Psick Univ Changes Jang Won-young Thumbnail After Sexual Harassment Controversy “Not Intentional”
On May 20th, “Psick Univ” replaced the thumbnail of IVE Jang Won-young’s video uploaded on the channel on the 5th and revealed their position, saying “We only wanted to make the guest stand out in the original thumbnail. There was no other intention. We decided to replace the thumbnail to protect the cast”.
The controversy over the thumbnail occurred as Jang Won-young’s images covered parts of the show’s logo “PSICK” but the shown part reminded viewers of the provocative word “FXXK”. Therefore, fans poured criticism on the show’s production team, saying “It looks so much like the slang word ‘Fxxk’”, “I think they purposely covered the logo with her images to make it look like the word ‘Fxxk’”, “The word ‘Show’ was also covered to look like ‘she’. That’s an obvious sexual harassment”, etc.
Not only Korean viewers, but overseas fans also expressed discomfort about the thumbnail and demanded the production team to replace the thumbnail.
In fact, the thumbnails of the other 96 episodes of “Psik Show” videos show the faces of the guests and the MCs side by side overlaying the ‘PSICK Show’ logo, unlike that of Jang Won-young’s episode. The show has been consistently applying this logo format to all episodes without exception. In the episode of Hyun Woo-jin, which was uploaded on the channel after Jang Won-young’s video, the thumbnail layout returned to the original one.
Some netizens believe that it was a coincidence. They commented, “I don’t think they intended to do that”, “If it was intentional, Jang Won-young’s agency would not stay still”, etc.
Meanwhile, this is not the first time the YouTube channel “Psick Univ” has faced criticism. In a previous video uploaded on the 11th, the cast members Lee Yong-joo, Jung Jae-hyung, and Kim Min-soo were pointed out to have made disparaging remarks toward certain occupational and age groups. As controversy arose, “Psick Univ” issued an apology on the 18th.
