The Controversial Life of Jeon Somi

Somi was one of the idols who had a pretty unproblematic run during their career at first. She had a comeback every year or so, made her TikToks and tweets, and generally minded her own business. She was also one of the idols who appeared relatable, since she was very active on social media and had your typical Gen Z humor. She took a misstep here and there, but overall, people had a good opinion of her and liked her. Things seem to have changed recently, and we figure that it will be hard for her to get people to see her the same way. An underwhelming comeback, cultural appropriation accusations, issues with plagiarism, and a TikTok that made people question her morality. Somi has taken hit after hit, and as much as it pains us to say, it seems like we're slowly witnessing her downfall. Some of the things that piled up are very small. For example, her latest comeback received a lot of criticism for all kinds of reasons. Somi came out with her first mini-album Game Plan on August 7th last year, two years after the release of XOXO, and people found it very underwhelming. Fast forward sounded like every Teddy song that he has made in the past few years, and it didn't bring anything new to the table for Somi as an artist or Teddy as a producer. The general consensus was that it sounded outdated, and that it was obviously with the hopes that it would become a TikTok trend. It wasn't what people had expected after a two-year hiatus. A fan of Somi wrapped up the whole song in a few words, saying, "'Empty' 2016 pop song formula. Beats are over the top, but even with a less dominating beat, her voice doesn't add anything to the song. It's not unique where I want to listen more." Aside from how people felt about the song, Somi and the Black Label were also involved in a plagiarism scandal involving one of the scenes in the Fast Forward music video. After the music video for Fast Forward was released, some fans noticed that the animated character which was featured in the video closely resembled the artwork style of Japanese cartoonist Rumiko Takahashi. While the character was intended to look like Somi, many pointed out it was basically identical to the artwork on the first volume cover of Yurusei Yatsura, with the only notable differences being the direction that the character is facing and the hairstyle. After fans had layered the two artworks, they found out that Somi's character design was possibly traced. The issue got big because people didn't expect a company with the Black Label's money to trace artwork instead of coming up with something original. Some tried to argue that the word plagiarism was being used very loosely in this situation because except for the fact that the character was a female who was winking, there was nothing similar. A commenter especially said that the styles were completely different. The hairstyles, mouths, and noses were nothing alike. The face shapes weren't similar whatsoever. The eyebrows were drawn differently, and the clothing and the lighting weren't the same. Another commenter said that the accusations were completely ridiculous as Rumiko Takahashi isn't the only artist to draw in that style, and the only resemblance between the two characters was the raised eyebrows and the winking. However, no matter what some fans thought, the Black Label thought that the resemblance was deserving of an apology to the original artist. They issued an official statement recognizing the similarities between the characters and stating that they looked into the matter once it was brought to their attention. They also edited the music video to completely remove the scene so it wouldn't cause further problems. In the end, the scene with the cartoon version of Somi was replaced with something else. The company gave a swift response and fixed the issue the best they could, but the fact that they did it in the first place was a bit unexpected. There are a lot of anime characters that look alike, so it would be okay for them to be inspired by an artist's style, but to basically trace it was considered unforgivable. A separate issue that people had with the album was with one of the tracks. Other than Fast Forward, Gold Gold Gold was the second track from the album to get a music video and to get promoted. If you thought people had complaints with the title track, it was nothing to the backlash that Gold Gold Gold got. According to some, the song sounded like it was meant for someone like Blackpink's Lisa and overall just seemed very tacky. Not to mention that not only did it not have any connection to the rest of the album, but it didn't match Somi's vibe at all. Nothing about Somi made her look like the type to brag about how much money she has, so to give her that song didn't make any sense. It was probably meant for one of the company's other female rappers and was given to Somi so they could say that she had five songs on the mini-album rather than four. Many also thought that the visuals of the music video with all the golden props looked outdated and as if it had been shot with a small budget. Some even considered it to be bordering on problematic, almost as if Somi and the music video director were trying to make a cosplay of the Black hip-hop culture from the early 2000s. The golden grills and the Cleopatra costume she wore in the video didn't help her case. However, since this was a b-side track, it didn't get a lot of attention aside from her usual audience that tuned in. Considering what everyone would be saying about it, maybe it was for the best. Another thing she got a lot of criticism for that wasn't related to her most recent comeback was a joke that she made on Twitter which was taken way too seriously by people and blew out of proportions. On December 7th, Somi responded to a fan's tweet as part of a trend where the original poster listed artists they disliked and one they liked. The original poster in a way insulted several