A viral AI parody of A2O LITE’s ‘NEON’ has split viewers in South Korea after it showed the late actor Lee Soon-jae, recreated with deepfake technology, dancing alongside Na Moon-hee. The video has passed 1 million views on YouTube and social media, according to SPOTV News.
The video appears on the YouTube channel Daissue, billed as a collection of parodies of A2O’s ‘NEON,’ the song that is hot right now. Its concept plays on the song’s hook, ‘Neon and beyond,’ which Korean netizens have turned into the pun ‘unmarried and non-marriage’ — in Korean, ‘mihon and bihon.’
Lee Soon-jae is not the only figure in the collection. It also features producer Lee Soo-man with Yoo Young-jin, and Jung Jun-ha with Park Myung-soo, each rendered as if performing ‘NEON’s sharp, synchronized choreography. All the clips are AI-synthesized, SPOTV News reports, and their lifelike quality shocked viewers.
The Lee Soon-jae clip drew the sharpest response. Some viewers called it disrespectful, arguing that it would be different if he were still alive, and questioning whether his family knew about the video or had consented to his likeness being used. Others said turning a deceased person into a figure of fun went too far.
Other viewers pushed back, asking what was uncomfortable about the clip at all and saying it could simply be laughed off — a difference in personal sensibilities, not a clear-cut offence.
Lee Soon-jae and Na Moon-hee played a married couple in the legendary sitcom ‘High Kick,’ so seeing them together again, even as AI creations, carries a nostalgia that a random pairing would not.
‘NEON’ parodies were already a trend before this clip. A2O LITE is the nine-member multinational group launched by Lee Soo-man’s A2O Entertainment after he left SM Entertainment, and its debut single ‘NEON’ has swept charts while its hook spawned a wave of AI memes. Until now, most of that wave used living public figures as playful meme material; putting a deceased veteran actor at the centre of the joke turned a meme format into an ethics argument.
No response from the video’s creator, from Lee Soon-jae’s family, or from A2O Entertainment was reported. As the clip circulates, that question looks set to outlast the meme itself.
