1. IVE - “Wonyoung-Yujin and Friends” Despite having debuted just for several weeks,
IVE is already tagged as a group of “Wonyoung-Yujin and Friends” because people just can’t
ignore how they have been receiving many special treatments compared to other members of the
group.
Actually lots of ready-to-be fans were super relieved to see the line and screen time distributions
of IVE were distributed equally enough for all the girls to shine and get their face
recognized by the public. However, things soon turned out to be exactly as some predicted
because after IVE got to perform on many music shows, they have constantly noticed how Wonyoung
and Yujin were given the most outstanding fits out of the group.
For example, in this pinky theme stage, netizens saw Wonyoung and Yujin stand out almost right
off the bat since whereas the fit of Wonyoung was the most sophisticated with a big bow
on the waist and vibrant leather gloves, Yujin caught eyes easily as the only member wearing
a white beret hat and an outfit of completely different colors than the rest.
Or for this Versace-esque theme, Wonyoung was given the vibrant hot pink dress and Yujin’s
outfit also got a change from a black top to a white shirt to stand out more compared
to other girls.
Or take the MC-ing roles for instance. Apparently it’s easy to understand how Wonyoung was
picked to be the first member to MC at Music Bank as at the time, IVE hadn't debuted yet.
However, even after the public knew about the group and probably recognized the face
of all members because at the end of the day, IVE is still that girl group who broke the
record to fastest win the trophy on music shows, it was still Wonyoung that got chosen
to MC at 2021 AAA. Besides her, Starship Entertainment also saved an MC-ing slot for Yujin at Inkigayo
and that’s that.
The pair was also particularly sent to Knowing Brothers though for most groups, all members
would appear for this very first appearance on the show and most recently, for the Way
To Go collaboration stages at 2021 KBS Song Festival, only Wonyoung and Yujin were chosen
to attend the show though the public were already extremely familiar to their face.
2. aespa - “Karina and Friends”
While all members of aespa is a package and especially Giselle, who managed to get into
SM Entertainment through the most rigorous Saturday audition and only took ten months
to train before debuting, that has never meant the company would equally invest in all members
and make aespa any less of a “Karina and Friends” group in public’s eyes. The bias
is so clear that when referring to Black Mamba, some even called it the first single of “Karina
and friends” rather than aespa.
Even without the need to look at little details in the debut MVs like IVE, netizens had already
found the heavy bias of SM Entertainment toward Karina when choosing her to be the only member
with an individual introductory video in which she interacted immersively with her ae.
Then when the other members and their aes started to be revealed through the SYNK series,
people also spotted out the differences between Karina’s ae and the rest’s. At that time,
some even joked that SM spent so much money on creating the purple AI character for Karina
that they ended up running out of money for the other three characters, which explained
why they looked so similar and had no unique traits of the member they presented.
Not only that, Karina was also the only one to get appear multiple times on the collaboration
stages with big names like Taemin and Kai way way before aespa’s debut. Especially
in the time Karina was there with Kai, it wasn’t even an ordinary event but rather
a serious advertisement for TUCSON latest car line.
Do you think how high the probabilities of a rookie getting to appear in both a commercial
advertisement for a big brand and also a stage with a famous senior idol? It’s super duper
rare and in case you still don’t believe me, you can look at BLACKPINK. Jennie was
allowed to be there with G-Dragon on Black stage but when it came to the advertisement
with IKON, Jisoo was given the chance. However, in the case of Karina, she got to do both
despite still being a rookie and at the time, no other members got the same exposure.
When it came to the fashion field, the attention of SM Entertainment was still given to Karina
most.
Most recently when Aespa got on the cover of BAZAAR, Karina got the obvious bias from
SM by being the only one to wear white, short outfit and have some accessories on while
other members were all dressed in fully covered outfits with the same black color as the background
and no accessories.
In the previous photoshoots for GLASS and POP Magazine, it’s also not hard for netizens
to see the privilege she got because on both covers, only Karina got to wear the vibrant
hot outfit and especially in the second one, she was also set to be on the most eye-catching
position of the photo.
Stepping a bit outside of the fashion field, there were other aspects that people couldn't
help noticing how SM Entertainment has been specially promoting Karina. For the series
promoting Seoul of HISTORY, the company once again picked Karina to participate on this
special occasion. Back to October 2021, lots of people were also shook, and many fans were
kinda triggered, to see the group advertisement of aespa for KB Kookmin bank was almost turned
into the one of solely Karina because of the considerably unequal screen distribution.
