T/W for sexualizing minors (if you couldn't tell from the title) So, I've been really into SHINee lately, and one thing I've enjoyed doing is browsing the WayBack Machine for their old videos. It's a fun look into the past, but sometimes I see some stuff I wish I shouldn't have. Today, I was looking at an archive from 2011 when I saw a title that worried me—"SHINee Moment #4 - SHINee Pole Dancing." I was hesitant because I was on an archive from 2011, when Taemin still would've been considered a minor in Korea (the legal age is 19, Taem was 18 in 2011), and so the video had to be at least that old. A lot of people will be familiar with the dodgy stuff young SHINee had to go through, like that Yunhanam show they had where they pretend-dated a bunch of adult women (and it was 2008, so only Onew would've been considered an adult in Korea). Still, I figured that maybe it could be jokey, maybe there was something in the video that would make it less weird. But this was much worse than what I expected. The clip is from a Juliette era variety show (not exactly sure of the dates, but the outfits and styling are def from Juliette), when only Jonghyun and Onew would've been considered adults. Onew's not even here, so it's essentially 3 minors and Jonghyun. The hosts are goading them on to grind on poles and such, making them do a "sexy dance." And that's literally what it says in the top left, if you can read Korean, just in case someone comes in here with a weird "well, ackshually, maybe..." (For the record, I can speak Korean.) At one point one of the hosts even says "make the pole your lover" to Taemin, who would've been about fifteen to sixteen. I didn't watch the full clip because I felt like I would be put on a list, but I saw ENOUGH. What the actual hell. And the worst part is that no one in the comments seems to acknowledge how dodgy this is. Most of the top ones are from decades ago, when the fandom culture was different (and I could tell you all about the sins of 2010 Shawol culture if I wanted to, but that's off-topic), which just makes this whole thing worse. These minors are so obviously being sexualized and everyone is eating it up! In the past, I've seen some other, more benign clips of this show being used to call out the sexualization of young SHINee, but this one is by far the most egregious and I've never seen anyone talk about it. submitted by /u/imnanbaboya [link] [comments]
