I'm not a fan of any boy bands or girl groups from South Korea but I was shocked by the news of the death of Sulli that made big headlines in Thailand two weeks ago. I didn't know much about her before but the speculation that her sudden death was suicide and that cyberbullying may have been a contributing factor saddened me and made me curious to know what happened to her life.
Sulli was a 25-year-old K-pop star who began acting professionally when at the age of 11 and made her singing debut with the famous girl group f(x) when she was 15. However, she left the band six years later to focus on her acting career, which saw her in a string of movies and TV series that earned her a New Star Award. In the middle of this year, she made her debut as a solo artist and launched a single album of her own.
At a glance, Sulli seemed to be a young happy girl with a bright future in the South Korean entertainment world. But what she had to endure along the path as an entertainer was far from entertaining at all. In real life, she was a victim of what many have described as "toxic fan culture" where many stars are left defenceless while having to encounter hateful comments, malicious rumours and cyberbullying online.
In the case of Sulli, some Korean critics have related her falling prey to such mean behaviour to her being an unconventional girl who dared to speak her mind and refused to conform with social norms in deeply conservative Korean society where celebrities are expected to be respectful and reserved. On the contrary, she was often seen to attract controversy with her dating, clothing choices and outspoken comments on feminism.
At the height of her singing career five years ago, Sulli was caught having been in a relationship with her much older boyfriend and received many vicious comments and false rumours to the point where she reportedly suffered from stress-related pain and decided to take a break from the music industry. Their relationship ended three years later but the verbal violence against her online never stopped.
Sulli then drew a bigger and longer round of heavy criticism when she posted on her Instagram pictures of herself wearing a shirt without a bra. Just recently, she insisted that going braless was one's freedom and she expressed her wish that people would discard their prejudices.
Looking from the outside, Sulli seemed to be a defiant girl who didn't care much about the anonymous haters who kept insulting her on social media and spoke out strongly against it. But last year she revealed on a TV show that the online abuse had contributed to her panic disorder and social phobia that she had suffered since she was young. Sadly, not many knew that prior to her death, she was suffering from severe depression.
In the wake of her death, many of her fans, friends and also celebrities have demanded a change in the anonymous comment culture on the Internet where users are allowed to leave comments without revealing their real names. Lawmakers in Korea are proposing a new bill, nicknamed "Sulli's Law," with the aim to enforce strict rules against malicious comments under anonymous titles.
No matter to the exact causes of her death, it feels awfully bad to see a young talented and beautiful woman mentally tormented because she was honest about her own views and thoughts. Her death is a wake-up call for her country to take cyberbullying more seriously.
Cyberbullying has caused a big headache in many countries. Research has found that it can cause significant emotional and psychological distress to people from any age or walk of life.
In Thailand, harsh comments are everywhere on social media, mostly targeting certain politicians and celebrities. I'm not worried about them at all as most are tough enough to ignore the remarks and, in many cases, ready to fight back.
But my concern is on our young children who are growing with the cyber world and are naturally fragile to unkind words. I don't know what it takes to successfully stop cyberbullying even though there have been efforts by many parties concerned over the years to protect children from being bullied online.
But I think that it's equally important to promote a new generation of netizens and implant in them a sense of respect from a young age. They should be taught to understand and accept each other's differences and show their disagreement in a reasonable manner.
As long as they can learn to respect the differences of individuals, they would not easily harbour hatred towards others. Then, I believe they will grow up to be open-minded adults who will not cross the line to inflict pain on anyone.
Patcharawalai Sanyanusin is a writer for Life section of the Bangkok Post.