The Focus On Netizen Comments Has Gone Too Far

Earlier this morning, I was reading this article on Soompi and noticed a whole paragraph was dedicated to what netizens had to say. To the right in trending topics, there's this article about netizens wondering if a masked singer is Luna. Later this morning, while going on One Hallyu, I discovered that Netizen Buzz wasn't the only site dedicated to translating netizen comments. There's K-Pop K-Fans, Pann Choa, and even One Hallyu does it themselves.

Why?



One could say sites such as Anti Kpop-Fangirl fall into the same circle, but I would say that we don't. I would say AKF falls into a different, but related cluster of sites that would involve sites such as Asian Junkie and Seoul Beats. This cluster of sites generally provide an opinion on news items, events, or even netizen reactions, whether it's Korean or international netizens. The former cluster of sites are now treated as "news" sites. Many people go to these sites to get "news" about what is happening in the Korean entertainment world.

Luckily no one treats AKF as a source of news, as that is not the intent of the site. I view AKF as a platform for people to express their opinions. You'll notice that people such as Kpopalypse like Crayon Pop while I would rather listen to a YG group than Crayon Pop, and I believe I made it clear how much I dislike YG groups. That's the beauty of this site. You'll find that the majority of the K-pop sites contain hive-minded people, where anyone with a dissenting opinion is attacked incessantly. That person will either leave the site/comment sections or stay there to "troll" everyone.

My worry with hive-minded sites that are focused around netizen comment translations is that people will start to exclusively obtain their "news" on Korean entertainment through a heavily-biased opinion, and in order to fit in, parrot those same views. Even the big three news sites are incorporating more netizen articles, and among the worst offenders are Koreaboo, but that site has long since given up.

I know this site has some of its origins in dissecting idiotic comments from netizens, but with the proliferation of these netizen comment translation mills, it is in our best effort to not give such sites any attention. These sites are a cancer and they are destroying individual thought. Fuck these sites.