Zico’s having a reasonably normal comeback, with his songs charting well and him doing ordinary activities. So of course sites like Netizenbuzz and PannChoa have to cherry-pick out stuff by a small minority of Koreans to translate into English and make it look like Zico is embroiled! in! scandal!
Since English speakers are getting such a skewed view here, I thought I’d go over why nothing has happened to Zico with regard to the whole molka/golden phone/Burning Sun scandal….
Actually, that would make for a very short post. Nothing’s happened to Zico because there’s no actual evidence that he was involved with any of it, end of story. But as so often happens, a more-fanciful narrative is being touted about the Interwebs by people who don’t like Zico and don’t have anything better to do with their time. English speakers encounter bits and pieces of it, and then they start to think there’s something to it.
Which of course is the entire point of these kinds of propaganda campaigns.
So in the interest of both explaining to those who don’t know why Zico is not actually part of the molka/golden phone/Burning Sun scandal, and in the interest of educating people about propaganda (which you do see an awful lot of in K-Pop), I’m going to examine some of the rationalizations given for why Zico MUST BE guilty, even though no one in any position of authority seems to think so.
Rationalization #1: Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Yeah, sometimes there’s fire. Other times there’s just somebody blowing smoke up your ass.
You have to keep in mind that the K-Pop media makes money off of clicks. That means that they have a significant financial motivation to avoid time-consuming reporting and fact-checking.
They also will put the name of a famous person into a story, even if the story has nothing to do with that person. THIS HAPPENS ROUTINELY. I have written about it. It is exactly like if an American reporter put the name of an A-list Hollywood actor–Brad Pitt, let’s say–into a story on the school-admissions scandal, because he’s way more likely to get clicks than Felicity Huffman or Aunt Becky.
To look at a media environment like the one in Korea and say, “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire” is just astonishingly naive. And (going on a little tangent here) it illuminates the difference between cynicism and skepticism. Cynicism assumes the worst of people without evidence. Skepticism demands evidence. People who are cynical never think they are naive or ignorant, because they are running around assuming the worst of everyone, and how much more negative can you get?
But like any other form of willful ignorance, cynicism is easy to exploit. “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire!” so CLICK ON MEEEEEEEEEEE!!!$$$$$$$!!!!!!
Rationalization #2: Zico is guilty, it’s just been covered up. Yeah, everything gets covered up in Korea! Completely! That’s why we don’t know anything about the molka/golden phone/Burning Sun scandal!
Like, really? There have definitely been attempts at cover ups, but they have not been as successful as people would have you believe–avoiding punishment is apparently quite a bit easier than avoiding publicity. Jung Joon Young bribed the police in 2016 to avoid prosecution in a molka case, but the accusation itself was quite well publicized at the time. People are upset that Seungri seems to be avoiding prosecution, and yet they all know what he’s been accused of; ditto with the investigation into police corruption.
Once the scandal became public knowledge, even really minor crap (like bets on golf games) were publicized. And yet…nothing on Zico.
Do you think he’s that special? Are his songs that catchy? Did the investigation go something like this?
Detective 1: Ah hah! I see that Zico drugged a woman, raped her, filmed it, uploaded it to a chat room, and bragged about it!
Detective 2: That bastard! Let’s nail his ass to the wall!
Detective 1: Fucking scumbag!
Detective 3: Oh, guys….
Detectives 1&2: What?!
Detective 3: Zico…. I mean, his songs…. I just really love them.
Detectives 1&2: What does that matter?
Detective 3: “We are, we are, we artist, baby.”
Detectives 1&2: …
Detective 3: “We are, we are, we artist, baby!”
Detectives 1&2 (quietly): “We are, we are, we artist, baby.”
All detectives: “Life is short, art is long! 너나 나나 쟤나 I make ’em say!”
Detective 1: Yeah, OK, I’ll destroy the evidence.
Detective 2: Let me help you!
Of course, something so minor as an absence of actual evidence is no barrier to your committed propagandist, which leads us to the place all baseless conspiracy theories end up. Yup! We’re in lack of evidence = proof of guilt land!
This is familiar territory for the tinfoil hat crowd–the less evidence there is, the more you KNOW it’s the truth! (THERE IS NO EVIDENCE OF BIGFOOT BECAUSE THE GOVERNMENT COVERS IT UP!!!!)
So the narrative is that Zico looked at Jung’s phone and knew everything that was going on with him–leaving! no! evidence!
But proponents of this theory claim there is evidence for it–in fact, it’s the only evidence of any connection between Zico and the whole molka/golden phone/Burning Sun scandal. And that is Zico’s appearance on a January 2016 episode of Radio Star. (Yes. Zico was clever enough not to leave any evidence behind…and then stupid enough to bring up the golden phone on national television. Gotcha.)
To put it mildly, I think accepting that appearance of evidence of anything criminal is a reach–an opinion that is apparently shared by everyone in law enforcement. But for those who think the appearance very damning, the supposed evidence basically boils down to two things.
Rationalization #3: Jung said Zico spent hours watching his phone. As I said in my original post, this involves completely ignoring the context of that statement, which was Jung getting back at Zico because Zico had embarrassed him.
Why people assume that a remark made in such a context would be 100% truthful is beyond me. Jung was not making a statement under oath; Radio Star is not 60 Minutes. People frequently say things on variety shows with the intent of being entertaining and funny; telling the truth is not really a priority.
