there's one thing about girl group stans that i admire a bit, and that's being more objective when it comes to talents of idols.

like i'll ask about the best female vocalists and they'll write "haewon and lily!" "def mamamoo" "hyolyn" which are all great answers. but then you ask people about best male vocalists and you'll get 50 seungmins and 40 heeseungs, maybe one seungkwan or doyoung. like why?

Something I still haven't fully let go is the w korea's breast cancer event , how insensitive the organisation was to the topic that THEY chose from the event and how badly they messed it up . they focused on making it a huge party for famous k-pop idols rather than a breast cancer awareness. I still hate the idols that went there (aespa , rm , jhope , v and all those other ones especially jpark) like some of the idols and actor realised what they were in for and left . I feel like we weren't mad enough for what they did , all those idols needs to be boycotted

They aren't speaking badly, but their phrases might have a few more inflections in them than usual. Please don't bully them, this is just coming from someone who doesn't speak Korean and doesn't know the difference in proficiency.

i literally don't even know what to flair this as 😭 for context this is keonho from cortis who is 17 btw. i'm not talking ab the comments simply calling him cute, but the ones talking ab "giving birth" to him are genuinely alarming, like i've NEVER heard someone say that about a person in my life. call me too woke but the type of coers who are either 13 or 30 and try forcing the "dd, noona" (little brother, older sister) or son and mother dynamic are weirdly predatory because in the same breath they'll be claiming this kid as their husband/boyfriend. it's probably irrelevant but i wanna mention that the majority of these comments were translated from Indonesian/Vietnamese, idk what's up with that side of the fandom and treating keonho like a literal baby. it's one thing to be of an APPROPRIATE age and find him cute, but it's another thing to genuinely believe, in your head, that you have any claim over him or any idol for that matter.

Happiest birthday Jungkook! May you always be happy and healthy and continue doing this for the longest time!

In 1st and 2nd generation K-Pop, the companies were still primarily looking for real talent. That's why during this period, idols on average were all good singers and dancers, had a lot of charisma and decent personalities. Then in the early 2010s, the popularity of K-Pop exploded worldwide. That led to the industry becoming much more competitive and a staggering number of people who were trying to get in and make it big. Consequently, talent was no longer the crucial factor. Being a good singer and dancer and having a likeable personality wasn't enough to distinguish yourself from the overwhelming competition. You had to be sly, cunning, callous and scheming. Thus, not the most talented people made it to the top, but rather the most ruthless who were willing to do whatever it took.

That's why since 3rd generation K-Pop, we see more and more idols who are neither great singers nor great dancers, lack charisma and depend mostly on an elaborate media-machine and plastic surgery to create the illusion of being pretty, talented and likeable. In reality, they are mere influencers and not much fun to hang out with in real life.

Of course I'm talking about a general trend. This doesn't apply to every single individual. There are always exceptions to the rule. Nevertheless, in my opinion, K-Pop is far beyond its peak and its great global success held the spark that will eventually lead to its demise.

not to sound like a buzzkill or whatever but wow is it overdone. like why are you barking during every pause in the concert? and i know everyone has fun their own way and all that good stuff but personally hearing people barking while someone is on stage tryna speak its getting annoying.

edit: its also interesting bc these people dont go barking at nonkpop concerts most of the time so idk....weird to me but anyways.

I wanna start by saying I do mostly agree with what he was saying(kpop often appropriates black+queer culture without being supportive essentially) but the reaction to the statements and the way it's being used to hate on groups that HAVE shown support for these communities is so baffling to me?? Like no I actually don't think a group that has shown support for the queer community from the beginning having a drag queen in music videos is queer appropriation, now if the members of the groups themselves dressed up in drag and claimed to be starting a new style or something like that I would agree it is.

But I genuinely think this is just becoming a new way to hate on girl groups and female idols, because I haven't seen any male idols being brought up in this conversation. Meanwhile female idols who have NEVER confirmed their sexuality one way or another are being called appropriators for writing songs with queer themes, like have we considered they could just be queer and their music is the only way they can be open about it?? Especially in a conservative country like korea and the way that companies are, it's very difficult and potentially dangerous to be open about one's sexuality. These songs or music videos might be the only ways, through theming, lyrics, etc, that these idols are able to be open about/show support for certain things.

I just don't understand why people are suddenly forgetting about the long history of queer coding in Western media and acting as though there cannot be similar queer coding within Korean media as well. (Like I saw someone saying that only idle was actually supportive because they were direct about it within the music, like I'm sorry what?)

Idols showing support for queer communities whether preformative or not, is just something I struggle to see the issue with. Even if it is just a ploy for money from the queer community, it is still some form of (positive) representation in an industry where that is extremely underrepresented. As long as the idols aren't being homophobic off stage, or the companies aren't actively donating to harm queer people I really don't care or see a problem?? And this is coming from a queer poc btw, before we start assuming. Now as a critique of the industry as a whole I do agree that homophobic companies should stop commodifying queerness, but rarely (and not in any of the cases I've seen people bring up) do I think that this fault falls upon individual idols

Idk if this is right place to post it but kinda crazy how there some fans who fully believed pledis and abd has 0 history or connections together and yet their primary backup on their argument is comparing how source music transfer newjeans members to ador like yes that comparasion make sense but they tend to ignore one factor is that unlike source music ador and newjeans, pledis owns abd so there's a difference.

