IVE‘s Yujin recently opened up during an episode of “Yoo Quiz On The Block” about the hardships she endured on “Produce 48” and beyond.
She shared that this was her first experience with hard times. She went in thinking others will have a positive reaction to her.
What I still remembered until now, I think the audition program was the first hardship that happened. I went there thinking, ‘I’m getting a lot of love, I think people will like me.’
— Yujin
Though she had many fans, there were also haters. This was her first time dealing with these types of people.
But when I appeared in that show, I felt the shock of ‘There’s people who don’t like me in this world.’
— Yujin
She was only surrounded with love from fans, though that didn’t stop any hate from surfacing on the internet. At a young age, she accepted the fact that people will always have something rude to say.
Honestly as we went on our daily lives, we don’t really meet with people who would say ‘I don’t like you’ to us, right? I think I needed some time to digest the fact that ‘though I didn’t even do a mistake that big, there’s still people who don’t like me.’
— Yujin
She felt a sense of being “trapped” by what people said about her online at the time.
Every week, the rankings are decided by voting, so when we had to stand according to the ranking, I think that’s the start where I was trapped in the reactions on the internet.
— Yujin
Netizens supported her wholeheartedly in the comments.
- “The adults who claimed to make dreams come true for these genuinely passionate kids, only to put them on display for evaluation and use them for their greedy money-making schemes, are truly legendary in a bad way. I think Yujin would have succeeded no matter what, even without Produce 101! I love seeing her working awesomely with great members 👏💗 Yujin’s smile is my favorite.”
- “Produce 101 really… Regardless of ranking, it made kids of that age endure way too much criticism they shouldn’t have had to face.”
- “Even going forward, they won’t be entirely free from reactions and judgments like this, but I hope they overcome it well.”
- “The Produce 101 madness really is something else.”
- “Please know that there are far more people who like and support Yujin than keyboard warriors leaving hateful comments.”
At age 15, Yujin was extremely young to deal with such harsh criticism. However, it seems it has made her grow stronger and develop a positive mindset moving forward.
