Netizens raised eyebrows after ZEROBASEONE members didn't seem to recognize their own birthday gifts for their group member Ricky during a recent live broadcast.

ZEROBASEONE, a K-pop male idol group formed through Mnet's survival program 'Boys Planet', recently held a birthday live broadcast where the members were seen celebrating member Ricky's birthday. During one moment, the members played a game where Ricky gathered all his gifts from his group members and had to guess who each of them were from. While this was a completely harmless game, netizens raised their eyebrows when the members all seemed unable to recognize their own gifts for Ricky.

Shortly after the broadcast, one netizen took to an online community forum and created a post titled, "Idols who have staff members buy their birthday gift for them". Here, the netizen addressed ZEROBASEONE's recent live broadcast and wrote, "For Ricky's birthday, the members played a game where he had to guess who gave which gift to him, but the problem is that the members who were right next [to the gifts] reacted as if they saw the gifts for the very first time. They also spoke in a way that said, 'I guess they prepare things like this'. So among fans, there's a lot of people saying they think the staff members bought the gifts. They did the same thing yesterday, for Matthew's birthday too. [One member] wrote in his card that he is gifting a single flower, but the actual gift was given like this [as a bouquet]."

Netizens commented:

"I think the members who are really close will give him a gift separately and I don't mind, but it bothers me that they're acting in front of the camera."

"I hate this because it seems like a forced gift."

"I guess they're not close enough to use money to buy each other gifts."

"They did this for the last member's birthday too, but I guess they do this for every birthday."

"They should at least act so that it's not obvious. They're amateurs. Lolll."

"I guess this is the reason why companies make idols stick together for a long time during their trainee period..."

"Idols are usually all very different from what they seem to be."

"I'm a fan, but I just wish they wouldn't do this starting from the next birthday. I don’t know what they're trying to do with gifts bought by the staff members."