A South Korean court has ruled that online insults directed at a K-pop band can be considered defamation.

Except, this boy band doesn’t technically exist. PLAVE consists of five men in their 20s with brightly coloured hair who are completely virtual.

Yejun, Noah, Bamby, Eunho, and Hamin are digital avatars designed in the style of manhwa, the term for Korean comics and webtoons.

The real identities of the band members are unknown and they use motion capture technology to perform, chat with fans and accept music awards.

A K-pop fan website even lists each PLAVE member’s birthday, height, hobbies, likes, dislikes, personality type and ‘representative emoji’.

On July 19 last year, a social media user said the people behind the avatars could be ‘ugly in real life’ and said they have a ‘ty

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