1. IVE’s Gaeul
Despite being a rookie from a medium company, IVE still managed to create a huge buzz in the
K-Pop community not only thanks to their debut song, which has been non-stop running through
people’s mind with the earworm melody, but also for the equally impressive visuals of all members.
However, as the group proceeds to perform more on music shows and make more public appearances,
some said that they found the visuals of Gaeul kinda questionable.
On Nate Pann, there was even a thread titled “Am I the only one to find Gaeul’s visual confusing?,”
where the OP gathered lots of close-up photos of Gaeul to ask if anyone also found Gaeul wasn’t
as pretty as often praised. Even without the need to look at the thread’s detail,
it’s already clear from the ratio 257-286 of upvote and downvote
that she had the type of look that often yielded extremely polarized opinions.
In the comment section, the discussion was even more heated because according to some people,
Gaeul was the prettiest and most defined visual out of six members.
Even at the very first sight when Gaeul appeared in the MV with a ponytail hairstyle,
many said they were literally shook because she was surrealistically gorgeous.
However, in the eyes of others, she was said to look nothing more than an ordinary girl,
especially when standing next to other members, and probably because of the overly soft facial
features, some said they even forgot her face after a few minutes. Others then said Gaeul’s
visual lacked so much charisma that more often than not, people would find it difficult to look
at her for long and while it was unnecessarily harsh to a rookie, they still compared her look
to 4Minute’s Nam Jihyun and said she would fail to attract stable fans just like her senior.
2. IVE’s Wonyoung
Surprisingly, Wonyoung is also here on this list though ever since she was a member of IZ*ONE,
she has already been famous for the vibrant visuals, the typical bunny face that the South
Korean public is super into and the strong IT girl energy despite an incredibly young age.
On the one hand, Wonyoung has been praised up to cloud nine for her doll-like and surrealistically
pure visual. In the past, she made headlines multiple times just for looking so good and when
the True Beauty k-drama was taking the Internet by storm, lots of people also compared Wonyoung
to the main female character because of the staggering resemblance between them. Considering
the strict beauty standard held upon female idols, Wonyoung also effortlessly checked all the
boxes for her big sparkling eyes, small nose, full heart-shaped lips, and extremely fair complexion.
Especially after the debut with IVE,
netizens also noticed how her visual was impressively upgraded with some changes in
the makeup style. By emphasizing more on the eyelashes, sparkling eye makeup, and heavier
blush applied to highlight her cheeks, Wonyoung stands out with an even more comic-like visual.
However, it was also the time she debuted with IVE that another array of opinion was ignited,
questioning the visual of Wonyoung and complaining
how her way of managing such a bonny skinny body was kinda off.
While shredding more weight helped her lose the buccal fat, people believed she
was losing that bubbly, youthful visual of a seventeen-year-old girl at the same time.
Especially when Wonyoung dressed differently and performed on stage alongside other girls,
many said she awkwardly stood out because the bonny figure just made every dance move tiring
and made Wonyoung look as if she would break some bones for the heavy choreography at any point.
Though some might said such a figure comes down to her fast metabolism,
others believed it wasn’t a good enough justification because they noticed how
Wonyoung was actually suffering from hair loss, which is a sign of shredding too much weight,
and her muscles almost seemed like they were vanished, which was extremely
unusual considering the amount of dance practice she did in IZ*ONE and now in IVE.
3. aespa’s Karina
When I first discovered the opposing view about Karina’s visual,
I was also just as shook as you because ever since the debut day, she has not
only been famous for looking more AI than her AI character but also for being the first idol that
managed to change the way SM Entertainment defined how their visuals should look.
While Karina is just a newbie in the industry, she has already made multiple headlines for the unique
visual that not only ticked all the boxes of the South Korean beauty standard but also went way
beyond that. Thanks to the snake-like face shape, pointy facial features and the surrealistically
1:1 ratio between the eyes and the nose, Karina blew a new breeze into the visual garden of K-Pop
that has forever been overflowing with the naive and cutesy image.
