beautifulpersonpeach - Tumblr blog

[beautifulpersonpeach]

[beautifulpersonpeach]

namjoon's precious smile ♡

[beautifulpersonpeach]

KIM NAMJOON KIM NAMJOON KIM NAMJOON

It's truly a crazy time to be rapline biased I can't wait to see what he has for us.

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Amazing art. That's what he has for us.

Credit: @/lcheeryart

[beautifulpersonpeach]

Sorry if this is a silly question, the corporate finance side of things is not my strong suit. Can HYBE ever get to a point where they are not disproportionately reliant on BTS for their revenue? It feels like so much pressure for 7 people to have to endure for the entire career especially if this is the kind of mess behind the scenes……

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Of course. HYBE is a 4 year old company and their revenue split for BTS has improved from 93% in 2021 to 65% in 2024.

That's impressive.

The fine print shows that revenue split decrease was due to record years for Seventeen and NewJeans - one of those groups is entering their enlistment era and the other has one foot out the door but those are pesky minor details.

BTS will probably comprise the bulk of HYBE's revenue for the next 10 years or so, both as a group and as solo artists. If I was modelling a valuation and had to do revenue projections, that would be my base scenario. Any time beyond that, HYBE (if the company is still around) will have a diverse portfolio of groups and trainees anyway to keep their system sustainable.

[beautifulpersonpeach]

do u think yoongi will post for 11th anniversary 😞

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Lol that cat hasn't shown his face since September 22, 2023. I'm not holding my breath.

[beautifulpersonpeach]

BPP, HYBE seems to be in some seriously deep trouble. Actually starting to think that MHJ might win this, unless the evidence they have against her is actually that damning. But even then, I still feel like public perception won’t go in their favor and could play a role. I don’t know how much they care about public opinion on this, but when it’s this overwhelming it does feel like it’s something they can’t just ignore either. And they were media playing that aggressively in the beginning for a reason. Any thoughts on how this could impact possible outcomes or if it matters?

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Nah, HYBE is fine.

They've handled this horrendously, that's true. Public opinion in Korea isn't on their side and is more sympathetic to MHJ, that's true. But HYBE has secured the support of ARMY, which was a key point of their strategy in the first place, and as ARMYs are the people actually keeping the lights on at HYBE, getting their support is all that matters.

HYBE will power through with the shareholder meeting on Monday, likely file additional criminal charges against MHJ just to be sure, and vote to remove her and her loyalists from ADOR... unless something extraordinary happens, like NewJeans actually trying to leave HYBE. In which case, all that does is delay the inevitable.

If this was just about business or achieving the best possible outcome for all involved, HYBE would've gone about this a different way. But this attack on Min Heejin was personal, very personal, and now we know at least one of the aggrieved parties, is Bang Sihyuk himself.

So yeah, regardless of public opinion and/or fiduciary duty, in this particular case Bang PD has handled it as though HYBE is still a private company, and will go ahead and do what he wants any way. So long as he has BTS, he's more or less invincible. And unfortunately, he knows it.

Until something material changes in this case, this will be the last ask I'll take on the topic.

[beautifulpersonpeach]

Do you think it’s toxic to be really annoyed MHJ showed up to her press conference about the corporate molotov lobbed at her dressed like a 12yr old? (That bothered me so much! She allegedly used a shaman to help with hiring, but she can’t get a PR rep to tell her not to wear a ball cap when trying to convince people she’s telling the truth?)

On a more serious note, is it normal for these CEOs/Creative Directors to be so close to the Idol/Trainee’s family? I thought it was odd she kept disparaging top C-suite execs from not contacting the parents directly. I think I would find it more weird to hear from them.

Though it seems pretty clear she either doesn’t understand the role of Public Relations or doesn’t believe in it. - Which brings me to one last quick question. We have heard that HYBE operates as a central hub for the subsidiaries, sharing HR & IT etc., do you think they also share a PR department? I would hope not, that would get messy with all the groups and their idols.

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Lmao!

Hi @stardust-wanderlust :)

Yeah… what I’ve been getting from the responses I’m seeing to her outfit (no it’s not toxic and you’re certainly not alone), is that a lot of people really don’t know who Min Heejin is. Or at least, don’t follow her as closely as I assumed given how notorious she is in k-pop spaces.

Min Heejin has accepted awards before in a hoodie and baseball hat. Like, I’m not exaggerating when I say everything about her is fairly unlikeable to Korean sensibilities, and frankly that of most other people who care about appearances (which is reasonable).

Granted, she’s had a rough week, she mentioned she hasn’t slept in 3 days, but that outfit is typical for her in both formal and informal situations. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was offered more ‘professional’ clothes for the press conference and she turned it down in favour of the green jumper and hat she wore.

On your other question, it’s not common… exactly. JYP is fairly close to the parents of a few Twice members, and Jakob apparently is to Jurin’s parents, but I’m not sure it’s exactly comparable to Min Heejin’s apparent relationship with the NewJeans members and their folks.

