Earlier this week, a preview of the tvN Story variety program ‘The Village President’s People‘ caused a stir on online communities for blurring out the face of member SUGA in a group photo of BTS.
Many onlookers suspected that the broadcasting station decided to blur out the BTS member due to his ongoing DUI case.
Then, after the commotion created by SUGA’s blurred face in the preview clip, the the main broadcast of ‘The Village President’s People’ aired on August 26 KST. SUGA’s face was not blurred on the main broadcast, and instead shown alongside the other BTS members.
On this episode, the variety program highlighted the career of hanbok designer Park Sul Nyeo, who designed hanbok for BTS during their debut days. Park Sul Nyeo showed off the hanbok that she had made for the 7 members, and revealed that she had even received offers in the past from people wishing to buy the hanbok for as much as 30 million KRW (~ $23,000 USD) per piece.
Following the main broadcast of ‘The Village President’s People’, various speculations arose about why tvN chose to blur out SUGA’s face in preview clips, but did not do so on the actual broadcast.
Some claimed that BTS fans who endorsed the group staying together as 7 had “terrorized” the preview clip in question until tvN was forced to remove it from YouTube. They believe that tvN aired SUGA’s face normally to prevent further “terror” by fans.
However, others claim that tvN simply used SUGA’s image for “clout” before the main broadcast by drawing greater attention to the preview. They expressed the opinion that there was most likely “no need” for tvN to blur out SUGA on the actual broadcast, where the viewership is mostly elderly Koreans watching from home, rather than global K-Pop fans on YouTube.
A third claim suggests that tvN was simply lazy about the editing. This claim is supported by the fact that images of trot singer Kim Ho Joong, who committed a hit-and-run accident while under the influence of alcohol in May of this year and then attempted to switch places with his manager to get out of punishment, was also blurred out in the preview clip, but shown as normal on the actual broadcast.
Meanwhile, many Korean netizens continue to push for SUGA’s departure from BTS after his DUI.
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