r/XdinaryHeroes

Hey guys I know it’s been a hard weeks for us villains and I was just hoping to get some clarification. I just started a new job working 10 hour shifts so I haven’t had the time to sift through all the claims that were made against Gunil and look to see if they are true or not so I hope some of you guys can help me.

This is my ult group so I really want to get the facts straight. I heard the news on Thursday and all I heard was that he called fans “bitches” referring to saseangs and after reading his statement I could see where he was coming from and honestly did not think this was grounds for dismissal from the group. I heard more claims about him talking behind the members backs, ranking fans faces, etc and just want to know how credible those claims are and if anyone can link me to the source/evidence, I’d be really grateful. I know other claims were made so I’m open to just being educated on the situation and hear all the evidence against him before I decide to continue to support him.

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.

1. 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)
2. 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)
3. Forgive him for allowing stalkers special treatment to be cool with his church friends
4. Telling his friends where other members hang out so stalkers can follow them and get autographs
5. Giving special XDH gifts to people to impress his friends
6. Badmouthing his band members
7. Bad mouthing his fans
8. 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.

Hello all

I've been having a lot of thoughts about the Gunil situation, as a lot of people have, and just wanted to get them out of my head before they disappear because I have the memory of a goldfish.

Anyways, this is mostly about what Gunil said -"씨발 년"- and about him being labeled a misogynist.

It is not my intent to start any arguments; I just want to exchange thoughts with everyone.

I'm not that old (legal adult tho) compared to others who may have more wisdom than me, and I am still fairly new to kpop, so this whole situation is wild for me.

Despite that, I've lived in a bunch of different situations, and I have always been quiet, so all I do is observe. I see the way people act when they are under intense stress, anger, and sadness. I have also experienced these intense situations myself, although my brain tries to make me forget.

I just want to mention that the information about the words Gunil said is what I got from other users on this platform sharing their knowledge.

In Gunil's situation, the words he said were not ok; they were wrong. I personally feel the most damage those words caused was based on the history it has of degrading women, along with the harsh cultural and social norms women face in Korea.

When looking at the actual meaning of the words, I can't help but feel like they describe sasaengs and their actions. The words have been described by others as meaning f***ing b**ch, c**nt, h*e, and someone is not human.

I wondered if this situation would be different if Gunil said "f***ing b**ch, c**nt, h*e, and sub-human" instead of "씨발 년" because, to me, those words are most deserving of people who harass others, stalk them, and make them feel like they are worthless unless they adhere to their desires.

I know what it feels like when you're trying to please others and when you feel like you only have value when you are servicing others, because whenever you are 100%, you are called lazy, ignorant.

Knowing this, I can only imagine how Gunil and other idols feel, trying to achieve their dreams, doing something they love, but constantly being met with people who overstep the boundary of fan and artist. Some people hold idols to extremely unrealistic standards and treat them like service workers who must bend to their every will, and if they don't, they are treated cruelly in every way possible until they either break or bend. Like, there are genuinely people out there who think idols don't poop.... they gotta be smokin something.

I just want to clarify: I am not defending Gunil, I know what he said was wrong based on it cultural signifgance and based on his explanation/apology on bubble, he seemingly does. Obviously I don't know Gunil, but the fact that he shared his perspective means something to me based on the fact that it contradicted his termination letter by JYP and was not officially made public. Since he was not given the chance to share this explanation publicly, it makes me feel that JYP doesn't care about his image now that he has been terminated. They said good luck finding a new job buddy, better go get that Wendy's application.

I also saw people saying that when under intense mental and emotional distress, people usually reac h for gender neutral insults, and I'm sorry, but that is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. The whole point of the words people say when they lash out is to hurt the other person(s) and make them feel the same way they made them feel. In his bubble note, Gunil explained that he and the other members were met with stalking, harassment, unrealistic criticism, having their dorm broken into, and having trackers put on their car. I don't care how strong you claim to be; no one is enduring all that and more without proper help and not snapping. And it's not like this is anything new; sasaengs are widely known to destroy people mentally and even lead them to take their lives.

