The clip showed her interaction with 2PM’s Taecyeon.
TWICE‘S Jihyo it’s going viral X (former Twitter), but the content shocked fans.
On December 18, a Jihyo fan account posted an anecdote shared by the singer Bored. According to her, Jihyo, who was an incredibly young trainee, remained completely silent among the other trainees and remained frozen. Whenever the older trainees tried to tease or joke with her, she would actually hit them. The OP (original poster) attached a rare video of a young Jihyo doing exactly that 2pm‘S Taecyeon.
I still think about that time when Jihyo, before her debut, threw a ball to Taecyeon 😭😭😭🤣🤣 pic.twitter.com/WXcKtWdGUh
— Money (@NoName) October 6, 2023
While the clip captured Jihyo’s cute childhood antics, it also served to remind fans how young she was when she entered the K-Pop industry. She joined JYP entertainment in 2005 at the age of eight and trained for ten years before debuting. Before JYP, she trained at SM Entertainment for a year when he was about seven years old.
It’s supposed to be a cute moment, but I honestly feel nothing but pain for her. she was a child model, discovered when she just turned 7, spent 1 year at sm, 19 years at jyp, did a survival program, averaged 4 cbs a year for almost 10 years as an idol…. my heart https://t.co/EOkne4IvU9
— 🔻 (@biglogdyh) December 20, 2024
The clip has now sparked a heated discussion about the normalization of children becoming K-Pop trainees and being thrown into a brutal work environment.
This is just extremely scary and sad https://t.co/536XmedCu7
— rey⁷🐠𓏲 ๋࣭ ࣪ ˖ଳ⋆.˚𓇼 (@starrysoobie) December 20, 2024
Bitch, this sounds like child slavery, what the hell 😐 https://t.co/xS7xkwUbmf
— criticalASHtheory⛈️💕♐️ (@XSagitterrorist) December 21, 2024
the kpop industry needs to be heavily regulated because there is no reason why a 7 year old should train at this age https://t.co/aIxA9F52UN
— yami 🫧 (@yami125__) December 21, 2024
I’m sorry, what??? Parents literally don’t give a damn about their kids?? This is literally child labor https://t.co/xOpn7U55Nx
— ⁷Sarah🍓 (@abowthv) December 20, 2024
Not only do we know that corporations are mean, but what kind of parents would allow this https://t.co/kTf20y2I0l
— Valentin (@gayIittlemiya) December 21, 2024
While debuting young as an idol is not a new phenomenon in K-Pop, recent discussions about its enormous consequences have inspired more academic discourse. Read more here.
