ADOR Releases Official Statement on NewJeans ‘Cookie’ Lyrics Controversy

Hello, this is ADOR.

We sincerely thank you for the incredible interest and love you have shown since NewJeans’ debut on July 22nd.
To repay your support, we added an extra week to the original broadcast schedule and included additional music show appearances this week, but regrettably, the official promotions for the 1st EP ‘New Jeans’ are now coming to an end. However, the members’ Twitter accounts will be opening along with the conclusion of official activities, and various self-produced content and magazine pictorials are being prepared, so please look forward to and continue supporting us until the next album.

As we prepared promotions for the four tracks—’Attention,’ ‘Hype Boy,’ ‘Cookie,’ and ‘Hurt’—along with diverse content including 10 music videos, Phoning, pop-up stores, self-produced content, and short-form videos, both NewJeans and ADOR spent each day filled with anticipation, worry, and nervousness.

Through the album ‘New Jeans,’ ADOR aimed to showcase the members’ harmless naturalness and wholesomeness.
Many of you resonated with and supported our content that sought to convey healthy and honest stories while painting a grand narrative of ‘us,’ as well as the production that preserved their natural voices and choreography that emphasized natural breathing.
This has been a tremendous source of strength for both NewJeans and ADOR.

Nevertheless, we regret that a lyrics controversy arose regarding ‘Cookie,’ one of the triple title tracks.
We first apologize to everyone who felt uncomfortable or worried due to the unexpected situation where our intentions were misconstrued.

Additionally, we would like to clearly address the lyrics controversy.

‘Cookie’ is a song we made for fans who waited a long time for the team NewJeans, as we explained before the song’s release, and it expresses our confidence in our musical direction—which is why we specifically chose to release it last among the three title tracks.

There is a planned narrative in the album ‘New Jeans’ that flows through Attention-Hype Boy-Cookie-Hurt.
While interpretation is free, the original planning intent has a foundation that depicts the relationship between ‘supplier and consumer,’ ‘artist and fan’ throughout all the songs, with messages we want to convey hidden in each track.

Through the song and MV ‘Attention,’ we expressed our hope that everyone would pay attention to us by emphasizing the new music and direction that the team NewJeans aspires to, as well as the overall team color.
The following song and MV ‘Hype Boy’ goes further and focuses on specifics. As an expansion of ‘Attention,’ it reveals the members’ individuality while, despite having different individual storylines, the dance party group choreography sequence commonly set in the latter part of the MV reveals NewJeans’ free-spirited atmosphere and our unique approach to choreography interpretation.

If ‘Hype Boy’ emphasized ‘choreography,’ the following track ‘Cookie’ emphasizes ‘music.’
This song was inspired by the idea of ‘burning a CD = baking a cookie’ and, based on beats rarely attempted in the girl group scene, symbolizes the new challenges we intend to pursue. Instead of meals and beverages (meals and beverages are categorized as ‘staple food,’ which in our song is likened to ‘inertia’), to seek snacks—which are supplementary food—you would need something powerful that breaks inertia—meaning it must be an ‘amazing’ snack that surpasses staple food. ‘Cookie’ shows humility by expressing the song itself as dessert rather than a main dish, but it also expresses confidence that it can surpass the main dish. This song encapsulates NewJeans’ musical value and challenge toward newness. Therefore, although it was made for everyone, because it is a precious value, it cannot be free and can only be found at ADOR—this aspiration is implied, leading to the musical direction and message of the debut album. The message is fully revealed through the visual direction where what appears as a cookie in the first scene is replaced by a CD in the final scene, and this symbolism was visualized in the physical album’s form as both a CD player bag and a round cookie package.

The final track ‘Hurt’ unexpectedly sings the honest feelings behind the confidence shown by proposing three title tracks, revealing why it is a non-title track. Winning the hearts of consumers (fans) is a separate matter from the supplier’s confidence. This song conveys the trembling and hopeful heart that wishes for the other’s recognition (wishing they would approach first), separate from the courage to propose something new.
‘Hurt’ can also be described as a song that appeals to the fearful and honest feelings that remain after a courageous challenge. It also preaches that while we live in an era of confidence, we can instinctively be vulnerable beings, and despite mustering courage, we are susceptible to challenges. However, revealing even such fear and honesty as they are can also be confidence.

In the same context as explained in the naming intent of NewJeans, pop culture can be similar to the concept of eating snacks. It may not be absolutely necessary, but you miss it when it’s gone, and in some cases, it’s similar to the concept of something that replaces staple food for someone or is sought more easily and frequently. A special dessert sometimes receives more spotlight than an ordinary main course. Therefore, determining the superiority between staple food and supplementary food loses meaning, and the song ‘Cookie’ takes on the concept of completing the album’s message as the final title track.

ADOR had no doubts whatsoever about the ‘Cookie’ lyrics throughout the production period.
This is because our planning intent of ‘wholesomeness’ and ‘newness’ was crystal clear.
Slang from around the world that cannot be fully grasped is not a standard language that everyone must learn and know.