The scenarios also aren’t similar. Bang PD essentially abandoned the NewJeans project and left it to their liaison department to tell the girls and parents they were free to leave HYBE. Min Heejin felt hurt about how everything went down, bargained to get her own label for the girls, and tried to convince the parents and girls to stay with her in ADOR. I’m sure the initial selling point was that they’d be partly managed by the guy who founded BTS, but when that didn’t work out, she had to make the hard sell for them to stay with her instead, and that took building trust.

Another point I keep saying is that she’s a creative described by everyone who works with her as ‘eccentric’, not a trained executive. Keeping distance and delegating that kind of hand-holding is probably the prudent and responsible thing to do. But that’s not how she’s ever really done things.

Min Heejin micromanages every single aspect. Including parent relations. It’s not exactly weird, and not even really unusual, but most people wouldn’t do it.

[beautifulpersonpeach]

You've said you work in the corporate world, so in your experience is this a two-weeks kind of thing, and then we'll have some idea of the resolution, or is this a multiple-months kind of thing? Obviously I know the ramifications will be far-reaching so this is specifically regarding the potential management shake-up

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Hard to say.

If Min Heejin refuses to honor the shareholder meeting HYBE has called for on the 30th, HYBE will have to issue their own call which requires a notice of 30 days I believe. But they can always file an emergency injunction for an extraordinary general meeting, which will allow them to hold it with less than a week notice.

It’s not in anybody’s best interest for this to drag out, so I see the parties settling rather than going through a drawn out trial. So, perhaps she’ll accept a plea deal and go to prison, house arrest, disappear, accept a demotion - the possibilities are endless. But in that case, this could be done and dusted by the middle of May 2024. In time for NewJeans’ singles comeback.

But Min Heejin is a bit crazy. Whoever orchestrated this has practically destroyed her and I think the only thing keeping her from going completely ape shit, is NewJeans. If she chooses to go nuclear, then yeah we’re looking at months of… alladat.

[beautifulpersonpeach]

I'm feeling that rpwp is going to go more in a sexy nukim direction! I read somewhere that he was working with balming tiger a lot, but then there's also the Pharrell collab to look out for (which I think was meant to be one song but was hinted at possibly being more?)

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Oh I know!

Sexy Nukim is one of his best collab projects so I hope he leans more in that direction.

You’ve basically said what I think. The Pharrell joint was rumored to be with Joon and Jungkook, and based on a swap deal, meaning Pharrell featured on a BTS track and BTS featured on his. Not sure how true this is but yeah I’m looking forward to it.

[beautifulpersonpeach]

Do you think min heejin's relationship with newjeans is creepy? I'm not really a fan so I only see from the outside, but certainly the going narrative gives weird vibes

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Yeah I can see how many people find it creepy. But personally, I don’t. For me I think it’s one of several cultural differences where gender matters that gets lost in translation. It would probably take a whole post to explain lol, but as a short-cut, observe how Koreans react to those comments, and compare it to foreigners. There’s a reason it’s this latest shitfest, and not her ‘pedo’ controversy, that caught on with most Korean people.

[beautifulpersonpeach]

Do you think they'll stay the course with illit's concept as it is or try to accelerate some type of evolution? Unfortunately for the girls I think they'll be stuck with the 'newjeans copy' label for a long time if not for the full length of their careers, especially if newjeans has trouble recovering from this

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I don’t know.

I’m curious to see what they do as well. Now that it’s all out in the open, I struggle to see how they’d continue producing something that at least is very identical to NewJeans.

I feel that NewJeans next comeback which is themed around “luck” (ironic, I know) and four-leaved clovers, teased by ADOR since last year, already clashes with Illit’s debut songs and concepts, which might’ve been why tensions got so high recently.

But the group just debuted so we’ll just have to wait and see.

[beautifulpersonpeach]

I wish I had an intelligent question to ask at this point! It’s all gone so chaotic. And I’m sad that this involves so many girl groups and that people at Hybe couldn’t just picture a scenario where all of them could thrive. Do you think things are this toxic with the boy groups at Hybe too and they’re just not openly criticizing each other? Or are we as a society still really bad at embracing healthy competition between women?

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All the boy groups at HYBE are managed by men. All the drama around HYBE’s girl groups is caused by the mess of how Bang PD set up HYBE’s first girl group (NewJeans) with HYBE’s only female executive.

Bang PD clashed with her and brought in Park Jiwon who took over and debuted Le Sserafim, while using MHJ’s creative reputation and silence to boost the group, and clashed with her again by dismissing her concerns and using her ideas to debut ILLIT. (This example will step on some toes lol but) ILLIT’s debut was similar to if JYP owned HYBE and Bang PD had a sublabel there instead, when Bang PD wanted to debut BTS in HYBE JYP insulted Bang PD that BTS would never be successful with his approach, but when BTS was successful, then JYP created Stray Kids within the same label, while dismissing Bang PD in corporate meetings even as BTS became more successful.

