etoks21

omg...

Your comment is revolting because ever-so-slyly, you place the blame back on the victim AGAIN, after he's freaking DEAD.

"...so IF he didn't do no wrong..." (I won't address the atrocious English)? "IF?!!!!" Good job keeping unjustified suspicion alive after a man has died because of it.

omg...seriously stfu.

How dare you bring up racist things like facts!!!!!!!

You are hysterical and slobbering BS in place of facts.
"The West is literally breaking down, especially the U.S. with drugs and crime...blah blah blah. Go on Youtube and do your own research! blah blah blah!"

Posts some factual, reliable links to support your BS please.

BTW, your ignorance is alarming: Do you really believe "Korean" is a freaking "race?" Koreans/Japanese/Han Chinese share more than 99% of their genetic makeup. Korean is a culture/society/ethnicity by location, not a race. Understand? As you're so focused on your genetic makeup I'd think you'd have known that already.

I'm an American. Please read my comment a bit below. We have a horrible gun violence problem here and I'm the first to admit it. But your assertion that you can't walk at night in American cities is horseshit. I lived in fucking Manhattan, NYC until four years ago. I am a night person. I walked the streets nearly every night along with hundreds of thousands of other people and never saw anything violent happen. Violent crime is a big problem depending on specific location, but in most places it has been slowly going DOWN over the last 20 years.

BUT we are talking about SUICIDE in this thread, and Korea's rate is TWICE that of the U.S., and the highest among developed nations, FOURTH highest among ALL countries on Earth. It's kind of revolting that you are trying to defend that. Grow up, admit the truth, and be part of whatever the solution is.

BTW, isn't Calgary in the "West?" Isn't the "West" breaking down? Why aren't you dead yet? Oh, that's just in the U.S. Why aren't I dead yet?

Yes, Korean society is to blame for Korean society's suicide problem, just as American society is to blame for America's gun violence problem. See? Admitting one's problems isn't really that hard. And shut it with the "racism" BS.

"But statements like "Korea is a sick society" are wrong and racist."

A society is not a "race."
A nationality is not a "race."
K-Pop idols are not a "race."
Korean actors are not a "race."

There is less than a 1% genetic variation among Han Chinese, Japanese, and Korean people. They are all the same "race," yet Korea is the country with the 28.6 per100,000 suicide rate. Suicide is high in China and Japan too, but nowhere near where it is in Korea.

Now that we've got your absurd and lame assertion of "racism," which is actually just another way of screaming STFU, out of the way, let's just say that regarding the issue of suicide in general and celebrity suicide in particular, Korea is a VERY sick society. If you can't admit that, then you're being deliberately obtuse and your opinion is invalid.

Korea as a nation has the highest suicide rate among developed nations at 28.6 per 100,000 people, TWICE that of the U.S. That rate continues to tic upward, as it did especially among teens last year.

In the U.S. we have the highest rate of gun deaths in the world. There are more guns in the U.S. than people. Regarding gun violence, the U.S. is a VERY sick society. I'm an American and I admit that.

Hiding weak arguments behind accusations of "racism" is an old and tired trick. Please stop.

Oh, stop saying true things.

No one said you "don't have the right to" speak about anything you want.

You actually used the term "mainstream media" in Korea, as if a consensus reached by that mess adds weight to ANY topic, let alone SK celebrity suicide rates.

Your comments are the definition of "willful ignorance." But I think you're an SK media-apologist and all-round defender of the indefensible.

Newsflash: "conspiracies" actually happen.

Oh, boo hoo, did I disrupt your calm, rational, very ice-blooded discussion with "we" about a topic no one should be unemotional about? Emotions, under control, have the beneficial effect of making people CARE about things, you know, like suicide epidemics.

Do you know how stupid YOU sound when you imply that other developed countries have this same problem, we're just not calmly "discussing" it? South Korea has the highest rate of suicide, nationwide, of any developed nation, by far. That rate, 28.6 per 100,000, is TWICE as high as in the U.S. for example.

When you consider ALL countries' suicide rates, Korea drops to what I'd guess you'd consider a respectable fourth place, right behind three tiny, extremely poor and undeveloped African nations. Hooray for SK! We're only #4!

Bravo, for yet another hearty defense of the indefensible! Good on you. Standing proud for the anonymous Netizens who do such noble work on behalf of the Republic, driving innocent people to their graves with vicious, unfounded rumors and character assassination. Good to know you're OK with that.

The lies and rumors and extra-ugly shit is spewed by the netizens, those innocent victims of "crowd mentality," then spread to the wider public by the wondrous Korean media you so admire, who cover their asses by repeatedly reminding us that they are merely quoting "netizens." They don't say WHO these individuals are or how these quotes have been verified, because they don't verify, they just REPEAT because, you know, it's "already out there" and shit.

Really, where DO you live, that you're so willfully ignorant of what really goes down in Korea regarding these topics? Cluelessistan is not that big a country, but a LOT of people live there, maybe your neighbors?

Have you heard of this thing called the Internet, where national borders mean nothing unless you live in China, North Korea, or Russia? Did you know you can like, even watch and listen to content not created in your own country on this thing called the Internet?

There's even a huge web site called Youtbue, on which you can watch videos from almost anywhere in the world, even of things like NEWSCASTS in countries other than your own.

I have watched LOTS of Korean coverage of the LSK suicide, including those ridiculous "news" panel discussions in which things are softened and every possible euphemism is employed to dance around the ugly truths they don't want to speak directly. If you consider that great journalism, your standards are pathetic.