YG artists but praised Somi. She made a sarcastic reply to the tweet writing, "'Yay, they like me.'" Since Somi is very active in online spaces, many were aware of her dry and sarcastic sense of humor so they didn't take any offense to what she said and laughed it off. This wasn't the case for other K-pop fans who took the whole thing differently. Some saw it as shade toward her fellow label mates, a few of them being pioneers of K-pop, despite fans insisting it was a joke with no harm intended, but it didn't seem like things were working in her favor as even those who thought it was a joke agreed she should have been more careful with her words. A netizen pointed out that while Somi may not have had bad intentions, she was careless with her comment, especially considering the type of fans involved. After all, she was an idol and had an image to uphold and interacting with shady tweets towards her label mates wasn't part of that image. After many online debates, Somi deleted her tweet, but the damage was already done. Fans of the groups that were mentioned in the tweet were so upset by her comment that they started digging up past comments so that they could prove that this hadn't been the first time that Somi was shady towards other YG artists. Back in June of last year, Somi was featured in Complex's Goat Talk series, where she talked about the greatest of all time, foods, places, and songs. When asked about a goat K-pop legend, Somi mentioned Teddy Park, known as a producer and co-founder of the Black Label. She praised Teddy's work and his contributions to well-known YG artists, saying that he has made legendary groups like Big Bang, 2NE1, and Blackpink. Of course, she didn't mean Teddy actually made these groups, but other K-pop fans took her words quite literally and twisted them to try to make a villain out of Somi. However, unlike the other things that we have mentioned in this video, fans thought that this controversy happened just because people wanted to have something to be mad about. Somi is friends with the other YG artists, and she wouldn't jeopardize her friendships or her connections for a silly tweet. It was not worthy of a scandal, and others tried too hard to make it into an issue, but thankfully, it fizzled out very quickly. Arguably, the thing she has gotten the most backlash for is not boycotting Starbucks. First, let's get into the reason people are boycotting Starbucks in the first place. Starbucks filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Starbucks Workers United, the union for its employees, after they shared a now-deleted post in support of Palestine. After the initial post, the union account liked a pro-Palestine message, encouraging people to avoid buying Starbucks gift cards during the holidays. Starbucks publicly disagreed with the union's stance on Palestine, so the whole controversy led to mixed reactions about Starbucks. However, as Starbucks issued unclear statements denouncing what was happening and maintaining a neutral position, its pro-Palestine customer base organized protests and boycotts, significantly impacting the company's revenue. However, Starbucks' notable support for Israel is linked to its major private shareholder, Howard Schultz. Renowned for his strong backing of Zionism, Schultz, who holds a significant stake in Starbucks, has expressed support for Israel's economy, as he has invested $1.7 billion in the Israeli cybersecurity startup Wiz. Because of this, people have been heavily boycotting the company and have been urging others to do the same, influencers and celebrities alike. The boycott of brands supporting Israel has been discussed at length online, so more people would know about it, so imagine everyone's shock when Somi posted a TikTok where she was doing a makeup video and used a Starbucks cup which was seemingly empty. She was apparently sipping out of a reusable Starbucks cup from their 2023 holiday collection. The first part of the video wasn't even needed, and judging by what people saw, Somi hadn't drunk out of the cup at all. It made people believe that K-pop idols were being paid to promote the brand in an attempt to influence their fans into buying from them, too. Because K-pop idols typically can't display logos and brand names unless they're paid for it, fans felt even more convinced that Somi was doing it for the money. Plus, Somi was one of the idols that are very much online and are aware of what's going on, so it was assumed that she knew of the boycott, just didn't care about it. She received heavy backlash for the TikTok in question. After all the comments she received, Somi ended up deleting the TikTok altogether. Later on, she had a chat with a fan, in which the fan sympathized with her, as she had dealt with a lot. After admitting that she had taken down the video, Somi said, "'No more dumb moves. Just spreading love to everyone. No matter what you say, I still love you all. You gotta know that. I'm kinda fragile." But her response to the fan and the fact that she addressed the issue didn't do much for the people who had criticized her. In fact, they didn't even consider it an apology, as she hadn't been direct about it, nor had she even said sorry anywhere in her answer. She was even accused of victimizing herself in the situation. Considering that in Hypen's Jake apologized after being called out for drinking Starbucks and even promised not to do it again, people have held Somi to a high standard, so a non-apology wasn't good enough for them. All in all, Somi will probably be able to bounce back, and when she eventually makes a comeback, it will be like nothing happened. However, she has lost a big chunk of her core audience, who saw her as this funny, unproblematic idol who could do no wrong. Which is bad in the first place, as people are allowed to make mistakes and we shouldn't expect them to be perfect. Somi's numbers might not be affected, but her reputation has definitely taken a hit.