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rachelzeglertruther · 1 year ago

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Why You're Wrong About Rachel Zegler

This is a long post, but there's a lot of context missing from the Rachel Zegler "discourse" that I thought I could add with my history of watching this unfold from the beginning.

The Snow White Thing

You probably know this part. There's a curated video of Rachel going viral, framed to make her seem like she's never seen Snow White, she hates the story, she hates the character, she's ungrateful, and single-handedly ruined Disney's brand. The clips from these videos are not new— they were released nearly a year ago in September 2022 and nobody cared about them at the time. Why? Because all the full interviews she did that day at the Disney Exo in 2022 showed a young, charming woman who was excited and proud to be cast in an iconic role. The interviews were very well received and it was a non story. Now that it's been edited down and cut together in a malicious way, and the people sharing them are purposefully misquoting her, they've twisted the context. Normally, this would be a non controversy. Even if that video wasn't taken out of context and spliced together to make her seem like she hates the film, most people wouldn't care. The issue is the response to the video.

Let's get this out of the way: Rachel Zegler doesn't hate Snow White. She relayed that she was afraid of the forest scene as a child and didn't revisit it again until after she was cast in the role. She has since then watched it several times and has expressed for YEARS before that interview came out that she was incredibly honored and grateful to be playing such an iconic Disney princess. If you watch the full videos that those clips came from, this comes across immediately to anyone with their own mind. If you hate someone for being scared of something as a child, I don't know what to tell you. If the role was being given to the biggest Snow White fan, you would be correct that she doesn't deserve it. Unfortunately for you, this role requires talent and Rachel has the Golden Globe and critical acclaim from people who matter within the industry (her peers and critics).

You know who does hate their beloved characters in beloved franchises but the general public still applauds them? Harrison Ford, Sean Connery, Daniel Craig, and Robert Pattinson. They've all expressed outright contempt for the roles and the films they were part of, but nobody cared. People had fun with their quotes but they still respected them. Rachel said nothing even closely resembling their remarks, but she's being torn to shreds. Are we seeing a pattern here?

Rachel never said a single bad thing about the character or the animated film— she said that it was outdated and that set people over the edge, foaming at the mouth to have her burned at the stake. If you think it would be perfectly fine to have a movie about an abused 14 year old girl run away to play housemaid for a bunch of men, get kissed in her sleep/death by an adult man, and then wake up to fall into his arms in 2024, that's certainly a hot take. If you're against remakes, direct your ire at Disney. But if you truly think that plot would work with young girls today, you're the one who's out of touch. It would do far more harm than good to portray a young woman in that light.

She also never said that there was anything wrong with romance or love. She said that the new Snow White wasn't only dreaming of that. I can't stress enough that this wasn't her decision… she was describing the plot of the new film that was written by Greta Gerwig and approved by Disney. There's a prince in the film and he will also have a more developed personality and storyline. If you have a problem with the writing, wait until it comes out so you can write your strongly worded letter to Greta. If you have a problem with the concept in general, take it up with Disney. There's no need for you to be defensive over hurting the legacy of a multi-billion dollar company or a 87 year old cartoon written by a proud racist antisemite. This is the most confusing part of the hate campaign to me because it wasn't even her opinion— she was literally describing the plot of the film she had nothing to do with. It also isn't a new thing. Disney actors have been promoting their newer films this way for years.

It's perfectly okay to like things that are problematic. It's becoming an issue that we refuse to acknowledge that maybe some things we love are harmful. What we can't do is justify why it's not problematic, and in fact everyone who calls it out is the problem and NOT their precious cartoon. The 1937 Snow White was an amazing feat of animation. It's a classic for a reason. But it was also Hitler's favorite film and was directed by a white supremacist (the one who is "rolling in his grave" due to Rachel's existence, according to his son). Things don't exist in a vacuum and we can't ignore the bad parts.

How We Got Here:

The thing that everyone is missing is the source of this campaign. This started in September of 2020 when transphobic actor Gina Carano made fun of trans people by changing her pronouns to beep/bop.boop. Rachel indirectly called her out by coming to the defense of the trans community.

She never called out Gina by name (though she rightfully could have). Mind you, Rachel's first film hadn't come out yet. Nobody knew who she was outside of those of us who were anticipating West Side Story and were fans of her covers on YouTube. She was a "nobody" in the industry. Take this part with a grain of salt because I can't confirm it, but Gina and her fans directly blame Rachel for her being banned from Twitter. Again, I really don't think that matters as she's harmful to the trans community and shouldn't have a platform. What does matter is that fans of Gina (which, let's be real, are just fans of transphobia) have been stalking Rachel's every move since then. Unfortunately for them, there wasn't much they could use against her other than to call her woke and #snowbrown when she was cast a year later as the Disney princess. The noise has always been there, but unless you were a fan of hers, you probably didn't hear about it. It wasn't until two years after this that they had something else against her.

If you've recently seen a video of Rachel crying circulating that claims to be her reaction to the recent Snow White backlash, it's an old video. It's from a vlog from her youtube channel posted in June 2022. It was in response to these exact same transphobic anti-woke conservatives who thought that they had something when she did an interview on the red carpet of the Shazam premiere. When asked why she joined the DC universe, she responded "I needed a job." It was generally well received by most people who thought it was cute and funny, but those who were waiting in the shadows latched onto it as an excuse to send her death threats.

The video was also about a month after she was invited to present at the 2022 Oscars and was made to seem like she bullied the Academy (as a no name newcomer, mind you) into letting her attend. In reality, a fan left a comment on her Instagram asking what she was wearing to the event. She responded that she wasn't invited but would be rooting for everyone from her couch in her boyfriend's pajamas. It was the public who demanded she get an invite and the Oscar's must have agreed that it was very odd that the lead actress of a film that was nominated for Best Film wouldn't get an invite. Whether it was an oversight on their part or a scheduling issue with Rachel's filming, I truly think there was no malicious intent from either party. Keep in mind, she used to be very active with her fans (she's a huge fangirl of things herself and has always had a strong relationship with her fans) and she wasn't used to her comments becoming articles and national tv segments. This was the first time it happened to her. It appears she learned that she's not just a girl who posts on YouTube anymore and she's going to be put under a microscope for every move she makes. She has since shut down her Instagram comments and rarely interacts with fans outside of liking comments these days because of this.

