Farewell Kim Jonghyun

I grew up listening to Linkin Park, they had been one of my favourite bands. Though their latest album sounds so different from their original identity, I love it so much, I still think that they are the same Linkin Park. I remembered that I was devastated the moment I heard about the death of the vocalist, Chester Bennington. He took his own life, revealing that he had depression despite having a happy family and plastered smile on his face all the time.

Then the news broke out about the death of the main vocalist of SHINee, Kim Jonghyun. SHINee is one of the most popular K-pop group worldwide. Just like Chester, Jonghyun suffered from depression and decided to take his own life. I'm not a fan of SHINee but I did feel sad receiving the news just as bad as I heard about Chester's death.

This reveals that fame and money aren't everything and even having a loving family couldn't help someone who suffered from depression. It's a deadly disease and we must be aware of our dear ones who might be in hard times. I don't know much about depression but I did read that we shouldn't take the words "I want to die" as a joke as someone who has suicidal thoughts often reveal these words before actually doing it. 

That's that. I'm writing about Jonghyun not because I want to mourn his death nor to raise awareness about depression but some issues regarding the candlelight vigil held by his fans which was happened last Thursday near Dataran Merdeka (read here). The moment I read about the initial plan on Twitter by some of the fans, I started to worry about issues that might occur during and after the event. Fortunately, nothing happened during the event but here are some post-event issues I want to highlight.

The Media

We could read on various tabloids and online newspapers covering about the event. They reported that there were more than 100 fans gathered rather than only 20 fans during the initial plan on Twitter I've read. Honestly, there's nothing wrong with their write up, just a nice, simple article emphasizing the love of Jonghyun's fans which made the event happened. 

But, the main photo on the articles shows Muslim girls whereas actually majority of the fans who were at the event were Non-Muslim. None of the photos they took shows the exact ratio of the fans attended the event, they were too focused on few Muslim girls instead. Even the video that went viral was when a Muslim girl reading her letter to Jonghyun, not a Chinese nor Indian girl. Why no photos of a group of Chinese or Indians? What are their motives? Why initiate the hate?

Hate Comments

The one topic that I could relate to by photos of Muslim fans being the main focus of the event is religion. By revealing these few Muslim girls attended the event, we know that there were Muslims joined the event and Netizens, of course, started to bash and condemn these girls for being too fanatic and joining a haram ritual. I'm not defending the girls but words like "betina Melayu bangang pakai tudung buat malu, over dari kafir" is way more disgusting. It's okay if you just want to point out what's halal and haram to do but using foul languages and cursing the girls is not the way of a good advice and it shows that you too are not a good Muslim.

Muslim fans

Dear Muslim fans, be if you're a girl or a boy, I know the love we have for our idol is beyond what others could tell and it's normal to feel such grief for losing him but as a Muslim, we must know our limit and such event is forbidden for us as it is a practice of other faiths. Let's just cry tepi bucu katil je, okay? Here's a secret: I did cry a bit watching Jonghyun's old videos teehee.

Did you feel devastated when your favourite artist died too?

Spread love, not hate.

Till then,

Lya