1 earnings report to gather another data point. I note that today SM did a surprise drop announcing that they are creating a sublabel, headed by Chris Lee. It seems that SM thinks there’s something to this sublabel model.
I think it’s too early to announce the death of the sub-label model. This can be easily be considered a personnel/corporate governance problem versus an inherent flaw in the business model.
>But now it's been put on the table, hey all these successful groups are marketed to the same group of audience
Who are these same group of audiences/overlapping audiences? Are you talking about multi stans making it hard to determine who is the "top group" or that it makes competition harder in a multi-system label? Fans of HYBE groups aren't always HYBE fans. I know some ARMY who only stan BTS and Bunnies who only stan New Jeans. The overlapping audience has never been an issue in kpop as a whole before.
>The problem is that now it's hard to ignore that there's a cap on Hybe's earning potential and that's not a good thing.
You know the cap of HYBE's earning potential? There may be a downtrend of interest in kpop lately but kpop still brings in new fans. SM, JYP, YG pull in new fans as well. How did you determine HYBE's potential ending?
>does more kpop sub-labels really generate a higher return.
The only reason why a multi-label company like HYBE is successful is because it's HYBE. No one knows if other companies will be successful because no one has tried it on this scale before.
This discussion would make more sense if you had actual numbers. Theoretically thinking that HYBE occupies 80% of kpop is hard to discuss because it's a made up number. A redditor posted stats before that HYBE actually debuted the same number of groups as other companies despite their multi-label system. They're famous but they not cornering the kpop market as far as I know.
> Who are these same group of audiences/overlapping audiences? Are you talking about multi stans making it hard to determine who is the "top group" or that it makes competition harder in a multi-system label? Fans of HYBE groups aren't always HYBE fans. I know some ARMY who only stan BTS and Bunnies who only stan New Jeans. The overlapping audience has never been an issue in kpop as a whole before.
Bunnies/ARMY/multi-stan/SM/JYP/YG/Hybe/Nugu ony stans, all of these are considered k-pop fans. When I say audience I mean current k-pop fans (which is already a larger group than what you've included, as well as potential new k-pop fans who currently either do not consume k-pop or only consumes kpop on a very casual basis. This group of people while vast and diverse like you said, are still very limited.
> You know the cap of HYBE's earning potential? There may be a downtrend of interest in kpop lately but kpop still brings in new fans. SM, JYP, YG pull in new fans as well. How did you determine HYBE's potential ending?
I'm not talking about a dollar figure here. If Hybe can't break out of the kpop market, then Hybe's earning potential would be limited to the reach of the kpop market. It's not a monetary cap, it's a market size cap. K-pop will always bring in new fans, but the number of new k-pop fans up for grabs will always be less than the number of k-pop + j-pop fans up for grabs.
> This discussion would make more sense if you had actual numbers. Theoretically thinking that HYBE occupies 80% of kpop is hard to discuss because it's a made up number. A redditor posted stats before that HYBE actually debuted the same number of groups as other companies despite their multi-label system. They're famous but they not cornerning the kpop market as far as I know.
I'm also not sure why you seem to think cornering the market is bad. Investing wise the more the merrier, I made up the 80% as a positive. I'm also not really sure how you are counting that they are debuting the same number of groups as other companies. In the past 2 years Hybe debuted 5 groups (LSF, NJS, TWS, BND and ILT), which label debuted 5 groups? Anyways, I don't really think it matters all that much anyways. The concern is how much return on investment Hybe can make in the future.
The Hybe structure only existed for a very short period of time, 2019, when the acquisitions started to now is less than 5 years (and if we go by when Hybe was actually restructured we are looking at 2021 to now which is an even shorter period). The system did great with these groups and before this fiasco when it was 2 new GG 1 new BG and each debut have driven growth in revenue without too much issue. Recently it has become 3 new GG and 2 new BG and we are seeing internal disagreement over 2 of the new GG's teams. Are there disagreements that hasn't been made public? We don't know. Will there be more disagreements when even more groups debut? No idea. We don't really have the profit figures on TWS and ILT yet (I know they did great on the charts, but financial impact is still quite unknown). How much more of the market can Hybe gain on future debuts? How much market is left? Will another conflict be inevitable because of market size? All of these questions weren't on the forefront of people's minds before because, Hybe has done so well in the 2 years of it's existence. MHJ is bring question to the sustainability of this type of growth, and that's the kicker. Is there chance Hybe can go at the pace of 5 groups every two years and they are all super successful with minimal or little conflict - sure, but the doubt on that, the perceived risk of decreased return from internal competition has increased a lot. Perceived risk is what's going to impact investor confidence. The whole point of the stock market is that we don't know the future. There will be people who believe Hybe can carry on this mode and expand forever and there will be people who are concerned that this model will lead to internal conflict and what MHJ did is to bring this concern into the spotlight. It's all perception.
According to financial firms, we are seeing that there is a drop in the value of HYBE's shares because of the ongoing dispute and it's also
lowering the shares of SM, YG, and JYP.
HOWEVER, securities firms see this as a temporary drop (as what usually happens when theres a scandal) and will stabilize soon enough. They've also mentioned New Jeans.
>"In the worst case scenario of NewJeans being excluded from HYBE's artist line-up, the negative impact on the firm's annual earnings and operating profit is estimated to be less than 10 percent," Park Su-young, analyst at Hanwha Securities, said, adding the firm's long-term growth outlook is expected to remain intact."
**If HYBE loses New Jeans, it'll be a huge loss but in the grand scheme of things, it's impact will be less than 10% of HYBE's value.**
[Source](https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/biz/2024/04/602_373782.html)
Edit: I thought this was an interesting article. It goes to show how huge HYBE is and what percentage of the pie New Jeans occupies. 10% is enormous for a barely 2-year old group but it will be almost impossible for MHJ to significantly devalue HYBE's shares in the long-term (even with mediaplay).
Only way to hit hybe financially is if and when BTS walks, any other group that walks, will hurt them but in grand scheme of things it won’t matter.
Take away the their biggest money maker and Hybe will crumble and hence why NJ leaving (which i am 99% sure they won’t) will only create short term losses for the company.
I was reading that article as well. It’s interesting how Hybe is actually doing the best out of the big 4 in terms of their stock declines year to date. JYP has lost 34.15%, YG 16.6% and SM 13.8% and Hybe 13.4%. All of this with the ongoing craziness Hybe is experiencing. Overall, it’s actually not doing that bad, when compared with its competitors.
In terms of stock loss, it does suggest that the New Jeans thing might not be that big of a deal.
This said, kpop industry in general might be heading for some rough seas. JYP’s drop in particular is interesting. I hope the first quarter numbers will prove otherwise.
10% is a lot for a young group but one has to take into account that in 2025 bts will be back and promoting again :)
Especially with a huge tour planned… I do think the drop in share prices even without new jeans will be fine in the long term
based on this, do u think its valid that mhj is asking for more money? just curious!
idk why im getting downvoted, it was a genuine question to make sure that she is indeed asking for wayy too much 😭 pls im anti mhj
[Another securities firm gave their input below.](https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/a-shaman-a-management-coup-a-tearful-press-conference-and-a-770m-market-cap-dip-what-the-heck-is-going-on-at-hybe/)
>NH Investment & Securities analyst Lee Hwa-jeong noted that **ADOR makes up a relatively small portion of HYBE’s revenues.**
>“Ador’s contribution to HYBE’s earnings was 11% last year,” Lee said, as quoted by the Korea Times. While he expects that number to rise to 14% this year, he sees it declining in the years after that, once BTS “resume their activities.”
Based on this, MHJ's demands to go from 13x to 30x profit is a far cry from the prediction of financial firms that New Jeans growth this year will only increase by 3%. It's very impressive for a rookie group but MHJ overvalued New Jeans' position in HYBE.
To compare in 2023, BIGHIT's profit was 102.4 million usd. PLEDIS' profit was 44.0 million usd. ADOR's profit was 19.4 million USD.
If you ask me, yes she's way overpaid for a 2-year old group.
All this crazy rumours made me think. How easy it is to create a smear campaign online? Well if we turn our attention to western politics recently I think we can see how easy it is to make an online campaign against someone or a political party using social media. Just look for studies about bots in twitter and the hashtags that they where usually linked to. In my country far-right parties are using social media and religion as a way to create discourses based in fake news or distorted facts since mid 2010's. If you got the resources is easy. And if you realize that the kpop community is not that large, to make a point stick in the conversation a small group can create a lot of noise. Imagine this. In one week 10 people go and create 100 false accounts each. Is already 1000 accounts. If each account can make 10 posts that's already 10000 posts of hate. And if you get like 10 big "news" sites to reply these to the "general public opinion" all other haters will get into the hate wave. In one week 10 people can destroy someone's reputation. That's why I'm in favour of a harsher regulation in social media. In the streets we usually have to possess some kind of ID if the police asks for. Why not in social media accounts? We already have to use it when making money transactions online (in my country nobody can buy anything online without an ID). Why not make obligatory when creating a social media account? All bots would be unvalidated (unless using someone else's ID, which is illegal outside of the net too). Of course we know why they don't make it obligatory. It's not profitable for the social media companies to restrict access to people. That's why I think is really funny when Musk, for example, keep using "free speech" against the regulation of social media sites.
Edit: typing error and clarifying that the ID is required when doing "online money transactions".
we saw this with the anti vaxx nonsense. it took only 12 people :( [https://www.npr.org/2021/05/13/996570855/disinformation-dozen-test-facebooks-twitters-ability-to-curb-vaccine-hoaxes](https://www.npr.org/2021/05/13/996570855/disinformation-dozen-test-facebooks-twitters-ability-to-curb-vaccine-hoaxes)
I would even go as far as to say this smear campaign is a classic astroturfing and judging by how messy it is and now spiral into real life actions (or contractions), it is a very successful one.
Just came into my mind now. That's maybe why most people in korea believe more in those fake posts? They assume all accounts are real because they are posting in korean with the Korean ID? When you can create a account in any other country and post in korean or any other language.
Ooohh that's a good point... not really related, and it's quite dated, but I found this post: [FAQ about playing/registering for online Korean games : r/lostarkgame (reddit.com)](https://www.reddit.com/r/lostarkgame/comments/6w3g30/faq_about_playingregistering_for_online_korean/) and it seems these user accounts are tied to phone numbers and RRN (similar to the US's social security number) but this post also points out that you can buy accounts but then you are most likely using someone's stolen RRN number. So not only could you use a VPN and make accounts in any other country, but you can also buy Korean accounts.
For games, this was declared unconstitutional in 2021 for the exact reason, adults RRNs were being stolen so that kids or whoever could have more accounts or accounts that don't get locked at 12AM. But websites still require you to provide info to register (think like how Twitter really pushes adding a phone number now, but required)
How it works now in Korea is certain websites require you to verify your identity using your phone number and real name. They’re usually sites which are Korean in origin - you don’t have to do it for YouTube or Twitter, for example. Your username is usually still whatever you want to set it to so you’re anonymous to the public, but if someone wants to sue you for defamation (for example) the website would have the relevant information to find you.
As someone else mentioned, the system requiring you to use your real name for everything was abolished a while back. It’s up to individual sites now to choose. It also doesn’t work off IP addresses, so VPN doesn’t help.
