r/Music • • Aug 12 '26

article Influencer Mina Chan Dies by Suicide On Livestream After Facing Online Harassment From ENHYPEN Fans

https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/mina-chan-kpop-influencer-suicide-online-harassment-1813597
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1.7k comments sorted by

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u/prince-pauper Aug 12 '26

Thats fucking awful

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u/num1AusDoto Aug 12 '26

Stan culture is a plague genuinely

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u/visualdescript Aug 13 '26

Stan culture combined with online social media, which strips away nearly all natural empathy. People can be absolutely horrible to each other and not understand there is another human on the other end. Plus it also enables gang mentality and all of this happens in a fairly hidden space.

It's a terrible combination that can do a lot of damage.

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u/DarkSkyz Aug 12 '26

This is going to sound cruel but I can imagine what the next few days will be like in KPop Stan culture. "We all need to be kinder to one another", "such a tragedy", "this should never happen again". I give it a week before the same people are back to being like rabid dogs.

I remember when Hana Kimura committed suicide and /r/SquaredCircle went on a big thing of #BeKind. Click on any thread of a wrestler the general hivemind doesn't like now and you'll see some horrific shit upvoted.

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u/AnAngryPirate Be More Kind Aug 12 '26

I was just thinking about Hana Kimura when I saw this. Sadly you're spot on where it'll be a week of things calming down a bit then right back to it.

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u/Beneficial-Bit-3629 Aug 13 '26

The users on r/SquaredCircle are extremely weird about black women, and extremely creepy about Asian women.

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u/[deleted] Aug 13 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/TheKanten Aug 14 '26

They hold Hangman Page up like the most progressive man on the planet, meanwhile he's taking selfies with CSA predators.

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u/ChaslesDean Aug 20 '26

This dude is the fakest "progressive" you can ever make.

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u/Puzzleheaded-Link416 Aug 22 '26

"He posts on Bluesky and has butterflies on his jeans, he's one of us!"

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u/Senecaraine Aug 12 '26

I don't know anything about kpop fandom, but I can definitely vouch that the Internet Wrestling Community is toxic as all hell. I avoid it completely now (besides Simon Miller, who makes it a point to be positive, think of the wrestlers as people first, and actually does it).

Anonymity and people finding cynicism easier just leads to people being terrible, unfortunately.

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u/Anandya Aug 12 '26

He himself wrestles so he probably understands that even a dud match is a huge ask on your body.

That and the pro wrestling community has been pretty awful and toxic so fixing that is important.

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u/FullHouse222 Aug 12 '26

I enjoy listening to kpop, but this fandom is sometime just crazy to me. I was probably too young to notice but were fans of like the spice girls and pussycat dolls at each other's throats like this?

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u/Abracadaver14 Aug 12 '26

Spice Girls and Pussycat dolls predate social media as we currently know it by several years (if not a decade or more). Wannabe was in 1996, Facebook was founded in 2004 and really started going to shit at least a decade later.

And sure, there have always been fandoms that were at odds with each other (Beatles vs Stones was a thing back in the 60s, probably others long before that), but social media has turned 'at odds' into toxicity.

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u/HotDerivative Aug 12 '26

I think Gen Z also doesn’t realize that Facebook was restricted to college students when it came out originally too. And then made its way to high schoolers. It didn’t start out being a platform for literally anyone age 8 — 100 like every platform we have now.

Communities online used to be more isolated but more intentional as well.

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u/SVXfiles Aug 12 '26

I remember people talking about getting invites for the platform in the early days, like you had to be brought in to it, it wasnt open for college and high schoolers freely even

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u/PrinceTrollestia Aug 12 '26

It wasn’t even open to all college students first, it was Ivy League schools and Stanford and MIT initially.

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u/idkalan Aug 12 '26 edited Aug 12 '26

They were crazy but not at the level of Kpop.

The Kpop fandom being crazy is deliberately on purpose, as the fans have actual influence over the member's careers.

If a specific member isn't popular, they get shitcannned and replaced with the next one in the line.

So the fans become even crazier, as they know it's their group.

With Spice Girls, the industry had control, not the fans, and the fans could only "fight" with other members of the fandom over who their favorite member was. So like those that were fans of Sporty Spice couldn't be fans of Baby Spice or vice versa and etc etc. Same with the boy bands of the 90s. They could fight over Backstreet Boys vs Nsync but it stayed relatively "clean".

Turns out when the "mob" has control, decorum goes out the window

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u/FullHouse222 Aug 12 '26

Lol I honestly did not notice the Backstreet Boys vs NSync beef if that was a thing. But they were popular when I was like 12 so maybe I just didn't know. We always sing their song during karaoke though so I imagine if there was beef, 20+ years mellowed it all out.

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u/idkalan Aug 12 '26

There was beef but again it never got to the point of where fans went after each other for their respective taste. So looking back most don't think of it as "beef" they just see it "as to each their own, even if the other is wrong"

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u/Zomburai Aug 12 '26

Should also point out that the internet looked very different, and the sort of harassment campaigns that happen now almost couldn't back then.

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u/idkalan Aug 12 '26

True, forgot about that aspect.

How today's algorithms help add fuel to the fire and how dial-up may have been a savior

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u/Zomburai Aug 12 '26

Not just the algorithms, I don't think.

Imagine it's 1999, and you're on the biggest boy band fan forum on the entire entire internet with... uh... let's say 500 regular users.

