Recently Seventeen made a comeback by releasing an album titled 'FML' which broke the record for best-selling album sales on the Hanteo chart. Sales reached 4.5 million copies within one week of its release. This is a blessing as well as an achievement that the 13 members of Seventeen should be proud of as well as other people who have contributed to the production of FML.
However, this success did not go smoothly for nothing. FML's best-selling album turned out to also have unwanted consequences. Quoting Koreaboo, Seventeen fans in Korea received criticism for leaving open albums in public spaces or on the streets. Carat (as Seventeen fans) have tried to persuade fellow fans to take responsibility for their purchases.
However, some fans who only consider a few items in an album purchase set instead dispose of the album cover and photobook in a way that Korean society doesn't like. They would not let the albums take up space in their homes or take them home from stores, as they were thrown away, instead they were often seen on the street near record stores.
In one case, K-Pop fans faced backlash when they donated an open album with inserts removed. Korea is a very strict country regarding recycling and waste disposal. Most of the time, every building and street has its own disposal area, and it is frowned upon for someone to dispose of trash in an area not allocated to them. Public trash cans are a different matter!
This is also because waste needs to be bagged and tied up before being dumped in a landfill. Leaving entire album boxes on the street like Seventeen's fans do is highly disliked by the public. The spread of this issue has made haters have new reasons to drop the Seventeen group. In another case, a fan found an open album left in a cafe inside a record store.
Although they had left a note saying "anyone can pick up the album if they want", they were criticized for leaving the album in a cafe unrelated to any Seventeen fans or events. Not only that, other fans also left bags containing albums on the public sidewalk in front of the record store. However, the behavior of this group of fans cannot define the entire Seventeen fandom.
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