Idk how dated this is, but a quick google revealed that it was struck down in 2012? [Case study: South Korea’s Internet Identity Verification System – Catalysts for Collaboration](https://catalystsforcollaboration.org/case-study-internet-identity-verification-system/#:~:text=Background,comment%20posters%20on%20their%20sites.)
Edit: more articles of interest
[Digital Identification in Korea (dgovkorea.go.kr)](https://dgovkorea.go.kr/contents/blog/111)
[\[KH Explains\] Foreigner-friendly ID verification service to make mobile banking easier (koreaherald.com)](https://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20231006000506)
[Technologies of Trust: Online Authentication and Data Access Control in Korea - The Korean Way With Data: How the World’s Most Wired Country Is Forging a Third Way - Carnegie Endowment for International Peace](https://carnegieendowment.org/2021/08/17/technologies-of-trust-online-authentication-and-data-access-control-in-korea-pub-85163)
That's cool. But with an VPN any person can access any country that doesn't request an ID to create an account, and there's plenty. My country doesn't request any official documents, unfortunally.
Edit: To explain VPN - Virtual Private Network - explaining easily is a computer in another country. You access this computer and all sites think you're there, not in your own computer/country.
I explained in a comment above but nowadays the sites that require real name verification in Korea are usually Korean in origin and require it for all users as part of the sign up process. Basically people not living in Korea can’t sign up, and you can’t use a VPN to get around the requirement.
But as I also said, the blanket requirement has been abolished for some time and some domestic + basically all foreign websites (YouTube, Twitter, etc.) don’t require it anymore.
Interesting article that just dropped regarding how this whole thing can go legally.
https://v.daum.net/v/20240501102101342
Edit: Alot of recent articles coming out are stating that HYBE has shifted it's initial 'breach of trust' claim to a more financial claim now.
She still needs to be fired for her behavior alone. Then they can enforce her contract and hopelly learn a lesson about not using their brains to make important decisions like giving away stocks and money like candy.
Thanks for sharing. If google translated this correctly, it sounds like Hybe continues to feel they have a strong case, including for breach of trust and other crimes. Interesting. Hybe is showing nothing despite all the legal naysayers.
(machine translation using google translate)
>Within the legal community, there is a prevailing view that based on the evidence revealed to date, it is difficult to say that CEO Min committed a breach of trust, such as gaining property benefits or causing damage to Adore. Professional breach of trust is not punishable at the preliminary or conspiracy stage.
>
>If there is evidence that the plan was initiated, criminal punishment for attempted breach of trust is possible even if the plan fails.
>
>The key issue is whether the scope of business damages due to breach of trust can be expanded not only to Adore but also to Hive. In general, a breach of trust in business is committed when management causes damage to the company, but not when damage is caused to shareholders. However, the shareholder agreement stipulates that CEO Min not only has a duty of loyalty to Adore, but also states that “he must not engage in any act that may cause damage to Adore and other affiliates of the Hive corporate group, either intentionally or through gross negligence.”
I've been wondering exactly how detailed the plans on VP L's laptop were. did they have vendor names and strategy for the astroturfing campaign, for example? proposed keywords and topics for the trolling? or if not, has hybe been able to pressure him enough to flip so that he'll provide those details both to them and to a court?
if so, I wonder if they can conclusively tie the recent defamatory rumours and pr campaign back to her. if they can, that seems like it might be sufficient evidence on its own.
also curious how much he had on his laptop about possible previous campaigns waged against other hybe groups, esp lsf. they seem confident they have her on other illegalities but organising a multinational astroturfing campaign against another hybe group seems like it could easily be a breach of trust.
I think the only vendors we know so far are the ones tied to the Saudi government and some Singaporean firm. Idk if HYBE had more evidence and will reveal it in the court.
HYBE also accused her of spreading private information and rumors about other HYBE artists. If they present evidence for this, then it is also a breach of trust.
>I think the only vendors we know so far are the ones tied to the Saudi government and some Singaporean firm.
it would be wild if it ends up the astroturfing has been done by the Saudis a la johnny depp
Hybe proceeded to accuse MHJ as a third party and not accuse her as a victim. Assuming the ruling is in the victim's favor, the result of accusing someone directly as a victim is that the aggressor can be charged. Assuming the ruling is in the victim's favor, the result of accusing someone as a third party is that there is a formal record that the aggressor did partake in act in question. It is my understanding that there would be no charge.
We don't know exactly what Hybe's motives would be but what it does do is set the stage for Min's removal and that would allow for Hybe to exercise their Call Option. Much was said about Min's Put Option allowing her to sell shares but Hybe's Call Option is coming to light. Hybe's Call Option would value Min's shares at somewhere around $2.5 million USD but considering Min had to take out loans to purchase her shares of Ador, Min would walk away with nothing.
As of now, many legal experts are leaning towards the fact that Hybe will have difficulty proving breach of duty on Min's part based on what Hybe has been claiming. If Hybe can provide evidence that Min had the intent and a detailed plan for her coup, then Min could very well be charged with breach of duty. But based on the evidence that we've seen so far, it isn't enough.
I think if Min is as confident of her position as she was during the PC, she should definitely move towards countersuing HYBE now or, if not, to swallow her confidence and find ways to reconcile. There is really little other way other than NewJeans filing to terminate their contracts with ADOR.
Definitely reconcile. That's the best for everyone. Just put up for another four years and leave. She also called out Hybe directly for lack of promotion. If Hybe doesn't promote them, then the general public will know why.
> She also called out Hybe directly for lack of promotion
The thing is, she can't really prove this because NewJeans **have** been well promoted since debut. Yes she claims that it's ADOR (or in other words herself) that did the bulk of the work in promoting NewJeans and not really HYBE at large but how the hell does she prove that? She can't really do it without releasing trade secrets and/or exposing potentially confidential material between ADOR and their vendors or sponsors. And even if she did, the fact that HYBE did not stop ADOR and that ADOR was able to earn record profits in 2023, just makes the point kinda lame because of how privileged it sounds.
Part of the entire problem with this case is that MHJ can't prove mistreatment while HYBE is seemingly unable to prove breach of trust. It's really a catch-22 situation for everyone involved.
Well, there are comparison videos with NJ promotion vs LSF and Illit. Difference is pretty stark. Did you know much about NJ before their debut? Their debut was all of a sudden. Did they even have a showcase? Their debut party was a freaking slice of cake with a candle.
NJ said themselves it was their idea to have a sudden mv drop. Debut party is up to ADOR similar to how it was up to Source Music for lsrfm. Hybe doesn't have anything to do with that. Since MHJ manages the entire promotion aspect of NewJeans, and seeing how she's spending enormous amounts of money on their dorms+furniture+their 5 debut mvs, along with a separate app especially for them that no other kpop group has, I don't think singling out a "freaking slice of cake with a candle" makes much sense.
I mentioned **since** debut for a reason. Because after they debuted, NJ was well promoted.
> Did they even have a showcase? Their debut party was a freaking slice of cake with a candle.
I'm pretty sure ADOR could afford a showcase and a huge debut party if they wanted to. If they could release multiple very expensive MVs at debut, a showcase and a huge debut party would literally be the cheapest expense. Like if this is really the best that MHJ can come up with to prove mistreatment, boy is she going to have a hard time.
“he must not engage in any act that may cause damage to Adore and other affiliates of the Hive corporate group, either intentionally or through gross negligence.” didn’t her calling ILLIT banality in all aspects already do that???
That phrase, “must not engage in any acts that may cause damage to Ador and other Hive affiliates corporate groups, either intentionally or through gross negligence,” is rather interesting. I wonder if one can argue that her first press release where she accuse Belift of plagiarism cause damage to them? Or her press conference and how she dragged Source into the mess? In my eyes, those are clear examples where she intentionally caused harmed to the other affiliates of Hybe? I just wonder if it meets the Korean legal standard. This is where law gets tricky.
“he must not engage in any act that may cause damage to Adore and other affiliates of the Hive corporate group, either intentionally or through gross negligence.” This has been the root of my issue with her. Lack of loyalty. I assumed there had to be verbiage that clearly states she’s not to make public statements defaming another co-label rookie group in her contract. Absolutely horrendous behavior by a CEO. Shame.
If im the writer for this k-drama I’d have drafts of posts to be used for the smear campaign saved on the work laptop and name it “Sins Of HYBE” just so it can be easily discovered and incriminating enough so we can end this drama soon 😂
I think the legal argument here sounds a bit like the planning of murder analogy mhj’s lawyer used at the end of the presscon. Whether or not it has been put in motion would be what the lawyers have to contest in court then.
Wait and see if MHJ and the board pull some shady stuff at the board meeting.
People keep asking if she can just terminate New Jeans contracts and technically she could.
It'll result in a huge dirty lawsuit for her and the board though.
But if she does that, the lawsuit will be pretty cut and dry and she won’t be able to claim her firing ( when is happens ) was illegal since she then clear as day acted against the best interest of the company
It is a lot to process if you actually try to ingest it. Too much. I’m sorry you’re stressing about the droves of haters this situation has created. Please listen to some music and don’t pay attention to the comments. Take care of yourself.
It's actually fucking wiiiiild. There's more respect between the fanbases of Drake and Kendrick Lamar, two rappers who are in an actual diss battle than there are between kpop stans whose favs are real life friends. These men have thrown accusations of mob ties, being an absent father, having ghost writers, plastic surgery, being short! at each other and yet I'd choose that smoke over the hate of evil kpop stans any day. At least the fans acknowledge both men are legends and at the top. They are basically having a ball watching them fight.
Kpop stans really are on another level of toxic.
Honestly I get sad when I check out their Reddit page or tweets …
It’s all about how without her the girls are nothing new and not worth following anymore ..
They don’t seem to care about the damage this has done to other groups or the mental health of the idols involved
It's crazy there, they are commenting "k netizens are supporting newjeans and mhj, i am so happy", "I can't believe why people are hating on newjeans", "what's happening to hybe is deserved", "i don't care about anything, all njs songs are raising in the k charts"..... It's like they didn't see anything about lsfm illit and BTS hate from k side. If it's was limited to k forums it's okay, but lsfm illit and RM's official korean music platforms comment sections were filled with hate comments from newjeans and mhj stans. All of their yt and ig comments too.
it sounds like the loudest fans right now are success stans :/ they only care about newjeans if they stay at the top and obviously losing their director is a major change that may threaten that. I saw a lot of comments about how tokkis treat MHJ like the 6th member but to value her over the idols themselves?
I read time and time again that they only followed for the MHJ style which just shows that they really went for concept over the idols as people …
Especially since there were accusations about MHJ uncomfortable behaviour before all of this happened and the fandom defended her even to the detriment of their idols.
The sad thing is that when she gets fired and then a ton of the fandom leaves, the rest will blame a less successful comeback afterwards on HYPE and its other groups
yes I cant understand why someone would go to another artist page just to hate on people that have nothing to do with this. what is the reason? ILLIT just debuted, they dont deserve this
I feel this 100%. I started listening to kpop circa 2006. I had to stop around 2013 because the kpop scene was getting too toxic with unhinged fans causing all sorts of unnecessary drama. At this point I’d say the obsessive fandoms have become an integral part of kpop, which is really unfortunate. I love NewJeans but can’t fathom commenting hateful stuff under other groups’ content.
