Once is a mistake, twice is a choice?
1 hour ago
In the past few years, the dominance of Korean stars at major fashion events like the Milan Fashion Week has grown exponentially. Keeping pace with the glitz and glamor of the occasion, several K-Celebs have managed to wow the global press with their best fashion foot forward. This year has been no exception, with names like aespa’s Karina, Byen Woo Seok, NCT’s Mark Lee, and MEOVV’s Gawon in attendance so far.
Gawon (L) and Karina (R) |@grazia.sg/Instagram
However, the enthusiasm of K-Pop fans surrounding the fashion week was recently dampened by a social media blunder by a widely followed media outlet. CULTED, the publication in question, recently posted about Gawon attending Prada’s show at the fashion week. However, in the video, they identified Gawon as Karina, even tagging the official Instagram account of aespa in the caption.
This move immediately received a sour reaction from fans. Soon enough, many realized that CULTED was the same outlet that identified ILLIT as NewJeans (NJZ) when they first made their Paris Fashion Week debut in 2024.
Given the significant backlash at the time, fans couldn’t brush off the suspicion that the outlet’s mislabeling of yet another K-pop artist was either intentional for engagement or simply a racial microaggression.
This gotta just be racism atp her and Karina don’t even look the same https://t.co/7KAsYdzjMG pic.twitter.com/YykDhMxEhf
— rosie 🍝 | HAPPY YUNAH DAY (@gdhsjnsjshd) January 19, 2026
Was racist then, is racist now and anyone who didn’t see that is a big idiot https://t.co/WrUUWlEc0M
— nini (@jellyously) January 19, 2026
This account is doing this on purpose..
Using illit song but gawon in the video while the caption is Karina..
They want attention https://t.co/LlZ3XirbEI
— ⟢ (@maingawon) January 19, 2026
or they’re just purely racist or they’re setting idols up to get hate https://t.co/7IbFTARWo4
— ingrid is not cute anymore (@yeovivi_) January 19, 2026
The outlet has not addressed the slip-up yet, and fans are not hopeful, given that it also didn’t take any accountability for ILLIT’s video either.