{"id":195803,"date":"2025-12-21T03:06:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-21T03:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/195803\/"},"modified":"2025-12-21T03:06:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-21T03:06:09","slug":"worship-to-witch-hunts-how-south-koreas-fandoms-turn-on-their-idols","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/195803\/","title":{"rendered":"Worship to witch hunts: how South Korea\u2019s fandoms turn on their idols"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the space of a single week in early December, three household names in South Korean<\/a> entertainment abruptly retreated from the spotlight.Actor Cho Jin-woong announced his sudden retirement<\/a> on December 6 after decades-old reports resurfaced online about his brief stint in juvenile detention.<\/p>\n

Two days later, television host and comedian Park Na-rae suspended her broadcast appearances following claims she had mistreated staff and received unauthorised medical treatments.<\/p>\n

And fellow comedian Cho Sae-ho withdrew from his regular programmes the following day amid online allegations linking him to an acquaintance supposedly tied to organised crime, accusations that his agency has denied.<\/p>\n

\"SouthSouth Korean comedian Cho Sae-ho (left) pictured with Bill Gates (centre) in August 2025. Photo: Instagram\/chosaeho<\/p>\n

Each case was distinct, yet the response followed a familiar script. Allegations spread rapidly on social media, advertisers swiftly pulled sponsorships and formal apologies were made before any investigation had time to catch up.<\/p>\n

Their careers collapsed almost overnight \u2013 casualties of a hyperconnected society where reputations can be lost in seconds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the space of a single week in early December, three household names in South Korean entertainment abruptly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":195804,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[4754,2703,1845,111277,111274,57326,146,111275,111272,3448,111271,85,46,111276,111280,111278,43900,111279,11471,111273,21353],"class_list":["post-195803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-army","tag-blackpink","tag-bts","tag-cho-jin-woong","tag-cho-se-ho","tag-cyberbullying","tag-entertainment","tag-epik-high","tag-fandoms","tag-hong-kong","tag-idols","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-kim-seon-ho","tag-lee-sun-kyun","tag-online-witch-hunts","tag-parasite","tag-park-na-rae","tag-south-korea","tag-witch-hunts","tag-worship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195803\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/195804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}