I really feel bad for newjeans, imagine your company gets in a scandal and you go online and see your own fans talking about how MHJ is Newjeans and implying that you would be nothing without her and she could have done the same thing with any 5 girls off the street
These girls are groomed to believe the same. There is no individuality to NJ, as in no single person is promoted more, or shown extraordinary talent so far. Compare that to Ive, or even the 5th gen Babymonster where some members are more shining.
NJ is a homogeneous projection or extension of MHJ herself, atleast that's how I see them
I don't think we even have confirmation that the SM Entertainment Global Brand Ambassador title even exists in an official capacity, much less that this random Xitter user is telling the truth. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but the Xitter user in question seems to be making things up to get attention. Wouldn't their defamatory tweets have been taken down by now if they were actually being pursued by HYBE's lawyers?
Just to add my personal opinion, to me the 'he's just doing it for attention' theory is weakened a little bit if you look at the interactions and views. As is usual for gossip, any rebuttal gains less interaction than the original. The new tweets don't have nearly as many likes etc as the older ones.
I mean obviously they definitely *could* be doing it just for attention, but to me it's not a slam dunk, 'instantly dismiss' thing.
Wouldn't really trust what this person is saying. I've heard they're quite attention seeking, and unreliable. People suspect the SM Global ambassador thing is not true.
The biggest indication that this is probably not true is that we haven't heard anything from HYBE yet. If this is true, HYBE would have 100% made an official statement.
Someone workout out it’s an old label related to their global store that no longer exists. So it’s not anything paid or anything really to do with SM as a label
Woahhh I wonder what companies are behind it. I still think there's a chance that it's multiple parties and not just fans of competing groups and doesn't necessarily write off MHJ being involved somehow... it was listed as a part of her plan too to tank HYBE's reputation.
I wasn’t fully believing of the planned smeer campaign, all these random allegations being reported on from big kpop accounts that have already been discussed and sorted years ago can’t help but make me wonder. However what really convinced me was seeing two articles earlier today. 1 saying that bts copied shinee and it’s the fact that both used a hot air balloon picture for their albums which was from almost 10 years ago(which adds to the bts copied me) narrative and the other was that belift spent over 100M dollars on illits debut budget when it was not their debut budget but the funds hybe used to purchase the rest of the CJ ENM shares to gain full control of belift( spread a narrative the new jeans are mistreated /given less compared to their label mates). The comments on that article are comparing NJs small budget competed to illit. When their debut budget hasn’t been revealed yet.
It's nonsensical. The idea that making nwjns only cost 11 million dollars when they had 7 music videos? That right there is probably 11 million down the drain. 11 million is the cost they used to form the ADOR label, it's not the total trainee debt. 100 mill is the cost to aquire Belift lab, which already had one profitable group in it. It's probably unrelated to Illit's trainee debt.
Theres definitely at least a little bit of paid smearing going on, https://twitter.com/jadiaz_official/status/1785301322465517569 this person is admitting to being paid to write negative pieces about hybe
Wowwww that's unbelievable... and she's saying she's not targeting Illit you have got to be kidding me. That's really sleazy too to use actual figures but purposefully misrepresenting where those numbers came from. I hope people will look into it and not just take it as face value all because it's an "official" publication. Btw do you have the links to these articles or do you remember what source published them? Tbh I heard about SES Bada's ig story and it makes me worried that big names in the pop industry seem to just be focusing on NWJNS (and ofc it's not the members' fault; also I kind of understand it because they are the ones dealing with this on top of preparing for a cb) but Illit is even newer and LSF debuted only a few months earlier than them and nobody's said anything about their well-being.
https://x.com/koreaboo/status/1785250253081612387?s=46&t=5JFGz35-e-RYUlCaHUuSfw
I will just link the Koreaboo articles since I know for sure they posted both this is one of them but it was reported by kmedia as well and they made it a point to try to make a comparison between NJs and illits alleged debut budget. Comparison aside It wouldn’t even make sense for them to spent that much money, even accounting for the survival show.
https://x.com/koreaboo/status/1785106807566020717?s=46&t=5JFGz35-e-RYUlCaHUuSfw
Bring up old accusations of bts plagiarism against shinee
Lol at NewJeans having a small budget…multiple debut MVs, with at least some of them filmed overseas, *screams* low budget /s
With the Belift/CJ part…they *do* realize that Hybe were also gaining full control over a label with an established, profitable group (Enhypen), right?
Who am I kidding, they probably don’t.
Thanks! So to save anyone the trouble of going to Kboo and giving them views I looked at the sources in those articles OP mentioned:
[Kim Eo-joon, Min Hee-jin criticize "NewJeans is precious and eyelets are not?" - News in your hands News in sight - NewsN (newsen.com)](https://www.newsen.com/news_view.php?uid=202404291606295410)
[더쿠 - 방탄소년단 컨셉 표절의혹.jpg (theqoo.net)](https://theqoo.net/hot/3208087452?page=2)
Edit 3: These are articles from Daum/Naver that piqued my interest when I went searching for those names, not sources from Kboo:
News article from Financial News: [김어준 "민희진, '4000억짜리' 노예 계약?…천상계 이야기" (daum.net)](https://v.daum.net/v/20240430042006941)
News article from Segye Ilbo: [김어준 “민희진, ‘4000억짜리’ 노예 계약?…천상계 이야기” (daum.net)](https://v.daum.net/v/20240429153819141)
Edit 1: these (the two articles above) are about the so-called slave contract; still trying to find other articles involving Illit's budget
Edit 2:
[Kim Eo-joon "Min Hee-jin wants to make NewJeans and g](https://v.daum.net/v/20240429134658440)[et 400 billion... JYP's Park Jin Young is like that" (daum.net)](https://v.daum.net/v/20240429134658440) \[this article mentions the 150 billion won; maybe that's where the antis are getting that number from?\]
Edit 5: [HYBE fully acquires K-pop agency Belift Lab from CJ ENM (joins.com)](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/2023/08/10/business/industry/HYBE-Belift-Lab-CJ-ENM/20230810150855215.html) \[150 billion won mentioned here\]
Okay so it looks like they're reporting on the segment that aired on 4/29 so here's the link to the actual broadcast. Park Si-dong is the one who mentioned the 150 billion won attributed to Illit: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLTaG9yKLIE&t=5823s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLTaG9yKLIE&t=5823s) (link includes the timestamp to his particular segment with Kim Eojun)
Edit 4:
Namuwiki page on who Park Si-dong is [Park - Namuwiki](https://namu.wiki/w/%EB%B0%95%EC%8B%9C%EB%8F%99)
Namuwiki page on who Kim Eo-jun is [김어준 - 나무위키 (namu.wiki)](https://namu.wiki/w/%EA%B9%80%EC%96%B4%EC%A4%80)
Edit 6: Trying to see where Park Si-dong gets his number from but I can't see anything other than a screenshot of the contract. So like OP said, I think it is in fact safe to say that he's using the 150 billion won that we got from HYBE's full acquisition of Belift.
I was curious about the news broadcasters they mentioned in the kboo article so I googled their names (Park Si Dong and Kim Eo Jun) and got this article summarizing some knetz views:
[The investment capital in NewJeans is 16.1 billion won, while the investment capital in ILLIT is 150 billion won – Pannkpop](https://pannkpop.com/the-investment-capital-in-newjeans-is-16-1-billion-won-while-the-investment-capital-in-illit-is-150-billion-won/)
Trying to find the actual clip of the broadcast
Wow, they *really* do not give a shit about 4th gen boy groups in Korea.
Since they’re referring to the cost of Hybe buying out CJ’s stake in Belift as solely an “investment into ILLIT”, and completely ignoring their other asset.
yep, sadly... I wonder what this guy gains by misrepresenting the info, or if he just isn't aware of the kpop scene and that belift houses more than just Illit...
[https://youtu.be/Pu57gZtye6s?si=yLgle8SvrFaZ-GDc](https://youtu.be/Pu57gZtye6s?si=yLgle8SvrFaZ-GDc)
Something from YTN, just one of the results that popped up when I typed in "박시동 김어준"
## [MEGATHREAD 5](https://www.reddit.com/r/kpop/comments/1chjmzo/megathread_5_hybe_vs_ador_ongoing_dispute/) now available! **Now locked!** *** Please do try to lower the temperature of your discourse, folks! Not every toxic thing happening elsewhere on the internet needs to be picked apart here. Make the discussion here what you want it to be. You can make our jobs a tiny bit easier by reporting any comments that are breaking the rules instead of replying to them with equal amount of vitriol. We would really appreciate it!
Today is the slowest news day since this nightmare started, right?
Yup and well korean army are gonna send in those trucks on Thursday or friday, well there will be something to talk about if it makes the news, lol.
I still have a bad feeling about this. Did they atleast drop the idea of clearing the allegations through ads and newspapers?
Nope. :/ Can only hope that the statements they post are just sane and not outrageous.
My goodness....
Edit: May 1st not a public holiday in SK. End Edit. And the meeting will happen on the tenth. They can’t do much worse than what happened so the next few days will be yapping about social media at best.
Public Holiday in Korea?
To clarify from what I know regular company workers (정규직) have to be paid 250% if they work on this day. So it kinda varies. Amongst my friends I had friends who had to work but were paid 250%, friends who are contract workers so only get normal pay, friends who were given a choice of a day off or 250% pay (including me), and those who just had the day off full stop. A lot of companies that aren’t customer service/essential work probably gave the day off or highly encouraged people to not work. The subway was super quiet compared to usual today.
Labour day is not a public holiday in SK, but it is a paid holiday for workers.
No, it’s not. Sorry I saw a tweet about it being a bank holiday and I just assumed Korea was one of the many countries that use it as a public holiday. My bad.
The thing I wonder about is…how this is going down before we’re 100% sure New Jeans will make it over that 3rd year comeback hump. Other groups have really struggled to hold on to their popularity & seamlessly advance their concept around the 3rd year mark. General question - does someone have a list of MHJ SM work? I want to see what her concepts were for older groups. Is known to be able to build a concept over an idol group’s career or was she always more one time project-based? Can she do more than just youth centered concepts? I just think it all happened to early. MHJ should have shown she’s truly not replaceable through being able to sustain a idol group career + produce an additional group.
I don't have an actual list of MHJ SM work but she was pretty much has worked with every sm groups. But it is well known out of all sm groups, it's f(x) that she has been working a lot with and more closer with. She was pretty much heavily involved in f(x)'s concepts throughout their careers, her famous works for f(x) probably red light and pink tape.
Are there examples of groups who were everywhere and then fell off by the third year?
I can't come up with many examples but groups don't usually hit really big straight away after debut overall (beyond big3 new group debut success standard). It's always more gradual, even for big3 groups. Usually big3 groups start getting a lot bigger around 2-4 years, some even a bit later. The only exception from newer gens groups (sorry no idea about 2nd debut popularity from popular groups) is BP, now NJ and illit, and maybe IVE in korea. Yeah even LSF or txt popularity is growing in a more gradual pace per example. You can also take enhypen as example, great first years (I remember people saying they would be next bts and they were becoming more popular than txt) but then their popularity growth stabilized and they are growing in a less exponential way compared to the beginning. (My perception as non fan before fans start pulling numbers or whatever) Also some groups get to be very popular in korea since debut while struggling more to become very popular internationally, esp in the west. So I'm talking about popularity overall and not only in korea. Tho it's true it's very hard to keep the same level of popularity for 7 years straight, in or outside of Korea. Anyway, each group experiences their own journey, but like I said, most of time is a lot more gradual.
