Is the group Rescene (RESCENE) being driven mad by people who can't get enough of Won-i? Unexpected allegations are wounding them emotionally and creating a sense of regret.
Rescene (Won-i, Live, Minami, Mei, Jena) is a hot girl group that has recently been writing the most dramatic growth narrative in Korea's pop music scene. The friendly dialect and gyaru concept that began on leader Won-i's personal YouTube channel helloiamwoninicetomeetyou struck social media, and by spawning memes such as "Geoje ya~ho!" it created a nationwide whirlwind.
As a result, Rescene achieved a reverse climb to No. 1 on terrestrial music shows with the title track "LOVE ATTACK" from the mini album SCENEDROME, released in Aug. 2024, and went on to claim two music show crowns with the remake single "Pretty Girl," succeeding in consecutive hits.
As their music, music shows, variety appearances and even the advertising industry swept through, 2026 is being colored by Rescene's fragrance, and with their rising popularity controversies have followed. But most of the controversies are so forced that they make you think "why bother" or "why is this happening," which is frustrating.
The hottest controversy was the allegation that Won-i used Ilbe terminology. It began when a PD at a Gyeongnam-area broadcaster posted on social media that Won-i had exchanged the phrase "museopno" with production staff and claimed it was an "Ilbe-style expression." Some netizens argued the phrase was a natural regional dialect since Won-i is from Geoje, Gyeongnam, while others said it resembled expressions used on the online community IlganBest (Ilbe), and debate continued. The political sphere added its views and the argument carried on.
After Cho Soo-jin, a lawyer and director at the Roh Moo-hyun Foundation, who had said the expression "was indeed an Ilbe-style expression," reversed herself and apologized, Byeon Gwang-yong, mayor of Geoje, also said "the expression is a dialect and colloquial expression routinely used in the Gyeongnam region, and it is not appropriate to interpret it as carrying a particular political intent," and the controversy was closed.
Another unexpected controversy arose. Recently a netizen raised allegations on social media that Won-i had been a school gangster during her student days. The post was deleted but captured content spread online. Stepping forward was Won-i's homeroom teacher from grades 2 and 3 of middle school. The teacher actively supported Won-i, releasing the graduation album and Won-i's autograph, letters Won-i sent as a student, messages of support from teachers who taught her in middle school and DMs.
The homeroom teacher said of Won-i, "Her performance assessment scores are out of 100, but the assessment consists of multiple short unit tests and she has often received scores close to full marks. She scored 10 points only once! She is a talent who even served as an officer of the student council," and then shared a photo of Won-i leading a school violence prevention campaign in front of the whole school, adding, "The students in the photo are Won-i's classmates who have maintained ties after graduation. Most of them even went on a 2 Days & 1 Night trip together in Feb. this year; they are precious students to me and still good friends to each other. Won-i could not join because of her schedule."
The forced Ilbe terminology allegation and the unexpected school gang rumor were all shown to be untrue. It is disheartening to see "malicious criticism" and "fabricated attempts to tarnish" aimed at Rescene, who are drawing attention with a moving growth narrative and finally spreading their wings two years after debut.
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