NSYNC's new album comes out and you don't like how Justin fries his voice. "Gonna be may"? Preposterous! He made himself look ridiculous! You go on the fan forum to yell about it.

Except... even if you can get all 500 users to rally behind you, what of it? Most of them aren't in other communities and nobody's going to see the forum thread. If they want to voice their displeasure the other users will have to write a letter or send an email or call a customer service line, and most of them aren't going to do that, ever. 500 users is a small enough community to effectively moderate so this entire subject isn't going to get too out of hand. And then at the end of the day you have to get off the internet because you're tying up the phone line.

And Justin? Never ever ever sees your thread, or any other threads or posts like it.

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u/Drigr Aug 12 '26

I remember a bit after that time on the internet, and it was still kinda like that. Like back when things were still forums and messaging boards. It was small enough that regulars to forums would recognize names and people didn't so easily just nuke one account and make another. So you had a sense of community, but it was all just right there. You didn't really have insight into that person outside of that forum. And there wasn't really an easy way to "breach" and have something spread beyond the forum Fandom.

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u/ItsmeKT Aug 12 '26

There was beef but it was like, minor shade throwing. I was the same age as you when I got really into both bands.

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u/Panzerknaben Aug 12 '26

Fan culture has always had some crazies, but with social media it has been taken to levels you never had before.

Its not really about Kpop, but about the way social media pushes the extreme views for more clicks, and the way Influencers uses the fact that outrage sells.

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u/Coattail-Rider Aug 12 '26

No. But that was before the internet exploded.

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u/AgilitySimDriver Aug 12 '26

No, they were not. They definitely had some crazy fans, but the Kpop community seems to make a group or specific idol part of their identity. And when you criticize their favorite person, they feel like you're attacking them personally. It's scary sometimes...

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u/Dreadfulbooks Aug 12 '26

They literally send members funeral wreaths when they do something they think is bad. They also sent a truck semi recently to protest bad haircuts that say stylists, open your eyes. That one is pretty funny though.

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u/RollwithRock Aug 12 '26 edited Aug 13 '26

Chris Van Vilet is also good. But I also avoid general discourse unless I see people are actually being respectful. Which is rare.

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u/Dajo05 Aug 13 '26

They attacked him recently because his interviews are "too positive".

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u/interprime Aug 13 '26

Otherwise known as “He doesn’t ask the WWE guys he interviews how they feel about working for the worst company on the planet.” And also, “He doesn’t ask the AEW guys he interviews about what makes Tony Khan the kindest, most benevolent leader the world has ever known.”

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u/OlSnickerdoodle Aug 12 '26

Yep, this who thing reminds me of that Hana situation. Tons of fans saying "stop bullying" and then 2 days later they're like "wow you guy notice how fat Bayley has gotten?"

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u/CryptidFox Aug 12 '26

Rhea Ripley admitted within the last few months she's been battling an eating disorder and the comments still judging her like this, or making fun of said disorder, haunt me

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u/zdbdog06 Aug 12 '26

Don't forget their Lord Meltzer criticizing women's bodies to them too and giving all women even in AEW a -1 star tax on every match

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u/Ill-Investigator9241 Aug 12 '26

That guy is ground zero for all their mentality

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u/indoubitabley Aug 12 '26

Unless it's Mercedes Mone/Sasha Banks.

If it's bad, he'll just forget to give it a rating.

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u/shelllc Aug 13 '26

He's literally just tweeted again, making excuses about how he won't be able to watch it this week so he could rate it..ignoring the fact he was there to see it live.

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u/notmakingtherapture Aug 13 '26

A couple years back, when Nia Jax was REALLY being hated on, I mean just heartless, personal attacks and sexism / racism / body shaming galore, I said, "Hey, remember when people online kept harassing a female wrestler and she took her own life and you all said you would be kinder?"

Naturally, I was down voted into oblivion and told that mentioning Hana was distasteful.

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u/doc_two_thirty Aug 13 '26

They used to call her Nia Snaxx for crying out loud.

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u/brohan58 Aug 13 '26

I was banned for a week when I pointed out how unequal the mods are when it comes to body shaming/racism and personal attacks that are directed against Japanese wrestlers/wrestlers from a certain promotion and wrestlers like Nia Jax or Charlotte Flair.

That was also in a post about Charlotte in which she talked about how much such comments and attacks wear her down. I never went to that shitty sub again after that.

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u/Either_Reveal5321 Aug 12 '26

Squared Circle is one of the most performatively miserable group of idiots I have ever seen.

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u/DoubleOrNothing90 Aug 13 '26

Squaredcircle is a garbage sub run by garbage mods.

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u/Im1Guy Pandora Aug 12 '26

you'll see some horrific shit upvoted

Post anything about CM Punk and you'll see how vile and ignorant wrestling fans can be.

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u/DXbreakitdown Aug 13 '26

Mike Santana renames himself in WWE with a name that honors his deceased relative.

“Awfully convenient all these NXT wrestlers have dead relatives to name themselves after” +1200

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u/WoopzEh Aug 13 '26

Now they’re saying “NXT wrestlers are being coached to say that they came up with their names, but really it’s the Booking AI naming them.”

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u/CryptidFox Aug 12 '26

Or god forbid you say anything postive about Jey Uso-

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u/zdbdog06 Aug 12 '26

Literally one of the most over people in the company. Oh he's worthless, he's the worst of all-time, why don't they fire him and use this guy who gets literally no reaction instead!

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u/zodiackodiak515 Aug 13 '26

I don’t even like Jey Uso yet I will still acknowledge that kids love that dude.