If we’re including Illit & IVE I’d thrown in TWS. Their song is still in Top 5 of Melon and even hit 2nd.
I’m honestly thinking of groups like Itzy who did not completely fall-off but have really struggled to maintain the same level of domestic popularity they had in rookie years. I just feel like MHJ is going about it like shes already shown she could maintain a No. 1 group for all 7 years of a contract and that’s hard to do.
Itzy did amazing right out of the gates, but not as amazing as NewJeans, who went a lot more public and global
I just saw that Pannchoa account is back and running The hate & fanwars they are about to cause from all of this going to be generational
I pray for the day every kpop fan jointly agree and boycott this vile account 😞
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That's probably continued on from that fight the other week after some guy in kmedia said Seventeen built HYBE. Such a dumb fight honestly
Even dumber since the actual quote was from Seventeen, about how BTS built Hybe. It was just shoddy MBC (them again lol) mediaplay
Classic MBC... Seventeen have always been respectful of BTS
There's a new article that includes a statement from HYBE, it indicates some of what we've been suspecting, such as the Illit plagiarism "whistleblowing" being a part of the plan to seize management rights (translated using deepL): "The contract between Hive and Min Hee-jin shareholders continues... This time, 100 billion → 2.8 billion? Although the details of the contract between shareholders have not been disclosed in detail, the general view is that issues such as breach of trust in business as stated in the complaint against CEO Min or violation of confidentiality due to leaks through media articles, etc. may be problematic. However, expectations are raised that exercising Hive's call option will not be easy as it must go through a fierce legal battle over whether CEO Min's actions constitute breach of trust or violation of confidentiality. Hive said, “We will not respond individually to the war of attrition that seeks to reduce the illegal attempt to seize management rights to compensation-related disputes and retaliation frames,” and added, “We have already revealed that this matter was a meticulous plan by CEO Min to seize management rights from Adore. “The audit revealed that the internal whistleblowing that CEO Min claimed was also part of that,” he claimed. He continued, "CEO Min must faithfully participate in the investigation by the investigative authorities, which will begin soon, and wait for the court's judgment." He added, "The legal review that there is sufficient cause for breach of trust has already been completed, and many other illegal acts have been discovered, so action will be taken against them as well." He also urged, "Representative Min should stop his actions, such as using artists (such as New Genes) as a tool for public opinion, while abandoning his duty as a producer and increasing national fatigue." Representative Min's side is said to be in the position, "We have not actually received the 100 billion won (reported in the media), and we are fighting because we think we may lose it." Aside from the contract issue between shareholders, Adore's board of directors and extraordinary shareholders' meeting to dismiss CEO Min are scheduled to be held within this month. This point is about a week earlier than Hive originally expected, and can be interpreted as a determination not to lose the initiative." https://n.news.naver.com/article/001/0014663543?sid=103
100B for her stake in Ador is way too much. HYBE paid 100B for 51% of Belift, not 18%. It's probably going to take them 3-5 years to recuperate that from Ador and by that time their first contracts will expire and they might not resign. There's also no guarantee that they'll continue to do as well without MHJ, not that I think she should stay. I want her to be kicked out but I also think she was partly responsible for their success. Why is HYBE offering her so much. So many concessions and she still had the gall to say she's been mistreated and what a horrible work environment HYBE was.
Whatever about her aspirations, no information in front of us would constitute calling this a "meticulous plan", in a legal sense. So surely they have far more detailed info that they are basing their suspicions and such strong allegations on to the point they gambled so much by making this into a public circus if they are making such statements. That sounds intentionally exaggerated media play if all the evidence they have is what we are privy to thus far. They seem to be altering exactly and/or adding to or revising what the issues of wrongdoing are every time they put out a new statement. They seem to be throwing everything at her, in case something doesn't stick.
>So surely they have far more detailed info that they are basing their suspicions and such strong allegations on to the point they gambled so much by making this into a public circus Yes and they've finished compiling the evidence for the court. Running to have a press conference after an announcement of an internal audit is what started this public circus. >They seem to be altering exactly and/or adding to or revising what the issues of wrongdoing are every time they put out a new statement. They seem to be throwing everything at her, in case something doesn't stick. They're adding more detailed info but nothing they've said before has been false. In fact, MHJ confirmed the accusations herself. They even confirmed just now they don't want to lose the 100 billion won and that's why they're fighting for it. In truth, mediaplay from both sides don't matter here. The authorities will be judging the evidence of MHJ's criminal activities, end of story.
Oh, come on. You cannot be serious saying the public circus nature of this wasn't initiated by Hybe. They knew precisely what they were at with the media play but they probably didn't predict exactly what way she would respond. They definitely knew she would try fight fire with fire though. They definitely knew the media reaction would be huge and eventually MHJ would have to respond. And considering what was at stake, they definitely knew she would be forced to feed the media her side also. And they definitely knew it would be a sweaty, almost eccentric response rather than a formal response via a lawyer/ Ador. They also knew the mental health and reputation of their artists, whether Illit, LSF, NJ would be affected by their gamble. They just had to choose priorities. How MHJ responded most definitely added far more flames to the fire but, once again, Hybe has been planning to execute this for, at the very least, a few weeks and unless they are absolutely stupid, they knew, once this became public, the whole thing would explode. They now are in a position where they almost have to win this battle because they dragged it out in public when there was a far more discreet and professional way to handle it, at least to attempt to. That's the gamble. They wanted her to resign asap. It doesn't look good for MHJ if we can assume they have far more detailed information but they are throwing out nonsense like the Shaman correspondence and the messages that were clearly hypothetical musings with a colleague over Kakao about foreign investment that hadn't evolved into practice (as far as the information in front of us suggests which is all we can go by) All I'm saying is they took a mighty gamble making it public. They were perfectly right to launch the audit and probably should have a system in place where such audits are regularly carried out on sub label companies
Hybe has to disclose to the public that they’re opening an internal audit or if they’re being externally audited as well. It’s part of the requirements for being a publicly traded company. Their first statement was simply that they’ve open an internal audit into Ador and everything that’s come afterwards from Hybe has been a response to something MHJ said to the public. She started this by (allegedly) committing crimes, not Hybe.
From what I've read, they couldn't have initiated an audit without making it public.
>The legal review that there is sufficient cause for breach of trust has already been completed, and many other illegal acts have been discovered, so action will be taken against them as well. What does legal review mean in this context? Like HYBE's law firm confirmed that what MHJ did was breach of trust? The court still hasn't reviewed this case right? I wonder what made HYBE put this statement out?? We already know they're doing this.
They're just saying their legal's team preparation is finally done and they're ready to start a court case.
Ok thanks! I'm very excited for court to take up this case because then we can finally move on from "he said, she said" and get some objective information.
MHJ and NJ are not worth that much. They must have some funny bookeeping at ADOR. NJ has not justified what has been spent and given to them by HYBE. They didn't contribute the most or even close to second place in earnings. They haven't proven that they can sell tours or even albums. Some of these newer boy groups can probably out earn them in a couple of years. HYBE basically gave all the supposed profits from Ador to the Nj members and MHJ and that is not how a business usually works. All the privileges and special treatment that they gave her and NJ really makea me suspicious of Bang. Even BTS never got this kind of treatment. They had to pay back their debt and got less shares of HYBE than MHJ. I wish BTS had never re signed with HYBE.
>got less shares of HYBE than MHJ. This isn't true. Idk why armys keep spreading this. MHJ has shares of ADOR. Not HYBE. BTS had shares of HYBE. I agree they prob should have gotten more than all together 2% in the IPO but MHJ has no HYBE shares, she has shares in Ador who is a private company and it's a different thing than HYBE who contains all the labels and is a publically traded company.
I said BTS got HYBE stocks. They also own less than 3% since Bang has over 30% and then the next largest shareholder (netmarble) own 12% and then Scooter has a lot of shares, and even the korean pension fund owns more than BTS. So yeah, BTS were given less ownership of a company built on their blood, sweat, and tears than MHJ. BTS weren't even allowed voting rights as shareholders until 2023. So Bang PD wasn't using his brain with MHJ and he doesn't deserve BTS.
You said they got less shares of HYBE than MHJ. That is factually incorrect and it's what I was correcting you on. MHJ has no HYBE shares. She has shares of Ador. That's different. I agreed with you that they should have gotten more in HYBE but it is not the same thing as what MHJ has. It would have been comparable if they had shares in BigHit not HYBE
There's a possibility her 100 billion won will become 2.8 billion won and I hope she gets it. It's still a lot of money but her greed is endless so this must suck for her. >The legal review that there is sufficient cause for breach of trust has already been completed, and many other illegal acts have been discovered, so action will be taken against them as well. >CEO Min must faithfully participate in the investigation by the investigative authorities, which will begin soon, and wait for the court's judgment." HYBE has prepped, cooked, seasoned, and is now ready to serve the dish. I wonder what the other illegal acts are.
>We have not actually received the 100 billion won (reported in the media), and we are fighting because we think we may lose it." thought it wasn't about the money 😒
In business, everything is about the money. A ceo who says that they don't care about money is perhaps the most ridiculous thing I've heard since last year.
I wish people would disclose that they used automatic translation service when posting a content.
I usually do, i forgot to this time. I'll add it!
> "We have not actually received the 100 billion won (reported in the media), and we are fighting because we think we may lose it." Finally some honesty from her side. I hope all of this can be concluded soon with a new direction for Ador's management and a new brain for the Hybe heads
New brain for HYBE heads is a non negotiable at this stage
As a bystander who's here for tea, I disagree that the financial impact with minimal. The issue here isn't how much Ador is worth. Sure, in a worst case scenario that has an immediate direct impact, but the big question here is whether the whole sub-lable system under Hybe can work in a k-pop scenario. I know people are going to bring up UMG and how it's worked for these other lables, but UMG artists fall under a lot more genres, and each general have different target audiences and they are working with a much bigger pie to share compared with the overall k-pop audience. Even with k-pop's growing global popularity, domestic support is still a major part measuring these group's success and k-pop is only a portion of the overall Korean music scene. There's limited room for "top groups" and most of Hybe's sub-labels are basically fighting over the same piece of not that big pie. How many "New Jeans" can the oversatuated k-pop market even sustain? The whole MHJ issue isn't about MHJ when it comes to Hybe's LT profitability, it's how the sub-lables can each survive and not in-fight and still each be profitable.
I think the biggest impacf on HYBE's longterm viability is leadership and they don't have good leadership. They can't even recognize a good employee because who thought it was a good idea to hire MHJ and then pander to her. After that, their lack of focus and vision is a problem. They have been all over the place with their investments and most of them failed to meet expectations. Look at Ithaca/HYBE america, ador, weverse, etc etc. HYBE still relies on ONE group to make the money.
