It has been roughly 3 months since the release of Gangnam Style, and reports say he will have an estimated net income of 15,000,000,000 (15B) Korean won by the end of the year; 15B Korean won is roughly about 13,500,000 (13.5M) million U.S. dollars.

The best part about this figure is that Psy will have 13.5 million dollars after expenses and splitting the total revenue with his agency, YG Entertainment. According to their contract, they will split all revenue by 7:3 ratio (Psy:YG).

Psy, along with YG Entertainment, has made 11.7 million dollars in just three months with Gangnam Style. It is estimated that the total revenue for the year will be around 33,000,000,000 Korean won, or about 29,690,000 U.S. dollars.

The reported figures are derived from the number of music sales, commercials and concerts.

The story surrounded the kpop idol girlgroup T-ara and the bullying of HwaYoung, a member of the group.

Usually when a rumor revolving celebrities come up, the fans and/or netizens get to work: they find evidence (or something that could act as fuel for fire).

This time, the fans find that the rumor might be true. The screenshots they take from shows T-ara was featured in become evidence and the story takes a turn to being more and more legitimate.

One of the more popular screenshots that take a central role in the developing story is this one:

Another member of the group, EunJung, is seen force-feeding HwaYoung.
Usually, comedic television shows often show a little bit of playful force feeding once in a while.
A netizen points out that it should have been EunJung who had to eat the rice cake because it was a punishment.
Does HwaYoung’s face seem like she’s happy or having fun?
How about a look at member HyoMin’s awkward laugh at the camera?

As usual this type of story turns into a huge witch hunt, a typical development in the Korean news sector. You can read some of the comments here and you can see where this story would go:

WONY: “That’s no joke – look at how they’re scheming something, the two plan it out and force feeds her.
And Ham EunJung is holding back her laugh.
Makes me curse, that Ham EunJung.”

Warm Spring: “Those pieces of shits..
That is like attempted murder. . Don’t they know SungWoo passed away because he choked on rice cake (tteok)?”

gold_win: Show us how they’re planning it out! Those bad girls. The reporter is the best!”

gold_win: Look at chin-HyoMin nickname laugh. It’s evil and cruel.”

Side note: LOL CHIN-HYOMIN.

If you can take a look at the votes going on in the comments sections, they’re mostly in favor of HwaYoung.

The fans await in the meantime for T-ara’s agency to respond – to give them some sort of a light in the shadow. All they want is a little hint of what’s going on. Their unni’s are being framed! Oh my lord, the pain HwaYoung must be going through – someone do something! OH THE HUMANITY!

Well it turns out T-ara’s agency, Core Contents Media, decided to take action.

The CEO of the company, Kim KwangSoo, announced that “there are no internal issues or bullying in T-ara and HwaYoung’s contract will be terminated with the consensus of the staff”.

Just 40 minutes after the announcement, HwaYoung tweets, “…facts with no truth”.

Her tweet really stirs up some e-drama and essentially gives the “go” to the netizens to go on a verbal rampage against Core Contents Media and T-ara.

There are polls going around for the controversy: some 21,000 users have voted for this poll within half a day in regards to CEO Kim KwangSoo’s announcement.

“Down” is equivalent for “Thumbs Down” in regards to the termination. “Up” goes for “thumbs up”.

The crowd definitely is for the little guy – or, girl in this case… and the group seems to be falling apart. What do I mean by that? I mean, sure, the company defended the group and kicked the “troublemaker” out… but at what cost? Let’s take a look at some more comments and the “fallout” of the controversy:

jjujjukim: “We need to show that if the idols aren’t genuine towards the fans, they will fall”
agjqgl: “KwangSoo and T-ara are ruined. The company that promotes this type of anti-social behavior should be destroyed.”
-_-ahnnyong: “Signs of T-ara’s fall haha. Personally, I think BoRam should act her age. Ah I hate her.”

There are other fallouts due to this announcement.

