SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Within the about 1,000 days between her drunken-driving crash in Might 2022 and her demise, South Korean mainstream information organizations revealed at the very least round 2,000 tales on movie actor Kim Sae-rom.
They illustrate how the native media usually cowl a celeb’s fall from grace. Beforehand one of many brightest younger stars in South Korean cinema, Kim was condemned and ridiculed for driving drunk; for speaking about her monetary struggles after shedding roles; for taking a job at a espresso store; for trying a comeback in theater; for going out with mates as a substitute of “showing remorse”; and for being seen smiling on set whereas taking pictures an indie film.
After the 24-year-old actor was discovered useless at her dwelling Sunday, the headlines predictably swung to calling for adjustments to the way in which celebrities are handled within the public enviornment.
Kim’s demise, which police contemplate a suicide, provides to a rising checklist of high-profile movie star deaths within the nation, which some consultants attribute to the large strain celebrities face beneath the gaze of a relentlessly unforgiving media that seizes on each misstep.
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EDITOR’S NOTE: In South Korea, callers can obtain 24-hour counseling by means of the suicide prevention hotline 1577-0199, the “Life Line” service at 1588-9191, the “Hope Phone” at 129 and the “Youth Phone” at 1388.
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Here is a take a look at the extreme strain confronted by South Korean celebrities who fall from grace.
A sudden fall from grace
South Korea is notoriously harsh on its celebrities, notably ladies.
Kim rose to stardom as a baby actor with the 2010 hit crime thriller “The Man from Nowhere” and garnered acclaim and recognition for her appearing in motion pictures and TV dramas for years.
However that modified after Might 18, 2022, when Kim crashed a automobile right into a tree and {an electrical} transformer whereas driving drunk in southern Seoul. She posted a handwritten apology on Instagram and reportedly compensated round 60 outlets that misplaced energy briefly due to the crash, however that did little to defuse unfavourable protection and he or she struggled to search out appearing work.
When a Seoul court docket issued a 200 million received ($139,000) high quality over the crash in April 2023, Kim expressed her fears in regards to the media to reporters, saying many articles about her personal life had been unfaithful.
“I’m too scared to say anything about them,” she stated.
Relentless unfavourable protection
Within the wake of Kim’s drunken-driving crash, movie star gossip channels on YouTube started posting unfavourable movies about her personal life, suggesting with out offering proof that she was exaggerating her monetary straits by working at espresso outlets, and arguing that social media posts exhibiting her socializing with mates meant she wasn’t exhibiting sufficient regret.
Different entertainers, particularly feminine, have struggled to search out work after run-ins with the legislation, together with drunken driving or substance abuse, and consultants say a lot of them are reluctant to hunt remedy for psychological well being issues like melancholy, fearing additional unfavourable protection.
Kwon Younger-chan, a comedian-turned-scholar who leads a gaggle serving to celebrities with psychological well being points, stated celebrities usually really feel helpless when the protection turns unfavourable after spending years fastidiously cultivating their public picture. Kwon, who stayed with Kim’s family members throughout a standard three-day funeral course of, stated her household is contemplating authorized motion in opposition to a YouTube creator with a whole lot of 1000’s of subscribers for what they describe as groundless assaults on Kim’s personal life.
Peter Jongho Na, a professor of psychiatry on the Yale Faculty of Drugs, lamented on Fb that South Korean society had develop into an enormous model of “Squid Game,” the brutal Netflix survival drama, “abandoning people who make mistakes or fall behind, acting as though nothing happened.”
Media blamed for movie star deaths
The Nationwide Police Company stated officers discovered no indicators of foul play at Kim’s dwelling and that she left no observe.
However a spate of high-profile deaths has sparked discussions about how information organizations cowl the personal lives of celebrities and whether or not floods of essential on-line feedback are harming their psychological well being. Comparable conversations occurred after the 2008 demise of mega film star Choi Jin-sil; the demise of her former baseball star husband, Cho Sung-min, in 2013; the deaths of Ok-Pop singers Sulli and Goo Hara in 2019; and the demise of “Parasite” actor Lee Solar-kyun in 2023.
Sensational however unsubstantiated claims like from social media are broadly recycled and amplified by conventional media shops as they compete for viewers consideration, stated Hyun-jae Yu, a communications professor at Seoul’s Sogang College.
Scuffling with a pointy decline in conventional media readership, he stated, media flip to masking YouTube drama as the simplest option to drive up site visitors, usually skipping the work of reporting and verifying info.
Following the 2019 deaths of Sulli and Goo Hara, which had been broadly attributed to cyberbullying and sexual harassment each within the public and media, lawmakers proposed numerous measures to discourage harsh on-line feedback. These included increasing real-name necessities and strengthening web sites’ necessities to weed out hate speech and false info, however none of those proposed legal guidelines handed.
Reforms stay elusive
South Korean administration businesses are getting more and more lively in taking authorized motion to guard their entertainers from on-line bullying. Hybe, which manages a number of Ok-Pop teams together with BTS, publishes common updates about lawsuits it’s submitting in opposition to social media commentators it deems malicious.
However Yu stated it is essential for mainstream media firms to strengthen self-regulation and restrict their use of YouTube content material as information sources. Authorities authorities may additionally compel YouTube and different social media platforms to take higher duty for content material created by their customers, he stated, together with actively eradicating problematic movies and stopping creators from monetizing them.
The South Korean workplace of Google, YouTube’s dad or mum firm, did not instantly reply to a request for remark.
Heo Chanhaeng, an government director on the Middle for Media Duty and Human Rights, stated information organizations and web sites ought to contemplate shutting down the feedback sections on leisure tales solely.
“Her private life was indiscriminately reported beyond what was necessary,” Heo stated. “That’s not a official matter of public curiosity.”
