Tablo - Senior G-Dragon and the most brutal witch hunt in Korean showbiz history

Như ÝJan 07, 2022 at 09:12

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Tablo is the leader of the hip hop group Epik High in Korea. He is also an artist of YG Entertainment, the founder of the independent record label HIGHGRND under YG.

Tablo (real name Lee Seon Woong) is listed as a rarity in Korean showbiz because of his clean private life, leader of a pioneering hip-hop group with international influence, IQ 160 and a prestigious Master's degree. English language major from the prestigious Stanford University. It is known that the male singer studied at University and completed his master's degree at Stanford in just 3 years.

Tablo - Senior G-Dragon and the most brutal witch hunt in Korean showbiz history - Photo 1

Back in 2009-2010, not only was it successful at home in Korea, Epik High was also the only Korean group at that time to reach No. 1 at Itunes US, surpassing even the big boys Jay Z, The Black Eyed Peas and The Black Eyed Peas. Or is it Kanye West... It can be said that he has become an exemplary model of families with a strict educational tradition in Korea, where children are encouraged to strive to pursue their dreams like " Tablo did."

And the nightmare began on a summer day in May, 2010. An online antifan group called TaJinYo (short for: We demand the truth from Tablo) raised doubts about the authenticity of the Tablo leaderboard. has reaped. How could he have just completed his undergraduate and master's degrees in just 3 years? Normal university is difficult, Stanford is among the most prestigious universities of the Ivy League system, even more unbelievable? Why doesn't he have to write a thesis like other students?... It should also be mentioned that cheating in exams is an extremely sensitive issue for Korea: in 2007, a director told me An art museum in Seoul was found to have faked a PhD from Yale University. As a result, this director was sentenced to 17 months in prison followed by an investigation campaign, exposing more than 120 other cases of fake diplomas in the entertainment industry and the military system in Korea. That's why the suspicions for Tablo suddenly became completely reasonable and drew the attention of public opinion at that time. In a short time, the number of members of TaJinYo surpassed 100,000 (a huge number for being active on "social media" at that time). The members of TaJinYo not only attacked Tablo on the internet, Naver, they also emailed the hearing to Stanford, looked up the list of alumni who attended the prestigious school in the 1999 - 2002 class to find the certificate. the name Lee Seon Woong. Thought that when Tablo officially announced his transcript during his time at Stanford, the story would stop. But that was the beginning of a 721-day war between Tablo and a huge community hiding behind a shield that is the innocence and irresponsibility of the concept of netizens/netizens.

Tablo - Senior G-Dragon and the most brutal witch hunt in Korean showbiz history - Photo 2

After Tablo released his transcript, Stanford training specialist Thomas Black wrote a letter as an official statement from Stanford: "Daniel Woong Seon Lee entered Stanford University in the fall semester. academic year 1998 - 1999 and graduated with a Bachelor's degree in English and a Master's degree in English in 2002. Any suggestion, prediction or insinuation to the contrary is false. Stanford University alumni.

However, the crowd doesn't choose to believe the truth, they want to believe what they think it is. TaJinYo believes that Tablo stole the identity of a certain Daniel Lee who entered Stanford during the 1999 - 2002 school year. Not only did they send threatening emails to Stanford's training department, the members of TaJinYo also contacted Stanford alumni who attended the same time period just to ask if they knew Lee Seon Woong. A man named Dan Lee living in Wisconsin, USA, who graduated from Stanford, constantly receives emails from anonymous people with the same question: Did Tablo - a Korean rap star threaten and Steal your identity or not? Of course, this Dan Lee has absolutely no idea what's going on and doesn't know about Tablo. Even the members of TaJinYo did not hesitate to spend $ 10,000 buying false statements from a Stanford alumnus before Tablo to prove that Tablo never went to Stanford. Any classmate who stood up to Tablo's defense and provided real proof of his Stanford degree became the focus of TaJinYo and thousands of online threats.