For one, some 6,300 members of the official T-ara fan club quit on the 30th – in just one day. Additionally, the fan club on the portal site Naver changed their name to “Ryu HwaYoung Advocates” and gained over 3,000 fans – reaching over 40,000 fans total. A club asking for the truth from T-ara was created and reached over 50,000 fans while asking television producers to take EunJung off the air on the shows “We Got Married” and the upcoming “Five Fingers”.

The so called “Ryu HwaYoung Advocacy Movement” does not stop there. Actual television producers tweet eachother back and forth about the situation and how to handle it: SBS’s Ryu CheolMin PD: “I will not cast T-ara for any of my shows” while MBC’s Lee SangYup PD agrees: “Oh then me too.”

The story goes international. This kind of thing doesn’t stay in the country:

Hopefully this will end any kind of bullying throughout the kpop industry. Stories like this pops up once in a while if the reader of this article can recall what we call the “JaeBeom Controversy”. The netizens at the time also find evidence of bullying of JaeBeom (aka Jay Park) in the idol boy group 2PM under JYP Entertainment, but the story died down as JaeBeom moved back to Seattle and asked the fans to stop pursuing the matter. There are many fans who still believe that he’s been bullied and that was the main reason why he was kicked out left.

The tables have turned for the group and company. The “group vote” for the termination of her contract consisted of the group members plus 19 staff members (5 stylists, 7 hair & makeup staff, 7 managers) and while trying to salvage what they could by sacrificing the one member, they’ve effectively doomed the entire group.

Don’t mess around with your group members – this advice goes to individual members and the agencies. Unless you’re SM Entertainment. Then you can cover up and make up for almost anything (cough HanGeng of Super Junior, the JYJ trio of DBSK and more!)

Side note: T-ara just added two more members and released “Day By Day” on July 13, 2012. If anyone’s interested in listening to this member-bullying group.

FNC Music has announced that they will now train not only singers and musicians, but other talents as well. FNC Entertainment now aims to provide entertainers in various areas from musical talents to actors and actresses. They aim to spread their reach in the Korean entertainment industry. The transition was completed on April 16th, 2012.

FNC Entertainment is known for F.T. Island and CNBLUE.

Recently, Yenny of the Wonder Girls released her music video for “Hello to Myself.” Through this track, she was able to reveal both her outstanding musicianship through her self-composed lyrics and stellar vocals. The kpop-esque ballad song was created for the Dream High 2 OST track, and the simple music video features Yenny singing the song in the studio.

Check out the music video below!

EXO-K, the Korean rookie group from SM Entertainment released their new single and music video.

So, the long awaited MV is out! Though this is still not an announcement of the groups’ debut, it’s still worth listening to as it is a full 4 minute 31 second music video.

This piece released by SM Entertainment  is titled “What is Love”  and shows a bit of soul and R&B – mixed with a lot of kpop.

This version is for EXO-K, the group aimed for Korea’s market. The “K” in EXO-K stands for Korean as the “M” in EXO-M stands for Mandarin.

Though the song is currently only for EXO-K, people wait to see the EXO-M version, if there ever will be one.

The kpop music video is below:

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6fPzVNIEB0[/video]

UPDATE: There is now a EXO-M version of the song

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PMRe4k3OSw[/video]

A rookie kpop group, B.A.P (Best, Absolute, Perfect), released a new music video/single “Warrior” on the company’s YouTube channel.

TS Entertainment, the business behind the new boy band B.A.P, focused on combining hip-hop and pop – much like what YG Entertainment did. This, is one reason why many anti-fans are against the group and its music.

However, the music B.A.P is providing is relatively new and unique. The surprising part of this music video was that all of the group members had blond hair. Though their hairstyle was different, it was hard to tell who was who at first.

The composer of the new single “Warrior” is TS Entertainment’s dedicated producer Kim Kibum and Kang Jiwon. The two have previously worked together on pieces for other artists like Secret and Bang&Zelo.

With a mix of hard-hitting rap and good vocals, the MV hit a view count of over 200,000 in just two days – a record for a debut single in 2012.

TS Entertainment also released B.A.P’s own webpage under the company website.

Music Video:

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tLooPlf2Sw[/video]

Source: TS Entertainment