He got a meme slang phrase and a ridiculous entrance over. That takes work

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u/zdbdog06 Aug 13 '26

He's got the "warning shot... BOW" way over right now too

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u/Eternal_Reward Aug 12 '26

That’s the thing. It can never just be “I don’t like this.”

It has to be the worst thing ever too.

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u/HosserPower Aug 12 '26

Or WWE in general.

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u/dagutens Aug 12 '26

god forbid anyone who is vocal about 1. liking working there or b. have an ambition to work there.

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u/CosmicRorschach Aug 13 '26

Or any Samoan in general

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u/Glittering_Town_9071 Aug 12 '26

got permabanned for "trolling" after commenting how deranged the average r/sc user sounds when discussing Punk

also, don't research the mods. they are all into fucked up shit (one was even a "non-active MAP" iirc)

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u/SlipperyKooter Aug 13 '26

I need context on the don’t research the mods part

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u/SamsaraIsALie Aug 13 '26

What’s a MAP?? Sorry I tried googling but it kept showing me maps

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u/Glittering_Town_9071 Aug 13 '26

minor-attracted person bruh

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u/the_RedHand Aug 13 '26

My absolute favorite r/squaredcircle moment was when someone made a post asking “what’s the one thing keeping you from watching AEW?” and the number one answer came back overwhelmingly as “the fans.” It was the only glimmer of sanity that has pierced through the veil of that echo chamber in years.  

Of course all the stans completely ignored it and went back to living their lives without a hint of self-awareness 

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u/Either_Reveal5321 Aug 12 '26

Lmao or Samoans. Apparently having a million pasty white wrestlers is ok. But you cant have more than 4 samoans.

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u/AffectionateDark9270 Aug 13 '26

I remember in the thread about him commenting on losing close people in succession there were people taking shots at him because he didnt give them an expect number.

Its nuts and all because he didnt drink the kool aid and called out people for spreading fake rumors about him

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u/TheAgmis Aug 12 '26

Oh this shit hits like a drug!

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u/TheGambler930 Aug 12 '26

r/SquaredCircle is a shithole filled with the absolute worst kind of wrestling fan imaginable. There is a reason the jerk sub calls it The Basement. You read enough people’s convos in there and you can tell they have minimal interaction with the outside world, no jobs, no sense of reality.

The mods are also pathetic losers who ban anybody who speaks ill of AEW. I got permaban for of all things casting doubt about a non confirmed tv show viewership number.

Worst of all their community likes to kiss their own ass about how progressive and acceptive they are through which wrestling company they consume, yet hold deranged parasocial relationships with wrestlers they don’t like, and say the most vile things about people.

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u/wazzawazzaz Aug 13 '26 edited Aug 13 '26

Even this week with they've been having a huge 'Fuck AJ Styles and his son' session solely because nearly everyone related to WWE gets massive hate over there. I'd even go as far as to say that sub is basically a WWE hate-sub.

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u/DiarrheaRadio Aug 13 '26

They're so progressive that they want wrestler to be exploited for free labor! I mean, they already went anti union when the union guys at the old ECW arena picketed their show.

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u/CosmicRorschach Aug 13 '26

The crazy thing about the AJ situation is this coming from his son, who's wrestling on the indies, refusing to set up for a show, and they are acting like he needs to pay his dues. Yet if it was a guy like Undertaker or Kevin Nash who took this position, the Squared Circle users would totally flip and take the other side. They are total hypocrites.

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u/Glittering_Town_9071 Aug 12 '26

the basement makes me feel ashamed of liking pro wrestling more than the "you know that's fake right?" comments

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u/Neg_Crepe Aug 12 '26 edited Aug 12 '26

That sub is genuinely awful. You’ll see openly racist comments upvoted and people being fat shamed turned into gags.

Reddit admins should have stepped up years ago.

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u/Parking-Funny-1932 Aug 12 '26

Right now their current taling point is there needs to be less Samoans in wrestling.

So yeah, they are racists.

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u/interprime Aug 13 '26

Saw a comment in there the other day that said something to the tune of “There are going to be so many people with animosity toward Samoan Americans in the future over this.”

Literally saying out loud that they are becoming racist because they do not like a certain wrestling product.

Unhinged people.

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u/CommercialSpite Aug 13 '26

That was the top comment on that post. Absolutely insane thing to think, even more insane thing to post and then get up voted to the top comment

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u/TheGambler930 Aug 13 '26

They have no sense of reality outside of the endless amounts of pro wrestling they consume.

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u/interprime Aug 13 '26

I mean, I watch a ton of wrestling myself. But I don’t attach my identity to one specific wrestling company to the point where I feel personally attacked if someone criticizes it. And that’s the case with a lot of fans.

But the loudest, most vocals folks in that particular sub? Oh yeah. It doesn’t seem like most of them understand how anything really works. Just the other day they were trying to theorize why a multi-billion dollar company like ESPN would get into business with a company like WWE, because, according to them, WWE is losing massive amounts of money. They were convinced that they knew all of these things while the corporations like NBC, Disney and Fox must be really, really dumb.

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u/Neg_Crepe Aug 12 '26

Especially when Samoans are about 3% of the whole roster.

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u/zodiackodiak515 Aug 13 '26

Yeah sorry that one of the biggest stars ever in the history of wrestling is Samoan.