So I don't understand how people's first thought is to label Gunil a misogynist and continue to ridicule him, especially when he himself acknowledged what he said was wrong. I guarantee no one here has or ever will experience what idols do because the hate is being spewed from all angles by hundreds and thousands of people.

And this isn't just about Gunil, but I don't understand how no one can make a mistake like this and atone for it. You're labeled a mysonginist, and that's it- no coming back, no matter how hard you try, because no one will believe you. I'm tired of this narrative that if you're a woman and you defend or provide sympathy to someone like this, then you're actively degrading your own being. Human beings are multifaceted individuals who can experience pain, fear, and anger all at once. The idea that the person who is pushed to their breaking point deserves more hate and criticism than the people who got them to this point is insane to me, and it is cruel.

I often feel hopeless because it doesn't matter what others say about me, but if I let my smile slip or even dare to think about saying something as hurtful back, I'll be the one in the wrong.

I'm a sympathetic person who tries my best to understand everyone's perspectives, but to some people that means nothing. Instead, they will just see another parasocial fan trying to aimlessly defend their pookie.

Again, I just want to say I understand the words Gunil chose were wrong, but I also feel that simply writing him off as a misogynist given his situation is just wrong.

That's all; I definitely forgot some stuff, but my brain has run out of power, and my arm is about to dislocate. Again, I don't mean to cause any arguments; I just want to share my experience as a depressed chud.

Somebody email me a Big Mac and a six-piece nugget with a sprite, ill be waiting. 👨‍🦲

Hey, everyone. Now that a few days have passed and we've been able to observe the situation from different perspectives, there's something I've been thinking about that I'd like to contribute to the discussion, respectfully.

I'd like to start by clarifying a couple of things:

One, I don't condone the vocabulary that Gunil used, regardless of who it was directed to. He also admitted that it was wrong and that he shouldn't have said that, so clearly he understands it was wrong and it's pointless to try to shrug it off or to gaslight people into believing it wasn't so bad. It was.

Two, even if he did something wrong, I don't think that makes him a bad person. He's obviously not an angel but he's not evil either. He's a regular guy who went through an extremely stressful situation, made a series of bad decisions and is now facing their consequences. His apology seemed sincere *to me* and I forgive him, still love and respect him, and wish him all the best. However, I also respect people who have a different stance and have decided not to forgive him. I think we never know for certain whether someone is sincere or not, and it's up to each of us to decide whether to trust or not.

But that's not the point of this post. The reason I'm bringing this up is because I've noticed that some of the discussions in this sub are turning into fights where people are being disrespectful to each other and I'd like to encourage everyone to try to respect the diversity of opinions we have on this issue.

Now, across all the discussions about Gunil's situation, I've noticed that most people tend to mention the stalking as a one-time incident, or the massive hate as "criticism of the concert", and the reason I wanted to make this post was to provide more information on these two points, for those who may not be aware.

First, the stalking. Besides what most people know about how sasaengs broke into Xdinary Heroes' dorms early in the year, and what Gunil shared in his letter about the tracking device in his car, it's important to point out that the members are being stalked *constantly*.

There are public X accounts disguised as "fansites" that pretty much every week post photos of the members' private lives. Just over the last month, I have seen: an entire series of photos of Jooyeon walking down the street, sitting at a bus stop, scrolling on his phone, you know, doing normal people things, with people in the replies commenting on his hair or his socks like it was an official photoshoot; a series of photos of Gaon eating at the airport; another of Junhan at a coffee shop; Ode having lunch with friends; just complete shameless invasion of privacy shamelessly posted on public social media for *everyone* to see like they're zoo animals.

Rednote is another thing. There are countless photos and videos of the members off-schedule, it's truly alarming. The fact that some people feel entitled to this "content" is already disturbing, but it's even more unnerving to think about what someone with malicious intent could do with it. And this will keep happening because well, no one is stopping them.

