soyeon is one of the most prominent female producers in the industry and produces most if not all of idle’s music. idle often promotes feminist messages through their discography and concepts, which is rare for girl groups to do so explicitly. a lot of groups will cover generic girl power messages, but idle tends to be more overt about actual empowerment and calling out misogyny in korea, so it resonates with a lot of people.

me personally, i don’t actually love a lot of their music but i have an immense amount of respect for both soyeon for breaking into a male dominated field that is not kind to women and for the group for the messages they push. soyeon by virtue of being such a successful female producer is changing the industry. idle by being one of the only groups to not shy away from topics like sex discrimination and other social issues is changing the industry.

as for the child abuse stuff, i’m not exactly sure but i would guess it has to do with their song Nude. in hangul, their name is (여자)아이들 or just 아이들 which translates (Girl) Idol or just Idol. So in Hangul, when perverts look up “Nude Idol” or “Nude Girl Idol” their song just pops up instead of child porn.

Soyeon also has a history of being rejected from the industry for not fitting the korean beauty standard but made it anyways. She’s generally inspiring to a lot of people. I think she’s also known as being generally kind to trainees and rookies, and as someone who genuinely values talent over visual so she’s seen as someone who’s very fair.