Let's admit it, I think we've all been nosy at one point our life.
You know, that time when you spent a bit... too long on facebook, scrolling through this guy your friend said was "hot"? Or maybe some celebrity you never really cared about or even heard about, but suddenly perks your interest because the celebrity is getting a messy divorce.
I will be the first to admit that I am hella nosy!
I mean, my life is pretty hella boring, so if someone has something interesting happening on the daily, I sort of want in. Like if my best friend met a hot guy, I’m excited for her and I want to know the details. If she's willing to spill the tea then I'm willing to listen.
There's also a degree of not wanting to feel like the "outsider" if you didn't know, especially in a friend group. When my friends had secrets I didn't know, I always felt really left out and the the lesser friend. After all, my friend told them and not me, so there must be a reason right?
I used to be a pretty picky eater as a child and my parents often told me to try something new on the table because "it would be embarrassing to tell people I've never had it before", so I should try it.
Unfortunately I carried this philosophy with me towards knowledge with the Entertainment industry. I always felt that I needed to be in the know about celebrities or I'd embarrass myself.
I can't say if they're really right, or I'm just influenced by their way of thinking... But my knowledge (or lack thereof) of mainstream western media has embarrassed me in front of a lot of people in the past. A simple "WHAT YOU DON'T KNOW (famous band here)?" really puts things into perspective. I'm sure someone's said this to you at some point in your life.
For most of you, you'd just go "nah". Whereas I was always conditioned to not let it go. I need to know now. I need find out who that band is. I need to know who that guy is who divorced his wife and is now hooking out with someone else.
If I don't, I feel like I'd embarrass myself.
I also think there's also a sense of wanting to help in some way.
Especially when you care deeply about someone and actually love this person a lot, you just want them to be happy and you want to help them get there. I think the best example here are celebrities and famous figures we love. Even though it's mostly one-sided love, if we see our idols struggling or in pain, we want to protect them. No one likes being told that their favourite singer is terrible. So you jump in and try to defend them the best you can.
In the age of the internet, it's gotten a lot easier to come across comments from haters of your favourite famous person. Now it's not just your friend telling you negative things about your favourite person, but A BUNCH OF PEOPLE. Not only that, but the same haters start making up things about that idol. These haters are looking for tiny things in the idol's recent videos to hate on.
"Oh, his clothes are so ugly!"
"Did you see the way he interacted with xyz? He's sooooo rude!"
If you haven't guessed already, I am most definitely talking about the kpop industry. Particular, there has been a ton of reports spilling the tea of kpop idols having once been bullies. More recently, there was the ongoing case of a girl group called AOA.
To summarize, this girl group ultimately met their end when one of their own members (Mina) came forth and said that another member (Jimin) had been bullying her in the group for YEARS.
At the time, everyone cursed Jimin to seven hells.
All fans and non-fans alike came to Mina's defense. Everyone had a piece to say about the bullying, how it's not okay. Some went further and started combing through all of their (and Jimin's) past videos & stuff, nitpicking on everything. Every little thing that Jimin did in the past that were just "normal", suddenly became evidence that she was an evil bitch. Even if you weren't a fan of AOA, you had something to say.
Everyone had an opinion. Everyone had their speculations on what Jimin ACTUALLY did to Mina. It just piled on, and on.
Two months ago (Sept 2021), many of the people who were following this case had a rude awakening. Evidence that once supported Mina as a victim, suddenly made her... the perpetrator.
Here's a good video documenting the whole timeline of the issue:
I don't think the kpop community were overly shocked as this wasn't the first time an idol was wrongly accused and betrayed by their own members. However, since everyone was so convinced Mina was right by her own accounts, it shook the community.
I had forgotten that the people we love can & do lie.
So many of us had also forgotten that the entertainment industry is often filled with smokescreens.
Likewise, I think we also forgot that we really don't know these people in real life.
Idols want us to think they are close to us. They want to create this image that they want to be our friends. But really, they are. Sure, we know a lot about our idols because the information is public... but how much do they know about us? Absolutely nothing. Friendship isn't suppose to be a one-way street like this. We spend so much of our lives now minding the businesses of people we barely actually know and don't know anything about us.
Is it really necessary? Do we actually need to know??
What can we actually do to change the situation? In the case of idols like Mina and Jimin, we don't actually really know what they talked about. We aren't their real life friends and we're probably only getting half of the story though media.
With recent events like these, it's hard not for me to think about how I really should refrain from making assumptions, speculating and commenting on who I think is really the "bad guy". Take the more recent case of Alec Baldwin & the shooting. It's honestly really easy for us to say the actor is the "bad guy". Lots of people are digging into his past and making correlations to this case. Yes, he is definitely wrong for killing a person. But beyond that... it's none of our business.
You may be right that he might be a terrible man. And you might be right that there's something fishy in the ranks. But so what? Are you related to the victims at all so you want to seek justice? Are you the lawyer in charge of the case? If the answers are no, then we really need to start practicing how to stop commenting on every little bit of someone else's life.
Don't get me wrong, I don't feel bad for the actor. But you have to realize that there's a high chance that your speculations and comments can have a domino effect. Maybe the victim's family is reading them and pushed further along their grief.
Either way...
Point is, we should try to exercise a bit of caution these days.
Let the people involved deal with the problem. You may come from a good place, but I'm sure it's not helping anyone in any practical way.