ATEEZ’s Hongjoong And Seonghwa Delete Posts Featuring Starbucks Products
ATEEZ‘s Hongjoong and Seonghwa recently responded to fans’ efforts to inform them of the unintentional promotion of a Palestine-related boycott brand.
Following the worldwide focus placed on the humanitarian issue in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian BDS National Committee shared a list of brands to boycott, placing them in categories.
Many brands cited as being boycotted on social media are not part of actual BDS boycott targets but have since been included as organic targets.
The BDS movement did not initiate these grassroots boycott campaigns but is in support of them due to these brands openly supporting Israel’s genocide against Palestinians.
— BDS on organic boycott targets
Starbucks and McDonald’s are two of these organic boycott targets and have been at the front of social media encouraged lists. K-Pop idols’ intentional and unintentional promotions of the brands have been met with pressure from fans.
Recently, ATEEZ’s Hongjoong shared a photo set on the group’s official Instagram account that contained a picture of himself holding a Starbucks cup above his head, its logo visible.
Fans set out on campaigns to inform the group about the unintentional promotion of the brand, requesting that KQ Entertainment no longer purchase products from Starbucks and commenting on the photo set directly.
atinys pls don’t stop sending emails and keep pressuring kq to speak up cause regardless of starbucks kr not being affiliated with the main corp, posting with it is seen as promoting the brands image especially to their huge international fanbase and we will NEVER stand with that
— (ꪜ)-luvr (@sanvantes) December 25, 2023
Not long after, the photo was removed from the post.
In addition to this instance, a post that Seonghwa made on KQ’s social media platform, TOKTOQ, featuring a specialty cake from Starbucks was also removed.
Fans expressed gratitude to the artists for taking their concerns seriously.
i’m glad hwa and hongjoong deleted theirs pictures. this a good step and maybe our voices are actually being heard
— deisy☽ | EP. FIN: WILL! (@drxyun) December 27, 2023
The picture of sh’s cake also got deleted? Thank you kq and ateez😭😭
— azlen (@hwalenn) December 27, 2023
Just here to say that the ⭐bucks pics have been deleted. pic.twitter.com/qquPd4srkn
— No 1 Like Hongjoong (@HONGFOLDER) December 27, 2023
