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“Even though I really love this person including everything about him, I just can’t stand this.”
Many relationship advice threads in online communities start with something like this. No matter how much you love something, there’s bound to be some parts that you don’t like about it. It’s no different in the idol industry. The more fans know about their idols, the more potential there is for dislikes to arise.
Today’s K-slang is “써방 (Sseo-Bang).”
Idol fans don’t just blindly embrace their idol members, because they believe that constructive criticism is necessary for their idols to succeed. This holds true for famous idol groups like BTS, BLACKPINK, and NewJeans as well. However, while fans engage in criticism, they also hope that their beloved idol members won’t be hurt by their critiques.
In such cases, idol fans utilize “써방 (Sseo-Bang).” It’s a combination of the harshly pronounced “seo” from “서치 (Seo-Chi),” which means “search,” and the first syllable “bang” from “방지 (Bang-Ji),” which means “to prevent something from happening”. It literally means “써치방지 (search prevention).”
Idols often search for their names on websites to monitor fans’ reactions, as they’ve said so on various shows. In such cases, “써방 (Sseo-Bang)” is used to change the name in a way that it doesn’t appear in the search results.
The usage of “써방 (Sseo-Bang)” is simple. Let’s say there is an idol member named “하나 (Hana).” When idol fans want to write critical posts about this idol, instead of using the name Hana, they use a modified name like “후누 (Hunu)” to write their criticism. However, they modify it to a level where only fans can recognize it. This is a considerate act to block the idol member from seeing criticism related to themselves.
Of course, there are fans who abuse the system to write offensive comments. Insulting others is not a positive behavior, both offline or online. K-Slang supports healthy fan activities.
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