I know this is long, but I need people to understand where this is all coming from. It didn't just happen out of nowhere. It's an orchestrated campaign built by violent conservatives, and thousands of women who saw Barbie this summer are hopping on the bandwagon to beat another woman into submission because they have a lot of internalized misogyny to deal with. She's not smug, you just hate women. It's okay to find people annoying, but it's valuable to look into why you think that. If you see a confident young woman expressing views that don't actually harm anyone and you think she needs to be "humbled" and "put in her place" by the entire internet dogpiling her, you've lost your mind. Using "body language experts" (fake job) to diagnose her as a psychopath is so vile. Everytime someone mentions her name online, the comments beneath it are full of the most violent, misogynistic, racist things I've ever seen. If you're contributing to that, you've chosen your side. Reevaluate or seek help.

I'm tired of seeing this happen to young women. We let this happen to Jennifer Lawrence, Brie Larson, Millie Bobby Brown, Halle Bailey, and Jenna Ortega. It's one thing to call out celebrities and hold them accountable when they're doing something actively harmful, but that's not what this is about. That's never been what this is about. We pick these girls to pieces and examine them and pull them apart to justify our hatred of young women who rise to success too quickly for our liking. We dogpile and try to stamp out the flame before they burn too bright. Barbie is still in theaters and you all loved it, yet you're demanding that a bright girl with a big future be small and submissive and humbled because you have issues. That's not feminism. You're just the girls who would have bullied Weird Barbie for using her hands too much when she talks.

#rachel zegler #snow white #disney #barbie #rachelzegler #there's also misinformation about her standing up for ansel elgort which isn't true #sorry but she hates that man #you're thinking about ariana debose who defended him #we'll get into that later

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smokends · 10 days ago

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⠀┈─ BLOOD SPORT ⠀⠀／ ⠀⠀ an introduction to moth signals.

“ Moth Signals would have never worked unless they were promoted like idols. The indie community is far too small for what Shin Yeonghui was trying to achieve that it only made sense to transition them to a more traditional idol image. However, no one would expect the shift to bring their downfall. ” — Thorns and All: Moth Signals and the Toxic Light of Fame by Allison Lee.

WORD COUNT. 9k. CONTENT WARNINGS. Mentions of attempted suicide, suicide watch, and struggles with mental health. Reference to alcohol / drug abuse and misuse of prescription medications. Eating disorders and body image issues. Rehabilitation (eating disorder & addiction). Familial abuse, power imbalance, grooming, and mistreatment of idols. Mental health issues: anxiety, depression, trauma, etc. Mention of a physical fight between Junyeong and Oliver. Industry manipulation and exploration, parental neglect, family issues, romanticized toxic relationships, and sexual abuse. Not edited.

The South Korean Idol Industry was built on the idea of creating the perfect performer.

They wanted someone that excelled on television, wanted someone that could capture the attention of the entire nation with just their voice, an ability to keep up with choreographies that only seemed to get harder with each new song, and a spotless record that reflected an angelic quality that made them better than the average person.

Idols are a form of soft power for South Korea.

Taken from political philosophy, soft power is the ability to co-opt rather than coerce and involves shaping the preferences of others through appeal and attraction. Companies get fans to be so dedicated to their favorite idol that they can manipulate the average person to fund their rich lifestyles in the hopes of a new album releasing. However, they still hold onto that human-made cult image that one typically associates with a religious idol and cult images. Originally, these practices were focused on the daily routine of being washed, dressed, and following the rules of their religion. For them, an idol is an object used to worship their deities and have something tangible as well.

K-pop idols will be simply referred to as idols from here on out as that is how their fans and most people think of them. These people are characterized by highly manufactured star power that is produced by their company and represent a convergence of music, fashion, and much more. They maintain a perfect public image and social media presence after dedicating a significant amount of time and resources just to debut. They are so sterilized and perfect that there is almost an inhumane quality to them as they share TMI's (standing for too much information, a way for fans to ask what their idols are currently up to) about going for a walk or seeing an old friend rather than the gossip it connotes for western fans, who are always waiting for the next scandal to drop to see if it's really worth getting such a reaction from domestic fans.

For example, when EXO member Chen—real name: Kim Jongdae—announced his marriage to his girlfriend on January 13, 2020, SM Entertainment was flooded with trucks and fans that demanded that he was removed from the group. In 2024, leader of Enhypen, Yang Jungwon, and vocalist of Aespa, Kim "Winter" Minjeong, were caught in a dating scandal that caused significant backlash for both idols as they entered the final promotions of the 2024 season.

Despite this, the members of Superbloom Media's Moth Signals would seemingly be immune to this phenomena as members drank, did illegal substances, and even dated each other during their seven years together. The difference between the average idol group and Moth Signals is vast, however, and they were considered both an insider and outsider to this community. They still are some of the biggest stars in South Korea and internationally, leaving many to wonder how they navigate these situations and remain on top.

The secret is Superbloom Media's style of promoting them. Though they follow the formula of a traditional idol group—training, performing on music shows, deep fan connections, and more—, Moth Signals are very rarely considered idols themselves. They are musicians, as shown by their ability to self-produce their entire discography since 2021 and reliance on instruments rather than choreography to accompany their performances. Superbloom Media also looked at the stereotypical caricature of a "rock star" and merged these ideas together. In the end, this meant that they were supposed to be perfect until they weren't, until the drama leaked to the gossip magazines or fans found the truth. They pretended to be perfect until someone had the truth to prove otherwise.

