Sulli, a former member of f(x), was recently found dead in her home after committing suicide. What do students think of this passing away and suicide?

f(x) member, Sulli (Choi Jin-ri), who suffered from depression, was found dead in her home after her manager came by her house when she didn’t answer his calls. Sulli got numerous hateful comments about her appearance that led to her having depression. She took a break from the idol world to pursue her life as an actor. That still didn’t stop ‘fans’ from criticising her. On October 14, 2019, news spread about her death. She died at the age of twenty-five and SM Entertainment artists canceled their schedules out of respect.

Suicide and depression is an issue in the K-Pop world and real world. Other studentsthink so too. Deisy Rojas, a fellow students, stated, “You’re taking your own life away, it’s not right.” Another fellow student, Cassandra Ramos, stated, “People who commit suicide already; they realize it’s too late.” Criticism is another problem and something a lot of people do, especially K-Pop idols get criticism. Karola Ortiz said, “Talent wise they can criticize them. Physical, no. People never know what’s going on with the idol.”

Female and male idols have to face a lot of obstacles, which do students think is harder? Victoria Roca stated, “Female idols have it harder because they are set to have the perfect body,”, meaning that the public expects them to be perfect. Nisha Hodgins said, “It’s hard to compare the two. It’s equality as hard.” Jasmine Hickok says, “Females have to be perfect, look pretty, and skinny.”

When an idol debuts, their company takes away their phones and doesn’t give it back until the idol thinks they can handle the hate. Recently, the K-Pop industry has thought of putting the ‘Sulli Act’, which is where entertainment companies can look through comments and get rid of hateful comments also find out who’s hiding behind the screen name. Students have the same opinion that it would help, but not so much in terms of finding out who is behind the screen names.

Suicide is an upsetting topic. It’s sad to say this exists and it will never go away because people do it to ‘escape’ from the world. Bullying is a serious issue and other people don’t care much about it. Sulli’s death affects a lot of us because it’s just another amazing and precious idol we’ve lost to depression.

When fans found out about her death, they were shocked. Fans say she was such a great idol with an amazing heart. She was an outspoken woman who talked about women’s rights. “I don’t dislike becoming older, I think the happiness that you can feel only at a certain age is each different and I’m not going to stop trying in order to find that.” – Sulli.