Go to contents

Puzzling petition of EXO fans

Posted December. 04, 2017 08:42,   

Updated December. 04, 2017 08:54

한국어

As EXO, a Korean idol group, did not receive the singer of the year award at the 2017 Mnet Asian Music Awards (MAMA) held in Hong Kong on Friday, their enraged girl fans required the abolition of MAMA on the homepage of the Korean presidential office Cheong Wa Dae. Boy group BTS received three awards including the singer of the year award and Wanna One, another idol group, received the best boy group award while EXO just received the album of the year award. The anger of the disappointed EXO fans was targeted towards MAMA.

All kinds of comments were written on Facebook and Twitter in English. Some comments such as “MAMA gave all of the awards to the BTS only,” “EXO should not be treated like this,” and “I don’t think the word ‘fair’ exists in your vocabulary” expressed anger while some such as “Close MAMA, Pleaseeeeeeee!” were teary and rather cute. Some comments were written in Russian as well. It was a somewhat proud moment to confirm‎ the global status and the powerful fandom of Korean idol groups but at the same time concerning to see the bulletin board for citizen’s petition being abused by non-Korean citizens.

Cheong Wa Dae adopted the online petition corner to hear directly from citizens and communicate with them. Indeed, more than 500 petitions are being written each day since the creation of the online petition corner. However, some people point out that the corner has been degenerated into a room for throwing tantrums, such as the dissolution of the Liberty Korea Party, adoption of the female conscription, recruiting Hiddink and abolishing the Pepero Day. Despite all these preposterous posts, senior presidential secretary for civil affairs Cho Kuk answered petitions for revising the Juvenile Act and legalizing abortion, respectively, and his rather hasty response regarding legalizing abortion drew anger amongst Catholics.

Currently, the online petition that has received the most support is prevent Cho Doo-soon, the sex offender of the Na-yeong case, from leaving prison. The petition was signed by 600,000 citizens. According to the president’s instructions, petitions with more than 200,000 signatures or those that receive a great deal of attention should be dealt by the government or the relevant official at Cheong Wa Dae. However, no response has been made yet, which implies how perplexed Cheong Wad Dae must have been. Would the presidential office have to response to the absurd petition of EXO fans if the signatures exceed 200,000?