So I want you to keep this in mind when the topic of stalking comes up. It's a constant thing and it builds up and at some points escalates, but it's always there, they're *always* being stalked. All of them. Not just Gunil. All the time. Not just during the break-in.

Now, onto the second point, the hate. The words I'm seeing in these discussions are "fans who weren't satisfied with the concert", "people who criticized the concert", but these aren't the terms I see whenever a Kpop group gets hate over a performance. We call it what it is: hate. So why is different for Xdinary Heroes? Is it because we're trying to paint Gunil as someone who can't handle criticism at all? Let's dive into it.

Back when they had their first concert at Inspire Arena, I was very excited. I was not there, but I felt very proud because that was their largest audience so far, so when the concert ended I did the same thing Gunil did: I went to social media to read people's reactions, and welp, there was a bit of everything: happiness, valid criticism, and yes, hate.

There is a world of difference between "I wish they had played xyz, but maybe next time!" And "I spent all this money and you didn't even play xyz, now that you're becoming bigger you think you're too important". One is feedback, the other is just rude and entitled. And some of those comments were suuuuper rude, calling them everything from lazy to ungrateful, or leaving manipulative comments like "the drive to the venue was longer than the concert".

Mind you, the concert was approximately 3 hours long, and they played 28 songs live. Really unfair to call them lazy in my opinion. *I* got annoyed and stopped reading comments altogether, so I can only imagine how Gunil felt after playing for 3 hours and who knows how many more of preparation, plus the accumulated stress of preparing an album in parallel to their UK & Europe tour stops, festival performances, the constant stalking, and countless other things we may never know.

Again, nothing excuses what he said in that conversation. My point is, please keep in mind that what he saw wasn't simple criticism. And it wasn't just directed at him, but the entire band. They got a lot of hate on an occasion that represented an important milestone to them, and that objectively sucks. I understand why he was hurt and angry and wanted to vent, even if I don't approve of the way he did it.

That same night, Gunil couldn't sleep and he wrote a long message on Bubble to address this. I want to share some extracts of what he said:

>First, I saw that some people felt the concert was too short, but think it probably felt shorter than usual because there wasn’t 발롯코 (📝the segment where we walk around near the audience) but I really hope people won’t say things like, “They don’t care about Villains anymore,” or “They skipped it because they couldn’t be bothered.”

>In fact, we really wanted to do it. Up until right before we arrived at the venue, we were fully expecting to. We had already planned which songs we’d sing while walking around. We even chose songs like “Strawberry Cake” and “Little Things,” songs that weren’t on the main setlist, and we had already decided what we’d perform both today and tomorrow. We were so excited to see Lainz up close and singing these together. But when we arrived at the venue, for reasons we ourselves still don’t know, the 발롯코 was suddenly canceled that same day. We had no choice but to skip it

>I know Lainz couldn’t have known that, so I understand why people were even more disappointed. Still, when something like this happens, instead of immediately saying things like, “Why are you guys so lazy?” or “Now that you’ve gotten bigger, you think you’re something?” I hope you’ll first think, “Maybe there’s a reason why things turned out this way,” and not lose your trust in us

>I also saw a lot of Bubble messages saying the setlist was disappointing. I think setlists are naturally a matter of personal preference, so it’s completely understandable that people will have different opinions. Feedback like, “I hope you play this song next time,” is always welcome because we can actually use that when preparing future concerts.

>But comments like, “Why did you put together such a lazy setlist?” or “This setlist makes it obvious you didn’t even care about the concert,” aren’t very helpful from our perspective. It just feels like you're venting your emotions in an immature way because you're angry and annoyed. If you want to give feedback, I think it would be more helpful to tell me where and how you were disappointed.

>Ever since our debut, whenever there were ridiculous or unreasonable comments, I usually just ignored them. But today, I really felt like I had to say what was on my mind. If I just let this pass, I felt like I might start mistaking the small number of Lainz who treat me and our team like an emotional dumping ground for the fandom as a whole. And honestly if I kept holding it in this time too, I'm going to die of stress ㅋㅋㅋ..

