Non-Koreans are probably not aware, but the past 3 days on Korean internet were a complete shitshow.
Note that I'm summarizing quite a bit.
The incident started with a voice actor for a Korean Online game called Closers posting a T-shirt she bought.
The shirt only says "Girls don't need a prince" which, by itself, doesn't seem like a problem.
The problem lay with the creators of the T shirt, a website called Megalia.
Megalia is a feminazi website that is pretty much universally hated on the Korean internets. Their purpose on the website actually said at one point "promoting misandry and female supremacy."
Examples of incidents they caused include spread of child pornography they produced with a little boy, celebrating the Korean War because so many men died, kindergarten teacher admitting that she was a pedophile (actively saying that she wants to fuck the little kids), filming the men's changing rooms/restrooms, poisoning their male bosses, sharing pics of mutilated penises, falsely accusing a webtoon author as a rapist, harassing many male authors in the industry etc. etc. etc. There's pretty much someone getting arrested weekly. (And yes. In Korea, you could sue someone online for the things they said and done online, even if it's anonymous)
The said T shirt was created to fund legal costs for people who have been sued for their crimes on the website. Biggest one being covering the legal costs for the woman who falsely accused that one author of being a rapist.
Anyways, when the said voice actor posted a pic on her twitter, people asked if she knew who made that T shirt. She said she knew, and told people that Megalia stood for female rights and promotes feminism (which is not true).
This caused fans of the game to rise and complain to Nexon, which resulted in the said voice actor's clips being deleted and her contract not being renewed. (not fired. she did what she was hired for. Nexon just removed all her voice clips and decided to take damage)
Cue the shit show.
Many Manwhakas, webtoon artists, game devs, illustrators, singers, light novel writers, voice actors, scholars, and even politicians started joining in the scene, saying that the voice actor was fired just because of that T shirt and it goes against equivalent rights and so on.
And people were trying to explain to bunch of these people that The T shirt itself is not the problem, but it's the organization that created it, and the money that it's going to be used for that's the problem.
But they're not listening.
Instead, bunch of these idiots believe that they're on the right side, calling the opposers misogynists and banning bunch of people from their websites and twitters.
Some even started calling their readers and fans just slaves that bring them money, and they don't stand on equal ground to even discuss any of these issues. This became the final straw for most people.
Add people who don't even know what the hell is going on, joining in just because they saw the words "feminism" and "misogyny," adding fuel to the fire. These people created echo chambers for the said authors and they simply refuse to listen, and instead calling everyone else retarded neanderthals who don't even deserve to read their webtoons.
Many of these authors calling their fans their slaves, dogs, pigs, whatever (Korean curse words don't translate that well) turned out to be artists working for Lezhin Comics. (where all the NSFW stuff comes from).
Lezhin comics was basically seen as what we'd view Steam as over in the West. While most contents are paid content, it guaranteed authors with set salaries + incentives based on people buying their books and chapters, rather than what most other websites were doing - getting paid only by popularity, views, and ad revenues.
Basically, it was considered the savior of the graphic novel industry that was burned down 30 years ago (literally. It's a long story)
Now, people are getting sick of these guys, hundreds of people requested Lezhin for refunds (causing huge damage) and in case the refund could not be honored, buying contents of the authors that suffered from Megalia previously (and that one author who got his first pay the day before the shitshow started. Sympathy is strong)
The Aftermath? (well, it's still ongoing)
Lezhin's upper brass is panicking like hell because they recently got 50 Million dollar investment, this shit show is happening, people are deleting their accounts and requesting refunds, etc. The investors are beginning to make their move.
There's this new censorship law which wished to censor webtoons. People were against it, but many people are actively and supporting it now, saying these idiots we used to be fans of deserve it.
the fans/readers are feeling VERY betrayed at the fact that the authors were viewing them as gophers bringing them fame and money. Nothing else, nothing more.
Many are making blacklists and boycotting. (which is already seeing some effect, as some illustrators and devs are already getting fired)
It took 30 years to change the image of industry from immature loons taking money from children and poisoning their minds, to actual artists with visions and messages.
Well that 30 years just burned down to the ground.
TLDR:
People of industry caught in feminazi scheme. Refuses to acknowledge their mistake. Truly believes that their money will go for feminist movement and female equality. (Or do they?) Instead, the money will go to misandric criminals to cover their legal costs. Fans try to correct them. Authors, illustrators, etc. instead form an echo chamber. Starts calling their fans slaves whose only job is to bring them money. Fans fucking pissed. Boycotting ensues. Businessmen panicking. Authors still have no idea what they did wrong. Few hardcore fans are sucking their asses.
UPDATE: hahahahaha I need to add this. Someone called Disney and reported one of the artists selling NSFW doujinshi of disney and marvel characters. She also made her own figurines and stuff. bye~~~
Jesus fuck, some people captured all of this fiasco and sent to huge Christian organization, PTA, and the censorship dept.
Some authors changed their twitter profile picture into their actual faces, and changed the handle to their real name. This allows them to file a lawsuit to people talking shit about them.
Author of Denma pretty much confirmed that she's part of the site. Fans despairing.
Someone claiming to be in high position in a big company said that they updated the manual on how to take care of Ilbe (the male equivalent to Megal that was problem some time ago) to include Megalian.
aaaaaay Toptoon's 동창모임 has been removed. First thing you see when you go on the website is their official statement (
http://toptoon.com/weekly). People who paid for it are getting full refunds. Lezhin's getting more shit because they're not taking action.
Some lawsuits were filed by fans. It went through.
UPDATE 2: Fuck. Now it ignited the politics scene. Basically the opposing party to the current ruling party backstabbed a crap ton of supporters and now there's bunch of people quitting the party.
More fuel added to the fire due to some women trying to pretend to be men to undermine the opposing side, asking others to pretend to be men and start some shit.
http://imgur.com/KbCkDTDThe author of DICE posted stuff supporting Megalia. The title actually said "I don't know much about this but..." Promptly deleted his post. People are attacking him now. Already had a lot of haters because of Pink Lady incident.
Update 3: mmk, seeing more major authors apologizing. For some reason it's coming up all at once, so people are assuming that it's just for their face before it gets worse. Yeah, apology is not getting accepted.
Update 4: Fuck. One of the assistants of Tower of God turned out to be part of this. He talked shit about the readers parents (talking shit about your parents is a huge taboo zone in Korea, and will get you a lawsuit for sure)
update 5: According to SIU, the assistant stepped down from her position. But the assistant claims that she was fired unfairly because of misogyny
http://imgur.com/agkWKb5Writer for Space China Dress tweets and hashtags I'm "megalian"
http://imgur.com/E1QcDuR. The writer already had fair share of haters. When some people complained about it being a little too sexual, he pinned it all on the artist and the series was axed due to the conflict between him and the artist.
...well, over 10000 people outed as being megalian on twitter with the hashtag...