You might have seen the Korean influencer Song Ji-ah, a.k.a. Freezia. She is on the hit Netflix reality dating show Single's Inferno. Vivacious and unapologetic, she became its breakout star. She has 3.6 million followers on Instagram, and nearly 2 million on YouTube. Her most popular video, about the contents of her closet, has racked up more than 6 million views.
Just as her fame appeared to be heading to another level, things began to fall apart.
A week ago, criticism surfaced in Korea that many luxury fashion goods Song showed off were knockoffs. Differences between the imitation items she wore and the genuine products made and sold by the brands stoked anger online. It also emerged that she has accounts on Chinese platforms Bilibili and Weibo as well as a separate Chinese-language YouTube channel (a big no-no for Sinophobic Koreans). And heaven forbid, she is learning Chinese.