Seoul — Winter, a member of SM Entertainment’s Korean girl group aespa has caused netizens to be enraged for “abusing someone else’s cat”.
The 20-year-old star posted a five-second clip of her playing with a cat online and from then on, the controversy started.
Following that, a netizen reposted the video on a forum, writing: “Is there something wrong with the way aespa Winter handles this cat?”.
Winter can be seen scratching the head of the cat in the video, and it moves away, looking slightly annoyed. The singer then started to meow at the feline. It appeared to be taken aback before making a swift retreat. The clip was also accompanied by messages from Winter, as reported by 8days.sg.
“I failed to communicate. It’s my voice!! You don’t even know my voice?!!!! It’s meeee, I failed to make friends with the cat. When I go meeeooooow, they run away. That’s really cute (sic),” she wrote.
Does seem like it is something straight out of a cat lover’s book, right?
Unfortunately, netizens did not think so and have accused the aespa singer of abusing the cat. Some netizens also took offence at how loud Winter’s attempt at communicating with the cat.
“I have cats and I’ve never screamed at them once,” wrote a netizen, while another netizen said that Winter’s “true personality is showing with the way she treats animals”.
However, Winter’s fans have stood up for her.
“I don’t think she should get hate for this,” one wrote, while another said that labelling her actions as animal abuse is “too much”.
Aespa (Korean: 에스파; RR: eseupa; MR: esŭp’a, commonly stylized in all lowercase or æspa) is a South Korean girl group formed by SM Entertainment. The group consists of Karina, Giselle, Winter and Ningning.
The group debuted on Nov 17, 2020 with the release of their debut single, “Black Mamba”.
The group’s name, Aespa, is a combination of “ae”, composed of the English initials of Avatar and Experience (Avatar X Experience), and the English word “aspect” meaning “two sides”, symbolizing “meeting another self and experiencing the new world”. /TISG