As this cycle continued, people became more accepting of the rock star image over the idol one. They were innocent until they were proven guilty and everyone went along with it, even if it meant the destruction of the five members of Moth Signals in the end. Musicians have always needed to sell themselves to create a romanticized myth of their personalities and this idea can be traced back to the Romantic authors of the 19th century as we consider them geniuses, unlike the average person that is reading their works. They are supposed to seem close, yet unattainable for most people.

At the same time, Moth Signals did not make the same music as their idol counterparts. They were rock and roll — something much more violent, sexual, and subversive than the groups they fought against to dominate the music charts. Rather than synthetic beats and elaborate choreography, they played their instruments and shared the darkest parts of themselves to the audience without much care. They were supposed to be perfectly imperfect to sell their entire concept.

Despite this, each member was still given their role to follow and the image to fall back onto. Salem was the fiercely independent leader that didn't need anyone else's help to achieve her to fame. Junyeong was the mysterious one, the one people refused to understand despite how simple his outlook seemed to be. Serin was the princess of the group, known for both her beauty and kind personality, that brought casual fans into the deep end. Deurim was marketed to be the fan turned member of the band, no matter how crazy she seemed to be. And finally, Oliver was the pretty boy, songwriting genius that everyone should be paying attention to. He was a star in his own right and everyone realized that from his first solo venture onto Superband in 2019.

The goal of this book is to separate the public image and personal lives of Moth Signals. In order to give a full account of what actually happened to them, one must look at the greater context of each member’s personal circumstances and deicide how that impacted their judgements and actions.

I also want to look deeply into what to what extent should entertainment companies should be responsible for protecting artists. Following the story of Moth Signals shines a bright light into how Superbloom Media and Shin Yeonghui exploited every single member of the band, yes, even the ones that left, and how that impacted their actions as well. For Salem, she was promised something completely different than she received and was supposed to deal with it. Junyeong was taken out of his natural talents—dancing—and forced to learn the drums and still faces significant backlash for his talents, even if he’s improved substantially since 2017. Oliver and Serin had very different mental health issues, but both were forced to perform on stage and pretend that they were fine. Unless things were life threatening, they were never allowed to seek help from an outsider and needed to be approved by Shin Yeonghui to ensure they remained loyal to her.

To understand the full story of Moth Signals, one must return to their musical beginnings: Loop 2002.

This was the band created by Salem and her four best friends from high school in 2013. For two years, they would relentlessly post new music and covers in hopes of being picked up by the algorithm and getting their big break. This would occur in late 2015 as their third official single HOME hit the mainstream through Twitter and earned the attention of Superbloom Media, who were looking for something new to debut. They had already failed the traditional route with their many soloists and groups that had disbanded and needed something to get people talking.

Park Jueun, now more commonly known by her stage name Salem, was born on October 31, 1998 in Seoul, South Korea. She would remain in the country for five years before her paternal grandfather died, leaving her grandmother with no one to take care of her. Without consulting her mother, her father would move the three members of their family to the United States to care for her. It was during her time in the Untied States that Jueun was introduced to alternative music, something that she would immediately fall in love with.

Her earliest inspiration was Haley Williams of Paramore. Salem recalls times in her childhood where she would attempt to hit the All I Wanted high note to limited success. She would remain in the United States until she was twelve years old and her grandmother died that same year. Her father, overcome with grief, would not return to Seoul with Salem and her mother. He would stop answering her calls and he would stop sending presents on her birthday. He became a ghost in her life and that forced her deeper into music. If her father wouldn’t see her, he would have to listen to her.

Jueun attended the School of Performing Arts in Seoul during her high school career and graduated from the Practical Music program in 2016, right after her debut with Moth Signals. She remains the only member of Moth Signals to have earned their high school diploma, with the rest completing their GED online later into their career. She displays it proudly in the office I held her interview in, right next to her first “Songwriter of the Year” trophy from one of the many award shows.

At SOPA, she would meet the other three members of LOOP 2002: Choi Chaesol, Kim Rihan, and Lee Hyeonjae. They had the same guitar class and they became quick friends, bonding over their love of early 2000’s alternative music and wanting to continue down that road, unlike many of their peers.

“We became friends over a group project and it became our first ‘single’ released together after months of refining it. I think all the streams it got came from us at the time. We would post on Soundcloud almost daily, even if we only had the bare minimum of a song and hoping that someone would recognize our talent.”

And someone did: Shin Yeonghui, the new CEO of Superbloom Media.

In a later interview, Shin Yeonghui would explain Moth Signals “needed to be controversial” and “something never seen before”, which is why she took the chance on Jueun and Loop 2002 in the first place. She originally wanted Chaesol because of her bubbly personality and ability to make anyone smile, but she wasn’t going anywhere without the rest of her bandmates. The only one Shin could convince to join her side, filled of promised fame and riches, was Salem, who was going by her birth name, Park Jueun, at the time. For the next year, Shin was dedicated to finding three other members to join Jueun in her new venture.

Jude, now known as her birth name Yang Irang, was selected from an existing pool of trainees under the company. She would fill the spot left by Chaesol and provide bright energy, being considered the “mood maker” of the group, meaning she was tasked to make sure everything remained happy. Jeong Dohun was also selected from their existing trainees, however, he would only be under the company for two months before he was chosen. He was a talented singer and knew how to play the drums already. Finally, Oliver would be discovered at Superbloom Media’s first and only in person audition in Boston, Massachusetts in 2016 and was immediately placed into the lineup from his first audition.

“He was just… amazing,” Yeonghui says in 2021. “From such a young age, he already held that star power we were looking for and I needed Oliver Song in this lineup. He had this raw talent that would turn into something bigger—make him a star in his own right and succeed with or without his bandmates.” While she doesn’t say it out loud, the plan was always for Oliver to be the face of Moth Signals, it would just take a few years for the pendulum to shift in his favor.

From here, the four members would train for two months before their debut single Scared was released in 2016.

The single would sell horribly and that is not an understatement. It’s unknown how many copies Scared actually sold, but many think it had to be under 20 copies. They were given another chance to prove themselves with The Great Silence, another physical single, that only sold a bit better than their debut. Superbloom Media would announce an indefinite hiatus for the group as the company fixed the internal conflicts and restructure the group. This would end with Yang Irang’s contract being sold to their close friend Mystic Story Entertainment, where she would debut as a solo artist and frequent collaborator with Mystic’s own band, Lucy, since 2020.

