On December 16, NewJeans members Minji, Hanni, Danielle, Haerin, and Hyein posted a heartfelt message for Min Hee-jin‘s birthday on their new social media account, @jeanzforfree.
In particular, the girl group shared the message, “Happy birthday Director-nim”, along with pictures and videos.
One of the posted videos featured a young Danielle singing the “Happy Birthday” song. Additionally, they shared an image of a bunny wearing a birthday hat — a symbol associated with NewJeans’ characters among fans.
Min Hee-jin acknowledged their gesture by liking the post, expressing her gratitude.
On top of that, NewJeans also changed their Instagram bio from 5 hearts in the members’ representative colors, pink, yellow, green, and purple, to 5 animal emojis symbolizing the 5 members.
This change is suspected to be due to criticisms from fans of SM girl group Red Velvet, which was another group influenced by Min Hee-jin’s creative direction.
In particular, fans of Red Velvet pointed out that Red Velvet members use the similar representative colors, leading to accusations that NewJeans is “copying” Red Velvet.
On the other hand, NewJeans opened their new Instagram account on December 14, which uses the name “Jeanz” instead of NewJeans, sparking speculations about the girl group using a new name after leaving ADOR.
After the first post about showing support for protestors for the Korean President’s impeachment, the members have since diligently published updates on this account, which has surpassed 2.4 million followers since the opening.
They also opened the comment section and directly interacted with fans.
The new Instagram account comes after NewJeans held a press conference on November 28, where they announced the termination of their exclusive contract with ADOR as of November 29. The members claimed that the termination was due to ADOR’s breaches of contract and stated that there are no obligations for compensation or further lawsuits.
