What a day, Hanbinnie!
So I wanted to quickly recap the biggest things that Hanbin’s bday left us, even tho we all know very well. Just to put it nice and orderly somewhere to remember, as it was really a rollercoaster that ended with a bang.
1- The fandom’s worldwide campaign: the fandom was set on making this a special day for Hanbin, one to shower him with all the love and appreciation we know he deserves. So for months, the whole fandom was busy planning and organizing all kinds of things for his day. And we did it! There were tons of cupsleeve events, gatherings, gift and letter collects, ads, fundrising, charity, video greetings projects, multiple hashtags making top trending minutes into the day. The loudness of iKONICs this 22/10 was like nothing else.
(from:@rudequail)
2- His family business: both buldak and 5gam recieved iKONICs in their shops, creating mini events where fans could have a meal or spend time tgt and leave their gifts, letters and loving wishes for Hanbin. Buldak has all the gifts and merch signed by Hanbin for their respective owners to retrieve and 5gam decorated the place with balloons and played iKON’s music through the day, then posted on IG thanking konics for visiting and making it a “view-tiful” day (you know, for the newest perfume based on Hanbin’s likes)
3- Obang calling out to his beloved human: the cutest surprise, Obang posting on his IG fancams and pics of Hanbin with the caption “The person I miss”. We know the pup’s IG is managed by Donghyuk’s family, so you draw your own conclusions. But it was adorable. Later he’d be also joined by Bangdaeng, Junhoe’s puppy. She was a bit late, posting the day after, but it’s ok.
4- The fanmeeting crumbs: iKON was to hold a fanmeeting in Japan during Hanbin’s bday, (shitty move from YG) and we were honestly mentally preparing to get nothing from the boys this time because 1st, they don’t owe it to us to go public about this and 2nd because of YG and the negative press. BUT! They still made a move. Bobby kept silent and let Hanbin’s part roll on its own during Killing Me, Jinhwan (and Bobby) shouted “Happy birthday” during BDAY, which they don’t usually do; and then during Rhythm Ta they asked fans to be louder to be heard “all the way to Korea”. Don’t tell me this was unrelated to Hanbin, the kids know what they’re doing.
(you can search the fancams/audio in tw)
5- Donghyuk’s sweet IG story: the fanmeeting crumbs were enough for us, and we were already spazzing in glee about it when this kid posted an IG story with a single white flower an no captions. Not missing a beat, detetctkonics did their search and found out it was an Arrow Head, Hanbin’s birthday flower. And not only that, but it also could be interpreted as meaning trust. It was yet another hearthwarming message and the fandom was quick to bask in the happiness, and although sadly the story was later deleted for reasons unknown, Donghyuk made his point clear.
6- The Bobby incident: and then we came to the peak of the day, just as it was about to end and hit 00:00 back in the far east. We were already rolling in our happy gushing when Kim Jiwon, Kimbap extraordinaire, half the B of Double B, typo master of the peninsula, not only posted on his IG, but he did so with a fancam of Hanbin and the caption “Happy birthday, I miss you”.
But hold that hat, he had more. He then went to answer to his IG pal itsbizkitt, who had mixed him up with Hanbin, saying “lol dats my beloved brother (...)”
Soon after we had a piling list of people hitting like on this, from Donghyuk and Yunhyeong, to Jinhwan’s and Junhoe’s sisters, Yunhyeong’s cousin, multiple YG ex staff and current staff, even PSY! And then it was even reposted, by Bobby’s friend captioning “mood” and by iKON’s former stylist, saying it took her back to memories of good people (transaltion interpretations in place).
This broke the fandom in the best possible way, and ikonics were lightning fast to flood Bobby’s post with love and thankfulnes and hearts and crying emojis (because, hey, we miss Hanbin too) and flood twitter with our emotional spamming, even pushing Bobby, Donghyuk and BelovedHanbin into the trending tab.
Of course Bobby’s bold move also atracted backlash, as antis, haters, trolls and the likes were quick to demand of him that he delete the post or to question and pass judgment on his actions. But as of this moment, he seemes to have paid no heed to them as it’s all still there.
There were also numerous articles written on this, and although I think it’s a cheap move from the press to try and use this to draw attention and make a big deal of it outside the fandom (just like they did when Junhoe unfollowed YG), we were pleasantly surprised when we found out that the feedback was in big part positive. Many people seem to understand that this is no one’s business to meddle in. Some even called out on the news sites intentions with the articles, especially those that had been so quick to spread slander or misleading info about Hanbin before, and even praised Bobby’s (and in some articles also Donghyuk’s) straighforwardnes.
Now, I do believe this was a statement. We know very well that Bobby could have done this privately by other means and leave it at that, but he chose to go public and post on IG. Why? For iKONICs? For Hanbin? For himself? For the rest of iKON? To encourgae others? To go against YG and those keeping them quiet? To show the GP and press that he didn’t care? I don’t know. We don’t know. Could be any, all or none of those reasons. Only he knows, but the message was sent, recieved and spread.
So yeah, this was a massive win for both iKONICs and iKON themselves. These kids are friendship goals, and we are immensely proud of them all.
7- An update on Hanbin: From the chinese Hanbin fanclub, a fan that went to buldak asked Hanbin’s uncle about him, and the uncle’s answer was that Hanbin is doing better, his mental health is improving and he is eating and resting well. And if this is not the best news we got this day, I don’t know what else to say.
Things might keep rolling as we speak, but Hanbin’s day was succesfully closed with a pretty red bow and on a bright note. I hope he felt all the love that was sent to him on his day, that’s all we meant.
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