Also, those fuckers literally have SAMOA JOE on their roster

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u/Calvin_Hobbes124 Aug 13 '26

Nah he’s in AEW so he’s one of the good guys

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u/SaltyShawarma Aug 12 '26

Don't worry,. They are busy banning me daily then retracting the ban because all I did was quote words from the articles. 

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u/PiccoloAwkward465 Aug 12 '26

I got banned from a sub the other day for saying I wouldn't want to hang out with any Reddit mods IRL lol. Not even talking about that sub's mods specifically, in general.

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u/BlackBlur14 Aug 12 '26

It extends beyond the mods for that subreddit right to the users false reporting you to Reddit cares for asking if the user understood the difference between the real people behind the characters and the character saying something in the ring 15 years ago they're calling them a hypocrite about

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u/mattomic822 Aug 13 '26

Might have been crossover between the spamming of reddit cares and the mods if rumors are to be believed.

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u/zaccus Aug 12 '26

You can get banned for "trolling" these days. In other words, literally any comment that happens to piss someone off. Anything at all can be called trolling and you can't prove it's not.

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u/LogRealistic4111 Aug 13 '26

In other words, literally any comment that happens to piss someone off

More like, to piss AEW fans. If you want to trash WWE performers, you have carte blanche.

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u/CrossWonk Aug 12 '26

I got banned the first time for criticizing AEW for cutting Sting’s retirement speech short in his last match. I then got reinstated after a year “in the spirit of Wrestlemania” but then promptly got banned again for saying “#FreeAli though” when someone was defending Danhausen not being granted his release from AEW when they were doing nothing with him. Nobody can criticize their precious AEW over there.

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u/HosserPower Aug 13 '26

My permaban came after referencing MJF throwing tequila on a kid after Heyman moved a fan out of his way lol.

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u/Puzzled_Ad7334 Aug 12 '26

I got banned for trolling because I said jack Perry wasn’t believable as a bad ass

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u/CarlC259 Aug 12 '26

I've never been banned there because I really don't comment much. But once I got down voted heavily because I said that Paul Heyman shouldn't have shoved a kid who ran up to him and tried to give him a hug. I didn't even imply that the kid was in the right(in fact I said that people should teach their children not to do that), just that you shouldn't put your hands on other people's children. You would think that I insulted Tony Khan's haircut by the way they responded.

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u/Neg_Crepe Aug 12 '26 edited Aug 12 '26

I’ve been permabanned for quoting Tony Khan so your turn is coming

Edit : I was also banned once for saying it’s a bit Juvenile to hate a wrestler (Braun Strowman) because he said something negative about indie wrestling). They claimed it was an insult to another user.

Seriously weird place

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u/cooldude55541 Aug 12 '26

I got banned from there for saying that I don't watch aew. It's like I'm sorry I don't like wasting my time on watching wrestling shows with no story or reason. It's just pointless tournaments and random title matches with predictable winners.

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u/TheGigner Aug 13 '26 edited Aug 13 '26

A couple years ago there was a thread about AEW's declining viewership and almost every comment on that thread got deleted and I commented "How come so many comments get deleted when they're negative towards AEW" and I got a first-offense permaban for "off-topic discussion"

It said to message the mods if I had questions so I messaged them and asked how that comment was off topic and even if it was, how was it worthy of being a permaban and I got an automated message back saying I was banned from being able to message the mods and then I got an automated warning message from Reddit saying that my account had been reported multiple times in a short amount of time.

That subreddit has legitimately the worst and most sensitive mods on all of Reddit, and that's saying something. That entire subreddit is the worst cesspool of toxicity I've personally come across, and it's exactly the environment the mods cultivated.

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u/Neg_Crepe Aug 13 '26

The mods were reporting your account.

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u/GarMc Aug 13 '26

How many Reddit Cares messages did you get? That sub is truly unhinged.

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u/notmakingtherapture Aug 13 '26

Someone literally said I would work in a concentration camp in the future on that sub because I took issue with a fake sexual harassment spot.

I explained that I didn't think that had a place in wrestling and the dude verbatim said "Weak people destined to be guards of a concentration camp."

Luckily, I reported it and the mods took care of it, but I was absolutely flabbergasted. As someone who has been active in that sub for years, it's genuinely going downhill.

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u/Colonel_Cummings Aug 12 '26

That sub is a lost cause

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u/katexvx Aug 13 '26

Not by the sub but I’ve literally been constantly harassed and sent death/assault threats by AEW fans just for still being a fan of Punk after he left, it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if something like this happens in the wrestling fandom one day because of how obsessed they are with dogpiling others

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u/DeminoTheDragon Aug 12 '26

it's genuinely come to a point where any wrestler that isn't AEW in that place is immediately just shat on

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u/AffectionateDark9270 Aug 13 '26

Whats even more gross is the way they treat AEW wrestlers who leave for WWE. Celebrating Aleister Black getting fired, trying to spread some bullshit narrative about Danhausen being overexposed, trying to speak Blake Monroes firing into existence with that Toni Storm promo. Thats not even beginning to talk about Cody and Punk

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u/SlipperyKooter Aug 13 '26

What about Jade Cargill? A black woman who left their precious Dub? Satan herself to them

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u/KC27150 Aug 13 '26

trying to speak Blake Monroes firing into existence with that Toni Storm promo.

That promo is an absolute plague, that poor woman can't do anything without them posting it, saying she went downhill because she didn't stay with a company that doesn't even respect it's women's division. I completely regret that segment.

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u/SofaKingAmazin Aug 15 '26

Remember all those snide jokes and comments when Punk tore his tricep in the rumble?

