Ryu Joon Yeol accused of being an 'Ilbe' user

Ryu Joon Yeol is in hot water for his past Instagram post that seems to make a mockery of past South Korean president Roh Moo Hyun and his suicide.

On February 24, a news outlet exposed a post that has been circulating online. The post accuses Ryu Joon Yeol of being linked to the extreme right-wing, often controversial website 'Ilbe' for seeming to deride ex-president Roh Moo Hyun, who was affiliated with the Democratic Party, and the way he killed himself. The group 'Ilbe' often targets this former president on-line in the same way.

Netizens had arrived at this conclusion after digging up the Instagram post Ryu Joon Yeol had shared around 18 weeks ago, which is a picture of himself rock climbing. The post seems harmless enough but the main problem with the post was the caption, which reads, "Going on Mom's errand for tofu." In Korean, tofu romanizes as 'dubu,' which also coincides with the Korean term for 'head.'

Many people are speculating that both the caption and the picture is a sly, mocking reference to Roh Moo Hyun's death, which was the result of him sustaining grave head injuries after jumping off a cliff. Roh Moo Hyun ultimately died of head injuries after he tried to jump to his death, and netizens pieced the two and two together and came to the conclusion that Ryu Joon Yeol might be making an offensive mockery of the ex-president.

Ryu Joon Yeol's agency stepped forward to address this burgeoning controversy, emphasizing, "Ryu Joon Yeol is not an 'Ilbe' user and we want to stress that he has no connection whatsoever to 'llbe.' There are claims that Ryu Joon Yeol is connected to 'Ilbe' because he used a picture of a cliff and the term 'dubu' which represents 'Ilbe' jargon. You'll know when you look at Ryu Joon Yeol's social media but that specific caption is just one of many captions that simply explains the picture. It's a ridiculous claim to link [that post] to 'Ilbe.' You can say that Ryu Joon Yeol wrote that without knowing any better, through wearing dark-colored glasses. Justifications are just likely to birth another controversy. What's important is that Ryu Joon Yeol had no intention whatsoever to mock the ex-president, and we believe that later, the public will know how wronged Ryu Joon Yeol felt [from this controversy]."

Are netizens being sensitive? What do you make of this?