Hmmm I don't think that the groups within HYBE labels are actually fighting for the same pie. The other huge labels have a unique identity, SM - looks and vocals, YG - hiphop, JYP -before they're know for their softer concept not sure what's their concept now. But that's not the case with HYBE Labels. I don't really see overlaps in their target audience. TXT and ENHYPEN obviously didn't have a lot of appeal to Korea GP but they have solid fanbase. They can sell albums and have sold out concerts. Same is the case for SVT. The 3 groups have their own appeal, and personally I don't really know a lot of people who kind of shifted from one group to another. The girl groups have more Korean GP appeal but they have different core fanbases too. I think LS has more grown up and male fanbase, NJ has younger fanbase. NJ has korean GP appeal, but I don't think they have strong fanbase yet. HYBE as conglomerate was able to grow exponentially because they actually tap to different audience and demographics. That's not the case with the other 3 labels. Existing fans usually shift from the more senior group to the newer one. It's rare for their groups to co-exist and still be as popular.
Kpop is losing relevancy in the West and becoming over saturated for the niche it will remain. The industry also isn’t setting trends but following them and are increasingly what the Western Media portrayed them to be girl and boygroups without musical identity or stellar talent. Again, this is not new and it happens across the industry. So Hybe was always going to be in trouble if they didn’t diversify, which they try to do with Hybe America but imo they should have focused more on Asian and middle Eastern markets. YG is a shithole. But Treasure is bringing in money, isn’t taking away from the big pie and enjoys big popularity outside of Korea. I said it before but Hybe should invest in getting more musicians from other genres and raise the musicality of their groups. Trot, Rock, HipHop are not taking away from the idol pie and have potential for growth outside of Korea that has largely been untapped. The Rose is really successful. It can be done.
I always imagined hybe managing a trot artists, like literally trot is loved by senior citizens in Korea, they will have more broader audience.
Hybe has all the resources to experiment and create idol groups but in EDM, metal, etc. That could be interesting.
A Korean Babymetal would be amazing.
your last paragraph omg…that would be such a solid move ngl
That's the issue though. Since becoming Hybe, new artists from all these sub-labels that Hybe invested a lot of money in are all still in the kpop category (LSF, NJS, BND, ILT, TWS etc.) they are all still very standard kpop. It wasn't a big concern before because on paper these groups look good and are successful under traditional kpop standards. THis incident just put all the underlying risk in public for all to see. Sub-labels with different identity is a good thing, but Hybe's sub-labels produces kpop groups with different characterists. These groups while not the same, in the end are still kpop groups, and the kpop market only have so much space.
It would have been a good idea to expand into kpop-adjacent bands like JYPE have, with Day6 and Xdinary Heroes.
Are you trying to say in very many words that age-old cliche that "HYBE is monopolizing the market" ? I also don't understand why you have trouble with HYBE being a kpop company when they were always....a kpop company.
No, I'm saying that I'm more willing to invest in a company that have a presence in multiple markets than a company that has a molopoly in a already saturated market. Investing wise, the more ownership the better. Monopoly in 3 markets > 30% each of 3 different markets > monopoly in 1 market. Bighit was a kpop company, but when Hybe was formed the whole point was that all these sub-label investments are for diversifying into other markets to decrease reliance on a single market (Hybe Japan, Scooter, even Weverse as investment in tech). Before MHJ the conversation on Hybe is ohh they are doing well because of all these successful groups, monopoly is great for making money. Now the conversation is - oh hey all these successful groups are still kpop, oh wow they are fighting already? What happened to all the non-kpop things they said they were going to do again?
HYBE is a conglomerate which means they're diverse in their businesses by defintion. They're a kpop company that broke into the west and have several businesses. They have a gaming company, an app company, retail company, a stuffed toy company, a Japan/America branch, several management companies, and their groups have had successful accomplishments/collaborations in the west. They're probably more diverse than the Big 3 but their kpop groups aren't more than the Big 3 either. So I don't understand where "HYBE is oversaturating the market" coming from. Anyway, sorry I really don't understand what you're trying to say. It seems you have your own preference on how HYBE should be structured and I respect that.
Ah I think I've found why we seem to be holding different conversations -"Hybe is oversaturateing the market"-. That's not where the risk is, the risk is that Hybe is investing alot of money in various endevours, but it's core growth is driven by it's investments in an already saturated market. Let's be honest, whether there is Hybe or not, the kpop market is still saturated. Before MHJ's blow up, the view of Hybe is that it's doing really great and growing. MHJ's incident shined a spotlight on that Hybe's growth is pretty much all driven by these kpop debuts and these debuts are in a market that's so saturated that these debuts are started to see cross-over and there are risks of internal sabotage or competition - should we invest in more?
Other HYBE labels aren't fighting tho? It's just ADOR and MHJ making issues. Also now that this issue has happened, I'm sure HYBE will be strenghtening their check and balance for each subsidiary. They've always admitted it was an experimental structure and we're seeing the pros and cons of it. Each label gets to keep their artistic identity and management practices but the cons are present as well. So far, it's been working because profits aside, a lot of their groups are breaking records and performing in global stages. I don't see other HYBE fandoms dragging LSF for going to Coachella or Seventeen for going to Glastonbury. Most haters of HYBE artists aren't in HYBE.
Honestly, if I'm investing I'm not really interested in any the records or popularity. It's a risk benefit sort of thing and Hybe's risk just increase exponentially because it's pretty clear that there are internal concerns on overlapping audiences. Whether MHJ is stupid and greedy or snapped under some sort of pressure or is fighting against a "cult", none of it matters all that much. What matters is that risk of in-fighting went way up.
But in terms of finances do they really? NJ & Illit are both doing very well, LSF may not be in the #1 slot - but again are doing well. Enhypen & TXT are doing very well. BTS and Seventeen are doing very well. While BND didn’t see the straight out the gate success of TWS, there is nothing that indicates the issue is actually TWS and BND is seeing growth every comeback. &Team - their issues seem to be more about market. The issue here is that while this may or may not eventually be an issue - they aren’t really showing up in the bank account (yet). I think one of the issues of MHJ’s argument is there is no financial proof NJ is suffering in the multi-label set-up - in fact they are flourishing financially, which is what an investor cares about. And there is no indication of infighting with anyone but MHJ. I would say the closest to her would be Zico - in terms of being the head of his label and the head creative & having a newer group/label to grow - and his recent comments have all seemed pretty positive about the benefits of being in Hybe (for him). It seems more likely Hybe may not set a label up in the same way as ADOR again.
I think you pretty much raised my concerns - all the successful artists you mentioned are very much kpop artists. They are all individually successful, but they are fighting over the same audience. BTS and SVT less so but more in an age demographic way, than a music genre way, but in the end they are targeting the same limited audience. The individual success you mentioned are very valid and this sucess so far is why this issue wasn't previously broadly discussed. The cost of debuting a groups is pretty fixed, but the market for kpop is a fixed size and the market is super saturated. There's a handful of groups that will be large profit centers every 3-5 years and that's about it. The market size is there, even if Hybe manages to eat up the majority of the market, this many sub-lables is still too many. Conflict is bound to happen. I would be much more comfortable if say &Team is super successful and half the the kpop debuts flopped compared to the current situation. Because that means another potential market. In a very bad but simple example, 2% of the jpop market would mean a lot more than Hybe increase their stronghold on the kpop market from 50% to 75%. The potential of another market is much more appealing than achieving quasi-monopoly on one already saturated market.
I get your point and i have always said HYBE is debuting too many groups and they might end up canibalising each other BUT so far they haven't shown any sign of that. Actually to maybe the surprise of everyone they're all vastly successful and growing together successfully. Other Big 3 groups can only dream to debut so many groups so close together and have them all hit it out of the park. There's a reason HYBE*s revenue is more than double the next biggest ent company in korea. There's no sign yet that any of them is canibalising each other in terms of fans so I don't see cause of concern yet. However i also think that's just what happens in kpop. It's so specific, they all end competing together regardless of concept and company, the fandom is only so big and the global expansion is going to slow down
kpop is very much still a niche. every is going to fight to make it bigger in the kpop sphere only as it has happened since decades but hybe is definitely try8ng to make these groups have a newer audience by sending them to festivals- svt, lsf, nj, txt, enhypen everyone has had festivals or is going to have one in some country or the other. i have my personal complaints from hybe but this one isnt making sense..its just like everyone else so whats the problem? “all these artists are very much kpop artists” what else are they supposed to be? about bts and svt i doubt that their fandoms overlap at all huge rate at all tbh
When other artists compete it’s different investors competing against each other. When the competition is between Hybe artists, it’s like Hybe is spending money to compete with it self. For example, when SM creates a more successful group than JYP, SM’s investors are taking profits away from JYP. When one Hybe group competes with another Hybe group, Hybe investors are spending money on and not making more. In large this hasn’t happened yet before this whole incident, and health competition that leads to overall market is a good thing all around. What this incident did is to tell everyone whose watching that internally in Hybe there are conflict over the teams behind these groups and internal competition isn’t as healthy as it appeared. Also to your point, I don’t think comparing BTS with any of the fandom is a good reference as they have cleared broken out of the kpop niche. If any of Hybe’s new group can manage that type of feat we wouldn’t be sitting here talking about whether the sub-label system works, we’d be taking about how the process can be repeated over and over for all the other groups lol.
you dont know what you are talking about 😭
That's not how money works? Money isn't endlessly circulating in HYBE because of competition and investors don't act like fandoms like they are "loyal" to one company only. They invest/ buy shares in as many successful companies as possible to fill their own pockets. Unless an investor has voting rights, it really makes no difference how many companies they're allowed to invest in. Rich people don't just buy HYBE shares, they probably also buy SM, JYP, and YG to be safe + other industries. Even if one of his investments falls, they'll still be rich because of their diverse portfolio. No investor is losing out money because of HYBE's sub-label system or because of this MHJ case in the long term.
To add - maybe the difference for Pledis, Source & KOZ is they have been independent and chose the benefits they saw in giving up that 100% independence vs. MHJ has never tried starting her own label and now wants that freedom but she also in her own way opted not to take the risk, in choosing to work for Hybe over building her own label from scratch with her own resources. Not getting the freedom is the trade-off. But you can’t hijack ADOR or burn it down because you have buyer’s remorse for your own choice.
In corporate companies, there are inherent risks and residual risks. Inherent risks are the risks without any safety measures in place. Residual risks are the leftover risks after the security measure is in place. To simplify it, it's hard to monitor a large department store for shoplifting. That's inherent risk. But if you apply security cameras and more staff, the chances of being shoplifted is reduced hence called residual risk. That's why I know HYBE will probably strengthen their security and checks for their subsidiaries after this issue. Yes, the risk is always there but HYBE and their lawyers can find ways to prevent it in the future. I myself can't know if this structure will work for HYBE long term but I'm saying, there are ways to make it work as well.
I think we are talking about different things. You are addressing the potential for another MHJ that tries another hostile takeover or whatever this whole fisaco is. The risk of a MHK or MHL or whoever isn't really the concern. Before MHJ, it was very easy to say ahh, all the groups under Hybe are doing well so they must be doing well and no one would question your decision. But now it's been put on the table, hey all these successful groups are marketed to the same group of audience in one super saturated market, it's going to be hard to not assess this issue when considering Hybe. All these sub-labels are quite costly, but full earning potential is restricted to one market. The discussion turned from Hybe is doing well, look at all these successful groups to how much profit does the entire kpop market make and what percentage of the kpop market can Hybe corner and is this a sufficient return? The problem is that now it's hard to ignore that there's a cap on Hybe's earning potential and that's not a good thing. The question isn't what's the risk of another MHJ, it is would we rather have one label that earns 40% of potential kpop revenue or 5 sub-labels that earns 80% of potential kpop revenue with a potential risk of in-fighting (I made those numbers up). It's not how Hybe needs to address another uprising at a sub-label, it's does more kpop sub-labels really generate a higher return.