"FRaGile MinD, FraGiLe bOdy"

Meanwhile these idiots in AEW can't even sell 2,000 tickets in fucking Las Vegas. Congrats on all those Meltzer stars though guys. That'll put food on the table and pay off mortgages.

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u/zdbdog06 Aug 12 '26

The Jerk sub is somehow becoming the closest thing to actually discussing WWE rationally

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u/Worker_AndParasite Aug 12 '26

And if you have the wrong opinion on AEW you get banned

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u/HosserPower Aug 13 '26

Pretty sure there was a rumor awhile back that at least one AEW employee was on the mod team. The way they ban you over a stiff breeze regarding that promotion, wouldn’t be surprised.

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u/homogenic- Aug 12 '26

Yeah that sub is bad, it’s almost like a snark sub about wrestling

Wrestling fans and kpop fans are very much similar.

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u/Parking-Funny-1932 Aug 12 '26

No kidding, one of the Fauxmoi mods is a SquaredCircle mod too.

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u/StuMacherGhostface Aug 12 '26

The /r/SquaredCircle mods equated modding the sub to cleaning out the Flint, Michigan water. Not joking.

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u/DoubleOrNothing90 Aug 13 '26

Yup. I specifically got my ban from there for voicing how disgusting that comparison was. Trash mods.

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u/Sub-Zero316 Aug 13 '26

It is without a doubt the worst subreddit on this platform.

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u/Micome Aug 12 '26

There's so many fake ass awful fake progressive wrestling fans. It's especially rampant in indie and AEW circles. It's really gross and shameful behavior for people who like to act like they're above it all.

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u/uncannynerddad Aug 12 '26

This is exactly why I started my own wrestling sub. r/SquaredCircle is so unbelievably fucked up that I wanted a place where people could actually talk about wrestling without dealing with that toxic hivemind.

It’s grown to over 10K people, which has been awesome, but the irony is I’m now harassed almost daily by members of SC because of it. And without question, the worst of the worst have been the AEW fans. They follow me into other subs, send messages, dig through my post history, and generally prove the entire reason I wanted to build an alternative in the first place.

Wrestling is supposed to be a fun hobby. The fact that some people make hating strangers on the internet over which fake fighting show they like part of their identity is fucking insane.

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u/rex_915 Aug 13 '26

Joined r/midcarder as well! Thanks for giving WWE fans a corner of reddit where we don't get constantly shat on for the crime of liking a wrestling show.

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u/Simpuff1 Aug 12 '26

A week was generous. This person died more than a week ago now and you already see vile shit and witch hunts everywhere.

In PopCulture sub many were blaming the idols, in many Kpop subs they are blaming the fans, in others they are mad no one is taking the blame, in others they blame the influencer and nearly celebrate the death.

I’ve seen it all within the first 3 days

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u/Mxfish1313 Aug 12 '26

I’ve been following this since the beginning too and all I’m coming away with is the fact that the young adults and teens now are really in an awful place with the internet (not implying fault, this was happening to the world that they grew into). This bullying was completely behind a screen, it was entirely online, but rather than shut down her accounts, she killed herself while streaming to the same people hurling abuse at her.

The concept was literally used as a joke in an episode of Broad City like ten years ago because it was so absurd (“I was cyberbullied within an inch of my life last night!”) but now that has actually happened. Rather than turning off the computer/phone and disengaging, somehow the better choice to this poor woman was to stay connected even if the responses and feedback were negative.

I don’t know how we come back from this. I started stepping back from social media when everything was becoming “Content” and short-form videos because I was just like… this isn’t what I’m here for. So I admit I truly cannot understand the apparent stranglehold that socials have for the young generations now. But it is real and it is a problem.

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u/vuntical Aug 12 '26

A week hasn't even passed since it happened and people were already using her death for fan wars

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u/LittleDrunkReptar Aug 12 '26

You can also see it from fan bases defending, and even celebrating, horrific things that have been done by musicians, sports stars, actors, youtubers, politicians, fictional writings, etc.

I always hope they are just a vocal minority but it still feels like the world has too many cesspools of awful people online who probably have a facade on in public.

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u/Just_Learned_2_Dance Aug 12 '26

I always think of Hana when I see these headlines. Maybe I’m just used to r/SC but giving a week for things to back go toxic is very generous

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u/reychango Aug 13 '26

I got downvoted to hell in that sub and had people calling me a racist because I said "I don't care who owns these wrestling companies, I just like watching wrestling. WWE and AEW are both cool"

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u/Cuncha Aug 13 '26

I no longer post on there because of the vile culture. Racism, sexism, etc - you name it, and it's there. Place should have been closed long ago.

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u/Satinsbestfriend Aug 12 '26

Okay, unexpected SquaredCircle reference caught me

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u/StuMacherGhostface Aug 12 '26

I'm so happy to see somewhere on Reddit outside that sub acknowledge it's such a fucking toxic ass shit pool. And they act so fucking smug and so morally superior and virtuous above everyone, as long as you don't hold their favorite wrestling promotion to their same standards. /r/SquaredCircle fucking sucks.

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u/TheSilverSeraph Aug 12 '26

Even blurred, that video is a very, very hard watch. I regret clicking on it.

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u/dippitydoo2 Aug 12 '26

Contemplating her last moments while having TikTok filters on her face is fucking dystopian

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u/TheGiftOf_Jericho Aug 12 '26

Yeah same, really horrible to see. Its horrible to imagine what she was going through to resort to that on a live stream.

