A livestream turns an image-abuse row into a public spectacle
An influencer alleged to have posted images of TOMORROW X TOGETHER's Soobin, which fans have treated as explicit deepfakes, used a livestream to address the row without naming the idol. According to Koreaboo's report on 21 October 2026, he described the pictures as screenshots taken from a video and implied that the episode was not a one-off incident. He also claimed, per the same report, that he had not known Soobin was an idol at the time.
That combination — an unverified allegation, delivered vaguely, on a live stream — is what has turned a complaint about alleged fabricated sexual imagery into a running public argument. The practical significance is bigger than one broadcast: fans are now asking who is responsible when a claim about an idol's private life is performed for an audience, and what a company can realistically do about it.
What fans are actually angry about
The anger reported by Koreaboo is not simply about the existence of the images. Netizens accused the influencer of using Soobin for attention and of making claims that could damage an idol's career, and several online reactions called for legal consequences rather than further explanation. The tone of those reactions matters: the grievance is about consent and reputational harm, not curiosity about whether the underlying story is true.
That distinction is easily lost once clips circulate. A livestream built around implication gives an audience something to decode, and decoding is more shareable than a legal complaint. For a fandom, the frustrating part is the asymmetry — an idol and his company are expected to answer for material they did not create or choose to publish, while the person making the claims controls the pace of disclosure.
The gap fans have picked in the account
Reactions highlighted an apparent contradiction in the influencer's version of events. Saying he did not know Soobin was an idol sits awkwardly alongside hints of a prior connection, and fans pointed to TXT's heavy schedule of tours and comebacks as reason to doubt that any such encounter could have gone unnoticed. Others questioned why someone allegedly unaware of an idol's identity would have been filming in circumstances he describes.
None of that resolves the underlying question, and it is worth being clear that the discrepancy is a fan observation rather than a verified finding. What it does show is how quickly an unverified account collapses under ordinary scrutiny — and how little that collapse does to undo the circulation of the images themselves.
A pressure campaign already in motion
This is not the first organised response to the images. Earlier reporting described a mass email campaign targeting BIGHIT MUSIC, with fanbases pressing HYBE and the group's label for legal action and a public statement over alleged AI deepfakes of Soobin. That effort reframes the issue from fandom argument to corporate responsibility: fans are asking the company to treat fabricated sexual imagery of its artist as a matter to be pursued, not endured.
Koreaboo's latest report concentrates on the influencer's livestream and the reaction to it rather than on any response from HYBE or BIGHIT MUSIC. The question fans keep returning to is therefore straightforward, even if the answer is not yet public: what steps, if any, are being taken behind the scenes, and will anyone confirm them?
Why the label's next move carries weight
Companies in this position face a genuine tension. A statement that repeats the allegation in detail can amplify it; a statement that says too little can look like indifference to an artist's wellbeing. Legal processes also tend to be quieter and slower than the news cycle that demands them, which means fans often hear nothing during exactly the period when they most want reassurance.
For readers, the useful thing to watch is not rumour but procedure: whether a formal complaint is acknowledged, whether a platform removes material, and whether the company's public position shifts. Those are checkable developments. Everything else in this story currently rests on one person's unverified account and on fan interpretation of it.
Consent is the issue, not the gossip
Strip away the speculation and the harm is easy to describe. Distributing sexual imagery of a person without their consent is abusive whether the image is real or fabricated, and a fabricated image adds a further injury: the subject is shown doing something they never did, in a form that is difficult to disprove and almost impossible to contain. The fact that an image may be synthetic does not make its circulation a lesser act.
The wider K-pop conversation about AI and likeness has been building. Separately, Stone Music's AI boy group muuo drew accusations that its members' visuals mimicked real idols, raising overlapping questions about how quickly synthetic material can borrow a real person's face and reputation. Deepfakes of this kind sit at the sharpest end of that spectrum, because the intent is not homage or imitation but exposure.
The fan response that helps, and the one that does not
Some of the most widely shared reactions treated the livestream as confirmation of something about Soobin rather than as an unproven claim about him. That instinct is worth resisting. An allegation made without evidence, by someone with an audience to build, does not become information because it is repeated often enough; treating it as a reveal rewards exactly the behaviour fans say they want punished.
The more effective responses visible in the reporting are the unglamorous ones: organised pressure on the company, requests for platform action, and refusing to circulate the material further. Fans who want to support an artist in this situation can do so without hosting the images, naming the claims as fact, or turning a private-life allegation into content.
The takeaway
What is established is narrow but important: alleged explicit deepfakes of Soobin have been circulating, an influencer has addressed them in vague terms on a livestream, and fans are angry at both the material and the performance around it. What is not established is the truth of anything he implied. Until a company, a platform or a legal process produces something firmer, the responsible reading is that an artist is at the centre of an unverified claim he did not make and cannot easily answer.
The next meaningful signal will come from HYBE or BIGHIT MUSIC, or from whichever platform is asked to act on the images. Until then, the story is a test of how fans, outlets and companies handle an allegation that is designed to spread faster than any correction could.
