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BELIFT LAB fumbles so hard in clearing ILLIT’s plagiarism controversies

That…was definitely not the way to handle those plagiarism allegations. NGL, made everything worse on their part.

On June 10, 2024, ILLIT’s agency BELIFT LAB posted a video titled, “BELIFT LAB’s Statement In Response To Plagiarism Accusations” that addressed the girl group’s alleged copycat claims by ADOR CEO Min Hee-jin on their YouTube channel.

The 28-minute video, which included an appearance from BELIFT LAB’s CEO Kim Tae-ho and other agency staff, talked about the numerous allegations laid out by Min Hee-jin during her press conference last April 25, 2024. Some of these include the similarity between NewJeans and ILLIT’s concepts and choreography.

Parts of the video included snippets of different girl groups such as S.E.S., Fin.K.L., and Girls’ Generation, with BELIFT LAB explaining some similarities and differences in the mentioned girl groups and NewJeans. They also said that having a resemblance to a certain girl group is “customary” and normal.

BELIFT LAB also talked about NewJeans and ILLIT’s difference in audience—with NewJeans appealing more to “a generation nostalgic for the late 90s and Y2K” and even likening them as “objects for adult fantasies”, while ILLIT appeals more to “teenage fans”.

Girl groups GFriend and Lovelyz were also mentioned in the video, after stating that ILLIT did not copy NewJeans’ straight hairstyle and that there were other groups that did the same thing in the past.

Kim Tae-ho said, “I am really at a loss as to how to respond to the claim [by Min] that ‘straight hair belongs to me. Everything she creates is always ‘original,’ and even if something similar existed before her work, she insists it’s not copied. Everything that comes out after her work is considered a copy of hers. This is always the premise of Min Hee-jin’s plagiarism claims.”

Doubling on the claims of choreography plagiarism, ILLIT’s choreographer said that ILLIT did not copy NewJeans. This was accompanied by a side-by-side comparison of NewJeans’ “Ditto” (2023) and ILLIT’s “Magnetic” (2024).

Using the same logic, BELIFT LAB also accused NewJeans of plagiarizing other artists’ concept and choreography, specifically pointing out the similarities between NMIXX’s “Love Me Like This” (2023) and NewJeans’ “Ditto” (2022).

Netizens and K-pop fans reacted negatively to the video, criticized BELIFT LAB’s sorry attempt at salvaging the image of their agency, how they brought back the plagiarism accusations, and for naming different groups that shouldn’t have been mentioned.

Bunnies, NewJeans fans, also started hashtags called “BELIFT APOLOGIZE TO NEWJEANS” and “ADOR PROTECT NEWJEANS” after the numerous accusations and name-throwing done by the agency.

What a shame, really. Instead of making things better, BELIFT LAB made things a couple of times worse. Hoping for the best for ILLIT and NewJeans moving forward!

 

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