TW: Mentions of mental health, depression, and suicide.
By the time I was a k-pop fan, F(x) hadn’t had a release in a couple years, and so I never really got into them. I am a fan of Amber’s solo career and I know a bit about Krystal through her sister Jessica, a former member of Girls Generation. But from the first time I came across her, I was a fan of Sulli. I admired her outspokenness, her style, and her activism. Sulli was an outspoken feminist, one of the first in the industry. She advocated for mental health awareness and against cyberbullying. And by all accounts from those that knew her, she was a wonderful friend. A paragraph can’t do her justice, but please check out BBC’s article on her. If you’d like to learn more, check out the special reviews section of this website. Here’s the full F(x) review.
You can imagine how horrified I was to learn about her death, and that’s one of the reasons I wanted to do this. Of course I want to learn about F(x) and their work, which I’ve heard such great things about, but I also wanted to do Sulli, who was always focused on justice for others, some justice herself.
Since Sulli’s solo career was cut short, my music review of F(x) was mainly focused on them as a group. But of course, mentioning her is unavoidable, since she was (and is) such an integral part of the band, and it wouldn’t be fair to ignore her, to Sulli or to anyone else who’s struggled with depression. Going through their singles like this, I’d honestly almost forgotten why I started this review when it suddenly hit me. I was smiling and laughing and dancing along, and then with Red Light it hit me like a punch to the gut that one of the girls I kept seeing—I say girl because she was only fifteen when they debuted—can’t dance any longer. It strikes me that it’s so easy to forget that, too, when all you see is the glossy sheen and none of what’s behind it.
This review was a very bittersweet experience, to be honest. I didn’t think it was possible to love Sulli more than I did when I started, but I was wrong. The world lost someone who was such a net positive, and not just because of her talents, but because of how she used her platform for advocacy that many others were scared of—and still are scared of. Like the BBC said, she was incredibly brave to stand up against the k-pop industry, and she changed it for the better.
It’s a damn shame that Sulli isn’t still with us, and it’s a wake up call that we need to do better—in campaigning for women, in protecting victims of cyberbullying, in mental health advocacy—for both her and ourselves. If you’ve made it this far in the review, thank you so much. I hope it’s brought you some comfort, somehow, and if it has, I’m so glad. So I’d just like to say, whatever you’re going through, it’s going to be alright. Sulli thought that taking her own life was the only way out, but she was wrong. There’s always, always a light at the end of the tunnel.
So, take a deep breath, take your meds, cuddle your cat, call your friend, eat pizza, watch a dumb drama, do anything. Because anything is better than nothing. You can do this. I’m rooting for you. And so is Sulli.
Next time, we’re back to our regularly scheduled programming. Tschüss, and take care of yourselves out there, folks.
Let me know your thoughts!