>Anyway, to everyone coming to tomorrow’s concert, please come safely. Let’s just have fun together first! I truly appreciate the constructive feedback that is not nitpicking and swearing at me for their own ridiculous personal reasons. Everything can’t become perfect all at once, but I’ll continue improving the things that I realistically can, little by little

I remember when I read that I feared he was gonna get in trouble, because I had never seen an idol directly call out fans like this, but I respected him all the more for it. The second day of the concert he said something similar to the audience, said he was afraid of the next concert, and ended up crying on stage. Now we know he was going through a really shitty time, and already at his limit. And now we know there will be no next concert for him 🥲 But well, I wanted to share some more context and also show that he was pretty honest about how he felt at the time, and it's consistent with what he expressed in his last letter.

Man, I wish I had some cool closing lines after this long-ass post. I just hope this contributes to the discussion and we can keep talking about this issue while respecting each other's opinions.

Take care and see you around! 💜

Waaaa I love this video so much!!! He have a good singing voice and he looks very confident here ^^ Happy Birthday to Xdinary Heroes talented lead guitarist 🖤🖤🖤

First of all no speculation? From the crowd who have been dooming about JYP only binning Gunil because they want to sabotage and the girlfriend being an evil saesang who ‘set him up‘ and have so throughly exhausted reality to the point where they’re setting up tarot readings to tell them exactly what they want to hear. No speculation huh?

It’s the way people have spent days going ‘I don’t care that he said slurs I would have said worse’ and ‘if you have a problem with him insulting fans with misogynistic language you’re a saesang lover who doesn’t understand what it means to be stalked’ suddenly making wild about faces (without actually apologising mind you) and now twisting themselves into believing they’re being nuanced.

In this case nuanced means believing all those evil women forced him into being a misogynist, that he wouldn’t have said all of that if he wasnt at his breaking point, that it’s women’s fault that a 28 year old man was loose lipped on the phone to a woman he clearly did not respect and used all the slurs that denote deep discrimination.

And it wasn’t even about saesangs! Thats what really gets me. The entire recording was all about how he thought fans were 씨발년들 and 씨발년 who wanted to slap. No differentation being saesang or disrespectful or everyone else nothing (brb the fact that he lied about that in his statement along with a few other things is why I personally cant trust him as much as i wanted to). I’ve always stated that people refuse to acknowledge that bit because while I did see some out of pocket things said about him in Xscape it really isn’t beyond the pail of things ifans have done and if people acknowledged that they think that wow maybe he’s talking about me. People always think of saesangs as a specifically foreign phenomenon inherent to the experience of being an Asian fan as if ifans don’t regularly prove that they can be just as invasive and criminal as anyone.

I wonder if all this ‘you’re speculating if you talk about the fact that maybe he’s going down the red pill route’ is not to hide the fact that if he is it’d be harder to defend him. It’d be harder to blame his woes on women who don’t look like you and who you consider far away from your person. He’d have to take accountability and maybe fix himself instead of using the genuine turmoil he was in as an excuse to throw slurs at women as a collective. You’d have to acknowledge that maybe like all men (even ones with ’woke’ opinions on one thing like immigration) he had some toxic views on women inside all this time that he let out once he thought he was safe and his targets were women he hated. The wildest thing is that I could believe he’s doing that right now but his fans actively make him look worse.

Given how little people wanted to acknowledge that maybe Junhan was getting his race scientists beliefs from unsavoury maybe even red pilled sources I’m not surprised that fans refuse to see the pipelines and want to make this repeated deeply disturbing rhetoric into an isolated incident you can blame on stress and everyone but him but still.

Anyway I’ve always known that the ‘we’re holding him accountable’ line was something only said by cowards who don’t even do the required slagging off before going right back into defending their boy anymore but doubly now.

Ive read so many great posts on here the last couple of days, many from korean fans with excellent break downs on why what he said is really deeply offensive, with extensive reasoning and explanations.