On the other hand, Jeong Dohun has never been seen again. He was last seen in public on December 18, 2016 before he goes completely silent, with just a text explaining to his family he was moving somewhere else to pursue this dream. This was uncharacteristic of Dohun and his family would report him missing by the new year because they were never able to get into contact with him again.

The case of Jeong Dohun remains open and is the beginning of a long line of Superbloom Media artists that disappeared after their career went under. He is joined by the four pre-debut members of Velvetine, Celatum’s Viva, and former Trot soloist Eden Lee. If you have any ideas what happened to these idols, please let Seoul Metropolitan Police know as these cases are still open and their families are hoping for justice or a return of their children.

After a year of silence, Moth Signals would return with new members—Junyeong, Serin, and Minjae—in September of 2017, setting the scene for the band that we know today. Not only had their members changed, but so had their sound. Rather than simple instrumentals and reliance on vocals, their re-debut single would feature drums, guitars, and so many other instruments to create a fuller sound that has become synonymous with Moth Signals.

Sadly, the changes would only bring in so many new fans. They were still considered “nugu”, meaning nobody in Korean, and Superbloom Media wanted attention on them quickly. So much money had already been put into the group, now they needed to see some sort of profit from them.

“There was a lot riding on us,” Salem shared in an interview with Elle Korea in 2020. “We all knew it was possible, though, because of bands that came before us and other unknown groups that made it to the top. Yeonghui wanted it to happen from the very start. She never liked that we slowly rose to where we are now and I never understood that.” Salem is not the only member that feels that way, of course. Serin would say in another interview, “I liked the organic growth. I think going from having no fans to everyone suddenly watching us would have made things a lot worse.”

2017, 2018, and 2019 were all spent on desperate attempts to climb the idol ladder as Moth Signals began to appear on variety and music shows, letting the entire country see their faces up close and get to know the new band. Superbloom wanted them to reach similar levels as F.T. Island, N.Flying, and CNBLUE under FNC Entertainment in the early 2010s. Coming into the new decade, rock music wasn’t as popular anymore and Moth Signals, hailing from such a small company, were not going to earn their fame without blood, sweat, and tears being put into every project they released.

Their first release as the new and improved Moth Signals would be Great Caesar and it would get the chance at releasing more than two songs. Their first “mini-album” would bring them much more success. They became beloved guests on After School Club, a variety show for idols to interact with their global fanbases, as they performed whatever the guests wanted. They would be flooded with cover requests for weeks after their appearances, something that bugged all the members at the time. They hated that they had to play someone else’s songs and wanted people to love their own sound.

At the same time as their idol schedules, Moth Signals would earn a permanent residency at The Lure in Gangnam, Seoul. The Lure is one of the few venues that would allow the underage members to play after working hours. Other bars were not willing to risk their business and liquour license to allow a band filled with teenagers play their bar, leaving them to sign an elusive contract with The Lure for three years. They performed almost every Friday and Saturday night until the bar closed and quickly gained a small fanbase that returned to see them at least once during the weekends. They began taking requests for money a few months into the gig, when they had gained enough of a steady crowd, and it would take off from there. By the time their residency ended in 2021, a song could be requested for anything between 20,000₩ and 100,000₩, depending on how often Moth Signals got that request. Fans could ask other people for donations, which were usually given, and very few payed for these higher requests alone.

(I had seen them perform at The Lure in 2021.

I was studying abroad in South Korea during undergraduate and after weeks of trying, I managed to be let in after matching with one of the prompters on a dating app. It was one of their Friday shows, which were always know to be crazier because the members did not have hangovers, and I got to hear some of their most iconic songs from the earlier eras, including My Angel and For Your Love, the two songs that made me into a Moth Signals fan. I had seen the members just before everything had fallen apart and one of the last shows that Minjae would attend. I still have photos from this performance as my pinned tweet on my old fandom Twitter account and wish I had made it a priority to see them before their hiatuses.)

In 2018, nothing would change about Moth Signals.

Fans were allowed to breath and knew that their favorite member would be there for the foreseeable future. After almost two years, Moth Signals was finally established and it seemed that things were going well for them. They remained with the same lineup—Salem, Junyeong, Minjae, Serin, and Oliver—with Salem and Kim Yuchan, a famous soloist, overseeing the creative process. Members were beginning to show off their lyrical abilities in b-sides, but that was all they had: a song that very little would care about.

Many patterns of the Moth Signals promotional routine would also start here, including their Spring and Fall releases and being invited to their first award shows. They wouldn’t be nominated for anything until later in their career, instead, just being in the same room as some of the biggest acts in the industry made fans want to know about them. They were known on Twitter as “the unknown co-ed group” for at least twenty-seven hours and the growth in searches for Moth Signals only grew from here.

“Sometimes I wish I could go back to that era,” Oliver Song reflects in one of our many interviews. He sits at his kitchen table, head leaning on his palm as we communicate over Zoom and I wonder what would have been different if the next events didn’t happen. I ask that exact question and he shrugs. “The goal was to make money. Nothing else was important at the time, we owed the company for how much they did for us.”

Oliver is a reflection of the predatory nature of the idol industry. Like many of the biggest idols, he was accepted into the company at fourteen years old and would debut two months later, throwing him to the wolves and anger of netizens as his mental health symptoms got worse.

Prior to leaving his school in Boston, Oliver was being tested for a education plan with specific goals in Mathematics and Social / Emotional health. He had been diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety disorder at eleven years old and was considering medication at the time. His teachers had asked for the testing upon realizing he was missing fundamental numerical skills and was completely lost when it came to solving word problems. They also noted extreme levels of anxiety and agitation in the young boy, though further research would show these outbursts coincided with the return and departure of his father. He would have seen a school counselor for a social skills group with three other classmates and forty minutes of individualized counseling with her.