We verified the content of the claims with numerous English literature PhDs, interpretation/translation experts, native speakers, and general foreigners.
The majority opinion was that ‘it is not a commonly used concept,’ and there were also opinions saying ‘I didn’t know there was such a meaning, so I looked it up.’ Their common opinion was that making 100% definitive assertions in interpreting translations is extremely dangerous. They said, ‘Because interpretation involves both subjective experience and objective facts working together, unconditional assertions cannot exist. Also, the context of the matter must be considered.’ In particular, they noted that ‘Cookie is not a commonly used sexual slang, so the word itself cannot be the problem. However, there is a possibility that it could vary depending on the recipient’s subjective experience and awareness of slang.’
They also added, ‘Since there are many cases of expressing the singular “Cookie,” the singular/plural issue is a meaningless debate, and while there may be room for interpretation if malicious readings are deliberately applied or slang used by certain groups is forced to fit, one cannot definitively say “this is 100% the meaning.”‘

The singular expression of ‘Cookie’ is commonly used in everyday life, and there are cases where characters in content aimed at children are likened to or use the singular ‘Cookie.’ Coincidentally, in American Girl Scout culture, there is a tradition where young girls visit strangers’ homes to sell cookies. Related advertisements include phrases like ‘Ask my daughter if she’ll sell you a cookie today.’

Especially since the Cookie expressed in our album is represented as ‘a concept that breaks inertia’ = ‘music’ = ‘album’ = ‘it’ as explained earlier, using Cookies interchangeably in translated lyrics would actually be far more inappropriate.

Taking this matter as an opportunity, we conducted case studies on various slang terms and found that ordinary everyday words like Cake, Biscuit, Rice, Strawberry, and Melon are used as slang with completely different meanings in various cases.

This suggests that any word would be difficult to avoid if someone wants to pick a fight and make it an issue.
Especially since slang manifests differently according to culture, region, and history, the criteria for judging inappropriateness are ambiguous. From this perspective, no song lyrics can be free from various controversies.

We could easily find other lyric examples that could serve as similar cases, but since mentioning them would itself be inappropriate, we will omit them and instead share the opinion given to us by an American translation expert:
<How should we accept the mindset of someone who wants to read the sentence ‘Hey little puppy, eat this taffy, yum’ not as ‘Hey little puppy, try this taffy, yum’ but (by deliberately applying Korean slang) as ‘Hey you [expletive], go [expletive] yourself’?>

ADOR sincerely advocates for the protection of minors and is grateful for and respects the good opinions that many have shared.

However, what is ironic is that most of those making forced claims are coincidentally using the protection of minors as a shield to package their own purposes.
Speculating and making definitive claims about intentions without understanding or grasping the circumstances, and promoting with sensational thumbnails that feature false statements on photos of minors whom they claim to protect—this does not appear to be ‘protection.’
Also, even though slang is not a standard language that everyone must learn and know, we wonder if it is right to sensationally package speculation as evidence and instill it in people who don’t know the slang—especially in the very people they claim to protect.

The two lyricists for ‘Cookie’ are women in their 30s of Korean and Swedish nationality respectively, for whom English is their native language. The translator is a bilingual woman of Korean nationality for whom both English and Korean are native languages. Because the production intent was clear and they did not suspect any impure implications, everyone was completely stunned by this controversy.
Falsehoods and rumors, such as assuming the lyricist was male based on unverified information, also appear to be aimed at distorting the intent itself.
Similar prejudices are also manifesting in framing that treats NewJeans as an unusually young team by lumping them together by average age, even though they are in a similar age range (19, 19, 18, 17, 15 years old) as other high-teen groups, and we are concerned about the stereotyping that assumes ‘because they are young, they must have a passive attitude.’

For those who maintain the attitude that ‘the answer is already decided,’ even long explanations are meaningless.
Because of this, we are also worried whether we can avoid all malicious interpretations every time even with our best efforts.
This is because depending on the method of interpretation, even something healthy can be made to appear otherwise.
We believe the most important point in interpretation lies in the context of the matter.
Please consider the context.

ADOR will do its best going forward to ensure that misunderstandings do not occur, taking this incident as an opportunity.

We have consistently provided explanations from before the release of the song ‘Cookie.’
And the planning intent explained above was carried through to the actual album implementation and broadcast activities.
We believe the reason why many have praised NewJeans and our content as healthy and fresh is because our intent and sincerity for this concept were conveyed.
Our sincerity is already contained in the results we have shown.
We have shown our sincerity through various channels including music, promotion, album design, stages, and SNS content. We focused on quality productions, and even down to the details—the composition, arrangement method, and quantity of each album component—we contemplated and prepared ways to appeal to fans.
We cannot be perfect in every aspect, but ADOR sincerely intends to make efforts to become an honest and approachable company for fans.

A calculated move only has meaning if there is something to gain from it.
Claims that we had ulterior motives lack persuasiveness as to what there was to gain.
Especially for a team with young members, noise from any angle is unwelcome.
Having ulterior motives for unnecessary controversy is not sensible and only discourages everyone and burdens their hearts.

We believe we have explained as best we can, starting from the planning intent.
Based on the context and intent we have shared, as well as our sincerity, we hope you will now completely set aside unnecessary suspicions and comfortably enjoy the ‘goodwill’ of the content we have carefully prepared.
Thank you.