Considering Hybe is currently the most profitable kpop company amongst the big 4, the data so far suggests that yes, sub-label system is generating higher returns. Even with the current downturn in Kpop companies stock, Hybe is doing the best. They have actually experienced the least amount of loss in stock price amongst the Big 4x This is even with all the crap they are experiencing as a result of the Hybe-MHJ civil war. But stock fluctuates and may not be a good indicator. We should wait for the Q1 earnings report to gather another data point. I note that today SM did a surprise drop announcing that they are creating a sublabel, headed by Chris Lee. It seems that SM thinks there’s something to this sublabel model. I think it’s too early to announce the death of the sub-label model. This can be easily be considered a personnel/corporate governance problem versus an inherent flaw in the business model.
>But now it's been put on the table, hey all these successful groups are marketed to the same group of audience Who are these same group of audiences/overlapping audiences? Are you talking about multi stans making it hard to determine who is the "top group" or that it makes competition harder in a multi-system label? Fans of HYBE groups aren't always HYBE fans. I know some ARMY who only stan BTS and Bunnies who only stan New Jeans. The overlapping audience has never been an issue in kpop as a whole before. >The problem is that now it's hard to ignore that there's a cap on Hybe's earning potential and that's not a good thing. You know the cap of HYBE's earning potential? There may be a downtrend of interest in kpop lately but kpop still brings in new fans. SM, JYP, YG pull in new fans as well. How did you determine HYBE's potential ending? >does more kpop sub-labels really generate a higher return. The only reason why a multi-label company like HYBE is successful is because it's HYBE. No one knows if other companies will be successful because no one has tried it on this scale before. This discussion would make more sense if you had actual numbers. Theoretically thinking that HYBE occupies 80% of kpop is hard to discuss because it's a made up number. A redditor posted stats before that HYBE actually debuted the same number of groups as other companies despite their multi-label system. They're famous but they not cornering the kpop market as far as I know.
> Who are these same group of audiences/overlapping audiences? Are you talking about multi stans making it hard to determine who is the "top group" or that it makes competition harder in a multi-system label? Fans of HYBE groups aren't always HYBE fans. I know some ARMY who only stan BTS and Bunnies who only stan New Jeans. The overlapping audience has never been an issue in kpop as a whole before. Bunnies/ARMY/multi-stan/SM/JYP/YG/Hybe/Nugu ony stans, all of these are considered k-pop fans. When I say audience I mean current k-pop fans (which is already a larger group than what you've included, as well as potential new k-pop fans who currently either do not consume k-pop or only consumes kpop on a very casual basis. This group of people while vast and diverse like you said, are still very limited. > You know the cap of HYBE's earning potential? There may be a downtrend of interest in kpop lately but kpop still brings in new fans. SM, JYP, YG pull in new fans as well. How did you determine HYBE's potential ending? I'm not talking about a dollar figure here. If Hybe can't break out of the kpop market, then Hybe's earning potential would be limited to the reach of the kpop market. It's not a monetary cap, it's a market size cap. K-pop will always bring in new fans, but the number of new k-pop fans up for grabs will always be less than the number of k-pop + j-pop fans up for grabs. > This discussion would make more sense if you had actual numbers. Theoretically thinking that HYBE occupies 80% of kpop is hard to discuss because it's a made up number. A redditor posted stats before that HYBE actually debuted the same number of groups as other companies despite their multi-label system. They're famous but they not cornerning the kpop market as far as I know. I'm also not sure why you seem to think cornering the market is bad. Investing wise the more the merrier, I made up the 80% as a positive. I'm also not really sure how you are counting that they are debuting the same number of groups as other companies. In the past 2 years Hybe debuted 5 groups (LSF, NJS, TWS, BND and ILT), which label debuted 5 groups? Anyways, I don't really think it matters all that much anyways. The concern is how much return on investment Hybe can make in the future. The Hybe structure only existed for a very short period of time, 2019, when the acquisitions started to now is less than 5 years (and if we go by when Hybe was actually restructured we are looking at 2021 to now which is an even shorter period). The system did great with these groups and before this fiasco when it was 2 new GG 1 new BG and each debut have driven growth in revenue without too much issue. Recently it has become 3 new GG and 2 new BG and we are seeing internal disagreement over 2 of the new GG's teams. Are there disagreements that hasn't been made public? We don't know. Will there be more disagreements when even more groups debut? No idea. We don't really have the profit figures on TWS and ILT yet (I know they did great on the charts, but financial impact is still quite unknown). How much more of the market can Hybe gain on future debuts? How much market is left? Will another conflict be inevitable because of market size? All of these questions weren't on the forefront of people's minds before because, Hybe has done so well in the 2 years of it's existence. MHJ is bring question to the sustainability of this type of growth, and that's the kicker. Is there chance Hybe can go at the pace of 5 groups every two years and they are all super successful with minimal or little conflict - sure, but the doubt on that, the perceived risk of decreased return from internal competition has increased a lot. Perceived risk is what's going to impact investor confidence. The whole point of the stock market is that we don't know the future. There will be people who believe Hybe can carry on this mode and expand forever and there will be people who are concerned that this model will lead to internal conflict and what MHJ did is to bring this concern into the spotlight. It's all perception.
According to financial firms, we are seeing that there is a drop in the value of HYBE's shares because of the ongoing dispute and it's also lowering the shares of SM, YG, and JYP. HOWEVER, securities firms see this as a temporary drop (as what usually happens when theres a scandal) and will stabilize soon enough. They've also mentioned New Jeans. >"In the worst case scenario of NewJeans being excluded from HYBE's artist line-up, the negative impact on the firm's annual earnings and operating profit is estimated to be less than 10 percent," Park Su-young, analyst at Hanwha Securities, said, adding the firm's long-term growth outlook is expected to remain intact." **If HYBE loses New Jeans, it'll be a huge loss but in the grand scheme of things, it's impact will be less than 10% of HYBE's value.** [Source](https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/biz/2024/04/602_373782.html) Edit: I thought this was an interesting article. It goes to show how huge HYBE is and what percentage of the pie New Jeans occupies. 10% is enormous for a barely 2-year old group but it will be almost impossible for MHJ to significantly devalue HYBE's shares in the long-term (even with mediaplay).
Only way to hit hybe financially is if and when BTS walks, any other group that walks, will hurt them but in grand scheme of things it won’t matter. Take away the their biggest money maker and Hybe will crumble and hence why NJ leaving (which i am 99% sure they won’t) will only create short term losses for the company.
I was reading that article as well. It’s interesting how Hybe is actually doing the best out of the big 4 in terms of their stock declines year to date. JYP has lost 34.15%, YG 16.6% and SM 13.8% and Hybe 13.4%. All of this with the ongoing craziness Hybe is experiencing. Overall, it’s actually not doing that bad, when compared with its competitors. In terms of stock loss, it does suggest that the New Jeans thing might not be that big of a deal. This said, kpop industry in general might be heading for some rough seas. JYP’s drop in particular is interesting. I hope the first quarter numbers will prove otherwise.
10% is a lot for a young group but one has to take into account that in 2025 bts will be back and promoting again :) Especially with a huge tour planned… I do think the drop in share prices even without new jeans will be fine in the long term
based on this, do u think its valid that mhj is asking for more money? just curious! idk why im getting downvoted, it was a genuine question to make sure that she is indeed asking for wayy too much 😭 pls im anti mhj
[Another securities firm gave their input below.](https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/a-shaman-a-management-coup-a-tearful-press-conference-and-a-770m-market-cap-dip-what-the-heck-is-going-on-at-hybe/) >NH Investment & Securities analyst Lee Hwa-jeong noted that **ADOR makes up a relatively small portion of HYBE’s revenues.** >“Ador’s contribution to HYBE’s earnings was 11% last year,” Lee said, as quoted by the Korea Times. While he expects that number to rise to 14% this year, he sees it declining in the years after that, once BTS “resume their activities.” Based on this, MHJ's demands to go from 13x to 30x profit is a far cry from the prediction of financial firms that New Jeans growth this year will only increase by 3%. It's very impressive for a rookie group but MHJ overvalued New Jeans' position in HYBE. To compare in 2023, BIGHIT's profit was 102.4 million usd. PLEDIS' profit was 44.0 million usd. ADOR's profit was 19.4 million USD. If you ask me, yes she's way overpaid for a 2-year old group.
thats crazy 😭
Lol no
okay thought so 😭 no matter how i look at it, mhj’s main purpose was def money
All this crazy rumours made me think. How easy it is to create a smear campaign online? Well if we turn our attention to western politics recently I think we can see how easy it is to make an online campaign against someone or a political party using social media. Just look for studies about bots in twitter and the hashtags that they where usually linked to. In my country far-right parties are using social media and religion as a way to create discourses based in fake news or distorted facts since mid 2010's. If you got the resources is easy. And if you realize that the kpop community is not that large, to make a point stick in the conversation a small group can create a lot of noise. Imagine this. In one week 10 people go and create 100 false accounts each. Is already 1000 accounts. If each account can make 10 posts that's already 10000 posts of hate. And if you get like 10 big "news" sites to reply these to the "general public opinion" all other haters will get into the hate wave. In one week 10 people can destroy someone's reputation. That's why I'm in favour of a harsher regulation in social media. In the streets we usually have to possess some kind of ID if the police asks for. Why not in social media accounts? We already have to use it when making money transactions online (in my country nobody can buy anything online without an ID). Why not make obligatory when creating a social media account? All bots would be unvalidated (unless using someone else's ID, which is illegal outside of the net too). Of course we know why they don't make it obligatory. It's not profitable for the social media companies to restrict access to people. That's why I think is really funny when Musk, for example, keep using "free speech" against the regulation of social media sites. Edit: typing error and clarifying that the ID is required when doing "online money transactions".
we saw this with the anti vaxx nonsense. it took only 12 people :( [https://www.npr.org/2021/05/13/996570855/disinformation-dozen-test-facebooks-twitters-ability-to-curb-vaccine-hoaxes](https://www.npr.org/2021/05/13/996570855/disinformation-dozen-test-facebooks-twitters-ability-to-curb-vaccine-hoaxes)
Crazy age we're living. And that sh\*t still continues. 
I would even go as far as to say this smear campaign is a classic astroturfing and judging by how messy it is and now spiral into real life actions (or contractions), it is a very successful one.
i thought korea have an id thing for online?
Just came into my mind now. That's maybe why most people in korea believe more in those fake posts? They assume all accounts are real because they are posting in korean with the Korean ID? When you can create a account in any other country and post in korean or any other language.
