Thread by @yongsooup

thread: clearing up the information regarding Jaden Jeong, and a small history of BBC management(?)

This is not to convince you in either direction, but for you to come to your own conclusions on the matter.

Disclaimer: I would like to note that the kpop industry as a whole has some very deeply ingrained issues, and while JJ himself can be considered complacent in these, it is not so much as him being a single instigator for the issues stated below.

Hair:

Without a doubt, the most frequent issue brought up regarding JJ is that of him having 'forced' a specific image for the members of LOONA, which falls into 2 major parts - such as JinSoul being made to keep her hair blonde throughout her trainee period, up until late 2019.

This has been brought up repeatedly in the past based on how this was damaging her hair and causing her pain - but was addressed by her earliest during # era, where she stated that she hadn't experienced discomfort during it.

In regards to this, some people's hair can take this repeated bleaching - given the appropriate treatment and care (see Hyoyeon, for example), while others can't. This responsibility of care falls onto the respective team for this though, rather than the management in BBC.

Should the management of BBC have changed their plans if there was a problem? Yes - but putting black dye onto her hair in 2019 would not have instantly fixed any underlying issues, nor would dyeing it again for every comeback since... including back to blonde for Flip That.

The earliest mention I can find regarding JinSoul's scalp hurting is from this second-hand interpretation of someone who attended a fansign - though the original post simply says that she had a had a headache during activities, rather than it being due to her hair?

Continuing on the tangent of hair, YeoJin has repeatedly expressed her dislike of having to have her hair cut short in the past for comebacks, even stating that she cried over it during Why Not. As this was in 2020, we can say that the choice of style is still decided by BBC.

Dieting:

The second half of the topic brought up in terms of image being forced is that of the extensive dieting members were put through during their trainee periods, the most notable of these being from Yves and Olivia.

Sadly, as mentioned in the disclaimer, excessive dieting and low weight is something that is prevalent and glamorized within Kpop - whether it's dictated by the company, or by the members themselves.

I'm sure we're all familiar with these predebut stories of having to hide food from staff, lose weight in a short period of time, managers secretly giving members food, and so on (some examples included). But who is the staff encouraging this in this context?

Often, you'll hear the word "이사님" (isa-nim, or director) used. which many associate with Jaden Jeong, due to him being credited as the Creative Director at the time. However, the role of Director is seen in a number of other positions at the time - here are the XX credits:

So, while JJ is listed as a Director in the company at the time - he is realistically part of a team of directors in various roles. Management, however, is responsible for taking care of the idols, managing their schedules and even down to buying them food.

It's often stated that JJ had more power in the company than he should have - and again, it is valid to point out his complacency in the matter, but it cannot be ignored that an entire department of 5 people had directly responsibility, and therefore, a greater say in this.

Another argument that is, for some reason, brought up in relation to this is him being deemed as 'difficult to work with' by the Monotree producers - though this is in reference to his desire for high-quality work, and continues to work with Monotree to this day.

Jaden Jeong and the 'most unknown girl group':

Originally written in 2012(!) for his blog post of Lovelyz BabySoul's solo, his desire to create an unknown girl group refers to him not wanting an excess of information about the members being accessible, in an age of information.

The word 'unknown' in this context does NOT refer to him wishing to create an indie, underpromoted girl group as is often claimed. Lots of promotion was given during predebut (1/3 on MIXNINE), and Jaden often expressed his hope that LOONA would see great success in the future.

So... what happened after XX? Around this time, BBCs upper management had changed, and decided that they no longer wished to continue with Jaden's version of the lore, leading to his departure in August 2019. As a result of this, BBC scrapped loonatheballad, a Japanese debut +

As well as the rest of the plans Jaden had left behind. These projects were under BBCs possession, with that infamous blog post from 2019 talking about Jaden deleting his personal copies of La Maison actually being a result of his contractual obligations.

The final things to happen with Jaden in his position of Creative Director at BBC included a trip to Japan (signalling the then upcoming debut), as well as LOONAs first performance at KCon LA.

https://t.co/4kstUlcOGG twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

This isn't the first time this has happened in that company, however, as Polaris (the parent company of BBC), had their own girl group at the time - Ladies Code.

MYST3RY and STRANG3R were the first two parts of their Healing Trilogy, with Jaden overseeing the project at the time. However, the final part of this would never be released, as Polaris transferred him to BBC in late 2016 to oversee the LOONA project.

Ashley, the leader of Ladies Code, revealed that while the final part HAD been recorded, the new A&R team that was brought in Jaden's place had cancelled the release of this album, instead sending her and fellow member Zuny to audition for MIXNINE.

Therefore, we can draw the same parallel to post-2019 BBC, with the new management deciding not to release any projects that were produced under JJ - including, but not limited to, the Cinema Theory videos and the Butterfly performance ver (which BBC scolded Digipedi for posting)

OnlyOneOf:

Given the lack of information we truly have of the behind the scenes going on at BBC, our next best source of information is his projects following this. OnlyOneOf, formed of 7 trainees who were previously under BBC (8x8x8), were moved to 8D Ent. to debut in 2019.

Though now taking a smaller public role in his involvement, given his new role as CEO of Modhaus (tripleS), he still assists in the production of their releases - with the members all holding favourable opinions of him.

As a small aside, while OOO members are often seen producing their own music (as this was a quality sought out by BBC), Jaden also accepted creative input from the members of LOONA - though understandably not as much at the time considering they had less experience in the area.

In terms of concept, all members of OOO were above the age of 18 at the time of their debut, with their youngest member being 21 at the time 'libidO' was released. Again, I will note that during his time with LOONA, this is something that can be criticised, due to the nature +

of some of the concepts given during their predebut period (most notably Choerry's solo and Odd Eye Circle, as was protested at the time by Korean fans).

However, based on what we have seen in his upcoming girl group tripleS so far (the age range so far being 01-07...), it appears that an age appropriate concept IS being used - with no revealing outfits or low angles present.

Additionally, measures are being put in place at Modhaus in order to minimise the period of trainee debts, with a portion of all profits being distributed between the members directly.