PETALING JAYA, March 25 — YouTubers Keemstar and Void are in hot water with K-pop fans for making a diss track music video with photos of SHINee member Jonghyun’s funeral.
The two internet stars had collaborated on a song titled K-pop Stans Diss Track and posted it to Void’s YouTube channel yesterday.
Part of the music video included pictures of K-pop vocalist Jonghyun, who died of suicide in December 2017.
Void’s lyrics blamed Jonghyun’s death on “corporations” and the pressures of working within the K-pop industry.
“What these corporations do to these kids just ain’t right.
“I wonder why lately man, they all been committing suicide,” Void rapped in the song as photos of Jonghyun’s funeral and his fans mourning him flashed onscreen.
K-pop Stans Diss Track also included insults towards Korean idols, calling them “robots” with “no life” and claiming that K-pop fans feed on “drama.”
“Stans”, a popular slang word to describe online fandoms, is a term derived from the Eminem song Stan and is a portmanteau of the words “stalker” and “fan”.
Many fans have called out Void and Keemstar for disrespecting Jonghyun’s death and reducing his suicide to a talking point to attack the K-pop industry.
“Look at the Western music industry and the number of suicides is jaw-dropping.
“But they’re not called ‘the victims of the music industry’ because they’re treated like actual people with their own personal stories, not as part of ‘the dark side of the industry.’
“People in the K-pop industry are still people and they deal with their own personal problems and tying every aspect of their life to their jobs is actually dehumanising,” said YouTube user Banirao.
“Jonghyun was a kind, soft-spoken, and patient person who made music for his fans and other artists in this world. He was deeply loved by millions.
“To use his passing this way is extremely disrespectful, and insensitive. He was battling depression,” said another YouTube user named Bonnie Giuoco.
Keemstar, whose real name is Daniel Keem, responded to the criticism by posting multiple videos on his Twitter page, claiming that he had no knowledge of Jonghyun’s passing while making the song.
“I had nothing to do with it, it wasn’t my lyrics and it wasn’t my part of the song.
“I’m innocent, leave me the f*** alone,” said Keemstar.
Void also refused to back down on his own Twitter page and continued to insult K-pop fans and the industry as a whole.
“Also just wanna clear any confusion and say in no way am I apologising to these creeps.
“I will never delete the video and I don’t care if you get triggered,” Void wrote.
This isn’t the first time Keemstar and Void have stoked controversy with their content on social media.
Keemstar regularly gets into a war of words with other internet personalities by talking about their lives on his YouTube channel Drama Alert.
Void has also posted diss tracks about several social media celebrities, including Jake Paul, H3H3, and Tana Mongeau.
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