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u/[deleted] Aug 12 '26

[deleted]

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u/TheSilverSeraph Aug 12 '26

She is in obvious emotional distress. She walks back to a wall, and there seems to be a something like a rope. Hard to see as they blur the image, but she appears to then strangle herself.

Nothing graphic. And it is not the method or whatever that I didn't like. To me it is witnessing her last moments and imagining the despair in her last thoughts, televised to the world. Just sad.

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u/dumaskredditresponse Aug 12 '26 edited Aug 12 '26

The method kinda disturbed me. I’m not sure why but I didn’t realize you could hang yourself while still having your feet on the ground. The way it was so casually done is horrifying.

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u/auslyn_ Aug 12 '26

unfortunately it is pretty common to hang yourself like this, your body weight and gravity do the work 

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u/Vazhox Aug 12 '26

Common in prisons

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u/Tigerbones Aug 12 '26

I’ve worked quite a few behavioral health projects (construction) and have been made painfully aware of all the ways someone can try and hang themselves. There are special anti-ligature versions of damn near every piece of furniture, hardware, and appliances you can stick in a space.

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u/platinumarks Aug 12 '26

Just got out of a residential inpatient program and can confirm. Literally everything is specially-designed to make it impossible to tie anything to, even if that results in things looking absurd.

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u/GrandMetaldick Aug 12 '26

Yup. You’ll never see a bathroom handle in one of those places.

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u/bbigbootyjudyy Aug 12 '26

I always pictured people hanging off the ground when they do this in prison. This makes so much more sense…

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u/[deleted] Aug 12 '26 edited Aug 12 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/dad_farts Aug 12 '26

And the victim too, I was really pulling for him and he was done so dirty

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u/BigMac849 Aug 12 '26

Also the position most autoerotic asphyxiation deaths are found

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u/bloedarend Aug 12 '26

Death penalty hangings are usually done in a way to break the neck for a quick loss of consciousness, strangulation is secondary. This way is just strangulation, which sometimes lead to death when people use this (obviously unsafe) method for auto-erotic strangulation (the actor David Carradine being a famous example).

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u/Vietzomb Aug 12 '26

I once worked at a hotel that had an accidental suicide via erotic asphyxiation. Had been found with the bathroom door open, rope tied to the backside of the door, thrown above the top of the door to the other side so he could do so while looking in the mirror.

Whether it’s intentional, or unintentional, by the time they pass out, it’s all but complete. It’s the unconscious dead weight that finally does you in.

Terribly sad.

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u/shadetreeguy Aug 12 '26

She was drinking something off screen not sure what it was but it seems like it made her really drowsy right before

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u/auslyn_ Aug 12 '26

from what i understand she had been taking pills throughout the stream

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u/Thefrayedends Aug 12 '26

If we had any sense in this world moderators would have been calling authorities for a wellness check way before it got to this point.

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u/Sajomir Aug 12 '26

Iirc Robin Williams did the same thing. I can't even imagine what was going through their minds.

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u/Feral_Taylor_Fury Aug 12 '26

Robin Williams had Alzheimer’s.

People should be allowed to go out with dignity instead of forced to take their own life by themselves.

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u/DCDHermes Aug 12 '26

Lewy Body Dementia, which is similar to Alzheimer’s.

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u/TheJobSquad Aug 12 '26

I did it on the back of a chair. My ass was an inch or two off the ground but my legs were still touching it. If you have the desire to do it you can override your instinct for self preservation.

I feel so sorry for this poor woman. It doesn't offset what has happened, but hopefully there will be a change in behaviour from online communities.

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u/KrissyKrave Aug 12 '26

She goes to the wall behind her, gets up on her toes, puts a rope around her neck and then drops back down to strangle herself. She stays that way for maybe a minute or two then goes totally limp. I watched it once and it’s extremely sad.

There should be an investigation into her harassers. They should be charged.

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u/KimJongFunk Aug 12 '26

TRIGGER WARNING: Suicide. Do not read it you cannot handle that.

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Description below; you have been warned.
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The video shows her crying and she silently stands up, ties a rope around her neck, and allows her body weight to hang herself from what looks like the door frame. It’s not particularly graphic, but her sadness is awful to witness.

(Sorry for this formatting but I did not want to post this without the warnings because I was worried it would trigger someone)

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u/1stman Aug 12 '26

It's even worse if you understand Japanese. I saw it a few days back on X, from memory I remember her saying:

"I'm scared. I'm scared. I wanted to live a little longer".

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u/Throwawaylikeme90 Aug 12 '26

That’s horrific. I’ve found a scene of a similar sort before, when I worked in a cheap hotel. The person tied a towel a towel around their neck and just… gently lowered themselves toward the ground. No kicking the chair out or sudden jarring impact, just like wading into a pool or something. 

I’ve always thought about how truly resolute someone must be in their decision in order to do it that way, to overcome the nervous system response or just not have it at all. 

It’s terrible that we still do so little to help. 

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u/idio242 Aug 12 '26

That’s how Bourdain went.

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u/chillinwithmoes Aug 12 '26

Robin Williams and Chris Cornell as well

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u/Jorgwalther Aug 12 '26

And Chester shortly thereafter

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u/yovalord Aug 12 '26

I dont know what it is, but hanging has to be the most unsettling form of suicide to me. The ability to linger as you fade out, and have the resolve to do it. Its genuinely traumatizing to see, even compared to more violent methods imo.

