Esther Yu Shuxin Apologises for Fans’ Behaviour
Just another day in Chinese entertainment as another celebrity in the form of THE9’s Esther Yu Shuxin is forced to apologise for the behaviour of some of her fans online. We all know how fans can get fiercely protective of their idols, but Esther’s fans took things a little too far today when they badgered a well known university to expel a student who spoke out against Esther and who refused to apologise for it when fans called her out.
It all began when a Netizen took to social media to complain about how articles of “laolai’s daughter” Esther Yu Shuxin kept popping up on her homepage once again, saying that the internet really has no memory and that she’s finally going to unfollow a blogger she has been following for a long time. Just to refresh everyone’s memory, the term laolai 老赖 refers to what is essentially a “debt dodger”, something Esther’s mum Liu Jin Mei has been accused of doing after it was reported that she owed more than two million in debt which she refused to repay despite having the financial capacity to do so.
An hour after her post, comments from Esther’s fans started to flood in, accusing the Netizen of being disrespectful and insulting. Of course it also didn’t help that the Netizen was far from apologetic, fanning the flame even further by directly engaging with fans and provoking them. However, the online abuse must have been too much for her because she eventually deleted her blog and changed the name.
That didn’t stop enraged fans from somehow digging out the Netizen’s personal information though and going directly to her university to demand her expulsion and that she be severely dealt with for spreading rumours and slandering others on social media.
Zhongnan University of Economics and Law Weighs In While Esther Yu Apologises
Faced with fan’s badgering, the university actually pinged back to leave everyone with just a quote from French psychologist Gustave Le Bon’s book The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind about “mobocracy” or crowd psychology as a food for thought. “The blind obedience of the crowd will overwhelm the individual’s rationality. Once an individual belongs to the group, his or her original independent rationality will be overwhelmed by the collective’s ignorance and madness.”
With so many players added into the mix and now the Netizen’s university involved, Esther Yu released a short apology today for her fans’ behaviour saying “I’m sorry everyone. I hope I can finally put an end to everything that has happened because of me. I’m sorry to everyone who was inconvenienced and I hope the new year will bring you all good things.” The idol’s apology had some fans come forward to tell her it’s their fault and that there’s no need to say sorry for the ruckus they caused.
However, there are also those that feel unsatisfied because they say the apology isn’t sincere and that the recipient of the fans’ online harassment should be the one receiving the apology.
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