Netizens Praise Starship Entertainment For Leaving Out Synnara Records From IVE’s Album Pre-order Notice

For the past few months, K-Pop fans have been actively trying to boycott Synnara Records, a Hongdae-based album distributor that operates worldwide. Around early January this year, there were speculations that the company has affiliations with a cult called Agadongsan.

Synnara Records was founded by Kim Gi Sun, who is the leader of Agadongsan, a cult that was exposed recently for its labor exploitation and sexual crimes in the Netflix docu-series In The Name Of God: A Holy Betrayal. Even though the Seoul High Court sent Kim to prison in 1998 on multiple charges, recently, K-Pop fans discovered that she is still allegedly the chairman of Synnara Records, and multiple of her cult members hold important positions in the company.

Initially, it was difficult for fans to organize a large-scale boycott due to the company’s large scale of operations. Apart from being a prominent offline and online seller, it also distributes albums purchased through Kakaotalk’s gifting services. But after the docu-series unveiled the truth about Agadongsan to a global audience, K-Pop fans have grown vigilant to stop buying from Synnara.

“They Killed A Child.” — Fans Boycott A K-Pop Album Distributor For Its Cult Affiliation

In light of the current situation, Starship Entertainment seems to have taken steps to support fans’ decision. The label recently announced IVE’s much-awaited first album and posted pre-order links for fans to place their purchase orders. However, their post only contained links from four platforms, Starship Square, HOTTRACKS, Aladdin, and YES24. The absence of Synnara Records from the information posted by the label was immediately noticed by netizens since the distributor was mentioned in the pre-order notice of all of IVE’s previous releases.

Starship not mentioning Synnara in their official notice doesn’t imply that Synnara won’t be taking pre-orders for IVE’s album. Fans can still place orders through the distributor. However, many feel that omitting the company in the middle of such tumultuous times couldn’t be a coincidence. Netizens praised this move, with many hoping that the next step can be blacklisting Synnara Records altogether.

• “Oh, finally…I had hoped entertainment companies catch up quickly and start pulling out good goodㅠㅠㅠ. All the companies, please get out of Synnara by yourselves just like this ^^”
• “That’s cool!”
• “They did good. I would’ve bought it no matter where they were being sold, but since the company took the step, I must follow.”
• “Oh, well done! 👍👍👍”

• “Good.”
• “That’s good.”
• “This was a good move by Starship. You gotta give them credit for that.”
• “I hope all the agencies do this.”
• “That’s cool.”