Monsta X, IVE undergo Elon Musk's SpaceX makeover; K-pop agency responds to the hack
K-pop agency Starship Entertainment issued a statement after its artists' YouTube channels were hacked and named SpaceX.
As a pun-intended irony and twist of fate, the official YouTube channels of Starship Entertainment artists - Monsta X, IVE and Cravity - were hacked and rebranded as SpaceX. On March 4, the K-pop agency addressed the compromising situation and took steps to resolve the issue—the resulting inconvenience erased all uploaded content on these channels.
Consequently, the company addressed the scene and issued an official statement, underlining their efforts to recover normalcy again. “Regarding the hacking of our artists' official YouTube channels today, we are actively working with YouTube to resolve the issue and are currently in the recovery process. We will do our best to restore all content as quickly as possible. We apologise for any inconvenience caused by this unexpected disruption,” Starship Ent. wrote in its statement.
Since the hack disrupted operations on these YouTube channels a few hours ago, some of Starship Entertainment's hard work has already resulted in flying colours of success. The hackers had initiated the Elon Musk: SpaceX Crew-8 launch livestream on each of these groups' channels. While that has been deleted over time, the channels still bear the SpaceX moniker.
Reactions to the Starship Entertainment Hack news:
Fans noticed that while the currently active groups under Starship's banner were hacked, channels of girl group WJSN and soloists Jeong Se Woon, K. Will and others emerged untouched in the blissful distance. On the other hand, Monsta X, IVE and Cravity fans were baffled to see their favourites' content missing on YouTube. The company is gradually gaining access to these accounts (and the main Starship Entertainment account) as some name changes have successfully translated well. The content is yet to surface on these accounts.
Starship Entertainment's main account still shows some older videos in addition to Cravity's recent release, Love or Die. Other videos are yet to be recovered. The alleged hackers seem to be in the wind for now, but many fans are already accusing Tesla CEO Elon Musk of using these pages as yet another launching pad for his project's promotions.
Several fans have jumped on to meme the predicament as a coping mechanism while the unprecedented takeover has significantly hurt others. Monsta X fans have especially taken a big hit, considering four of its six members had temporarily departed from the K-pop scene to complete their mandatory military duties. Monbebes had notably relied on the group's recent enlistment vlogs and other previously shot content on the YouTube channel to fill the void of currently paused group activities.
IVE's variety show affected:
An episode of IVE's YouTube web reality show - 1,2,3 IVE - was also scheduled to drop on the girl group's YouTube page today. Due to the turbulent online conditions, the broadcast remains postponed. According to a recent X (formerly Twitter) statement, its updated release time will be announced later.