The issue I have is, I fear the people who need to hear this are not on reddit. I've seen soo many dumb takes on tiktok in the last few days that I was genuinely blown away by the stupidity.

I have to come clean and say that although ive been here since debut, back when we all wanted to be known as XHoes or sidekicks, but after Junhans eugenics comments, I stepped back and stepped away, because as someone no longer in their 20s, I saw where this was going and I wanted no part of it. I listened to CBs to see if I liked the music and then moved on, and im glad I did, I trusted my instinct as a woman.

Please remember that korea is a deeply conservative country, 4b started there for a reason And all around the world women are very quickly and very quietly losing basic rights, rights our forebearers fought very hard to obtain for all women and girls, accepting this kind of behaviour from a man and dismissing the underlying issues that got them to this moment, only opens up the gap and emboldens them and other men to do the same.

For crying out loud, hold these men accountable, hold yourself in a higher regard, have some respect for yourself as a woman/young woman/girl, because if you dont, no one else will and its a slippery slope and it will be a hard fight to regain the rights and respect back that you and all of us deserve.

Stan culture* in some ways only enables the red pill, Incel bros which fuels the rise in right wing politics and if you cant see how they are connected i fear for society.

* if you want proof of this, just look at how some are justifying his words, or look at how some people in certain fandoms would rather tear down orher women before holding their faves accountable, even if their faves support rapists and domestic abusers.

I know we're all still mourning the loss of Gun-il on this subreddit so this may seem out of place, but I saw a couple posts on tiktok saying that Junhan was accused of online dating on discord?? Apparently people are talking about it on Twitter, but I don't wanna download Twitter so I was wondering if y'all know anything. I think the situation is funny as hell though if it's true.

honestly don’t even have the words anymore to describe this whole fucking mess. You’ve gone completely off the rails, and now you’re accusing Gonil of looksmaxxing, misogyny, and all sorts of other bullshit. Fine, we already understood that he chose a word that was way too harsh as an insult toward sasaengs, not all fans. But how would you have expressed yourselves in a situation like this? You’re literally being stalked, and you’ll never know what’s going on in someone’s head. Why do we assume that men can’t speak their minds or be angry? “Fucking bitches” is honestly one of the mildest things you could say about people that fucked up.

I’m not blindly defending Gonil—he himself admitted his mistakes. But why do people say “look at the bigger picture” when they’re the ones who can’t see past their own noses? Seriously, have you never experienced empathy? I’d like to see how you’d react if you were in Gonil’s place and someone accused you of looksmaxxing. Fine, show me at least one instance where he insulted someone’s appearance. His comments about appearance were compliments. If someone told you, “Wow, you have such beautiful eyes,” would you take that as an evaluation and get offended?

I also saw someone claim that nowadays every other person is being called a sasaeng… And what would you call people who break into dorms and follow them everywhere? “Dedicated fans”?

People are also defending JYP, saying, “Well, they’re just protecting their artists; there’s simply nothing to protect them from right now.” Fucking hell, are you serious? Did Gonil ever hit a sasaeng? Did he hurt anyone? Maybe we should start thinking instead of acting like idiots?Before making your accusations, please at least provide some evidence instead of throwing around baseless claims.

People as stupid as you will get fucked over, and you are exactly the ones who will be noticed, while the people saying the right things will get buried.

Stop saying that he insulted ALL the fans and his own group. Give me at least one piece of evidence where he said, “You stupid bitches, I hate ALL of you.” There is none.

Try living with your friends for five years, spending every single day together. Would you really be able to get through all of that without any conflicts?

I hope my words reach the people they need to reach.

Stop writing bullshit, and before judging the villains who are defending Gonil, think about whether you’re actually the ones in the right.

To help get over gunil getting kicked from the group. I'm just gonna pretend he's doing his military service.

Cus all we villians can do is continue supporting the group and sit with this sucky feeling of the reality of it all. Only time will tell what will happen to gunil from here and what will happen to the group.