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‘My Teenage Girl’: Evil editing has viewers slamming SNSD’s Yuri for elimination

MBC gives context as Girls' Generation's Yuri eliminates someone supposedly for their visuals

With several K-pop survival shows cropping up, channels are doing their best to make their programs stand out, whether it is through drastic missions or evil editing. MBC’s latest survival shows ‘Extreme Debut: Wild Idol’ and ‘My Teenage Girl’ have created a buzz for all kinds of reasons. Viewers were first shocked when ‘Extreme Debut: Wild Idol’ had participants surviving in the wild literally, while (G)I-DLE’s Soyeon went viral for being stricter than ‘Mentor Lisa’ on ‘My Teenage Girl’. And now SNSD’s Yuri has become the talk of the town with her latest decision.

We first had fans celebrating SNSD aka Girls’ Generation’s reunion for the SMCU Express album. We also got idol Yuri making a comeback for the album. At the same time, she is also a judge and mentor on the K-pop survival show ‘My Teenage Girl’. The judging panel of the show has been quite strict, calling out fans for not voting responsibly and eliminating contestants that do not reach the high standard they have set. But Yuri’s latest decision for eliminating a participant had viewers slamming her.

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Yuri' elimination decision

On December 12, Yuri eliminated contestant Lee Seung-eun. Till that episode, Seung-eun had had a good run with high scores for her impressive vocals and dancing skills. The other judges constantly praised her for her improvement. Meanwhile, the other contestant in her team who survived thanks to Yuri’s decision, Lee Jiwon was singled out for her weak performance. While explaining why Jiwon was saved and not Seung-eun, Yuri said, “There is something called a facial feature that can gather fans. Right now, we need a member who can gather the fans.” While visuals do help in attracting new fans to a group, viewers slammed the Girls’ Generation star for being shallow and prioritizing looks over talent.

With the issue exploding on Korean social media and Yuri getting constant hate since the airing of the episode, MBC decided to clarify. They released more footage to give context to Yuri’s decision and apologized for causing confusion. While discussing the elimination, in the new footage we see Yuri actually supporting Seung-eun. The K-pop idol said, “Seung-eun has grit and temperament…her skills are charismatic…she seems like a student who will survive through anything.”

MBC's apology

It seems that it was the other mentors who changed Yuri’s decision. Vocal trainer Young-ji explained that while Lee Jiwon had poorer skills, they wanted to teach and help her develop her talent which Seung-eun already had. MBC explained, “Yuri chose Lee Seung-eun, but she changed her decision after discussing with the trainers. We were not able to able properly deliver the message and her intentions during the editing process. We sincerely apologize to the viewers who felt uncomfortable.”

'Yuri is an angel'

Girls’ Generation fans and viewers were shocked at how the evil editing had ended up making Yuri the bad guy. Fans tweeted, “We will always be by ur side and supporting you.” Another shared, “Yuri is an ANGEL OK!!!!!! HATE HATEE ALL THE PEOPLE OF MBC.” One fan pointed out, “First mnet with tiffany and now mbc with yuri.. just say yall are threatened by girls generation and go.” Another said, “Survival show using my girls to get the rating but the treatment is trash.” One angry fan posted, “Yuri sweetie you hard carry that show, I'm just watching it because of u. fck mbc and haters.” However one user shared, “At the end of the day, I 1000% don’t agree with the decision. I feel in Kpop, Visuals trump talent 99% of the time and it isn’t right. I feel like they wanted to make a project out of Jiwon. It isn’t fair to her and it isn’t fair to the other girl. I don’t blame Yuri though.”