Can I be honest?
I simply don’t think a lot of fans are seeing this from both sides. They are coming in with a parasocial/biased view of what is going on. I think people need to be more “outside looking in” to truly understand the depths of the situation. Gunil wasn’t kicked out for just 1, 2, or even 3 things. It was a lump sum of multiple things. As a company, they would have to forgive and move on from a lot.
- They forgive him for the dating scandal (obviously the parasocial fans who spend a lot are the reason for this one. Cause dating isn’t a sin)
- Forgive him for leaking music (music that all SIX of them worked on which as a musician is really a slap in the face to share it with randoms without everyone who worked on it’s permission)
- Forgive him for allowing stalkers special treatment to be cool with his church friends
- Telling his friends where other members hang out so stalkers can follow them and get autographs
- Giving special XDH gifts to people to impress his friends
- Badmouthing his band members
- Bad mouthing his fans
- Ranking his fans by their faces
Honestly, leaking unreleased songs to girls you meet is enough for a company to let you go. (HYBE did that not too long ago with that one girl who was competing to be in Katseye)
If you owned a company, do you truly feel that all of that can be erased quickly? I love Gunil, I will keep all my merch, and I will support him no matter what….but to pretend all of the things he did isn’t a lot is kind of insane and shows where your mind is fan wise. It’s a very parasocial take. Do I personally forgive him/feel we can get past it? ABSOLUTELY. Does a company like JYP think that? No, no company would lol. We have to be realistic.
Also, with the talking about the members…yeah they’ve been close for 6+ years, but if you found out your best friend of TEN years was talking about you behind your back wouldn’t you be a little hurt and want to discuss it? Wouldn’t it be hard to find out your friend is bad mouthing you via the internet? They literally had to find out with the rest of us. I’d confront my own family members over gossip, let alone someone I’ve worked with for 6 years or more. I think there’s a lot of layers to it, and some fans can’t see past idol image and their obsession with it.
I do not think Gunil is a bad man at all, I think he made some mistakes….but we have to acknowledge they’re big mistakes and they’re multiple mistakes that require a lot of forgiveness on multiple ends.
No one even realizes that those accounts have been there for a while telling this info and where most likely seen by staff, they ignored it until they couldn’t anymore.
I want Gunil back, but I also realize why that is not a possibility at this point. It’s a lot of damage to fix. Xdinary Heroes was on a really good uphill and this album really selled for them, I genuinely hate that a lot of it has knocked down a lot of progress simply over a girl he barely knew for 2 weeks and a church friend who wished he was him (you can tell the friend wishes he was a member of the group) and was using Gunil’s fame to get women. It’s an unfortunate situation, but we have to acknowledge that he has to take responsibility as well (which he has)
I’ll be seeing them in October, and I plan on supporting them forever and Gunil with whatever he does in the future…and I accept that it just has to be how it is now. We simply can’t go back here. Butterfly effect man.