Bang PD and Jiwon’s approach with MHJ was peculiarly chauvinistic and demeaning, rather than a typical corporate shake-up.

None of the boy groups have had such dramatic management overhauls. So yeah, I think they’re fine.

Hate to say it but if any of the men involved had done things properly, there’d be no bad blood.

[beautifulpersonpeach]

Thoughts on everyone's new favorite theory that bangpd had a thing for mhj?

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Lmao!

I think he’s just a bit of a narcissist who was love-bombing or otherwise laying it on thick to get something he wanted.

I’m just struggling to picture the mechanics given his height, width and thickness, relative to the outsized mass of her projected self-respect.

Or you know… yeah, she fucked him. Maybe.

I’m leaning more to the theory that Bang PD had a crush on her but the guy she was actually shagging was Park Jiwon.

And that’s only if she was fucking either of them. A huge part of me thinks the real kicker is that she didn’t put out for either man… and at some point they felt her utility was up.

[beautifulpersonpeach]

How are you feeling about rpwp??? The cover art was interesting to me. Idk what to expect!

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The music genre is described as “alternative” so I’m curious!

The cover art was also really cool but also, really ‘Joon’. He’s been teasing this project since January so he’s probably over excited for us to hear it.

I’ve missed him though. That press release came out just in time.

[beautifulpersonpeach]

I feel like a side effect of all of this mentioning of other groups, regardless of the context, nwjs is going to end up with a reputation for being isolated and kind of above-it-all(?), like in a you-can't-sit-with-us kind of way. Especially bc min heejin keeps mentioning them too. Is there a way for them to course-correct by interacting with other groups more or do you think this separateness is just part of their brand?

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It’s a shame but you’re right. A lot of people blame MHJ for it and I agree because it’s obviously her words. But anybody who has been watching her isn’t surprised she just came out and said it lol. It’s one reason I keep emphasizing her tone of communication in general, as well as ADOR’s. It’s unfiltered and unrefined. For her she’s just saying it as it is because it’s obvious to her that everyone sees it.

But of course, that’s nonsense.

It’s one reason I place bigger blame on Bang PD, because he’d know how she’d respond if she was blindsided and had no time to properly collect herself. Until the HYBE leaks on Monday she wasn’t blabbering about groups copying NewJeans or any of these grievances, she tried to resolve it in writing only within the higher ups at HYBE. They instead went nuclear and now those girls could likely be treated as pariahs both within HYBE and outside it.

It’s a very predictable outcome for anyone familiar with the personalities at the center of this, which is why the bulk of the blame rests firmly with the man that bears the most responsibility: Bang Sihyuk.

He’s a bitch. In my opinion.

But that’s been my view of him for years now.

[beautifulpersonpeach]

Maybe too simple of a question, but how are you feeling as a fan of newjeans? Are you optimistic at all or are you feeling pretty bleak? I guess as a fellow fan I'm wondering what is most realistic to prepare for. I'm assuming that the most dramatic options - like leaving hybe and being sued into the grave or disbandment - are unlikely, hopefully

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I’m mostly pissed off. Because like I’ve said, much of the actions HYBE took were unnecessary. But no point whining over spilled milk.

I’m not very attached to the girls but if you are, I’d suggest limiting how often you’re online, and spending time with them on phoning to show support to the girls directly. Their MV comes out today but there’s no indication HYBE intends to follow through with all Min Heejin’s plans for NewJeans for the rest of 2024. So…

I’m waiting to see what happens on the 30th. There’s no real precedent for what’s happening here, it’s not even really comparable to Fifty Fifty because it’s HYBE, not MHJ, that escalated this issue as a preemptive attack. MHJ doesn’t seem like she wants to leave the girls so she might accept a demotion (if she’s not kicked out and jailed outright) to stay with NJ, and NJ is unlikely to leave HYBE even if they want to otherwise their career is very much done - but it’s really a toss up I’m afraid.

[beautifulpersonpeach]

If you had to place bets on what will happen with this hybe/ador fiasco, how do you think it will resolve?

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Oh it’s a shit fest. I generally like wagering on k-pop but I wouldn’t touch this mess at all. Just as a matter of principle. The mudslinging has been quite nasty and worse than what we saw during the HYBE-Kakao-SM nonsense, and I suspect the reason is partly because the target is a woman.

The gloves were very much off from the start and there was no room for redemption.

Still, if you are thinking to place bets, HYBE will come out on top IMO. Everyone knows it. They’ve showed their ass too much to not fully commit to a win. They’ll kick her out and put one of their own suits in the interim. I have no real idea about what will happen to NewJeans. They are releasing an MV today, but HYBE might delay their album comeback that’s slated for H2/24.

I’m not someone who prays, but if you like NewJeans, I’d say you should be praying for them.