And I have been looking at this Korean suicide epidemic ever since I discovered Korean cinema three years ago, became transfixed, but then started hearing about this suicide madness.

SK will talk about LSK for about two weeks, which is the length of their willing attention span for a celeb suicide. Then, relative silence until the next charcoal briquet incident occurs, followed by another brief frenzy

Actually, another thing that's downright creepy is the flowery language used in Korean "news" media in general, and in regard to deaths, suicides and funerals in particular. But I'm sure that's the same everywhere else too, just like the sky-high suicide rate.

Get a clue and get some heart.

But it also needs to be an important part of keeping this suicide shit front and center in the Korean media. They love to get past the latest suicide as quickly as possible...until the next one.

I am wishing and hoping and sending good energy to one of my fave young actors, Yoo Ah In, who has been under unending police harassment ("investigation") and insane, judgmental, fact-free asshole "netizen" criticism for many months now regarding the allegations against him.

Cancel culture in the U.S. is bad, but Korea makes it look like nothing.

"Ahjussi..." Weeping here. Thank you.

It helps to know I'm not alone in my emotional reaction to not only LSK's unnecessary death, but those of all the creatives before him who have been hounded through hell and into the grave.

Thing is, their humiliation can never come close to what LSK suffered because no one knows their faces and names to begin with. They have no pinnacle of success and respect to be pulled down from.

Seriously, this.
You brought tears to my eyes.

Well-stated. Completely disorienting. My guess is that LSK and others who make the same choice do so in an extremely distorted mental state. Plus, let us not forget the cops had him in for NINETEEN hours of questioning just prior to his suicide, after other such extended sessions in the months before. Imagine one's mental state after going through that.

Great job as an apologist for the Korean entertainment/suicide industry. What took LSK's life was the culture that gave those recordings, which were vague and in no context, such power; and the idea that LSK's personal life is anyone's fucking business but his and his family's.

As for the U.S. celebs, LOTS of public figures openly supported the people you mentioned, and NONE of the three killed themselves. Sort of apples and oranges.

YES.
Those freaking awards should have been postponed.
But NOTHING gets in the way of the Korean suicide machine.

I've come to loathe that phrase. Given how often this happens and how blase' Koreans are about it, it's insulting.

YES. Facts don't matter.

"I love how the poster had inadvertently proved my point by saying that the Asian media is quiet about such things because of their "culture" when my whole point was, um, that the Asian media was quiet about such things because of their culture."

But you're not supposed to say that, you evil American.

U.S. has a lot of nasty shit going down, but we generally talk openly about our nasty shit. Unless of course, that shit is an unelected prsident waging a war on a country that was not involved in 9/11, thus killing hundreds of thousands of people and maiming thousands more for life; that kind of shit we don't talk about much. Yeah, that was 20 years ago...so what? That asshole slithers around the barren wastes of Texas to this day, while his victims lie six feet under or in wheelchairs.

Oh my god, I SO feel you on this.

I too discovered Asian cinema three years ago, and over that time I've come to see Korea as the best of the best in general, and far superior to Hollywood (I'm American) in what it turns out. I was also a fan of the K-Pop band SHINee, beginning about the same time. Then I discovered the young man who had become my fave member over two weeks of soaking up the music and videos, Kim Jonhyun, had killed himself two and a half years prior. I was devastated.

Jonghuun's story is what got me researching Korea's suicide problem and that of celebrity suicides in particular. What little of my hair that is left has been standing on end for two years now. The issue is almost unbelievable in scope, and it's incredibly creepy how Korean media uses obfuscation and flowery language and tells everyone to STFU after each suicide, and then it happens...again.

So, like you, I've been thinking "should I be watching all these movies I love, seeing as they originate from such a toxic, vile, sadistic entertainment/cultural environment that actively abuses and drives to suicide some of its best artists on a regular basis?"

Thing is, my little boycott would be entirely unnoticed by anyone else, but it becomes a personal issue because now I cannot listen to SHINee or watch Korean films without thinking about Korean suicides.

Regarding SHINee, just by the way, a second member Taemin, was severely depressed and suffered debilitating anxiety while in the military and had to be hospitalized, then reassigned to fulfill his duty. A third member, Onew, the main singer behind Jonghyun, became severely depressed and was clearly starving to death last year. He removed himself "on hiatus" from the group and hopefully is recovering. I hope for his sake he never goes back, as it will be the literal death of him.

Most obnoxious and disgusting?: The three members who can still function now that Taemin is back, are touring under the SM label as "SHINee," even though their two most powerful vocalists are gone to suicide and depression. Korean entertainment industry plows forward no matter fucking what happens. SHINee opened a huge concert tour of Japan just SIX WEEKS after Jonghyun, a founding member they'd been with for ten years who was the lead vocalist, killed himself. Six weeks. SM re-branded the tour as a series of "memorial services" for Jonghyun and raked in many millions of $$$ from packed arenas and stadiums. The fandom is as toxic as the entertainment conglomerates; they are complicit in these suicides.

Also...just this past Friday, one of the Korean entertainment/suicide industry's self-congratulatory events, the SBS Entertainment Awards, went right ahead as scheduled, despite LSK having been cremated and buried 24 hours earlier. Ohhhhh, but most of the women switched to black gowns, so all the flashing flashbulbs, red carpet posing, fake camaraderie and glad-handing was OK because, you know, the men were already in black with their tuxes and now so were the women too, so it's all good, you see. Damn thing should have been postponed out of respect to the man who made millions for a lot of those people, but what the hey, moving onward...his suicide was yesterday's news.