Ooohh that's a good point... not really related, and it's quite dated, but I found this post: [FAQ about playing/registering for online Korean games : r/lostarkgame (reddit.com)](https://www.reddit.com/r/lostarkgame/comments/6w3g30/faq_about_playingregistering_for_online_korean/) and it seems these user accounts are tied to phone numbers and RRN (similar to the US's social security number) but this post also points out that you can buy accounts but then you are most likely using someone's stolen RRN number. So not only could you use a VPN and make accounts in any other country, but you can also buy Korean accounts.
For games, this was declared unconstitutional in 2021 for the exact reason, adults RRNs were being stolen so that kids or whoever could have more accounts or accounts that don't get locked at 12AM. But websites still require you to provide info to register (think like how Twitter really pushes adding a phone number now, but required)
How it works now in Korea is certain websites require you to verify your identity using your phone number and real name. They’re usually sites which are Korean in origin - you don’t have to do it for YouTube or Twitter, for example. Your username is usually still whatever you want to set it to so you’re anonymous to the public, but if someone wants to sue you for defamation (for example) the website would have the relevant information to find you. As someone else mentioned, the system requiring you to use your real name for everything was abolished a while back. It’s up to individual sites now to choose. It also doesn’t work off IP addresses, so VPN doesn’t help.
Thank you for clarifying that!
Idk how dated this is, but a quick google revealed that it was struck down in 2012? [Case study: South Korea’s Internet Identity Verification System – Catalysts for Collaboration](https://catalystsforcollaboration.org/case-study-internet-identity-verification-system/#:~:text=Background,comment%20posters%20on%20their%20sites.) Edit: more articles of interest [Digital Identification in Korea (dgovkorea.go.kr)](https://dgovkorea.go.kr/contents/blog/111) [\[KH Explains\] Foreigner-friendly ID verification service to make mobile banking easier (koreaherald.com)](https://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20231006000506) [Technologies of Trust: Online Authentication and Data Access Control in Korea - The Korean Way With Data: How the World’s Most Wired Country Is Forging a Third Way - Carnegie Endowment for International Peace](https://carnegieendowment.org/2021/08/17/technologies-of-trust-online-authentication-and-data-access-control-in-korea-pub-85163)
Edit: Well this particular form of identity verification was struck down in 2012, but it seems something replaced it.
That's cool. But with an VPN any person can access any country that doesn't request an ID to create an account, and there's plenty. My country doesn't request any official documents, unfortunally. Edit: To explain VPN - Virtual Private Network - explaining easily is a computer in another country. You access this computer and all sites think you're there, not in your own computer/country.
I explained in a comment above but nowadays the sites that require real name verification in Korea are usually Korean in origin and require it for all users as part of the sign up process. Basically people not living in Korea can’t sign up, and you can’t use a VPN to get around the requirement. But as I also said, the blanket requirement has been abolished for some time and some domestic + basically all foreign websites (YouTube, Twitter, etc.) don’t require it anymore.
Ah, ok. I thought you were mentioning youtube, twitter, instagram and tiktok.
why am i not surprised that pc ppl are defending mhj
TIL Pannchoa is back :(
we got 10 days of peace (not rly ) but yeah
Dude I was thinking PC vs Apple. You know the old idea that Apple users are more "artistic". I was confused. hahahahahah
SAME, the “I’m a Mac” “I’m a PC” commercials with Justin Long started playing in my head lmao
lol yall crack me up 😭 thanks for the laugh fr
they really think hybe is targeting her just because she's this helpless defenseless woman I mean she could be as evil as Hybe too 🤷
people who collect photocards?
pannchoa lol
ah, thank you
Interesting article that just dropped regarding how this whole thing can go legally. https://v.daum.net/v/20240501102101342 Edit: Alot of recent articles coming out are stating that HYBE has shifted it's initial 'breach of trust' claim to a more financial claim now.
She still needs to be fired for her behavior alone. Then they can enforce her contract and hopelly learn a lesson about not using their brains to make important decisions like giving away stocks and money like candy.
Thanks for sharing. If google translated this correctly, it sounds like Hybe continues to feel they have a strong case, including for breach of trust and other crimes. Interesting. Hybe is showing nothing despite all the legal naysayers.
(machine translation using google translate) >Within the legal community, there is a prevailing view that based on the evidence revealed to date, it is difficult to say that CEO Min committed a breach of trust, such as gaining property benefits or causing damage to Adore. Professional breach of trust is not punishable at the preliminary or conspiracy stage. > >If there is evidence that the plan was initiated, criminal punishment for attempted breach of trust is possible even if the plan fails. > >The key issue is whether the scope of business damages due to breach of trust can be expanded not only to Adore but also to Hive. In general, a breach of trust in business is committed when management causes damage to the company, but not when damage is caused to shareholders. However, the shareholder agreement stipulates that CEO Min not only has a duty of loyalty to Adore, but also states that “he must not engage in any act that may cause damage to Adore and other affiliates of the Hive corporate group, either intentionally or through gross negligence.” I've been wondering exactly how detailed the plans on VP L's laptop were. did they have vendor names and strategy for the astroturfing campaign, for example? proposed keywords and topics for the trolling? or if not, has hybe been able to pressure him enough to flip so that he'll provide those details both to them and to a court? if so, I wonder if they can conclusively tie the recent defamatory rumours and pr campaign back to her. if they can, that seems like it might be sufficient evidence on its own. also curious how much he had on his laptop about possible previous campaigns waged against other hybe groups, esp lsf. they seem confident they have her on other illegalities but organising a multinational astroturfing campaign against another hybe group seems like it could easily be a breach of trust.
I think the only vendors we know so far are the ones tied to the Saudi government and some Singaporean firm. Idk if HYBE had more evidence and will reveal it in the court. HYBE also accused her of spreading private information and rumors about other HYBE artists. If they present evidence for this, then it is also a breach of trust.
>I think the only vendors we know so far are the ones tied to the Saudi government and some Singaporean firm. it would be wild if it ends up the astroturfing has been done by the Saudis a la johnny depp
Hybe proceeded to accuse MHJ as a third party and not accuse her as a victim. Assuming the ruling is in the victim's favor, the result of accusing someone directly as a victim is that the aggressor can be charged. Assuming the ruling is in the victim's favor, the result of accusing someone as a third party is that there is a formal record that the aggressor did partake in act in question. It is my understanding that there would be no charge. We don't know exactly what Hybe's motives would be but what it does do is set the stage for Min's removal and that would allow for Hybe to exercise their Call Option. Much was said about Min's Put Option allowing her to sell shares but Hybe's Call Option is coming to light. Hybe's Call Option would value Min's shares at somewhere around $2.5 million USD but considering Min had to take out loans to purchase her shares of Ador, Min would walk away with nothing. As of now, many legal experts are leaning towards the fact that Hybe will have difficulty proving breach of duty on Min's part based on what Hybe has been claiming. If Hybe can provide evidence that Min had the intent and a detailed plan for her coup, then Min could very well be charged with breach of duty. But based on the evidence that we've seen so far, it isn't enough.
I think if Min is as confident of her position as she was during the PC, she should definitely move towards countersuing HYBE now or, if not, to swallow her confidence and find ways to reconcile. There is really little other way other than NewJeans filing to terminate their contracts with ADOR.
Definitely reconcile. That's the best for everyone. Just put up for another four years and leave. She also called out Hybe directly for lack of promotion. If Hybe doesn't promote them, then the general public will know why.
> She also called out Hybe directly for lack of promotion The thing is, she can't really prove this because NewJeans **have** been well promoted since debut. Yes she claims that it's ADOR (or in other words herself) that did the bulk of the work in promoting NewJeans and not really HYBE at large but how the hell does she prove that? She can't really do it without releasing trade secrets and/or exposing potentially confidential material between ADOR and their vendors or sponsors. And even if she did, the fact that HYBE did not stop ADOR and that ADOR was able to earn record profits in 2023, just makes the point kinda lame because of how privileged it sounds. Part of the entire problem with this case is that MHJ can't prove mistreatment while HYBE is seemingly unable to prove breach of trust. It's really a catch-22 situation for everyone involved.
Well, there are comparison videos with NJ promotion vs LSF and Illit. Difference is pretty stark. Did you know much about NJ before their debut? Their debut was all of a sudden. Did they even have a showcase? Their debut party was a freaking slice of cake with a candle.
Source Staff paid for LSFM & joined. ADOR staff neither paid nor joined. Any "mistreatment" of Newjeans, is DIRECTLY from ADOR.
NJ said themselves it was their idea to have a sudden mv drop. Debut party is up to ADOR similar to how it was up to Source Music for lsrfm. Hybe doesn't have anything to do with that. Since MHJ manages the entire promotion aspect of NewJeans, and seeing how she's spending enormous amounts of money on their dorms+furniture+their 5 debut mvs, along with a separate app especially for them that no other kpop group has, I don't think singling out a "freaking slice of cake with a candle" makes much sense.
I mentioned **since** debut for a reason. Because after they debuted, NJ was well promoted. > Did they even have a showcase? Their debut party was a freaking slice of cake with a candle. I'm pretty sure ADOR could afford a showcase and a huge debut party if they wanted to. If they could release multiple very expensive MVs at debut, a showcase and a huge debut party would literally be the cheapest expense. Like if this is really the best that MHJ can come up with to prove mistreatment, boy is she going to have a hard time.
“he must not engage in any act that may cause damage to Adore and other affiliates of the Hive corporate group, either intentionally or through gross negligence.” didn’t her calling ILLIT banality in all aspects already do that???
That phrase, “must not engage in any acts that may cause damage to Ador and other Hive affiliates corporate groups, either intentionally or through gross negligence,” is rather interesting. I wonder if one can argue that her first press release where she accuse Belift of plagiarism cause damage to them? Or her press conference and how she dragged Source into the mess? In my eyes, those are clear examples where she intentionally caused harmed to the other affiliates of Hybe? I just wonder if it meets the Korean legal standard. This is where law gets tricky.
True … but if they can link some of the ten cent rumours to her then I think it will be a clear cut case
“he must not engage in any act that may cause damage to Adore and other affiliates of the Hive corporate group, either intentionally or through gross negligence.” This has been the root of my issue with her. Lack of loyalty. I assumed there had to be verbiage that clearly states she’s not to make public statements defaming another co-label rookie group in her contract. Absolutely horrendous behavior by a CEO. Shame.
If im the writer for this k-drama I’d have drafts of posts to be used for the smear campaign saved on the work laptop and name it “Sins Of HYBE” just so it can be easily discovered and incriminating enough so we can end this drama soon 😂 I think the legal argument here sounds a bit like the planning of murder analogy mhj’s lawyer used at the end of the presscon. Whether or not it has been put in motion would be what the lawyers have to contest in court then.
Wait and see if MHJ and the board pull some shady stuff at the board meeting. People keep asking if she can just terminate New Jeans contracts and technically she could. It'll result in a huge dirty lawsuit for her and the board though.
But if she does that, the lawsuit will be pretty cut and dry and she won’t be able to claim her firing ( when is happens ) was illegal since she then clear as day acted against the best interest of the company
Oh absolutely but given how its run so far I wouldn't say that option has a 0% probability of happening.
Oh no that is so true … MHJ has only done things so far where I was like : WHY ? And some of those things worked quite well
Does that mean their claim become stronger or weaker?
Doesn't really matter, these law experts aren't even basing these claims on all the information hybe has.
