1. aespa’s AI concept
After the remarkable successes of Next Level, aespa has recently broken the history of their
own with new achievements through the promotion of Savage. The thing is, while it’s hard
to deny how everything about this comeback was terrific and perfectly polished, many
people still found some members nothing but big thorns in the eye. So, who was it that
netizens got so annoyed about? Karina, Winter, Ningning or Giselle?
Well, none of them was the answer because the useless “members” that everyone was
asking SM Entertainment to get rid of were the aes and talking more generally, the whole
AI concept that the company threw on the group.
Ever since the pre-debut of the group, netizens have already been disappointed and to some
extent, annoyed, by the concept where each member would have their own avatar and altogether
interact in another virtual world. After several promotions of the group, I think it’s not
hard for you to see countless complaints pointing at the quality of these aes.
Not only that, since most of the group had spent years on training from dawn to midnight,
some also found it annoying to see their efforts being overshadowed by the creepy AI versions
that do nothing.
Basically, netizens feared that the AI concept would just be a pointless enhancement no one
asked for and it eventually held the group down from getting further in the hyper competitive
race of KPOP gen4.
The reason why people said the AI concept made no sense came down to how the AI of all
members had the built quality of some 3D characters of the old animation eras that look way to
2000s, and their clothes didn’t even get to be changed though aespa had gone through
four promotions.
The wave of criticism pointing at the quality of the AI members started to be fiercer after
the group came back with Next Level as according to netizens, SM had failed them hard by giving
zero care to improve the low quality of the AIs. Some also compared the virtual members
to some dancing characters in karaoke rooms and for others, these AI members were nothing
but being ugly and useless since they always just popped into the MV for several seconds
like a glitch, then made some stiff moves and eventually disappeared into thin air.
Then the disappointment toward these avatars peaked when a netizen on theqoo posted GIF
cut from the MV of Savage and complained how the AIs downgraded the vibe of aespa from
the most invested girl group of SM to a random 90s act.
In the comment section, many people also expressed disappointment as to how these avatars’
movements were just as disjointed as the Black Mamba’s era, how the whole thing still seemed
like a half-way copy of KDA, how the SM’s try-hard efforts to stand out was wasting
aespa’s talents and how it’s high time for these irrelevant AI members to leave for
good.
Of course there were also some netizens found this concept and the AI members interesting
as well as willing to wait for more improvements down the road but looking at the big picture,
people still believe the company was just using the AI concept to hype up the debut
of aespa instead of having any long-run plan as they now seem to be struggling to find
a place for these AI members in the group.
2. Shipping culture
Besides pointless things that people in the entertainment industry do, there are also
a bunch of things done by obsessive KPOP fans that have multiple times gotten on the nerves
of other people.
According to many netizens, on top of the list is the shipping culture where some fans
just go extreme lengths and turn it into a sickening thing that probably the idols themselves
also feel the embarrassment when getting to know about it.
Moreover, because most of these shippings would eventually be turned into some fanfics,
fanarts and even videos on Youtube where “imagination becomes delirium” for everyone to access,
many netizens also found it hard to understand “why does the majority in KPOP fandoms support
this.” People also brought up the gender identity
that some fans haphazardly placed on their idols because most of the time, they would
just downright built an image where these stars were in nature homosexual and put in
a bunch of sickening scenes where they interacted with another member or another same gender
idol in the industry.
Dating back to several years ago, a long article had already voiced about how “idol shipping
has no place in KPOP” and even until today, multiple people still believed this culture
not only held no values but also damaged the mentalities and relationships of idols.
3. Idol-babying culture
Similar to how shipping idols is deemed as one of the most pointless cultures in KPOP,
netizens also believed some fans really need to stop babying idols since this action also
served as nothing but another way to objectify the artists.
Moreover, the fact that some fans kept calling their idol a baby and imposed on them the
restrictions of certain things that they would never be allowed to do was ridiculous.
Jungkook is a typical example where his fans constantly babied him by saying since he was
a baby, he shouldn’t do things like sexy dancing and saying certain words that tick
them off. These overprotective fans would probably have the balls to cancel Jungkook’s
girlfriend's life since in their eyes, “baby Jungkook” was totally theirs and wasn’t
old enough to date.
Besides Jungkook, Suga also has a massive amount of comments babying him online. A netizen
pointed out that the most common thing they saw online was how people way younger than
Suga kept calling him a “cute lil baby kitten who must be protected” [chèn meme này]
while in reality, he was clocking his 30s soon.
4. MR REMOVED equal an idol’s vocal capabilities
Because dancing while singing has never been an easy thing to pull off, it’s quite common
for KPOP idols to just lip-sync on music shows then save their vocal capabilities on other
occasions like singing competitions, radio live or ballad stages.
However, with the strict standards often imposed on idols, many people decided to find other
ways to assess their singing abilities and just like that, the concept where MR Removed
videos are used as a metric to see who sings well was born.
As explained by MRJKPOP, a producer in the music industry, MR Removed was a scam and
hold zero values because technically, the vocals you hear in the MR Removed videos can
still be pre-recorded and the reasons they sounded different to the studio version was
because the artists just recorded another version for live performances.
Moreover, in terms of vocal assessment, many people also pointed out how a good stability
has never had the same weight as good singing techniques or capabilities, so judging an
idol through a simple MR Removed, which sometimes aren't processed professionally and thoroughly,
was completely pointless.
A user on Reddit also mentioned that since the vocals of idols in MR Removed would often
be compressed to the point of distortion compared to the original sound, throwing hands or giving
a standing ovation to some idols on the basis of MR Removed clips were quite ridiculous.
5. Obsessed with fair complexion
While having a super fair skin tone is among the most crucial criteria to mark whether
an idol is pretty or not, many people believed that it’s time for the entertainment companies
to get rid of this obsession, start appreciating the different complexion of each idol and
altogether stop throwing on their face the foundation of three to four shades brighter
than their original skin tone.
Just with a simple Google search, you can easily see how people on multiple forums have
been whining about this pointless attempt to make idols better fit in the common beauty
standard and how more often than not, they would end up looking way worse than the bare
face.
On Reddit, there was even a darn long rant about how people have multiple times spotted
idols looking super weird with the face color completely different to their neck and especially
when everyone was bathed in sweats after some hard-core choreographies, the foundation just
caked up in an extremely messy and annoying way. In the thread, ATEEZ, TWICE’s Tzuyu,
SEVENTEEN’s Mingyu and NCT’s Haechan were also brought up as some typical examples where
their skin looks super grey and ashy because the extremely light foundation failed miserably
in matching with their healthy tanned complexion.
So, besides those pointless things that netizens pointed out, do you think any other things
should be added to the list? Comment down below to share your thoughts with us. Also,
don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe to BeBossTV for more interesting content.
Thank you for watching!