For a long time, in K-pop culture, the term "shipping" has emerged to refer to fans wanting two idols (same or opposite ṩệẍ) to have a romantic relationship. It will be the imagination that makes "shipping" culture become soмєтнing interesting but sometimes also becomes excessive and toxic when fans cross the line.
In particular, most recently, a Kpop idol had to speak up and ask fans to stop trying to find out or accuse his colleague of being g@y. Notably, the colleagues directly mentioned here are Jungkook and V. After his strong response to defend both of them, ARMYs expressed their outrage at the toxic fans as well as their support for his statement.
Below is the situation that happened and it is definitely a lesson for shippers who go beyond the control:
Obviously, "shipping" is a culture that exists underground in the Kpop world. While idols may engage in fan service activities such as skinship or show off their closer friendship in front of their fans, in reality, they are still colleagues rather than a romantic couple. Therefore, pairing idols in an aggressive way sometimes has a negative impact on the idols themselves.
For example, they will have to face relationship rumors because of accusations from bigoted shippers. In particular, for idols of the same gender or working in the same group, they will feel uncomfortable when toxic fans constantly label them and have excessive imaginations towards idols.
Jungkook and V are two of the most famous victims of the problem of unethical "shipping" by toxic individuals. Over the years, ARMYs have had to ḟïġḧẗ off a lot of people who thought Jungkook and V actually had a romantic relationship and even imagined a lot of ridiculous things in their relationship or actions.
Not only that, Taekook shippers (the ship name given to Jungkook and V) are becoming more and more numerous and they even recently made HOLLAND angry because they said disrespectful words to his colleagues. Specifically, the incident stemmed from a live broadcast of the male idol and he noticed one of the comments saying: "Do you know TaeKook?". Then he paused for a moment, shook his head, and didn't say anything else.
Immediately after the end of the live broadcast, HOLLAND reposted the clip on social networks and added a statement asking netizens to refrain from asking personal questions related to the relationships and ṩệẍuality of other idols, especially V and Jungkook. He wrote: "Please don’t ask me about whether ‘taekook’ or any other K-pop male idols are gay or dating. It can be disrespectful to them, and it makes me uncomfortable. I don’t want to know who might be L̶G̶B̶T̶Q̶+ in the K-pop industry, and even if I did, I wouldn’t want to discuss it."
That shows how annoyed HOLLAND is with fans who excessively "shipping" their idols. No one prevents shippers from fantasizing about Jungkook or V, but bringing up gender issues to discuss publicly or investigating their actual relationship during another idol's broadcast is unethical and disrespectful. condemn.
ARMYs and netizens then supported HOLLAND's statement and also gave their opinions on the "shipping" problem in the Kpop world:
- He has point. Shippers have their own fantasy. You should not be asking other person about the person you ship. They are not aware of it also whatever his opinion might be interpreted in one way or another. Sk is not yet truly open about it
- it is very clear both jungkook and taehyung are straight... and are just best friends and i could've sworeeee taehyung said not to ship them anymore. when is this going to end?
- Yep, another day another tkkrs delulu shaming the fandom
- They say it’s disrespectful to αssume gend3r they are the same people αssuming idols to be g*y
- Taehyung has said blatantly that he finds it gross because the members are his brothers. Yet people still ship members like their lives depend on it. It's weird af.
- These armies are doing too much, asking an openly g*y male artist/idol if he ships so and so of who are of same g3nder is beyond me. Its a bit disrespectful too
- taekook shippers are ALWAYS the worst people in the world, sorry not sorry.
- They are embarrαssment as always.its not a first time
- we are never getting rid of taekookers bcs you’ll never see armys calling them out for harαssing everyone. holland is not even the first person who expressed discomfort, but brands, models, accs had also been harαssed by this one specific grp of shippers which is taekookers
- And yall better not forget MANY of them have been harαssing amd dehumamizing j/imin for YEARS and have been disrespecting his bond with j/k.
- I would say, sometimes I'm ashamed of being an Army, but then I would admit that THEY are Army....but they're not!
- Yeah remember when taekookers used to tag hmnlvr p0rn on jk’s brother ig. And he had to untag every single of of them. This is like the worse bcs that’s literally his family member and i didn’t even see any army talking abt it
Meanwhile, HOLLAND is known as the K-pop's first openly L̶G̶B̶T̶Q̶+ idol in Korea, a country where L̶G̶B̶T̶Q̶+ relationships are still a taboo subject and g*y marriage has not been ℓєgαℓized. That's probably also the reason why toxic individuals invaded his broadcast and asked about "Taekook". But Holland then also faced many criticisms saying that he should not have mentioned V and Jungkook's names so clearly. Upon realizing this, Holland explained the situation at the time and apologized for not paying careful attention to this detail:
