A thread about Oh My Girl’s racist & problematic issues and the excessive hate it is attracting.

I will explain what Oh My Girl has done wrong, what the fans are doing about it & our hopes for educating the girls. As well as commenting on the damage to Miracle’s mental health.

1st of all I want to clarify that we know that Oh My Girl have been ignorant on cultural appropriation issues & we are trying our best to educate them. However we believe they didn’t have malicious intentions & so we believe education is the way to go rather then cancelling them.

This thread will include the following :

1. Explain what Miracles are doing to educate the members.

2. The issues at hand, as well as why people might be hurt by them. But also explaining why we believe they didn’t have bad intentions.

3. The excessive hate.

Oh My Girl fans are called Miracles. & the group’s company is WM.

Us Miracles have been emailing WM nonstop, as well as tweeting the girls & commenting on Insta posts. We know the things that OMG have done have hurt people & cultures and so we really are trying to educate them.

However as we are a small international fandom, we are struggling to translate our emails, some of us are learning Korean just to be able to email & educate the girls. So please, if you want to help us educate them, DM me with suggestions to put in the email or to help translate.

WM are blocking the girls from apologising. This is common throughout kpop, that companies won’t allow their artists to own up & apologise for their actions. However many ppl still stan as they know their idol didn’t mean it in a bad way & that they aren’t allowed to apologise.

Here is proof the girls want to apologise. Seunghee liked a post about them apologising but WM made her unlike it. This was after the most recent issue & they haven’t done anything since, hopefully the girls are educating themselves now. WM also recently hired a cultural advisor.

People took the hate against Oh My Girl too far & harassed the groups family members. Arin’s brother posted this on Instagram, however he had to add the last bit as WM will not allow the girls to apologise. But from the way he worded it, you can see the girls want to apologise.

I’ll now go through their mistakes.

I want to show how they were ignorant rather than maliciously r*cist. They did bad things but didn’t have bad intentions.

However, I in no way want to deflect or excuse their mistakes, I know people have been hurt no matter their intentions.

The first incident includes Norazo’s ‘Curry’ song. Koreans see it as a positive song about curry and it is played in Indian restaurants in Korea. However, they don’t understand the issues around the lyrics. This song promotes negative stereotypes and is downright offensive.

In 2016, Oh My Girl released Windy Day. Knetz called OMG ‘Curry-dols’ and would asks the group to perform Indian dances or dance to Norazo Curry. This is problematic. However as OMG was a nugu group, WM made them fulfil these fan wishes.

So there are clips of OMG doing stereotypical and problematic dances. They thought Norazo’s curry was a positive song, and so performed it. This was 4 years ago, and in the past year, Koreans have been informed Norazo Curry is negative after a boy group recently performed it.

International fans did try & alert the girls to this being problematic, however at that time the girls were not allowed phones & had VERY limited media access. So they did not see our attempts to educate them on the manner, nor did their company educate them & let them apologise.

Not to excuse the girls, but WM is very harsh, as well as making the girls do these things, not educating them or letting them apologise, they have also overworked the girls leading them to collapse on stage.

WM recently hired a cultural advisor so hopefully they’ll improve.

Oh My Girl’s concept is ‘fantasy fairy’ & only ONCE in trying to dress the girls, stylists accidentally & ignorantly dressed them in items that are meaningful to Desis & Natives. Yes this is disrespectful & can be seen as appropriation. The stylists need educating.

Then we have YooA’s solo debut, Bon Voyage. The Korean title for her song is ‘Forest Child’. The concept also fits OMG’s fantasy fairy theme.

YooA said in an interview that her inspiration came from Princess Mononoke, a Japanese fantasy film. As well as the Korean Gumiho.

A Japanese Mononoke and a Korean Gumiho are both legends that come from folklore in their respective countries. There are similarities in accessories and face paints between Mononokes & Gumihos to Native American Culture. Here are images below.

This is why there is a lot of cultural appropriation rumours around YooA. However the garments & accessories in the MV are inspired by Korean and Japanese folklore & culture, not Native American culture. People are too quick to call YooA r*cist without knowing the full context.

Here is a clip from Native Americans saying that her face paint is not Native American.

By stereotyping face paint to Native Americans, you are ignoring all the other cultures that use face paint. & in claiming that YooA appropriated NA culture, you are erasing her own culture.

Seunghee was asked to film a CF on the spot for a Mexican Burrito. She resorted to using a stereotype which Mexicans found offensive. SBS removed the video & apologised, and said Seunghee would agree with the apology & removal. However WM would not let Seunghee say this herself.

Now I will say again, my aim is to just let people know the full context of the issues.

We do not want to excuse the girls ignorant behaviour, nor do we want to invalidate POC who feel hurt by the girls actions. We apologise on behalf of the girls to whose who are offended.

Miracles know the girls didn’t have bad intentions, they are just ignorant and uneducated. We aren’t expecting people who are genuinely offended to forgive the girls nor are trying to convince them that their feelings aren’t valid. People can still be hurt by good intentions.

The hate against Oh My Girl on stan Twitter is becoming excessive. And it is very damaging to Miracles mental health.

Stan Twitter is a happy place for a lot of ppl, however everyday I see fellow Miracles have to leave because they see so much negativity or have been harassed.

We know the girls are in the wrong on these issues & they really need education as there has there has been multiple occasions. However the curry dance issues were 4 yrs ago & lots of other kpop groups have done it yet the hate Oh My Girl gets is tenfold compared to other groups.

It has almost become a trend to hate on the group, a lot of people who leave nasty comments don’t even know the full situation and are speaking over people of colour. We aren’t asking you to like them or forgive them, just don’t send hate at EVERY possible opportunity.

If you really are hurt by their actions, then mute the name Oh My Girl or DM me with suggestions for our emails to WM. But commenting nasty and personal things about the girls everywhere is not going to educate them nor is it going to get you anywhere.

Lastly, Miracles are currently starting a project to raise funds amongst ourselves to donate to a charity to raise awareness about cultural sensitivity in Korea.

Miracles are looking for Korean contacts to arrange this. If you have any leads please reach out to @Exokoko59754491

Thank you very much if you have taken the time to read this, and I hope you see all the context to the issues, as well as Miracles efforts to educate the members. I hope this thread can reduce the excessive hate.

An extra point is that none of them speak English. Whilst this is not excusing them as if they looked hard enough they’d find resources, but a lot of cultural appropriation education resources are in English. This is why we need to work with WM to get things translated for them.