The problem with idle is that they keep getting themselves in trouble for their “cultural appropriation” scandals.

I actually have a very nuanced opinion on this personally as a non-American. I live in the states currently and see why the conversation about cultural appropriation is valuable in general and, but necessary specifically the US’ cultural context. what most Americans don’t understand however, is that most other countries don’t have this conversation, at least not yet. The US has a (arguably ongoing) history of suppressing minorities, claiming the fruit of their labor as their own, and then not really dealing with the fallout, so you have this weird dynamic where some people are hypersensitive towards CA, and others think it’s 100% bs. Be that as it may, South Korea does not have a prevalent history of cultural colonialism, so CA isn’t really on people’s radars. (Again, as a non American I totally get that. It’s not really on people’s radar in my native country either. We have a slew of other issues in the past we’re dealing with, but this isn’t really one of them, at least it’s so far from the major one that it’s not really important in comparison). So I get why idle keep doing it - they just don’t think it’s that big a deal and see it as a form of appreciating and being inspired. Doesn’t change the fact that a lot of Americans (specifically the young demographic that consume kpop) really care though, and that it would lead to massive amounts of bad press.