He is a ticking time bomb of repressed anger and unease. Though he tried at the beginning, he found trying to make friends with the other members was much harder than he thought it would be. “I don’t know—I really thought because we were forced into this together, we would become friends. I was really hopeful back then. Jiyeon and Minjae were already close and they seemed to tolerate me, so I started hanging out around them more. I know it annoyed Minjae, but Jiyeon would become one of my best friends.”

In another interview, Jiyeon would describe her friendship with Oliver as “self-serving.” She had been dealing with her own familial issues prior to joining Superbloom and saw this relationship—friendship—with Oliver as a way to prove to people she was loveable and people were interested in her. “He was like a dog, I guess,” Jiyeon recalls, “just bouncing between the groups to see which one would accept him first. I felt bad.”

Lee Jiyeon is no stranger to this feeling, of course.

She would grow up in Incheon with her parents and two older sisters, born in 1990 and 1993. Jiyeon, who was born in 2000, was an accidental pregnancy and she learned that from a very young age. There was nothing she could do in her parents eyes that would ever be good enough. Her parents were natural doctors, using herbs and other natural remedies to cure illnesses, and that brought a very toxic culture into their home. When she thinks back to it, symptoms of her eating disorder started appearing when she was eleven and she began tracking her caloric intake on her home computer.

“They encouraged it,” Jiyeon explains, they meaning her parents. “My parents wanted me to be perfect and I internalized many of these feelings and it became only natural to restrict when I entered Superbloom as well. I left one toxic life for another,” and that’s a cycle that all the members of Moth Signals seemed to fall into. They were all escaping something worse happening at home with their dreams of making music. “It didn’t help that I was given a role to play and that fed deeply into my insecurities and need to be perfect. I don’t think fans realize how much of an impact their words have on idols. The space between us is to vast and yet so small, leaving fans and idols to run around in the same circles and no one really knowing how to get better.”

Jiyeon joined Superbloom Media to escape from her parents, just like the rest of her members. She joined to make something of herself and make sure her parents knew that she was successful. Jiyeon was a natural talent in most areas. She was able to pick up the basics quickly and piece by piece, the stones that created Serin were set into place. Originally, Jiyeon was considered for the lineup of another Superbloom Media group—Cupid’s Bow—and only lost her chance when the project itself was scrapped, the company missing enough trainees to make the concept shine.

Shin Yeonghui explained that Jiyeon was added to the lineup of Moth Signals because “she balanced everyone else out. She was the one that would get ‘normal’ K-pop fans interested and the other members were there to hook them in musically.” Though she never said it explicitly, Jiyeon was tasked with being the visual star of Moth Signals—the beautiful girl that could get anyone’s attention. This tactic would have the opposite effect, however, as Jiyeon stumbled deeper into her eating disorder and was forcing herself to lose any weight possible to remain as perfect as possible.

Her psychical health did not matter unless it got in the way of promotions and the ability to make money off of Jiyeon’s health condition. Thankfully, this would change during their 2021 hiatus as she sought treatment and she was the only one to come back from that hiatus happy to be on stage and in the limelight again, but that is a story for another section of this story.

2018 would end and the members began preparing for their release: Hypocreep, the final era that would be completely controlled by Salem. Fans seemed to like this darker sound from the band as they began creating specific atmospheres with their songs. Slowly but surely, every member would start making more contributions to the creative cycle as well, with Minjae and Jiyeon writing their own instrumental lines with the help of Oliver and Salem, while Junyeong sticks with having someone else write for him. Playing the drums was hard enough for Junyeong at the time, why add composition to his plate?

Born in June 1999, Kang Junyeong is the embodiment of the stereotypical Gemini sun placement—charming, curious, and versatile but also superficial, impatient, and restless.

He grew up in one of the poorer neighborhoods of Daejeon, South Korea and knew to keep his head down at all times and stay out of the rest of the cities business. He would walk to school and walk back without any issue… until 2009. That was the year Junyeong met his former best friend, Lee Juwon, and they would soon join another group of boys in their neighborhood in learning street dancing from their role models. He remembers watching the dancers from across the park, wishing to know how they moved like that and kept their movements in sync. Thankfully, Juwon had similar ideas and they would join together.

Despite his immense talents as a dancer, Junyeong was street-cased by Superbloom Media in late 2014. They wanted him for his looks first and talents second he would realize later and Junyeong had always wanted to escape from his hometown. He wanted to make something more of himself and be able to repay his father for all Kang Junseo had done for his only son, even after his mother had left them behind. He knew that this was a once in a life time chance and took it, moving to Seoul with his little belongings and a few extra dollars from his father in his pocket.

To debut, he would have to take this seriously, so, Junyeong would dedicate his entire days to perfecting choreography and working with the vocal coaches to catch him up. Though he always ranked within the best dancers, Junyeong lacked when it came to everything else—singing, rapping, and even variety. He did not have the personality of an idol, one of the shareholders would say in a meeting, failing in whispering it. Junyeong would take this critique and he barely even slept after that, he would practice day and night until his drumming became perfect—well, as perfect as someone that had never learned to properly plan the drums could be. He expected this to be a shift, a moment where he could find himself… but, life is never that kind to Moth Signals.

On April 2, 2019, Oliver would be a confirmed contestant on the JTBC survival reality show Superband, and for many, this moment is considered the beginning of their end. This show would not only skyrocket them into fame, but begin a very fractured relationship between all the members for their own reasoning. Salem lies in jealousy as female contestants would not be allowed to compete until the show’s second season, leaving her to watch from the sidelines as Oliver took this opportunity and didn’t seem too invested in it. Sure, he worked hard and achieved amazing results—second place, mind you—but that should have been Salem. He was nothing without her and they all knew it. Minjae would be eliminated during the initial recruitment process and took that with pride, knowing that this show was not for him and hoping for another way to showcase his talents.