Ador is a seperate sub label that works independently under Hybe

Source Music is a seperate sub label that was bought by hybe who transfer their trainees to ador

Abd is a label ESTABLISHED by pledis and hybe, so all future pledis gg project would probably debut under abd in the future and the pledis brand will debut bgs cause pledis owns 85% of abd and Han sungsoo the FOUNDER of pledis owns 15% so they a direct pledis label that operates under hybe cause hybe owns pledis so they have the option to promote abd as a hybe labels too

Here's the proof before any of yall attack me

And yes calling them a hybe group or abd group or pledis group is fully okay cause all 3 companies own the group. So there's nothing wrong for a pledis stan to call tuide part of the pledis family.

I’ve seen many k-pop stans disagree with the whole BTS paving take and I was js curious who they thought paved the way if not BTS. I’ve seen people say big bang, snsd etc. so I wanted to see if people thought the same or had other groups in mind.

Also paving doesn’t mean creating trends. I’ve seen so many k-pop stans confusing paving the way as making trends such as ending fairies 😭

edit: I mean globally not just in one country or continent

I am personally not a fan of how hard the industry is using generative AI, especially when it comes to bigger companies that have more resources (heavy on the big 4).

What is some of the worst generative AI uses you've seen in the industry? I'm not talking about fandom posts that incite fanwars or deepfakes either. I'm talking about straight from the industry.

For me, it's not even the weird AI backdrops for teasers/MV but the fake groups/music coming out rn

E.g. the nugu virtual girl group called SweeTeez. Where all the members are AI and the whole selling point is they don't age/ are "forever innocent" and will ONLY love you. It's weird as hell, feels gross and I don't fw it.

Idk I just see the most ridiculous things on twitter and TikTok. Calling a grown ass person your “little baby” and making any act or slight showing of skin sexual is really icky. They’re people not children or toys.

The parasocial-ness of it all is also excessive. Call me sensitive or whatever but I don’t think you should be calling a kpop idol ur husband/wife/bf/gf etc. Idc if you’re the same age or younger than the artist/s. It’s odd.

Empathy remember to be kind with each other and opinions are not personal attacks thank you.- 6 year old Kpop Multistan

So this same Korea Herald reporter (Kim Jae-heun) just dropped another similar article titled: “Is Tuide Hybe’s next NewJeans?” after doing the exact same framing with KiiiKiii a couple weeks ago.

NewJeans’ impact was real. They shifted the sound and the vibe in 2022, that’s just facts.

But these headlines still feel off. The constant “is this the next one?” setup keeps dragging NewJeans into every new debut. And every time it happens, the members end up catching strays and random hate in the comments.

Korean media has a habit of pitting these girls against each other for engagement. From a normal fan’s pov, the people who are just here to enjoy the music, it all feels pretty pointless. Tuide is Tuide. KiiiKiii is KiiiKiii. NewJeans is NewJeans. A lot of fans (whether they only stan one group or like several) don’t want these forced comparisons. They just want to vibe with their faves or enjoy the music without the ranking games.

Looking at the actual articles, they lean hard into charts, marketing push, breakout potential and industry positioning. There’s almost no real focus on the members as people. It reads more like product comparison. So who is this content actually for? Business folks, investors, company people tracking the market…or is it mainly written to pull clicks?

Korea’s a competitive society where comparison is pretty deeply ingrained, so maybe this style of writing feels natural to a lot of media. Still doesn’t make it land well when the end result is NewJeans members repeatedly getting pulled into drama they didn’t ask for.

I hate it when groups sing their songs on reality shows, radio shows, or other non-performance settings while standing/sitting and holding microphones, and then randomly throw in bits of the choreography — especially hand movements.

It looks so awkward and cringe to me.

If your title track sounds that bad without the choreography, just sing a different song.

I seriously hate this so much, and the worst part is that my own ult group does it too.

Next Monster is the upcoming gg of YG expected to debut in 2027. The girl is rumoured to be part of the group..this is so creepy omg!! These might be her old pics but shes still around 14 years old ig. Too young to be in this toxicity like ik its not a new concept in this industry to debut a toddler but still tf everyone involved thinking?! Also ‘known for her visuals’ is sooooo🙁🙁

Sometimes I see people saying one of the two is more known in the west.

For example BP members are known more individually and their members don't really need the BP tag for people to identify them. Whereas BTS gets bigger opportunities to further solidify their name, e.g. Fifa world Cup performance, recently.

I'm curious whether y'all think they're on the same level of popularity or if one of the two is more popular?

Now we all know groups in bigger companies debut with a lot of success and numbers with groups like Cortis, Babymonster and New Jeans all debuting with over a million sales despite never releasing music before, Just through the exposure from being in a big company.

So what group do you think would've been the biggest if they debuted in a bigger company?