🔗 2024-09-03 Team Bunnies Statement

Statement

The NewJeans fandom, “Bunnies,” expresses deep contempt and grief regarding the surprise dismissal of CEO Min Hee-jin and the decision to appoint Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO) Kim Ju-young as the successor CEO.

1. NewJeans is at a crucial juncture, having completed successful activities for about three months, including their official debut in Japan, and facing the production of a follow-up album in the second half of the year and plans for a world tour next year. At such a critical time, dismissing CEO Min Hee-jin—who achieved NewJeans’ growth and success together with them—through an unacceptable process, and appointing HYBE’s HR manager Kim Ju-young, whose history in the entertainment industry is unproven, as the successor CEO makes us deeply suspect the parent company HYBE’s intentions regarding the artist.

After dismissing CEO Min Hee-jin at this board meeting, HYBE immediately announced through the media that the board’s decision was made in accordance with lawful procedures under the pretext of separating management and production, like other labels within HYBE. Long experience and exceptional sense in an industry are assets that cannot be easily replaced. Given that ADOR and NewJeans recorded high revenue and operating profit margins in the first half of this year following last year, and showed a trajectory of selling out all 50,000 seats at Tokyo Dome for two days through ‘Bunnies Camp,’ the justification HYBE puts forward for the CEO replacement is difficult to accept from a common-sense perspective.

Furthermore, they are deceiving fans and the public once again with “HYBE-style media play,” misleading people as if the shareholders’ agreement has been terminated. We express deep despair once again at HYBE’s current behavior, such as distributing unconfirmed matters through the media beforehand, dismissing the opponent’s rebuttal data as media play, and framing the fandom’s backlash as “reverse viral marketing.”

This policy of separating management and production and the decision to dismiss the CEO claimed by HYBE are merely excuses to exclude CEO Min Hee-jin from work related to the artist NewJeans; there is no practical justification, and this even raises anxiety that it may lead to highly negative results for the artist’s future steps.

At this point, HYBE must focus on the essential goal of “NewJeans’ growth and support.” We urge HYBE to make a wise judgment so that CEO Min Hee-jin, whom NewJeans—who have achieved unprecedented success—and the members of the subsidiary ADOR trust, maintains her current position as ADOR’s CEO and internal director for her legal term, and so that results such as the suspension or alteration of the artist’s future music and entertainment activities do not occur due to this decision.

2. The K-POP entertainment industry is a very special industry that communicates and coexists centered on “hearts,” and is inherently different from the IT and game industries where programs and objects are the main drivers. HYBE’s current attitude of treating artists as simple material assets of the company is an attitude that must not be tolerated even more as an entertainment enterprise that must deliver value to the public and fans.

We ask HYBE.

Among the countless decisions HYBE has made so far, have the artist NewJeans and the fandom Bunnies ever been considered even once? What benefit on earth does the act of continuously obstructing and slandering the CEO, the artist NewJeans, and their fandom Bunnies bring to the parent company?

We ask the current ADOR CEO Kim Ju-young.

According to the statement by Director Shin Woo-seok of Dolphiners Films today, the current ADOR management requested the deletion of NewJeans music videos and related videos edited for fans. What kind of management policy is this working style—cutting off the relationship with the external vendor who was most special to the artist from the first week of office, and bringing about the result of taking away even the precious videos sent to fans in NewJeans’ unique way? We are curious if there is even a single part of sincerity in your words when you habitually say, “We will spare no support for NewJeans.”

The NewJeans fandom, Bunnies, is not judging the current situation based on merely a few cases. Since April, we have witnessed and received reports on multiple occasions of acts utilizing the media in full force, continuous slander against the CEO, use of illegally obtained private records and leakage of the artist’s personal records, and beyond tepid measures against the organized and serious harmful acts of malicious commenters, conversely instigating substanceless controversies.

NewJeans, Min Hee-jin’s ADOR, and NewJeans’ fandom Bunnies have come this far by relying on and cheering for each other amidst the same tension and anxiety every day for the past five months. We sincerely hope that our time and efforts so far, and our future ahead, are not nullified by the parent company HYBE’s nonsensical hasty judgment.

Hereby, we solemnly declare. We hope HYBE immediately stops the media play intended to suppress the artist NewJeans and ADOR CEO Min Hee-jin, reinstates the position of CEO Min Hee-jin who was dismissed through illicit procedures, and faithfully commits only to normal group management.

Finally, we hope HYBE accepts this statement from the NewJeans fandom Bunnies heavily and seriously, and we strongly urge reflection on the proper attitude of a corporation and fulfillment of the basics as an entertainment enterprise so that the original blueprint planned by ADOR, led by artist NewJeans and CEO Min Hee-jin, can be realized.

September 3, 2024
All of NewJeans Fandom Bunnies