Moreover, in scenes where four members appear together, Winter, Giselle and Ningning were
all blurred out to highlight the presence of Karina (0:26 nhé). Plus, she was also
the only one to speak in the entire video and while other members could have been arranged
to have solo scenes, she was given that priority as well.
3. ITZY - “Yeji and friends”
While Ryujin is officially the center of ITZY, that seemed to only be the nominal title holding
not much weight because according to netizens, Yeji has always been the most favored member
of JYP and despite the fact that ITZY was literally a package, the company has made
them become more like a “Yeji and Friends” group.
Long before ITZY was even a thing, Yeji was already a famous face among people since she
was chosen to be on THE FAN. Because she also received many flattering compliments on the
show and even made headlines for being having BoA saying “If I were to produce someone,
Hwang Ye Ji would be the one,” and Yoo Hee-Yeol claiming to be her fan already, her popularity
started to grow bigger and of course, JYP Entertainment knew how to leverage on that.
In many promotion teasers, netizens couldn’t help noticing how Yeji was constantly arranged
to stand at the middle despite Ryujin being the official center and in ITZY’s title
songs, she was also frequently assigned to have the longest line distribution and most
unique backgrounds compared to other members.
Needless to look further back into the past, netizens noticed Yeji stood out super well
with the cat scene of LOCO. Her kitten image was not only well invested in the MV but also
incorporated into ITZY’s choreography with the additicting kitten ear moves.
She was also the very first member to appear in the series Artist Of The Month on STUDIO
CHOOM with River and only after eight months did JYP allow Ryujin to be the next member
to appear on the series.
If you follow my channel, you probably also remember several times I talked about how
MIDZY was super upset over Yeji’s experimental clothes. Though that wasn’t necessarily
a good thing, the fact that only Yeji was chosen to wear those unique fits instead of
other members speaks a lot about the bias of JYP toward Yeji.
4. (G)-IDLE - “Soyeon and friends”
While each member of the group has received more individual promotions recently, that
still doesn’t save them from the tag “Soyeon and Friends” because in the eyes of many
netizens, the company has been pushing Soyeon way too much that they almost forgot other
members are also active.
In many (G)-IDLE’s songs and MVs, Soyeon was not only the member with most lines, and
screen time as well, but also the one responsible for producing and deciding the group’s theme.
Not only that, Soyeon has also always been there at the very center of all (G)-IDLE’s
songs and got the opening line regardless of concepts the group did.
While the difference in outfit wasn’t that great compared to other groups mentioned here,
it doesn’t mean there was none. For example in the promotion of HWA not long ago, Soyeon
was dressed in the most outstanding fit. Though most members had on the warm colors of red
or pink, she was given a vibrant blue dress with probably the most sophisticated material.
Though Minnie was dressed in black, she still didn’t garner as much attention as Soyeon.
Netizens also noticed the bias of Cube toward Soyeon when it comes to the individual promotion
of the members. Even before the debut of G-IDLE, Soyeon had already been given a chance to
state herself as a solo artist with the Jelly debut. While Yuqi’s deep husky voice has
garnered lots of love from the public and Miyeon is the official main vocalist of (G)-IDLE,
Cube still let Soyeon to do a collab with other idols in Wow Thing most recently, she
also had another comeback with a well invested MV in Beam Beam.
Though fans were glad to see Soyeon again after hiatus, they just couldn’t help comparing
and getting upset as to why the budget for Soyeon’s Beam Beam and for Yuqi’s Bonnie
and Clyde was so different, especially when their promotions were only two months in distance.
5. EVERGLOW - “Mia and friends”
EVERGLOW is also another group often referred to as “Mia and Friends” because ever since
their debut, Mia has always been given the most line and screen time.
Luckily, there wasn’t much difference regarding the group’s outfit and other fields but
still, in EVERGLOW’s songs, fans were kinda upset to see Mia always sing the most though
Sihyeon was actually the main vocalist.
The bias from the company didn’t stop there as some noticed, Mia was also arranged to
rap and almost always have a dance break to show off her skills.
Throughout the group’s promotions, Mia was also constantly seen with a super bright hair
color and regarding how many idols often switch back the dark colors to avoid hair damage,
the fact that Mia remains a stable relationship with her bleached hair also could also be
the sign that Yuehua was trying to push her through this subtle difference.
Do you think pushing one member like that would make these companies better off or they
should have done the opposite? Comment down below to share your thoughts with us. Also,
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