5 “Real” K-Pop Moments That Didn’t Actually Happen

In the world of K-Pop, knowing the facts, lores, and legacies of the artists you like is a standard fan culture. From debut date to pre-debut anecdotes, even live performance details, sorted according to dates, K-Pop fans usually keep an impressively thorough tab of their “faves.”

But there are times when a considerable number of fans remember a fact about an artist that actually never happened in reality. Here are 5 K-Pop moments that some fans mistakenly thought to be true:

“S” or “Z”?

Maybe it’s because the abbreviation “SKZ” is used a lot to refer to the group, but it looks like a considerable amount of fans believe(d) that Stray Kids are spelled as “Stray Kidz.”

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Who’s older?

It looks like a lot of fans were led to believe that Lia was the oldest member of ITZY. In reality, it is Yeji.

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Remember when ITZY debuted with “ICY?”

Or when Aespa debuted with “Next Level?”

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Yeah, none of those things happened. ITZY’s debut song was “Dalla Dalla,” while Aespa debuted with “Black Mamba.”

RM said what?

There is a significant number of ARMYs who believe that this following quote was said by BTS’s RM in one of his speeches: “No one is born ugly; we’re just born in a judgmental society.” But in reality, this quote does not appear in any of his speeches.

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Nobody is born ugly we are just born in a judgmental world.

-Kim Namjoon

— wat (@waterfilla) May 7, 2020

just a reminder that yoongi never said "you were born to be real, not to be perfect" and namjoon never said "nobody is born ugly, we’re just born in a judgemental society"

— ?! (@mangajoon) December 17, 2020

Heechul and Hangeng’s mask incident

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Older fans of Super Junior remember an incident from their debut era when the group had a Chinese member called Hangeng. At that time, South Korea allowed foreigners to be on only three broadcasting channels. If they showed their faces on any other channel, they could be fined or kicked out of the country. So, Hangeng had to perform with a mask on his face when Super Junior performed on TV shows. This caused him significant pain, as he was hardly known as a Super Junior member. To help his member get the recognition he deserved, during one of the group’s performances, Heechul pulled off Hangeng’s mask and pushed him to the front of the stage.

(Left) Hangeng performing with a mask on during one of the Super Junior’s performances | lostmediawiki.com

What Heechul did was probably one of the most memorable on-screen protests in the history of K-pop, but the video of this performance seems to be completely lost. Some fans don’t even remember it happening, and there is hardly any record left of this incident.