MEAWW.COM / ENTERTAINMENT / MUSIC

Is NCT expanding to Africa? Internet fears 'cultural misappropriation' after SM Entertainment's announcement

SM Entertainment’s president Lee Sung Soo shared future plans of NCT at a business conference and there have been questions since

K-pop sensation NCT consisting of many sub-groups already has 23 members and counting. In a business conference titled ‘Meet the Future – Post Pandemic’ on November 21, Lee Sung Soo addressed the future plan of NCT and it has sparked a  hilarious meme storm on Twitter.

One of the heads of the mega-entertainment company talked about making SM Entertainment ‘a cultural universe’ where all the groups under it will create a virtual world together gradually. "Here are some shots from our recent MVs, including NCT's 'Make A Wish', SuperM's 'One', and Aespa's MV which was released this week. The 'New World' that I mentioned earlier is a new universe where a story does not involve just one team, but it is a large universe shared by all of the artists that we are working with. We call this the 'SM Culture Universe'. This is the gradual fulfillment of the 'Virtual World' that we first termed and announced as our goal in 2011."

Sung Soo started talking about the individual groups and their subsequent planning when he mentioned the ever expanding nature of NCT. He said, "NCT 127, NCT Dream, NCT U, and WayV. NCT's model is one where all of these teams expand infinitely. We are planning on expanding NCT into Japan, many of the nations and regions of Southeast Asia, America, Europe, Australia, and even Africa eventually. It sounds unbelievable, right? I can't believe it either.”

And he added, “But we will fulfill it, and already, many trainees who have signed with us are pouring beads of sweat to fulfill what I just discussed. Next year, another big, new NCT team plans on debuting, so please look forward to it." SM Entertainment’s plan to expand to Africa and take on more trainees has prompted the fans to make the latest storm of memes on it since they feel Sung Soo doesn’t really know the impact of what he was saying. A fan wrote, “SM won’t even listen to fans about cultural appropriation but wanna expand NCT to other countries??? NCT AFRICA?” Another said, “they gave us a nct Africa hint back in 2018 !!”

More outraged fan posts said, “sm doesn't even treat their artists with the same race as them well, wtf they gone do with nct Africa???? are they going to be blasians or non-mixed Black ppl??? Are they going to be Asians that are just born in Africa??? will there be *more* ca??? it’s looking like a set up really” and another said, “nct africa???? not after that stunt they pulled w/ music dance”.

SM Entertainment has come under serious cultural appropriation allegations after their misuse of props of religions. Fans believe before they expand to mixed cultures, they should really learn from the past incidents.