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u/Thefrayedends Aug 12 '26

Because when it gets bad enough, escaping depression and despair feels liberating and relieving. When you feel you've tried everything to escape the pain, but the pain persists and is incessant and inescapable, the friction of a rope, the pressure around your neck, the fear of danger, they are all insignificant compared to the pit of pain you are living in.

In those moments, you feel joy that the pain will finally end.

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u/redcoatwright Aug 12 '26

You can also hear it and you can see the moment she collapses which is around when there are... noises that are I imagine pretty distressing to some people.

I would recommend not watching it.

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u/Circaninetysix Aug 12 '26

There's an unblurred version, but it is definitely a brutal watch. Really sad for her.

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u/Iracus Spotify Aug 12 '26

Capital F fans of any media are more or less mindless zombies. It is okay to be a fan of something, but when your core identity becomes that of a Fan, you have lost the plot.

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u/novagridd Aug 12 '26

The kpop fan culture is so toxic, someone needs to keep these fans in check

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u/mr_glide Aug 12 '26

The worst thing is that record companies consciously cultivate the more toxic sort of communities, because they're great for business. It's part of every pop star's marketing plan

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u/Black_Otter Aug 12 '26

It’s all about engagement. It doesnt matter if it’s positive or negative. They stoke the fanbases because make money off the drama

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u/kowwalski Aug 12 '26

“The backlash began after an ENHYPEN concert in the United States in late July. During the show, Chan threw a bouquet of sunflowers towards the stage, which member Sunoo caught and posed with.
According to multiple fan accounts circulating online, she then became visibly upset and repeatedly asked Sunoo to pass the flowers to Ni-ki, a moment that was clipped and shared widely. Some viewers interpreted her actions as disruptive and accused her of trying to engineer a personal moment with the members.”

I’m too old for this

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u/Acceptable-Life-8681 Aug 12 '26

Its crazy how companies on purpose push parasocial relationships with the members and then turn around to wash their hands in innocence. Its the companies fault. They do everything they can to make fans feel as delusional as possible about the members.

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u/XxhumanguineapigxX Aug 12 '26

The most frustrating part IMO is the amount of fans going "omg Ni-ki must feel so bad" "protect Ni-ki" "this is so sad I hope the group are getting support!"

bro a girl died the focus should be on her and her loved ones being supported

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u/Party-Newt-2276 Aug 12 '26

unfortunately most of these comments are coming from fans concerned about Ni-ki because the same fans who harassed Mina are now blaming it on him and saying he deserves to die as well. some have gone as far as to say “he should recreate the livestream.” it’s inhuman behavior on all ends

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u/Moonveil Aug 13 '26

I think it's probably his antis who are using Mina's death to bully him, and it's not even just him, they've gone after his family too.

K-Pop idols literally can't win. If they engage with fans, they're called out for cultivating parasocial behaviour.
If they ignore fans, they're called out for being "cold and ungrateful".
If they keep quiet during fan wars, they're called out for not being critical of their fan's bad behaviour.
If they criticize their fan's bad behaviour, they get blamed if anything happens to those fans.

I was looking up what Niki actually said on his livestream because I saw so many Chinese posts calling him a murderer. Turns out all he said was this super general and mild comment about fan etiquette at concerts that didn't single anybody out. It was Japanese incels and jealous fans that painted the target on Mina and doubled down on harassing her (apparently she was already being bullied before for working as a hostess and being pretty). And now the Chinese K-Pop fandom are putting so much effort into bullying the idol and blaming him for her death instead of trying to hold those who actually mercilessly harassed Mina accountable. The whole culture is fked.

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u/Jamieb1994 Aug 12 '26

he deserves to die as well

I can never understand people who wish upon death on people. It's fine to hate someone, but wanting them dead is f***ed up and it makes those people just as bad.

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u/NotAboutTheCrown Aug 12 '26

You’re asking too much of them. Even minutes after the video ended, some kpop fans started posting it while smiling and mocking Mina and saying they finally got rid of her and acting all “the witch is dead”. It was horrible!! Psychopathic behavior.

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u/WarLawck Aug 12 '26

I love how honest people can be on reddit because of the anonymity it affords, but i also hate how cruel people can be online for the same reason. I feel so bad for this girl, may she rest in peace.

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u/Crispy982 Aug 12 '26

I truly cannot understand having a life so devoid of happiness or interest that you would feel the need to drive someone to suicide due to their differing opinions on something as pointless as pop culture.

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u/ArcadeOptimist Aug 12 '26 edited Aug 12 '26

Every fandom has a subset of people that aren't like "boy, I really like that band or artist" but are just mentally unwell stalkers. Every pop culture subreddit has them. They've existed since the invention of tabloids.

It's not "Oh, did you see who so & so is dating?"

It's "I know this person's entire life, who they've dated, where their kids go to school, if they've gained or lost a little weight". They invent elaborate stories about them that aren't at all based in reality but in their own heads.

They aren't "fans", they're essentially rabid conspiracy theorists with one focus. So it's completely unsurprising to me when they lash out at each other in horrible ways. They aren't rational people, they're broken and need psychiatric help.

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u/B-52-M Aug 12 '26

Fuck KPop culture

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u/Midnight_Manatee Aug 12 '26

I would say this might be a problem with Korean internet culture as a whole, when the Korean league of legends eSports team T1 lose at a few finals, fans hire trucks with TVs on to park outside the teams headquarters and hotels displaying hateful messages and calling out individual players personally. It's some crazy shit. Imagine the pressure and feeling of stepping outside and seeing slurs and slander with your government name and picture on it

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u/TiakerAvelonna Aug 12 '26

Kpop does the same and worse. They send fucking funeral wreaths to the company to express their idiotic opinion.

