Recently, the NewJeans member received hate comments following some of her own comments. The reason behind the attacks? Her mention of not knowing a type of Korean food (kalguksu) and allegedly using a condescending tone during a live stream. Yes, it may seem absurd, but that is why she was targeted with a wave of hate comments.
Minji then apologized through the Phoning app. On January 21st, the NewJeans member appeared at the airport and many photos of her were published in the media. In one of its articles, MBC posted a photo of Minji with the title: "NewJeans Minji, sharp beauty, international elegance." While the title may seem harmless at first glance, the first syllable of each word forms the term Kalguksu, in the form of an acrostic poem (Kal... Guk... Su...). NewJeans fans accused MBC of mocking Minji and the media quickly deleted the post and issued an apology.
MBC stated: "iMBC Entertainment is well aware of the importance of artists' intellectual property. Recently, there has been controversy over the title of a photo article related to NewJeans and we quickly took action to remove it. We apologize to the artists and their agencies for any distress caused by this incident. iMBC Entertainment promises to take thorough measures in content management to ensure that such incidents do not happen again in the future."