Tablo - Senior G-Dragon and the most brutal witch hunt in Korean showbiz history - Photo 3

Things start to get worse when not only Tablo's old classmates, ex-girlfriends, teachers, and alma mater are dragged into the mud in this hunt for the "truth", but also his current family. suffered the blind anger of the online community. Tablo's mother repeatedly received calls scolding her with lowly titles and threatening messages to force the Lee family to leave Korea. David Lee - Tablo's younger brother, who attended another prestigious university - Columbia University (but David did not graduate) - was fired after the media channel David worked for received dozens of calls. insults every day. David's entire address and contact information was exposed on TaJinYo's forum, even anonymous calls threatened to kill David if he was seen on the street. For Tablo, his life became hell when in less than a year, from a brightest star he became a criminal imprisoned in his apartment in a middle-class residential area in Hanoi. Seoul. His agency at that time, Woolim Entertainment, chose to stay out of the situation without a word of defense for his artist. Tablo no longer performs, no longer composes, is no longer a guest at expensive show events. In the middle of the storm, Haru - Tablo's daughter was born. And even taking the child to the hospital for a check-up made Tablo scared: "I don't know if the doctor who vaccinated Haru was one of them. It's all anonymous so I can't tell. who's watching me" Tablo looked like he was about to cry at the thought of everyone's cold, inquiring glances every time he walked down the street with Haru in his arms.

Tablo - Senior G-Dragon and the most brutal witch hunt in Korean showbiz history - Photo 4

On March 26, 2012, Tablo's father passed away after struggling with the same pressures, fears and stress that his son and his family endured for over a year. In July 2011, Tablo started filing a complaint against 22 members of TaJinYo for his and his family's humiliating behavior. In October of the same year, the Seocho Police Department declared all allegations and doubts about his qualifications unfounded after 8 hours of questioning Tablo and weekly summarizing documents. TaJinYo trials also took place: 3 members of TaJinYo were sentenced to 10 months in prison and the other members were subjected to legal supervision for a period of 2 years. Perhaps the most surprising thing - the one who raised all the doubts, the most aggressive, the most eloquent, who turned an online discussion into a national anti-Tablo campaign was a middle-aged man. Korean-American living in the US named Eungsuk Kim. Kim has two daughters, and both have earned professorships at prestigious universities in the US. And inadvertently, Tablo's record of genius left him heartbroken and perhaps somewhat offended: The prestigious diplomas of his two daughters if exchanged for the hard work of his For the whole family, Tablo is as easy and unbelievable as a game. He believes that Tablo and the Korean media have made young people - who really try - feel inferior and hurt. But the consequences of a father who wants to blindly demand justice for his children with the unimaginable power of the internet are exchanged for the departure of another father and a lifelong wound on Tablo and his loved ones. around him.

Tablo - Senior G-Dragon and the most brutal witch hunt in Korean showbiz history - Photo 5

And what's scarier than that is the indifference and exhaustion of this man or all the other people behind the computer screen, sharing the same name as a netizen: "I write what I know in my state of mind. I will not accept the summons" - When Kim was first summoned by the police after Tablo filed a lawsuit.

"Is humiliation a crime? Is it an international crime? I don't understand why they treat me like a suspect while not concluding a crime for me Me too?" - Kim is an American citizen, so the summons and trial order must go through the laws of the host country. This is also the reason why it was not until the first months of 2012, that the TaJinYo incident officially ended when Kim was put on trial at the US Supreme Court.

In November 2011, Fever's End - Tablo's first solo album was released under the management company YG Entertainment. Regardless of the commercial successes on the charts of Billboard, Itunes, Fever's End is considered one of the five best debut albums of that year and also one of the top pure Hiphop albums. of Korea up to this point. Fever's End is the pent-up and burst of emotions of anger, grief, helplessness, sadness of Tablo and his loved ones during the most difficult years. Not only is it harmonious and well-produced, Fever's End (or all of Tablo's later works in the field of music and literature...) is also conveyed and portrayed with sophistication and wisdom. docile in Tablo's own words. People talk about him as a rare rapper with the blood of a flowing poet and a sly gangster in him. Not everyone is called "lyrical genius" besides names like Kendrick Lamar, Eminem or the veteran The Notorious BIG Also from here Tablo's career and that of Epik High continued to develop. He is the founder of the record label HGHRND, the owner of Hyukoh and The Black Skirts. His family became acquainted and loved through the reality TV show The return of Superman. This ending seems really happy, somewhere there is still magic and justice for everyone. But if it was really a happy story, no one would have suffered and suffered so much pain.

Tablo - Senior G-Dragon and the most brutal witch hunt in Korean showbiz history - Photo 6

Tablo - Senior G-Dragon and the most brutal witch hunt in Korean showbiz history - Photo 7

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