I think a lot of riyangis stayed quiet because this is a sensitive topic. People were afraid that saying anything would immediately get them labeled racist, ignorant, or dense, and many of us just wanted this to pass.
But I think we also need to talk about how this whole discourse started and who has been actively pushing it.
The first TikTok that blew this up came from someone from a specific fandom. They were repeatedly deleting comments defending Ricky or providing context while making comments like “AND2BLE is officially getting into trouble” and “Ricky is being problematic already.”
What also stood out to me was how quickly people from that same fandom rushed to bring the TikTok back to X and spread it around with comments like “finally somebody is talking about it.” From what I personally saw, they were the ones who initially pushed this discourse the hardest on X, while a specific group of fans later joined in and added fuel to the fire.
So I genuinely have to ask: did none of you notice the OP’s obvious bad-faith behavior? Were you simply choosing to ignore it? Or were some of you just so eager for another reason to drag Ricky — and perhaps his new group along with him — that the OP’s intentions didn’t matter as long as the post gave you the opportunity?
And watching this go from a discussion about a durag to people attacking his intelligence, his character, and even his humanity, while presenting themselves as morally superior, has made the whole thing even more disturbing.
Maybe riyangis need to stop being so afraid to speak up. Defending him from bad-faith attacks doesn’t mean we think he can never do anything wrong. If he genuinely does something wrong, call him out. But we don’t have to sit quietly while people twist everything into another excuse to drag him
ricky ):
🐱 i’m really unlucky today
🐱 sorry, i wasn’t feeling well during the performance earlier...
🐱right before going down for rehearsal, while i was in the waiting room, all of a sudden,
🐱i scraped a pretty big piece of skin off my thumb
🐱the bleeding wouldn’t stop, but what could i do, i still had to go on stage
🐱i went to the *hsopital now that it’s over~
🐱 i got a few stitches
🐱that’s kind of fascinating
🐱my first time getting stitched up ever
* he typoed “병원” as “변원”