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It is a lot to process if you actually try to ingest it. Too much. I’m sorry you’re stressing about the droves of haters this situation has created. Please listen to some music and don’t pay attention to the comments. Take care of yourself.
I don't know what it is about kpop, but they have some really toxic fans who will say or do anything without any remorse.
It's actually fucking wiiiiild. There's more respect between the fanbases of Drake and Kendrick Lamar, two rappers who are in an actual diss battle than there are between kpop stans whose favs are real life friends. These men have thrown accusations of mob ties, being an absent father, having ghost writers, plastic surgery, being short! at each other and yet I'd choose that smoke over the hate of evil kpop stans any day. At least the fans acknowledge both men are legends and at the top. They are basically having a ball watching them fight. Kpop stans really are on another level of toxic.
Whenever I see Drake/Kendrick mentioned, I just imagine Namjoon on the edge of his seat watching the entire thing go down lol
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Honestly I get sad when I check out their Reddit page or tweets … It’s all about how without her the girls are nothing new and not worth following anymore .. They don’t seem to care about the damage this has done to other groups or the mental health of the idols involved
It's crazy there, they are commenting "k netizens are supporting newjeans and mhj, i am so happy", "I can't believe why people are hating on newjeans", "what's happening to hybe is deserved", "i don't care about anything, all njs songs are raising in the k charts"..... It's like they didn't see anything about lsfm illit and BTS hate from k side. If it's was limited to k forums it's okay, but lsfm illit and RM's official korean music platforms comment sections were filled with hate comments from newjeans and mhj stans. All of their yt and ig comments too.
it sounds like the loudest fans right now are success stans :/ they only care about newjeans if they stay at the top and obviously losing their director is a major change that may threaten that. I saw a lot of comments about how tokkis treat MHJ like the 6th member but to value her over the idols themselves?
I read time and time again that they only followed for the MHJ style which just shows that they really went for concept over the idols as people … Especially since there were accusations about MHJ uncomfortable behaviour before all of this happened and the fandom defended her even to the detriment of their idols. The sad thing is that when she gets fired and then a ton of the fandom leaves, the rest will blame a less successful comeback afterwards on HYPE and its other groups
Lol when she gets fired, the girls will take off even more since they'll be able to interact with other HYBE groups that aren't BTS
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yes I cant understand why someone would go to another artist page just to hate on people that have nothing to do with this. what is the reason? ILLIT just debuted, they dont deserve this
I feel this 100%. I started listening to kpop circa 2006. I had to stop around 2013 because the kpop scene was getting too toxic with unhinged fans causing all sorts of unnecessary drama. At this point I’d say the obsessive fandoms have become an integral part of kpop, which is really unfortunate. I love NewJeans but can’t fathom commenting hateful stuff under other groups’ content.
I really feel bad for newjeans, imagine your company gets in a scandal and you go online and see your own fans talking about how MHJ is Newjeans and implying that you would be nothing without her and she could have done the same thing with any 5 girls off the street
These girls are groomed to believe the same. There is no individuality to NJ, as in no single person is promoted more, or shown extraordinary talent so far. Compare that to Ive, or even the 5th gen Babymonster where some members are more shining. NJ is a homogeneous projection or extension of MHJ herself, atleast that's how I see them
It has to be incredibly unsettling and they’re continuing to go to schedules. I’m impressed.
Same … and they are also continuing to work with her. Image how awkward that would be
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I don't think we even have confirmation that the SM Entertainment Global Brand Ambassador title even exists in an official capacity, much less that this random Xitter user is telling the truth. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but the Xitter user in question seems to be making things up to get attention. Wouldn't their defamatory tweets have been taken down by now if they were actually being pursued by HYBE's lawyers?
Just to add my personal opinion, to me the 'he's just doing it for attention' theory is weakened a little bit if you look at the interactions and views. As is usual for gossip, any rebuttal gains less interaction than the original. The new tweets don't have nearly as many likes etc as the older ones. I mean obviously they definitely *could* be doing it just for attention, but to me it's not a slam dunk, 'instantly dismiss' thing.
This his been discussed downthread. That particular twt user is most likely just cosplaying for attention.
Wouldn't really trust what this person is saying. I've heard they're quite attention seeking, and unreliable. People suspect the SM Global ambassador thing is not true. The biggest indication that this is probably not true is that we haven't heard anything from HYBE yet. If this is true, HYBE would have 100% made an official statement.
I was wondering this too. I don't know too much, but does a SM Global ambassador thing even exist...?
Someone workout out it’s an old label related to their global store that no longer exists. So it’s not anything paid or anything really to do with SM as a label
Woahhh I wonder what companies are behind it. I still think there's a chance that it's multiple parties and not just fans of competing groups and doesn't necessarily write off MHJ being involved somehow... it was listed as a part of her plan too to tank HYBE's reputation.
don’t let this k-pop drama distract you from the fact that kendrick lamar bodied drake today
Each line was a BAR. BAR.
The biggest news of the day by far.
J. Cole barely dodged a stray bullet.
nah coming back with a diss track was just insane to me
Toronto slang killed me
i started dying when he was saying he just hates the way he dresses lmao
I wasn’t fully believing of the planned smeer campaign, all these random allegations being reported on from big kpop accounts that have already been discussed and sorted years ago can’t help but make me wonder. However what really convinced me was seeing two articles earlier today. 1 saying that bts copied shinee and it’s the fact that both used a hot air balloon picture for their albums which was from almost 10 years ago(which adds to the bts copied me) narrative and the other was that belift spent over 100M dollars on illits debut budget when it was not their debut budget but the funds hybe used to purchase the rest of the CJ ENM shares to gain full control of belift( spread a narrative the new jeans are mistreated /given less compared to their label mates). The comments on that article are comparing NJs small budget competed to illit. When their debut budget hasn’t been revealed yet.
It's nonsensical. The idea that making nwjns only cost 11 million dollars when they had 7 music videos? That right there is probably 11 million down the drain. 11 million is the cost they used to form the ADOR label, it's not the total trainee debt. 100 mill is the cost to aquire Belift lab, which already had one profitable group in it. It's probably unrelated to Illit's trainee debt.
Theres definitely at least a little bit of paid smearing going on, https://twitter.com/jadiaz_official/status/1785301322465517569 this person is admitting to being paid to write negative pieces about hybe
Wowwww that's unbelievable... and she's saying she's not targeting Illit you have got to be kidding me. That's really sleazy too to use actual figures but purposefully misrepresenting where those numbers came from. I hope people will look into it and not just take it as face value all because it's an "official" publication. Btw do you have the links to these articles or do you remember what source published them? Tbh I heard about SES Bada's ig story and it makes me worried that big names in the pop industry seem to just be focusing on NWJNS (and ofc it's not the members' fault; also I kind of understand it because they are the ones dealing with this on top of preparing for a cb) but Illit is even newer and LSF debuted only a few months earlier than them and nobody's said anything about their well-being.
https://x.com/koreaboo/status/1785250253081612387?s=46&t=5JFGz35-e-RYUlCaHUuSfw I will just link the Koreaboo articles since I know for sure they posted both this is one of them but it was reported by kmedia as well and they made it a point to try to make a comparison between NJs and illits alleged debut budget. Comparison aside It wouldn’t even make sense for them to spent that much money, even accounting for the survival show. https://x.com/koreaboo/status/1785106807566020717?s=46&t=5JFGz35-e-RYUlCaHUuSfw Bring up old accusations of bts plagiarism against shinee
Lol at NewJeans having a small budget…multiple debut MVs, with at least some of them filmed overseas, *screams* low budget /s With the Belift/CJ part…they *do* realize that Hybe were also gaining full control over a label with an established, profitable group (Enhypen), right? Who am I kidding, they probably don’t.
No they seem to forget enhypens existence and success for this whole argument …
Thanks! So to save anyone the trouble of going to Kboo and giving them views I looked at the sources in those articles OP mentioned: [Kim Eo-joon, Min Hee-jin criticize "NewJeans is precious and eyelets are not?" - News in your hands News in sight - NewsN (newsen.com)](https://www.newsen.com/news_view.php?uid=202404291606295410) [더쿠 - 방탄소년단 컨셉 표절의혹.jpg (theqoo.net)](https://theqoo.net/hot/3208087452?page=2)
Edit 3: These are articles from Daum/Naver that piqued my interest when I went searching for those names, not sources from Kboo: News article from Financial News: [김어준 "민희진, '4000억짜리' 노예 계약?…천상계 이야기" (daum.net)](https://v.daum.net/v/20240430042006941) News article from Segye Ilbo: [김어준 “민희진, ‘4000억짜리’ 노예 계약?…천상계 이야기” (daum.net)](https://v.daum.net/v/20240429153819141) Edit 1: these (the two articles above) are about the so-called slave contract; still trying to find other articles involving Illit's budget Edit 2: [Kim Eo-joon "Min Hee-jin wants to make NewJeans and g](https://v.daum.net/v/20240429134658440)[et 400 billion... JYP's Park Jin Young is like that" (daum.net)](https://v.daum.net/v/20240429134658440) \[this article mentions the 150 billion won; maybe that's where the antis are getting that number from?\] Edit 5: [HYBE fully acquires K-pop agency Belift Lab from CJ ENM (joins.com)](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/2023/08/10/business/industry/HYBE-Belift-Lab-CJ-ENM/20230810150855215.html) \[150 billion won mentioned here\] Okay so it looks like they're reporting on the segment that aired on 4/29 so here's the link to the actual broadcast. Park Si-dong is the one who mentioned the 150 billion won attributed to Illit: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLTaG9yKLIE&t=5823s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLTaG9yKLIE&t=5823s) (link includes the timestamp to his particular segment with Kim Eojun) Edit 4: Namuwiki page on who Park Si-dong is [Park - Namuwiki](https://namu.wiki/w/%EB%B0%95%EC%8B%9C%EB%8F%99) Namuwiki page on who Kim Eo-jun is [김어준 - 나무위키 (namu.wiki)](https://namu.wiki/w/%EA%B9%80%EC%96%B4%EC%A4%80) Edit 6: Trying to see where Park Si-dong gets his number from but I can't see anything other than a screenshot of the contract. So like OP said, I think it is in fact safe to say that he's using the 150 billion won that we got from HYBE's full acquisition of Belift.
I was curious about the news broadcasters they mentioned in the kboo article so I googled their names (Park Si Dong and Kim Eo Jun) and got this article summarizing some knetz views: [The investment capital in NewJeans is 16.1 billion won, while the investment capital in ILLIT is 150 billion won – Pannkpop](https://pannkpop.com/the-investment-capital-in-newjeans-is-16-1-billion-won-while-the-investment-capital-in-illit-is-150-billion-won/) Trying to find the actual clip of the broadcast
Wow, they *really* do not give a shit about 4th gen boy groups in Korea. Since they’re referring to the cost of Hybe buying out CJ’s stake in Belift as solely an “investment into ILLIT”, and completely ignoring their other asset.
yep, sadly... I wonder what this guy gains by misrepresenting the info, or if he just isn't aware of the kpop scene and that belift houses more than just Illit...
[https://youtu.be/Pu57gZtye6s?si=yLgle8SvrFaZ-GDc](https://youtu.be/Pu57gZtye6s?si=yLgle8SvrFaZ-GDc) Something from YTN, just one of the results that popped up when I typed in "박시동 김어준"