Thread by @reveluxe

THIS IRENE “H*MOPHOBIC” FAN ACCOUNT IS FAKE:
a full explanation and debunking thread

now let's spread this across k-pop twitter so no one has any excuse to keep pretending there's any truth in this

first things first, the most important thing here is that this fan account is 100% FAKE. it's not just a mistranslation, the whole interaction with irene NEVER happened.

if you want more information, here's what went down:

back in april 2016, a twitter user by the name of @redjuhye0n / katy posted this english translation (left) of an alleged korean fansign account (right).

naturally, given how many lgbtq fans red velvet have, it didn't take long for homophobia accusations to blow up.

now redjuhye0n (who has thankfully since left twitter) was NOT korean. she claimed to be fluent, but she wasn't a native speaker.

so, actual native speakers soon chimed in explaining that the korean wording didn’t have any homophobic implications

https://twitter.com/seulgisolomon/status/717721497624772608

this seems to be the last point many reveluvs paid attention to, which is why you often see people calling the fan account a “mistranslation”.

but while it was technically mistranslated, the bigger issue is that it never happened to begin with.

in spite of her large following, redjuhye0n was a known homophobe and had some really warped ideas of gender and sexuality. like she once said she was having a “gender identity crisis” because she was having feelings for irene or something??

on top of that, redjuhye0n was apparently already known amongst korean luvies for faking fan accounts in the past.

so, it shouldn’t really come as any surprise to you that this whole homophobic fan account was completely fake the whole time.

a couple of months later, a korean luvie got in touch with international luvies to clarify that the person who posted the original korean “fanacc” was a troll known for posting fake news. they even deleted their acc after it blew up to cover their ass

https://twitter.com/_kimmina96/status/1136255532224851968

k-luvies had been talking about this for a while, but it never made it to i-luvies until the damage was well and truly done.

the consensus seems to be that, being homophobic, redjuhye0n probably helped cook up the fake fanacc in the first place

like i said, redjuhye0n is thankfully gone now, but the damage she did still lasts. the fake trans even made it to international news sites. this kind of defamation is punishable by 7 years imprisonment in south korea, but as usual, sm didn’t bother taking any action

and when you continue to spread this fake fanacc for a keke with your followers, not only are you furthering the irreparable damage to irene’s reputation and image, you’re hurting lgbtq fans who rightfully trust irene and red velvet to be good and caring people.

so please do the right thing and spread THIS instead of that slander.

veteran luvies feel free to add anything i missed.

and everyone stan irene, one of the most kind-hearted, respectful idols who always thinks about others will be impacted by her words 💝

oomf has been in the fandom for a long time and witnessed all this in real-time so they have a better explanation of how this managed to happen in the first place:

https://twitter.com/irenetology/status/1302678902238785538

https://twitter.com/reveluxe/status/1302975823809568769