Over the past few days, RIIZE’s (라이즈) dispute has been all over the internet. With Seunghan’s (승한) confirmed departure from the group after a long hiatus, fans worldwide are starting to boycott SM Entertainment for the unjust actions of the company towards the idol.
Seunghan has been inactive since November of 2023 after images and videos of his pre-debut lifestyle surfaced on the internet. With only 2 months of total activity from the artist, it’s no wonder why fans were disappointed and enraged by the company’s decision to remove him from the team. Global followers of the group have started to avoid any interactions with RIIZE and SM Entertainment as a sign of protest, even going as far as cancelling pre-ordered albums for the band’s recent comeback.
The boycott seems to be going in favour of protesting fans, as results of unfollowing and blocking the boyband across multiple social media platforms emerge online, showing the slow downfall RIIZE. The group’s main social platform, Instagram, went from having 4.2 million followers to only 3.9 million as of Thursday (16th October). Following that, their Twitter account also lost a significant amount of followers, enough to do damage to the group’s online image. Not to mention the multiple trending hashtags, with up to 1 million posts showing support towards Seunghan.
SM Entertainment’s investment stocks also suffered from loss throughout the duration of this dispute, with losses of up to 2.09% that happened in just a few hours. While all of this was ongoing, ELLE Korea posted a teaser picture of an upcoming magazine cover, which later was revealed to be RIIZE, except Seunghan was excluded. The decision to post this in the midst of everything has shone a negative light on the post, with fans deeming it as “insensitive”. Netizens shared their thoughts in the comment section of said post.
So what happens next? How do the active members feel about all this? Will they disband in the future? Sadly, we don’t have the answers to any of these questions and at the time of writing, SM Entertainment has yet to give any response regarding the boycott and extreme backlash they’ve been receiving from fans. We hope that the situation will be resolved soon and that justice to be served to those who deserve it.
Source: Instagram
May contributed to this article.
