This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/hobbydrama by /u/imnanbaboya on 2025-11-02 10:30:51+00:00.
Imagine. You’re a young Chinese man who’s just gotten the opportunity of a lifetime. The biggest talent agency in Korea wants you as a part of one of Asia’s biggest boy bands. Of course, you jump at the chance. To anyone, it’d seem like a one-way ticket to enormous fame. But when you finally step out on the stage, you’re met with not cheers, but protests. Unbeknownst to you, you’ve been made the scapegoat of fandom drama that will continue to terrorize you for the rest of your career. Doesn’t that sound crazy? Well, if your name happens to be Henry Lau or Zhou Mi, you don’t have to imagine, because you’ve been living in this reality for 18 years.
Hear ye, hear ye, for K-pop drama that has been going on for longer than some of you have been born. Gather for a tale of fan fuckery, company fuckery… just all around fuckery. And it all starts in 2007—but in order to understand, we have to go back to 2005. I will confess that there has actually been a writeup about this incident in the past, but it was quite unfocused, and I’d like to dive deeper into the specifics of the controversy. But without further ado, this is the story of the Only13 movement, and how two men were subjected to one of the worst fates in history: becoming the unwitting enemy of thousands of angry K-pop fans.
Before we start, please note that this writeup hinges mostly on Korean-language sources, as English sources from this long ago are quite spotty and decentralized. Even in Korean, I mostly grabbed from various Daum Cafés, which I admit may be a little narrow of a source to grab from. I was not there at the peak of this drama, so I can only repeat and make inferences from posts that are still up. In short, take everything here with a grain of salt!
Prelude
The main characters of this story are Super Junior (also known as SuJu), a K-pop group that debuted in November 2005. With an original lineup of 12 members, they were a very experimental effort, especially for their time. Their record label, SM Entertainment, intended for Super Junior to be a “project group.” What this meant was that Super Junior would serve as a “stepping stone” for future SM talent, and that once a star grew big enough, they would exit and be replaced—in other words, rotational. Accordingly, some Super Junior members had already made names for themselves by starring in TV shows and the like. Onlookers often called them the “Korean Morning Musume” in their early days, but I think comparing them to Johnny’s Juniors would be more appropriate—even the name matches, and before debut they were initially called SM Junior or just “juniors” within the company.
The reaction to Super Junior’s announcement was mostly… confusion. In 2005, 12 members was massive—they had not been the first group to exceed 10 members, but they definitely were the first major one. (The next largest group of note up to that point, a 90s group called O.P.P.A., was an 8-piece; Nonstop were the first to exceed 10, having 11, but they only released one album before disappearing.) Some people debated how a 12-member group would even work, while others lamented how the guy they had been waiting to debut would have to fight with 11 other men for attention. The prospect of members being replaced also didn’t sit well in the K-pop scene, where idol fandoms thrive on inter-group dynamics. But on November 6, 2005, Super Junior officially entered the scene with their first album, Twins, and gathered themselves a large fanbase (commonly known as the ELFs, for EverLasting Friends) that would drive them to mountainous success.
Now, let’s fast forward a few months, to May 2006. At this point, Super Junior had wrapped up promotions for the song “Miracle” and were preparing to release their first single, “U.” But during an entertainment news program documenting the filming of “U”'s music video, fans noticed something was different about Super Junior. There were… 13 of them? Soon after, the mysterious thirteenth member was revealed to be Cho Kyuhyun, an 18-year-old who was to join Super Junior as their youngest member along with promotions of “U.” And fans were… not that against it, from the sources I’ve seen. There was definitely backlash towards Kyuhyun, but most were just relieved they weren’t removing anyone yet, and even those on the edge came to accept him after seeing how supportive the other Super Juniors were. If people were mad, they weren’t coming to the SM building and throwing rocks, at least. Afterwards, the Super Junior members came out straight up denying the idea of “generations” or “rotation,” and fans sighed in relief, knowing that their favorite group was safe from any more messing around. The 13-member Super Junior would become the “flagship” incarnation of the group to many, despite only lasting two full albums and a single (for reasons unrelated to the source of this drama). If you thought Super Junior, for a long time you’d think of the number 13.
But what if Super Junior was 14? Or 15? Well, fans would soon find out, and they wouldn’t be happy…
Overture
2007—for Super Junior, it was the best of times and the worst of times. Though throughout the year, the group had regularly been wrapped up in controversy and tragedy (long story, those who know know), Super Junior’s fandom, and their reach, might have been the loudest they’d ever been. Possibly to the point of annoyance; they were becoming the next TVXQ with how little anyone wanted to do with their fans. A famous example from this time was when Leeteuk, the group’s leader, remarked that figure skater Kim Yuna rejected his Cyworld friend request and thousands of angry ELFs terrorized her Cyworld page only for his comment to be a lie he made up “for fun.” Fans were loyal to an obsessive extent, which despite being a nuisance, also worked wonders for their commercial success. This was the situation when Super Junior released their second full album, Don’t Don, in September 2007. The ELFs were all over it—they made it sell over 60,000 copies in two weeks, and would bring it to the second highest selling album of 2007 by the end of the year. “Don’t Don,” its title track, was a classic 2000s SM boy group-style affair, with its rock-inspired instrumentation, harsh lyrics criticizing the ills of society, and orchestral elements—most notably of the last being its violin solo, played by a mysterious, never-before-seen young trainee.
All would’ve been good in SuJu-land, if this figure had stayed as a faceless violin player. But he also shot some promotional pictures with the rest of the group and appeared on stage during performances. The problem was, literally nobody knew this guy. Some were under the impression that he was an existing member, but there were also fears that this person would be joining Super Junior as their 14th member. The truth was, this mysterious violinist was Henry Lau, an 18-year-old Chinese-Canadian trainee SM were, according to rumors, planning to debut as a soloist and merely promoting through Super Junior. Many were confused as to why SM would want to debut a violinist, but they couldn’t deny that Henry was incredibly skilled, and many supporters came out of the woodwork for this young man. That warm reception lasted for about a week… before SM made an announcement that would change everything.
Crescendo
On October 3, 2007, news outlets reported the formation of Super Junior China, a subgroup (or “unit”) of Super Junior specifically marketed towards China. In K-pop terminology, a subunit is a variation of a group containing a different lineup, made to experiment with new sounds or concepts. Super Junior China was not the first unit under the Super Junior name; before, there had been the likes of Super Junior-K.R.Y. (a ballad-focused trio featuring the most vocally skilled members) and Super Junior-T (a …
Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/comments/1omdyxt/kpop_the_18year_fight_to_oust_two_dudes_from_a/