The recent death of 2 of Korea’s rising young starlets, U-Nee and Jung Da Bin, has left everyone wondering why. We question why such beautiful young stars would end their own lives. In hopes of making sense out of the tragic situation, some blame the netizens, some blame the industry and others blame the stigma associated with depression treatment in S. Korea, but how accurate are their claims?
It was reported that netizen’s harsh criticisms fueled U-Nee and Jung Da Bin’s depression, which lead to their suicides, but doesn’t that come with the territory? Receiving both positive and negative comments about looks, fashion and lifestyle is a part of their glam careers and without public’s constant interest, stars wouldn’t be stars, they’ll be just one of us. Of course, I can’t imagine how much it hurt these girls when they saw their “before and after” pictures online and read nasty remarks about their facial features after their surgeries, but all celebs go through that.
There are hundreds of websites dedicated to exposing stars’ before pictures. You can find graduation, debut and even find baby pictures to check whether or not your favorite star is a “natural beauty” or a “plastic beauty.” The netizens did not single out these two actresses, in fact, they poke fun at all celebs because they are interested, and we all know that there’s no such thing as bad publicity. Comedian Park Whee-Sun and announcer Kang Su Jung commented that no comment is more fearful than negative comments from netizens because it demonstrates lack of interest.
The relationship between stars and the public is a very delicate one and dumping all the blame on the netizens seem like a desperate attempt to make sense of U-Nee and Jung Da-Bin’s suicides. The negative remarks probably made them feel bad but I doubt that they are solely responsible for their depression. Other circumstances prior to their deaths were probably more important and instead of jumping to conclusions or wrongly accusing one group of people, we will focus on understanding various circumstances they faced prior to their deaths in hopes of understanding their tragic decisions.
This is the beginning of our dialogue about U-Nee and Jung Da-Bin’s death and we would like to encourage all of our readers to contribute to make this discussion more valuable to everybody.
