The MBC reality series Hangout with Yoo featuring longtime comedian and host Yoo Jae Suk released a teaser of him visiting the HYBE headquarters with SEVENTEEN's subunit BSS on April 20, 2024. The teaser stating "The HYBE headquarters built by SEVENTEEN" drew many BTS ARMY to defend their beloved boy-ground BTS and urged MBC to fix their "mistake".
Before we begin, let's take a look at the teaser first!
The teaser for the next episode of Hangout with Yoo featured SEVENTEEN's subunit BSS (the acronym for SEVENTEEN members BooSeokSoon) showing Yoo Jae Suk around the HYBE headquarters. Particularly in the cafeteria scene, the subtitles claimed that HYBE was built by SEVENTEEN, the source of this controversy.
It was later reported that MBC changed the subtitles on their Naver and Nate TV platforms.
But it was too late since the clip reached millions on social media creating a firestorm of comments by the BTS ARMY with the hashtags "Hybe was built by BTS" and "BTS paved the way".
BTS ARMY called out MBC demanding an apology using the above hashtags and MBC responded with "BTS led the foundation of the new HYBE headquarters, and SEVENTEEN built it up."
"BTS led the foundation of the new HYBE headquarters, and SEVENTEEN built it up." — MBC
Fans from both BTS and SEVENTEEN have continued to control their anger towards the media station instead of the groups themselves, who seemed to have nothing to do with the controversy. ARMYs accused MBC of disregarding BTS' decades of hard work to contribute to HYBE's success. Also, fans stated that SEVENTEEN didn't make sense since they are officially under Pledis Entertainment, which was acquired by HYBE Corporation on May 25, 2020.
ARMYs also hoped that BTS would no longer appear on any MBC shows or programs in the future.
What are your thoughts about this issue? Do you think fans should have control over what media/broadcasting is allowed to say? Or do you think MBC should apologize? Comment below!