Please stop discrediting the creative success behind NewJeans
The reason I’m posting this is because a lot of people are sidelining Min Hee Jin + creative team’s work and the positive impact it’s made on Kpop.
I used to think short skirts, high heels, uncomfortable attire, and wardrobe malfunction were the norm for girl groups simply because it always was that way. Girl groups simply had to “deal with it” because the outfits suited the concept and because they were girl groups. Even though fans complained about how a member had to pull down their skirts and looked uncomfortable during their performance, agencies didn’t listen because they wanted to attract male fans.
Behind the scenes of training, verbal abuse and tears were masqueraded as prerequisites to an idol’s debut. There always seemed to be a hierarchy where staff (dance teacher, vocal coach, etc) stood on top of their trainees and physical or verbal abuse were justified in order to “build trainees up.” Idols had to be perfect, and there was no room for imperfection.
When Newjeans debuted, it was as if everyone’s belief on what Kpop “had to be” was shook. On their debut showcase, I remember everyones’ shock in the comment section, praising NJ for their undyed, natural hair and minimal makeup. Each member were wearing pants and sneakers, and when they did wear skirts, they had long safety shorts to prevent people uploading a slow-mo of their idol in a vulnerable moment. Yes, the standards are that low in Kpop. The choreography where the members are smiling, facing each other, and having little moments to themselves reminded people of their adolescent years when they made many cherished memories with their friends. I’m not glazing NJ, I am simply restating what people felt at that time.
Artists & groups like Silica Gel have mentioned in interviews that NJ stood out to them because they saw the staffs’ tirelessness and genuine desire to see NJ shine even brighter on stage. When shit hit the fan, the staff helped NewJeans organize the secret Live where they talked about their mistreatment. Some staff were tricked, unlawfully confined, and coerced into surrendering their personal mobile phones by HYBE when the crackdown happened.
What I’m trying to say is, there was an entire community supporting NJ such as the music producer, choreographer, stylist, creative team, and most importantly, MHJ. We almost didn’t have Attention & Hype Boy because BSH disliked them because it was too ‘boring’ and disapproved the Y2K aesthetic. But MHJ was stubborn in hiring 250 (musical producer behind NJ), pursued the Y2K aesthetic at a time when there was no demand for Y2K, convinced the director of Dolphiners Films to direct their music video. He ended up directing the iconic NewJeans music videos "Ditto" and "ETA.” She was directly involved in every element of production as their creative director. HYBE did not predict NJ to be a success in their internal documents and invested less money but she made it work with a limited budget.
Outside of her professional work, she built relationships with the members and their parents. She held a meeting with the members where she explained her motivation behind creating NewJeans, met with their parents frequently and kept them posted, met with the members outside of their working environment to build a genuine relationship, taught them how to grow as an artist when they would eventually become independent of her influence, moved them to a big dorm immediately after their success, and paid them in full in a year.
It’s really unfair to discredit MHJ’s work and say that she did nothing else other than approve/disapprove what her employees’ did and imply that she was manipulating the girls for money.
When the court ordered HYBE to pay her approximately 25.5 billion KRW (roughly $18 million USD), the first thing she did after her legal victory was open a press conference to offer Hybe to keep the money in exchange to terminate their lawsuit against Danielle AND to see the girls on stage again.
People dismissed it as putting on a show, but what if HYBE agreed? Do you think she could publicly back out from the promise she made in front of all the reporters? Is putting 25.5 billion on the table putting on a show? Or is Hybe screenshotting her messages and putting them out of context to make her look bad putting on a show?
I genuinely don’t think I’ve seen a Kpop group and a production team where both see other as equals, have fun, and see the meaning behind their work. As someone who’s interested in the behind the scenes of Kpop, I hope people can appreciate the work MHJ has done and appreciate the rest of the team as well because they’ve also risked their jobs helping NJ and wrongfully terminated.