Superband would last from April to July 2019 and feature fourteen episodes and seven missions to create the perfect band. Hoppipolla would earn the win, with only a few thousand points separating them from Error Zone, which was composed of Oliver, Sawyer, Taeyun, and Suhyeon. Their performances over the course of the show would be praised and met with great enthusiasm as they grew closer together. However, this was not enough to secure them the win. They would rank first in the first semi-final round and were quickly relegated to second place after that by fans.

Coming out of the show, Oliver was the only member known to the general public. He became a beloved figure in popular culture and many wanted to know what he was doing next. Unlike the rest of Superband, Error Zone has never released music together since the show ended and they were paraded on tour together. There was no falling out, according to the members, they are just too busy for yet another project to dedicate their time towards, all four of them had commitments to the outside world. Over the past few years, Error Zone has teased a potential debut together, but their companies can never come to agreement on who would oversee the group’s promotions and training. They all wanted a slice of this pie and that came with the consequences of not being able to release music together.

Not long after Superband, a mere twelve days, Moth Signals would make their triumphant return with My Angel—the first track to be sung by another member. Oliver’s My Angel remains one of their most beloved tracks and currently holds the highest tip requirement at live shows because of how often they played it. The song takes inspiration from the 1970s and Glam Rock, with the genre being described as “flamboyant clothing and visual styles of performers were often camp or androgynous, and have been described as playing with other gender roles.” The song focuses on a tumultuous romantic relationship and be the first song that connected bandmates Oliver and Salem together romantically. Every time they performed the track, the pair gravitated towards each other, leading to the iconic bridge where they sing into the same microphone, telling each other that this relationship was going to kill them.

On January 1, 2020, fans would wake up to the newest Dispatch Couple of the Year: Park Jueun and Oliver Song.

The relationship is met with positive attitudes from most fans, however, many often express discomfort with the age gap. Taking what we know of their relationship timeline, Salem would have been 21 years old and Oliver just barely turned 18 years old. As time goes on, fans become more upset by the age gap seeing just how drastically Oliver changed after their relationship. Speaking to both of them about the age gap and timeline made it clear that Oliver’s inevitable mental health crisis in 2021 was not apart of this, instead, it had been building since the death of his father, Thomas Song, in 2019.

Despite this, there is so much lost media what it comes to this relationship. In 2022, all vlogs recorded by the pair would be deleted along with any photos of them from their official Instagram account. The relationship was effectively scrubbed clean from the internet when they announced their break-up after almost two years together.

According to Jueun, “the breakup was always coming. Neither of us were in the right headspace for just a publicized relationship and after a while, I got tired of waiting for him.” She remains stoic in these parts of the interview, carefully masking any emotions behind a black face to avoid bringing up any lingering memories. She’s moved on from the relationship and evidently, so has he. “I’m just not sure why it needs to keep coming up,” she states, only a piece of annoyance filtering through her words. “Let the past be the past. We broke up and we’re on good terms now. Isn’t that enough?”

Oliver describes the relationship similarly. My first question about the relationship gets a light laugh out of him and he shakes his head. “I’ve never been able to tell Salem this, but, she’s one of the few reasons I’m still alive today. It’s one of those first love relationships, you know? In the moment, it was everything and I couldn’t live without her, but as time moves forward, I barely miss it. What do they say on Twitter—uh—wrong place, right people?”

“Right people, wrong time,” I nod along, trying to get some more information out of him.

“Yes, exactly,” he snaps his fingers. “Right people, wrong time… I don’t even know if there was a right time, but Jueun has always been one of my people. I don’t know where I’d be without her.”

Coming into 2020, Moth Signals saw their original fanbase splitting in half, with many older fans going back to LOOP 2002 for that type of music. They couldn’t stand to see what Jueun was doing with Moth Signals and missed that older sound. Despite this, they would still gain steady popularity this year as Lion’s Den became one of their most famous songs of all time, still sitting in their Top 5 Most Listened To tracks on most music streaming platforms. Lovesickness, the album released with Lion’s Den, would be their first project to sell over 10,000 units, showing that they were growing and many projected a spike in fans later that year.

Lion’s Den would be the final live performances before Moth Signals 16 month hiatus. They would release another album and song, The Fourth Floor, but things were already going wrong behind the scenes. They were cancelling performances left and right due to poor health for all the members and the new song would only make things worse. Moth Signals went back to their melancholic sound and promotions were cut short after three days, leaving many to wonder what had happened.

On March 12, it was confirmed that lead singer Oliver Song had tried to kill himself in a hotel room with a mixture of his prescribed Xanax for anxiety attacks, extra strength Acetaminophen, and multiple shots of vodka. He was found by their manager, Cheon Garam, when he hadn’t shown up to breakfast or their rehearsal that day. It was not uncommon for Oliver to be late, according to Garam, he liked to walk to work sometimes and would only be a few moments behind his members. She was sure that everything was fine.

Garam describes the hotel room as a scene from a horror film. The bed was completely torn apart, his things littered everywhere, and Oliver, sitting at the toilet, forcing himself to throw up all the pills he had taken. It was great luck that Garam had reached Oliver on time and a few more minutes without medical attention would have seen his death at nineteen years old. All promotions were immediately canceled from the rest of the era and after a seventy-four hour suicide watch, where doctors waited for his mother, Kathleen Song, to arrive from Boston. The flight was over twenty-four hours, but she made sure she was there before anyone else could make decisions for him.

Kathleen would take Oliver back to Boston just a few days later, somehow successfully avoiding his fans until they landed at Logan International Airport. The news would break publically not long after and there would be no sighting of Oliver Song until he returned to South Korea in late 2022. Sadly, Oliver would never attend any rehabilitation program while living in Boston. His family did not want to push him into a decision and lose him again, so they let Oliver chose his next steps. He changed his medications to Citalopram, more commonly known as Celexa, but keep the Xanax prescription in limited doses. He argued that they did work when he needed them and that had been a bad day. He shouldn’t lose such an important resource over one mistake—his words, not mine.