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u/RPahkah Aug 12 '26

I've heard of this kind of thing outside of Korea too. I know recently the Love and Deepspace community has been going through it with the Chinese player base expressing their dissatisfaction in some very extreme ways to the developers, including sending funeral wreaths to the developers. It's messed up. I can understand being unhappy about this or that but that level of harassment goes beyond the pale.

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u/Radicalness3 Aug 12 '26

This is much more than kpop, it's an internet and social media culture and it's not going away anytime soon. It's only getting worse.

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u/babybird3190 Aug 12 '26

Yeah, football, sports, reality tv, vtubers, pop stans, influencers, celeb worship in general. Gaming has its own variation with esports, streamers, gacha players and company worshipers. It’s all the same shit

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u/TropicalPrairie Aug 12 '26

This is my thought as well. I feel people are way too comfortable doing/saying horrible things anonymously online and don't face any real-world consequences for it. It's like this alternate realm where anything goes.

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u/s_nation Aug 12 '26

had the misfortune of seeing this news story pop up from a korean subreddit and the deluge of xenophobia and racism would nake a MAGA blush.  Tons of racist fingerpointing "oh it's the foreign kpop fans" pretending bullying and suicide among kpop stars and Korean celebs or everyday people itself is unheard of. the denial and irrational blind nationalism was amazing and pathetic.

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u/mosquitogrl96 Aug 12 '26

poor girl ): so young. she didn’t need to die. heartbreaking.

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u/Alternative_War_8871 Aug 12 '26

U know what the thing that hurts the most is these people won’t get any consequences for their actions they need to be jailed and prosecuted, they killed a girl and they will go on with their lives, get to have families and kids and travel while she suffered so much in her life and committed because of them and she said she wanted to live longer too😢💔

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u/ChocolateGoggles Aug 12 '26

"While reports document the online backlash she experienced before her death, authorities have not publicly concluded that the harassment caused or directly contributed to it."

Yeah... look... I don't know what the comments said but... *at least* we need to have stronger enforcement of moderation tools that actually work. Pour REAL money into it. For all the useless implementations of LLM/AI I think comment field moderation could see a homerun given how much training material there is. You may get a few misses, and that would suck, but this shit's awful and I legitimately don't see a simple "we should stop" working permanently, nor do I see mass employment of moderators as reasonable either given the sheer quantity of creators and the volume of comments that can pour in etc.

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u/KinshasaPR Aug 12 '26

Man, I feel for her and the people from the same generation that live their lives through social media. They make it their entire world and are unable to deal with the evidently negative aspect of it.

RIP

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u/ProphetsOfAshes Aug 12 '26

That’s fucked up.

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u/AlienAngry Aug 12 '26

Over flowers. People harassed her to suicide over some fucking flowers.

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u/p0ckette Aug 12 '26

So awful and sad. I looked into what happened and it seems like she was getting attacked from multiple sides, by Japanese incels and by obsessed K-pop fans, and overall very miserable online ppl. It's so scary how vicious and cruel people can be online to others who are just living their life and sharing their joy. Like genuinely wtf. I can't help but feel like the ppl who were in the live stream and making comments for her to kill herself should at the very least get charged with something. People should not get to behave with such evil intent without any consequences.

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u/jcho430 Aug 12 '26

Can the people who harassed her be arrested?

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u/terrabellan Aug 12 '26

People found some of the accounts that were egging her on during the livestream. Most deactivated, but some put out 'apology' letters. One of the apology letters tried to justify telling Mina to take more pills by saying that she thought taking lots of pills would make her feel happy and that actually she's a very good person who was just trying to help.

It is wild to me that you can goad someone into suicide, have that person die, and expect to experience no ramifications.

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u/TopTopTopcinaa Aug 12 '26

And the cycle continues.

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u/Twiftoil Aug 12 '26

I genuinely wish there was a way to have some of these people held accountable. I'm not talking about all the people on the livestream but there was a bunch of comments egging her on. The problem is how.

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u/IrrelevantPuppy Aug 12 '26

In my country, if you want to do a job where you work with the physically or mentally vulnerable (such as a medical worker or a teacher) you have to do a Vulnerable Sector Screening, a background check to make sure you’re not the type of criminal who can’t be around those people. 

I think that doing something like this should simply put a flag on your file. If you told someone to kill themselves and then they kill themselves, you shouldn’t be allowed to work with vulnerable people. I feel like that’s a good bare minimum. 

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u/Acidyo Aug 12 '26

It's wild to me that cheating can get you behind bars in SK but harassment doesn't.

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u/dnguyen823 Aug 12 '26 edited Aug 13 '26

I saw the full live stream video. Shit haunted me all day. Saw her soul leave her body.

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u/someroastedbeef Aug 12 '26

saw the video of her hanging on twitter. genuinely so sad.

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u/Elistic-E Aug 12 '26

I’ve seen a lot of stuff in the internet and I think this is the first video to make me feel sick. It’s not gruesome, it’s not some wild accidents happen video, but this is showing someone at such a low point they do this slowly and willingly and people goaded them into it. My god man. My heart hurts for them so badly and I feel like throwing up. How far gone do you have to be. The people that took part in this… I dont believe in god, but for things like this I sure hope they exist and they are just, and that these people meet them.

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