Singer Kim Dong Wan, formerly of the group Shinhwa, criticized the "poverty challenge" spreading on social media (SNS).
On the 27th, according to the entertainment industry, Kim Dong Wan recently wrote on his SNS, "It looks like treating other people's deprivation as props to call it a self-deprecating joke," adding, "Poverty is a feeling that is hard to use as a joke."
The poverty challenge refers to revealing high-priced consumption along with the phrase "this wretched poverty." It is being consumed like a meme on SNS platforms such as Instagram.
On the surface it takes the form of self-deprecating poverty, but in reality it indirectly flaunts wealth, such as riding in an expensive foreign car while saying, "Crippling poverty, I'm commuting without gas money."
The intent is to draw laughs by staging situations that do not fit with poverty, but there is criticism that it ignores and lampoons the real pain that poverty entails.
Kim Dong Wan said, "It looks like treating other people's deprivation as props to call this a self-deprecating joke," adding, "There are things you cannot say just to be funny, and there are productions that should be avoided."
He then said, "I also lived for a long time with a single mother in a semi-basement," adding, "The word that always sticks with me is poverty." As of the day, the post has been deleted.
Online, criticism continues, such as, "Can poverty be a subject for laughter or a trend?" and "If they had simply shown off wealth, I might have been envious, but this is unpleasant."