Moreover, because Karina always effortlessly radiates an icy,
majestic vibe without trying, some said that she was among the rarest
visuals which was the reason everyone got stunned whenever Karina was on screen.
However, according to some other people, it was also for those strong facial features and the AI,
uncanny kind of face that made it hard to comprehend her beauty.
There was an opinion that Karina’s eyes and lips are so prominent while her face is pointy
and incredibly small, they just don’t add up well when sitting next to each other.
Then also because of the perfect facial features, lots of people also said she has done too much
work on her face while rarely a legit piece of evidence was brought up and for a long time.
Still, from the very first day she was announced to be in the aespa’s line-up,
opinions saying her visual was too “plastic,” “unnatural,” and “uncanny”
were literally everywhere on every social platform.
4. STAYC’s Se Eun
Considering the standing position that Se Eun was arranged to take in most group photos,
netizens believed that she was the implicit visual and center of STAYC
though Highup Entertainment never really talked about it.
Initially, netizens didn’t really care about voicing an opposing opinion either
because objectively speaking, there was nothing about her visual that showed she couldn’t own up
to her implicit role. For example in the group, Se Eun’s skin tone is so fair that whenever
performing on stage, she would literally lit up as if there were fairy dust floating around.
Her visual is also a sweet combination between the two cute and posh extremes, highlighted with
the big almond eyes, prominent straight nose and super small face. Basically with such a visual,
Se Eun fits perfectly with the South Korean beauty standard, effortlessly slays both cute
and chic concepts, and especially signals a huge potential for her to enter the fashion industry,
aka the place where the icy and luxury side of her visual is extremely appreciated.
However, after the promotion of ASAP, netizens noticed how Se Eun’s visual kinda
took a nosedive because of her uncontrolled weight gain. Because of the comeback concept,
Sieun had to frequently wear sleeveless croptops, short skirts, and combat boots
which was said to altogether add weight and make her overall image unnecessarily bulked up.
According to netizens, what’s even worse was that as the stylists chose to give her a hime hairstyle
and dyed the end of her side hair with neon colors, it created an impression that her face was
added weight horizontally and all the elegance of her overall facial structure was also wiped away.
Especially when Se Eun smiled, netizens also noticed her chubby cheeks and doubled
chin kinda became more obvious and compared to the ethereal, dreamy visuals of her debut era,
people said they really doubted if she could really be among the visual goddesses of gen4.
5. STAYC’s Sieun
Besides Se Eun, Sieun was also unfortunately picked out by netizens to be on the list.
Standing out as the only member having her hair dyed blonde, Sieun quickly garnered lots of
attention. Though she doesn’t have the typical double eyelids feature required of almost all
idols, people still found her visuals appealing because her eyes are literally like jades.
However, as STAYC made more public appearances, many people suddenly changed their mind
and said they didn’t think Sieun was that pretty because her face was too round compared to the
overall standard and at certain angles, it even appeared to be puffy and disproportionately long.
Some even dug up the times where Sieun had light make-up on and said compared to the
standard idol visual, she barely owned up to anything because her ratio just wasn’t it.
6. NCT’s Taeyong
Sounds super absurd considering how Taeyong once made his name as the
most handsome male idol voted by idols themselves in 2017 but still, here he is
as some people found his visuals extremely outstanding but others just couldn’t agree.
On the one hand, some believed Taeyong visual was impeccable
because kinda like the male version of Karina, Taeyong has long been famous for his AI visual,
surreal facial feature ratio and after his Halloween costume of Jack Frost,
some even said Disney should definitely invite him for the live action version of the movie.
In fact, the famous trio surgeons even said Taeyong’s face was the
perfect reference model for plastic surgeries and while he gave off a cool
and cold aura, he could look even prettier than many girls if he put on long hair.
Ironically, it was also this surrealness of Taeyong’s visuals that made some people feel
uncomfortable. According to them, his appearance was too cold that they couldn’t comprehend.
Not only that, some even said probably because his visual is too good to be found in a human being,
all the impression they had at him was the scary Android
look with spaced out and kinda soulless eyes.
So, what do you think about these idols’ visuals?
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