'Idols are not political punching bags': K-pop fans unite over controversy targeting RESCENE's Woni

K-pop fans have mobilized collectively over a controversy surrounding RESCENE member Woni, who was accused of using a slang expression associated with the far-right online community Ilbe. Fans declared an all-out fight against what they called the use of idols as partisan fodder.

A group identifying itself as "fans who support female idols" issued a joint statement Tuesday calling on the political establishment to stop stigmatizing idols and reigniting controversies around them. The statement, titled "We call on the political world to cease labeling and re-escalating controversies targeting idols," urged an end to political stigmatization of artists and demanded measures to prevent further spread of harmful narratives.

"A remark made by an idol member in an online video has spilled over into political point-scoring, leaving the very person who should be protected repeatedly exposed and subjected to excessive stigma," the statement said. "Idols are neither symbols for political factions nor material for partisan disputes."

The fans also expressed concern that attaching a specific political stigma or image of hatred to young individuals "could place a serious psychological burden on them and cause long-term damage to the group's activities and reputation."

The fandom put forward four demands: an immediate halt to hasty political labeling and framing directed at idols, and a ban on repeatedly citing individual artists or groups as examples in political disputes.

The fans also called for reconsideration of plans by some in the political world to publish polling results related to the matter. They urged media outlets and political actors to refrain from sensationalist coverage and politically charged interpretations, and to recognize their responsibility to protect those involved and prevent secondary harm.

The controversy began when Woni, who is from Geoje in South Gyeongsang Province, said "museobno" — repeating a phrase used by the producing director — during a popular YouTube segment. Some accused the expression of being Ilbe-associated hate speech.

Internet users subsequently asked the National Institute of Korean Language for an official interpretation. The institute responded cautiously, saying it was "difficult to make a definitive judgment, as scholars hold a range of views on the specific usage of the expression." The response aligned with the view of dialectologists, who argue that the expression's varied colloquial uses in dialect — including as a soliloquy or exclamation — make it difficult to mechanically frame it as hate speech.

Some in the political world, however, have moved to include the matter as a polling question to exploit for partisan gain. The fandom characterized this as "artificially reigniting the controversy." Fans said polling "cannot substitute for a linguistic judgment, and regardless of the stated rationale, publishing the results will only place a serious psychological burden on those involved and cause long-term damage to the group's activities."

The collective action by K-pop fans was prompted by an ongoing political clash over Woni's remark.

Earlier, former Rebuilding Korea Party leader Cho Kuk invoked a binary framing — "Seoul person vs. Ilbe user vs. Busan person" — to warn against misuse of dialect, while Reform Party leader Lee Jun-seok pushed back, saying politicians were "trying to scrutinize the ideology of a 22-year-old youth over a single word ending." Amid the clash between the two party leaders, some observers said the rookie girl group member had become a "punching bag" in an ideological war.

The joint statement is being read as a case in which a fandom — once content to passively wait for its agency to respond — directly exercised its right to defend an artist, grounded in what fans framed as consumer sovereignty and moral solidarity.

"As fans whose only purpose is to support idols, we issue this statement out of a desperate conviction that we can no longer stand by while those involved are placed at the center of political controversy with no protection whatsoever," the fans said. "What is needed now is not political exploitation, but protection of those involved and a measured response."