SM Faces Fierce Backlash For aespa’s Recent Video
Recently, aespa released a behind-the-scenes video for their performance at the 2025 MAMA Awards.
However, many international fans were frustrated with the group’s translation team.
They felt that for a company as big as SM, they would have a professional team that focuses on subtitles for foreign fans.
what is up with aespa’s translation team??? a multi million dollar company and you cant have decent english subs for the only few behind-the-scenes videos you release on your youtube? these are ALL wrong, from half-assed to straight up the opposite of what they actually said.. pic.twitter.com/FcwwxQ8VTN
— 포도 (@podomj) January 6, 2026
Fans discovered many scenes where the translations were off, and were tired of misunderstanding the videos.
this sequence is all wrong too. it should be “at school, we had a dodgeball tournament where we invited student’s dads and my dad looked at the opposing team and told them to run away, to not get hit by the ball from me” pic.twitter.com/iIeIGnYFXZ
— 포도 (@podomj) January 6, 2026
Fans agreed that the company has not taken action regarding this and felt that even AI could’ve translated it better.
Same shit has been happening over and over sm does not give a fuck 😭 https://t.co/BzufzQmPKg
— Sam (@winterhagfan) January 6, 2026
ngl I miss the days when companies didn’t sub anything, and instead fansub grps did the heavy lifting of translating everything https://t.co/uIioIuS0A4
— ash¹²⁷ 🍀🦕 (@inspiritzen_) January 7, 2026
knowing sm they probably fired the translation and switched to Ai a long time ago https://t.co/S7SchPMpno
— plsdontlookatme⭐💙 (@randomasssergal) January 6, 2026
I wonder if they’re using an AI translations or smth. That’s the only explanation I can think of for straight up incorrect subs like this https://t.co/u5oT3vCAm2
— 동네 Unnie (@DongnaeUnnie) January 6, 2026
Meanwhile, check out the full video below!
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