Plus—do I have to point this out?–Jung is not an honest person. He lied about his 2016 molka accusation, and went so far as to bribe the police to ensure that the truth never came out. He wasn’t particularly forthright with the women he drugged and raped, and he certainly didn’t inform anyone that they were being filmed during sex and that the video would be shared.
Why in God’s name are people taking him at his word?
Rationalization #4: Everyone on Radio Star was too excited. Believe it or not, “They were too excited for this to have been an innocent conversation” is an allegation that gets leveled all the time.
So Zico could not have been talking about just the contact list on Jung’s golden phone, because everyone was way too excited. Obviously this is helpful rationalization if you also want to hate on any or all of the Radio Star hosts as well as Zico. In fact, it can be leveled against just about anyone in any situation! That’s why it’s so familiar–this is a “charge” that has been leveled against Block B countless times: They can’t possibly be talking about some innocuous subject–they’re too excited! Clearly they have committed a slew of horrid felonies!
The thing is, “hunting” celebrity dating news is a regular shtick on Radio Star, because in Korea, celebrity dating news can be a big story. The people claiming that everyone on Radio Star was too excited to just be talking about Jung knowing a lot of women are in essence claiming that they are unaware that Koreans make a big deal out of celebrities dating. Considering that Koreans are actually pretty notorious for this, I have a hard time believing that anyone making such a claim is doing so in good faith.
Plus, let’s talk about the level of EXCITEMENT!!! that is just bog-standard on Korean comedy and variety shows.
Love it, hate it–this is how Korean comedy operates. IT IS LOUD. No one one who has ever watched Korean comedy should be wondering why people on a Korean variety show are so gosh-darned excited.
And I’ll end with one final bit of “evidence,” which to me is one of the more-odious bad-faith arguments.
Rationalization #5: Zico got a new phone. I particularly don’t like this rationalization, because it is taking some things that are in fact true, and then twisting their meaning as far away from the truth as it is possible to go.
What’s the true part? Some of the molka chat participants dumped old phones and got new ones to hide their activities.
Zico also got a new phone just weeks before the scandal erupted! And we know this because he posted about it online!
HE MUST BE INVOLVED OH MY GOD!!!
But why did Zico replace his phone? Because he had an endorsement deal with Samsung. This was a fairly elaborate deal that included special concerts, and Zico was smack dab in the middle of it when the golden phone scandal erupted. The existence of this endorsement was quite well-publicized, and anyone who actually wanted to know why Zico got a new phone could easily look it up.
Of course the endorsement deal was promptly spiked—I’m sure by mutual agreement, since it served neither Zico nor Samsung for it to continue under the circumstances. That’s the nefarious happening here: Zico had some unlucky timing, and he lost a pretty significant endorsement.
I mean, a normal person might look at that and say, “Gee, that sucks for Zico.” But some people look at that and say, “I could take this unfortunate thing that happened to Zico and flip it around so that it magically becomes ‘evidence’ of criminal wrongdoing!”
ETA: This post really shouldn’t be any longer, right? But I recently saw a comment by someone who ran through the rationalizations on this post like a concussed trooper, and then finished with yet another one (which I’ve also seen elsewhere), which was:
Rationalization #6: You don’t know Zico!
Yeah, I don’t! Neither do the people saying he’s a sex offender! I’m not quite sure why, “You don’t know who this guy is or what he’s done!” is supposed to be a convincing argument when it comes from someone who also doesn’t know who this guy is and who also doesn’t know what he’s done. It just underscores that they are assuming the worst for no good reason.
Honestly, I probably worry more than anyone that I just automatically assume that anything negative being said about Zico (and Block B, for that matter) is horseshit. But the reason I assume it’s horseshit now is because that’s what it has always been, and in the six years I’ve been in this fandom these campaigns have happened over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. If people would prefer that I and other fans not assume that any allegations are baseless, then they need to stop crying wolf. It really is that simple.
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“Yes. Zico was clever enough not to leave any evidence behind…and then stupid enough to bring up the golden phone on national television. Gotcha.” – THIS, I used to think that i-nets are more critical in thinking than some k-nets, and don’t jump to conclusions that quickly but damn I was wrong… when I was reading the comments on article on AJ about Zico new song I wanted to say what you just wrote here, but save myself a bother cause at this point, or rather from the beginning, they already made up their mind.
also if one would actually watch the episode with them, after JJY said that Zico spend hours going through his phone he just dimply denied it, if I remember he said sth like – ‘I don’t do such thing’ (but the gifs that were circulating did not go that far) or sth? but this obviously is a lie because Zico said it, but the JJY part is an obvious truth, undeniable truth… go figure
Oh, Asian Junkie is just hopeless when it comes to Zico. It’s sad, because I feel like AJ doesn’t actually have any particular animus (and of course the reviewer doesn’t have to like anything he doesn’t like), but the site has this whole cadre of commenters who absolutely HATE Zico and always have, and they give SO much affirmation for anything negative about Zico that I think it skews the coverage in ways that AJ doesn’t really recognize.
oh yes, the comments are always full of people who, you know… always had this feeling about him, or he always gave a bad vibe etc, and of course he treated Seolhyun horribly… and I’m like – bitch, when, where, what?
Don’t forget: Zico doesn’t have the intelligence to make moral decisions. <–this person used to be the site's Block B & Zico expert!
Or: I am FURIOUSLY ANGRY that Zico made a joke about Taeil kissing him. <–this person has been posting about this on Asian Junkie for, no lie, the last six years. The incident in question happened in 2012.
The AJ comments section has basically become an echo chamber for Zico haters, where they gather and vent in an unquestioning, supportive atmosphere.
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