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Twitter and Nate’s Pann board are abuzz with Korean netizens criticizing PENTAGON’s Hui for participating in Boys Planet and international netizens defending him.
On March 1, an anonymous Korean netizen posted a blog with the title “Boys Planet Hui Was Attending His Award Shows During His Training Camp's Period, Are You Ok With This?” on Nate’s Pann board. The poster seemingly called out Hui for attending an awards ceremony as PENTAGON’s leader at a time when Boys Planet’s trainees were in training.
The post led to criticism of the popularity of PENTAGON’s Hui and how it was unfair to other trainees on the survival show. International fans began to defend the idol, mentioning the circumstances surrounding his participation in the show and criticizing the Boys Planet side of Twitter for being extremely toxic.
Fans defend PENTAGON’s Hui in response to comments criticizing the artist for participating in Mnet’s Boys Planet
A floodgate of comments taking PENTAGON’s Hui’s side took over Twitter on March 1, continuing until March 2. Pannchoa, a popular site that translates blog posts from Korean community forums, posted about K-netizens criticizing Hui for using his reputation as an already established K-pop idol and taking up a spot for another trainee on Mnet’s survival show, Boys Planet.
At the time of writing, the post had 533 thumbs up and only 126 thumbs down. Comments under it were also majorly against the idea of the PENTAGON leader’s participation.
One netizen pointed out that he was still using an in-ear with his group’s name. Since the surviving participants on Boys Planet are dependent upon fan votes, some believed that he was manipulating the audience. Many have also age-shamed him, as he is 29 years old in international age.
Meanwhile, international fans went into defense mode after reading the post. Some asked others to reflect well on how popular PENTAGON really was by naming even five of their songs, while others mentioned that K-netizens seemed to change the narrative from a “nugu” group to a successful group based on his journey on the show.
A “nugu” group refers to a group that has below average popularity and is almost unknown to the majority of K-pop fans. “Nugu” is directly taken from the Korean word “nu-gu?” meaning “who?” implying that the subject is a nobody.
Fans also criticized others for age-shaming PENTAGON’s Hui. They mentioned how K-pop fans were once again okay with debuting a 14-year-old but did not want a 29-year-old adult to gain some extra popularity and debut.
They also called them out for targeting Hui because of his age, since there are other participants who are also part of currently active K-pop groups such as Ciipher, NINE.i, and UP10TION.
Meanwhile, PENTAGON’s Hui, who uses his real name Lee Heo-tak in the show, has kept his place in the top 9. His interactions with fellow trainees have also been appreciated by viewers. Many hope that the 29-year-old multi-talented artist gets a spot on the Boys Planet debut team.
Boys Planet airs every Thursday at 8:50 pm KST Mnet’s official YouTube channel.
