Just as I was scrolling through my Twitter timeline a few weeks ago, I saw someone repost a Youtube Short of a Korean soloist named Evan. The video was about the singer pointing to his right and pointing up at the endings of two different performances.
The video claims that Evan pointed at his right (East) and pointed up (North), and when you combine the first letter of the two directions, it spells "EN", which are the first two letters of Evan's former K-pop group: Enhypen. If you look at the comments of the original short, you could see many people believing that he was kicked out of the group, and that he still desires to be back as an Enhypen member.
I was baffled watching the video. Not only was their reasoning absurd, but the guy has been out of the group for months. Evan has already released music and performed as a solo artist multiple times by the time I'm writing this.
So why can't their fans accept that Evan is no longer in the group? To the point that even the active members of the group keep reiterating that Enhypen is 6, and no longer 7?
In case you didn't know: Evan, formerly known as Heeseung in the group, formally left Enhypen on March 10, 2026 after spending almost 6 years as a member of the boy band. To simplify things: He basically left the group to pursue his dreams of being a solo artist.
Since then, "OT7" fans have been spamming hashtags like #ENHYPENIS7 #BringHeeseungBack everywhere on social media. These fans were everywhere, that even on videos that aren't related to Enhypen or even K-Pop as a whole, you would see at least one comment about wanting to bring Evan back to Enhypen, especially on the first few weeks of his departure.
While you might chalk it up to "typical insane K-pop stan behavior", there is another case on a non-K-pop fandom that I would argue is much worse than the Evan/Enhypen situation, to the point I left the fandom and how I refuse to acknowledge my interest on the game anymore (After writing this blog, I don't want to be involved with this game's fandom publicly anymore. This is the last time I'll talk about this game ever.)
#BRINGBACKVALKO #VALKOISLOVED #VALKOISVALUED
Just typing that out gave me the chills, in the worst way.
Once again, for the unaware: Valko was supposedly going to be the 6th love interest for the Chinese otome gacha game, "Love and Deepspace." When his trailer was first released on June 22, 2026, it led to mainly negative reactions. Many thought that having a "wolf CEO" love interest on the game was cringy, and the fact that Infold (the game company who made Love and Deepspace) just decided to randomly drop a new love interest that wasn't even teased at any point of the main story, was ultimately considered a terrible business move. There are also issues of Infold not updating the main story often enough, and how the game is still lacking in ways to farm diamonds to pull for banners, which forces players to whale out money just to pull for their love interest/s. Of course, there were still a bunch of people (mainly Global fans) excited that there was a new man about to be added to the game, but the reception was generally negative.
However, as Infold continued to drop teasers about the new character, more and more issues about Valko were ultimately exposed. Firstly, most of Valko's content was mainly ripped off from the current love interests of the game, with the biggest victims being Sylus and Caleb. Tropes that were supposed to be unique for the other love interests were shamelessly combined for the new love interest, which led to extreme backlash from the fans of the current love interests. Secondly, the character was promoting misogynistic tropes that are endangering women in real life: with official advertisements showing things like "What's wrong with letting a wolf into the house?" and depicting sexual assault through coercion with puzzle imagery. It was so bad that the Chinese government had to personally step in and call out Infold for promoting problematic imagery with the new love interest (Bonthuys, 2026).
“This kind of entertainment-driven, traffic-driven creative work disregards public order and morality, crosses legal boundaries, and may ultimately endanger public safety,” This was a direct statement from a representative of the Ministry of Public Security News and Media in China. Due to the intense amount of backlash for the character. especially in the Chinese community, Valko's release has been formally cancelled as of June 30, 2026 in accordance with the statement released in official accounts.
Even after more than a month of his official cancellation notice, many are still clamoring for Valko to come back. Their desperation for an unreleased male character to come back is so loud, it led to misogynistic men who never played a minute of the game participating in the fandom just to get some clout from a vulnerable fanbase.They even provokingly spread hate to fans of the released love interests who just want to enjoy content of their fave characters.
This leads me to my argument: Why are there a lot of women obsessing and defending men who barely know they exist? To the point that they do anything they can to destroy fellow women that calls them out for being "male-centric"?
Unfortunately, internalized misogyny is not a new concept. In a study made by Evteeva, 2024: internalized misogyny refers to women's internalized feelings of being inferior to men. The feeling of self-misogyny is so strong, that any other woman who challenges the idea of patriarchy comes off as "distasteful" in their mind.
However, we can't blame women with internalized misogyny entirely. After all, patriarchy is the norm for the current society: and in the same study made by Evteeva, it was mentioned that self-hatred blooms on marginalized communities especially when they are forced to conform to the status quo. They are still victims more than anything else.
It also doesn't help that any type of interests women have (or femininity in general) are always looked down negatively by society. Makeup, dolls, boybands, and even the color pink itself are being made fun of and seen as "less" by society"!
This is why you would see "God forbid women like anything!" being said in social media a lot these days. Women just want to enjoy things without being constantly judged by what society thinks should be enjoyable. And although I generally agree with the sentiment: it gets to a point where it gets concerning.
Defending celebrities you like (especially when they're male celebrities) even when they did something problematic should be called out. Hating on women that disagree with harmful viewpoints should be called out. Women who would rather side with problematic men than to stand in solidarity with the valid concerns of other women for the sake of getting what they want should be called out.
But how do we stop the spread of internalized misogyny? Honestly, it's easier said than done. When it comes to dealing with a woman that deals with self-misogyny, it's still best to remain calm and not resort to name-calling. Calling other women misogynistic slurs and "crazy" for being a victim of the patriarchy is counterproductive to the feminist movement. We have to listen to their voices, and help them empower themselves without ever degrading them at all.
I'm not saying that women shouldn't like anything related to men anymore, but we have to instill in our minds that at the end of the day: There is more to life than men, and that women can be strong and be their own person without relying on the presence of a male figure, whether it is a celebrity or a fictional character.
Yes, a lot of interests catered to women are purposely curated to capture a woman’s heart and wallet. Yes, parasocialism can arguably be considered unavoidable especially in the era of social media. But at the end of the day, we need to have a sense of self-awareness and critique everything we consume in life.
Otherwise, we would continue to indirectly strengthen the patriarchy, the very thing we swore to destroy.
REFERENCES
Bonthuys, D. (2026). Love And Deepspace’s Biggest Controversy Is Now Hitting Its Wallet. GameSpot. https://www.gamespot.com/articles/love-and-deepspace-biggest-controversy-is-now-hitting-its-wallet/
Evteeva, M. (2024). INTERNALIZED MISOGYNY: THE PATRIARCHY INSIDE OUR
HEADS. Journal of Integrated Social Sciences, 14(18), 82–108.
https://doi.org/https://www.researchgate.net/publication/386505965_INTERNALIZED_MISOGYNY_THE_PATRIARCHY_INSIDE_OUR_HEADS
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