Do Not, Under Any Circumstances, Bad Mouth Virtual K-Pop Stars on Social Media

KPop Demon Hunters has dominated streaming and the box office this summer, but KPop Defamation Hunters landed a win in a different venue: the South Korean courts. The South Korean virtual boy band Plave, which is made up of five members who only ever appear as animations, successfully sued a person who made derogatory comments about the group online.

According to the BBC, the unidentified social media user made a series of insulting posts about the band in July 2024. Among the attacks: he suggested the people behind the virtual band members “could be ugly in real life†and said they gave off a “typical Korean man vibe.†Some of the posts also included profanity, which doesn’t seem that offensive, but neither do the posts, so it’s probably worth mentioning.

The person who made the posts attempted to argue that the comments were directed at the avatars that front the group and not the real people lending their voices to the virtual band members. The court didn’t buy it and declared that the avatars represent someone real, so the attacks extend beyond the virtual fronts to the people behind them.

The victory landed Plave 500,000 South Korean won in total, 100,000 per band member, which works out to just over $70 a pop. Not exactly a fortune for a group that already has more than one million subscribers on YouTube, sold more than 500,000 units of their most recent album in the first week, and performs concerts that attract tens of thousands of fans. It’s also much less than the band asked for. They were seeking 6.5 million won for each performer, which would have worked out to about $4,650 per member and $23,250 total. The band claimed that the comments caused emotional stress for the group.

Vlast, the band’s label, intends to appeal the damages granted by the court, according to the BBC, arguing that it is too low for a case that sets a precedent for defamation against virtual avatars. While it does seem like the ruling is the first instance of defamation against virtual pop stars, it’s not uncommon for Korean music labels to pursue charges against internet trolls. Several labels in the country have made a concerted effort to go after people who badmouth acts online. The virtual band trend, to some extent, is considered a response to the type of attention and pressure that pop stars receive in Korea.