When I ask him about this choice, he just shrugs without much of an answer. We pause for a few moments as I wait for him to say something, anything about what went through his mind at that time. “I wanted to get back to Seoul, I guess. I knew that rehab meant that my career was over and I wasn’t ready to accept it at the time.” He looked over at his medicine cabinet for a second. “I’m still not ready to accept it. I don’t want to lose everything I worked hard for.”

Oliver’s fear of therapy and rehabilitation comes from his relationship with his father, Thomas Song. Song was a known alcoholic and dealt with his own mental health issues steaming from abusive parents and a period in the United States Army before any of his siblings were born. His father would take his own life in late 2020 through an accidental overdose on designer drugs and alcohol, having been found outside of his own apartment complex and a few inches away from the trash area. If these things could not save his father, Oliver is convinced that they will never be able to save him either. He is trapped in a similar cycle as his father and we can only wait until Oliver realizes that for things to change.

At the same time, Garam had seen what happened to Oliver and got into Jiyeon an intensive out-patient program for her eating disorder, where she would meet in group and individual therapy for three hours a week and work with trained professionals on medication management. Oliver would lie to Garam and Superbloom Media that he was seeing his own counselor a few times a week and was considering attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings down the road. We know now that whole plan was a lie to get him back to South Korea faster, leaving the watchful eyes of his family and manager behind him as he protested that he was fine on his own.

Salem and Oliver would also break up during this time period. Both state that it was mutual, but mostly based on Oliver’s inability to communicate effectively during this time period. “I couldn’t be mad,” Oliver explains. “Literally because the Celexa made me feel like a zombie and because I knew it was my fault. I hate to admit this, but I never even texted her after that night. I deserved to be rung through the mud.”

For most of the year, their personal and public social media accounts would remain without any updates. It was like anything related to Moth Signals was permanently shut down. The accounts would come back alive just before August 9, 2021 as they announced Salem’s solo debut with the cult classic The Curse of Capulet, a beloved album by all fans and brought in a brand new era for the members. It was confirmed that three of the four members—Salem, Serin, and Junyeong—would make their solo debuts between August 2021 and the end of 2022, as they waited for Oliver to return to Korea.

The universe had other plans, of course.

Serin would debut with her bubblegum pop masterpiece The Princess Diaries in the first quarter of 2022 and became the most famous members at the time. Jiyeon struggled heavily with relapses and needing emergency contact with her therapist during this time period as her solo debut came entirely too early. Though she was released and declared ‘healthy’ again at that time, she was still working to rewire her brain and the things she convinced herself about food. Prompting was almost impossible as she fought against her own hunger pains and feeling like she was going to go back ‘there’.

“I had Salem, though,” Jiyeon explains with a small smile, the same that she wears every time her best friend is mentioned in her narrative. The pair became close during the hiatus as two of the people most affected by what happened. They were able to get past any animosity based on their feelings for Oliver—thank god—and have considered each other almost sisters ever since. “She really helped me alot and made everything feel like… I’m not sure of the right word. I felt incredibly stupid not being able to eat a quarter or a protein bar somedays and she reminded me that there’s always another chance. Yeah, if Salem wasn’t there, I don’t think I would have made it this far.”

Though Junyeong was confirmed for a late 2022 solo debut, the project would never happen. It would never even leave the beginning stages of planning as Oliver finally returned to South Korea and they needed to replace Minjae.

Lee Minjae was born in Seoul, South Korea to two loving parents. Of all the members of Moth Signals, he is the only member to have a ‘normal’ background. He was well fed and loved by his parents and was encouraged to chase his dreams of being an idol after seeing EXO perform in 2014. He would audition for twelve companies, but only Superbloom Media was willing to take a chance on him. He saw it as a sign, somewhere he was meant to be. He learned how to play piano at his local youth center and was considered talented for his age. At fourteen years old, he would join Superbloom Media and debut in 2017 as the pianist and vocalist of Moth Signals.

Many people leave Minjae out of their analysis of Moth Signals for some reason and never seem to realize what an important part that he played. He was the tie breaker between Jueun & Junyeong and Jiyeon & Oliver, acting as the voice of reason for his other bandmates. He took a logical approach to everything and that explains why he would leave Moth Signals and Superbloom Media in 2021, at the height of the hiatus.

“I couldn’t do it anymore.”

I am sitting in Minjae’s living room and nursing a cup of green tea as we chat. Unlike the other members, he does not try to keep the idol facade up. He leaves his face blank and openly rolls his eyes at what the others had said previously, correcting them with what really happened.

“Every time I would walk into that apartment, I was scared what would happen next. Oliver had tried to kill himself and Jiyeon was in out-patient, but everyone was acting like it was fine. I made a meeting with Yeonghui and I said, ‘I will expose everything about this company unless you let me go’. I thought I was going to be killed, honestly, like Jeong Dohun and that Velvetine girl. Nobody goes against Shin Yeonghui and wins.

“She must have realized what dirt I had on her and next thing I know, my contract is going through the paper shredder. She leans against the desk and looks me directly in the eyes to ask: are we done here? I don’t think I’ve ever run out of her office faster.”

Minjae was unable to tell me any of his secrets about Yeonghui due to an NDA he signed to leave, but, I was able to research and fine exactly what he might have been referencing.

Since late 2020, there have been rumors circulating forums dedicated to Moth Signals and all things Luminaries. They ask about the exact relationship between Oliver, who was born in 2001, and his boss, Shin Yeonghui, born in 1967. She is older than Oliver’s mother, mind you. There are photos of them at business parties, looking more like dates than mentor and mentee. His tie always matches her dresses and she always has a hand on him, whether it be his inner thigh or just his arm, tugging him further into the party. There have been claims of seeing them intimately involved at these parties, but nothing solid has ever been released. You can find the pictures all over Twitter and Reddit.

Yeonghui must have known that Minjae knew about her little secret and knew that if it got out, it would ruin her career. She lets Minjae go, not without blacklisting him from the entire entertainment industry, of course, and replaces him swiftly with Oh Deurim. She was already a well known Superbloom trainee at the time, having completed on The Gibson Girl Project for a chance to debut in Velvetine. She would be sent home in the last episode, but not without a promise from Yeonghui that big things were coming for her.

