On May 18, GFriend's fans were shocked when Source Music suddenly announced that all six members will not be renewing their contract with the company.
The entertainment agency suddenly announced that the members have all decided to go their separate ways after six years of promotion and activities, leaving fans in a state of confusion and distress. After the announcement was made, fans were left with so many unanswered questions and concerns as the girl group still had scheduled content that was planned to be released in the future.
In addition, GFriend's fandom, BUDDY, banded together to request the company for an explanation and expressed their anger as the agency announced the expiration of the girl group's contract only four days before the contract ending date. Fans gathered and wrote a statement of their dissatisfaction.
The fans wrote,
"1. The company notified fans of the termination of the contract just four days before the expiration date. GFriend debuted on Jan 16 but their debut was delayed so the fans were not aware of the exact date of the contract expiration.
2. GFriend members still continued to communicate with their fans on Weverse 8 hours before the announcement of the contract termination.
They even continued to upload G-ING (Gfriend's vlogs) a day before and Umji even did a VLive. Source Music uploaded a new schedule on the day the announcement was made but deleted it, which means they are cutting off all the schedules after the end of the contract.
3.There are still schedules that have not yet been completed.
There are only two rounds of Yuju's 'Halli Queen' and at the end of round 2, it says 'To be continued.' That means there is another episode. Yerin has the third season of 'Beauty Time' scheduled for the 30th.
4. There is still time left for the memberships
Each membership costs 25,000 KRW (~$22.16) for one year. However, if the contract ends on May 22 and the membership becomes unusable, then the people who bought the membership lose out on few months of it.
5. There are articles that were uploaded five minutes faster than the company's official statement.
The first article was posted on 11:46 but the official statement from Source Music was posted 11:51.
6. There was a fan sign event that was postponed because of ___.
The fans waited patiently because it was because of ____ but the reply we got back was a termination of the contract."
Because of these various questions, GFriend's fans have requested Source Music to release a statement answering all the questions that the fans have.
Fans have gathered to an online community to further express their anger and how upset they are about the agency's actions. Netizens commented, "What's going on?" "Omg, is GFriend disbanding? So suddenly??" "Oh no, what's going to happen to the membership and the fan sign event," "What is going to happen to them?" "If the group stops their activities, they need to refund the membership money," "Wow, this is so rude," "The agency has no care for the fans," "This is ridiculous, I'm so mad," "I feel so bad for all the fans," "The company has no respect for the fans. Not even a little bit," "Oh wow, the company is not going to take care of the fans' memberships?" and "The company is so bad, I can't believe they announced just four days before and deleted all the future contents."
I am confused on why fans don't just ask the girls on their social media sites. Everyone wants to place blame on the agency without every thinking about the opinion of the artist. The agency can't FORCE the girls to re sign with them. So if the girls didn't want to, instead of attacking the agency, ask the girls why. Ask them why and what's their next steps. Not in a rude way, but because they have fans who truly appreciate them and their work. It was a shocking announcement, yes. But attacking HBYE and SOURCE isn't going to fix anything. I am sure the girls will talk about this soon.
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