That big thing? Debuting with Moth Signals in 2022.

Yes, after sixteen months of pure silence about group activities, Superbloom Media dropped a new set of teasers for their first studio album Internet Blues, featuring the new member. Her inclusion was met with split reactions. Many were happy to see such a talented trainee get another chance, but many wondered if this would ruin the already fragile relationship Moth Signals had. On May 5, 2022, they would release their next single I’m Alive, which secured their first win and nomination at a major award show for “Best Band Performance” and they would take it home in the late winter months, showing how much they’ve grown over the last few years.

They would return to their usual promotional schedule of Spring and Fall releases with I Don’t Care in November of 2022, which cemented them as one of the biggest stars in the idol industry despite all the odds. Moth Signals seemingly turned the idea of what an idol should be and made their own definition, one that could only apply to them. Their studio album Call Me Crazy was celebrated by all fans as it meant Moth Signals promised to stay with their fans until the very end. The members looked more alive than they had in years, though there were some awkward moments as they navigated having a new member.

Oh Deurim was born on July 7, 2001 in Busan, South Korea to a single mother. Her father had been arrested from drug possession just before her birth and she would never meet him. From a very young age, music and writing was Deurim’s outlet. She loved composing her own tracks and falling down rabbit holes of genres she’s never heard of. She grew up writing poems, encouraged by her mother who was an author, and knew that she wanted to be famous from a young age.

She wanted to feel that adrenaline of the stage and know that people were here to see her first, no one else. Deurim’s an odd case, to put it lightly. Somehow, her most insane decisions would bring out the best results and she’s grown into a fan favorite because she ‘keeps it real’ in a fake industry. She posts whatever she wants and does what she wants, as seen by her November 2024 Instagram post where she outed her own relationship with bandmate Oliver Song. Superbloom Media confirmed the relationship not long after and they’ve been together ever since.

“I knew I was going to get him. It was only fate, I mean. I’ve been his fan since debut and I’m the only one that cares about him,” Deurim defends in her interview. She does this often—defends herself against an accusation that did not actually happen. She sits in defensive poses, her arms crossed over her chest and glaring at me. It’s unnerving. “You don’t think so?”

“I never said that.”

“Well, you wouldn’t understand anyway.”

I ended the interview not long after this. Deurim saw me as her greatest enemy at the moment and from experience, I knew it would not end well if I kept pushing. I thanked her for her time and left my business card in case I had further questions. She was kind enough to walk me out, but made sure to watch as I got into my rental car and left her apartment.

Coming into 2023, something happened that no one thought was possible: Oliver’s solo album.

When the band made their first appearance in public, many assumed that the era of solos was over and they would focus on band related activities. This, as usual, was not the case. Oliver debuted as a soloist on his twenty-first birthday with Boston’s Brightest, an album almost exclusively written during the hiatus period. Oliver describes it as “raw” and whatever came to mind at the time. The album would feature seven tracks all written and produced by Song and many fans were happy to see this, feeling that Oliver was owed it after all the hard work he’d put into everyone else’s career.

Sadly, his bandmates would not feel the same way. Three days before the album was released, Junyeong would take to Instagram live to leak almost half of the album before his Instagram was shut down for two weeks. He began a smear campaign against Oliver in every other form of media he could get, even including what Salem had said about the situation. Oliver would not comment on the situation, playing willfully ignorant whenever asked, and moving the conversation back to himself.

When I asked Junyeong why he leaked the album, Junyeong said: “I was pissed. That was my opportunity to earn my own fanbase instead of living in the shadows of everyone else. Everyone makes mistakes when they’re upset, so why am I the only one being villainized for it?” Junyeong leaves out the two Twitter posts where he tags Oliver’s personal account and tells him to “kill himself for the greater good”. Another piece of Moth Signals lost media as Superbloom media made sure no one ever saw it again.

Boston’s Brightest was one of Oliver’s best eras yet. He actually seemed to enjoy being on stage again and being with his fans. He would have a solo performance of the album at The Lure in 2023, which is where the infamous Oliver-Junyeong fight of 2023 occurs. It’s still not known what caused the fight, but suddenly, Junyeong was pulling Oliver back from the bar and punching him across the face. They would go back and forth for a few minutes before the bouncer kicks Junyeong out, leaving a drunk Oliver to exclaim: “What a night!” and tip his head back laughing as blood gets on his shirt.

Two months later, the band would release Love and War with the lead single Sold My Love, which was an international and national success. 2023 was truly the year of Moth Signals as they would sell their first million units of a single album and would be seen everywhere. It felt like every few minutes there was a new update on what Moth Signals were doing and that leads to all the members becoming paranoid about fans watching. They would not leave their homes without escorts from their companies and had bodyguards to make sure no one tried to break into their apartment.

The story of Moth Signals does not end with some sappy reunion between the members as they reconcile their differences, instead, they would go their separate ways with Superbloom Media affective immediately in summer of 2024. They finished their promotions for Tower of Babel and suddenly, everyone was moving out of their shared apartment and all the memories they made together were left behind. The “Soloist” era has treated fans well as Deurim finally made her solo debut, Jueun established her own label Little Chaos, and Junyeong would sign with For Romance, the label of close friend JC in late 2024.

Oliver remains under Superbloom Media despite massive fan attempts to get him to leave. He would assure them that everything would be fine, but many are worried knowing the many rumors that plague the building.

Jiyeon would announce her own hiatus and remove herself from the public realm. She plans on renting a cottage by the sea for a few months to get herself back together and do some important thinking about what she wants next from her career. Since then, all of her social media accounts have gone silent beyond the casual update from Junyeong and Salem about her well-doing.

From the beginning, the members of Moth Signals divided themselves amongst their preferences for music and it quickly spiraled out of control, leaving a strong division between all of them. Many worry that Tower of Babel was their final project together. From the responses I got from the five members, it seemed that they are open to making music together again, but not for a very, very long time.

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