While K-Pop fans have already had enough with the practice “New one in, old one out”
that all entertainment companies use to manage their artists, they still could do nothing
but gradually go silent in helplessness as no one actually cares enough to do something.
Because the idol career is always glamorized and young new talents will keep coming in
rather than boycotting the industry, companies still follow the same practice and that’s
why in recent time, many acts are standing on the verge of being dungeoned while their
reputation is still flying high.
1.
ITZY (by NMIXX)
Though the debut of NMIXX is said to be utterly underwhelming and left nothing but disappointment
in the minds of the public, which is of total contrast to the explosive debut DALLA DALLA
of ITZY back in 2019, many still believe ITZY will soon be dungeoned by JYP Entertainment
and history will also repeats itself as around the time TWICE debuted, MissA was also left
to fend for themselves despite being one of the top girl groups of gen2.
While this sounds hard to believe because eventually, ITZY is still a gen4 girl group
that has just been active in the industry for three years and each member still hasn’t
shown their full potential yet, netizens pointed out that there are many solid points leading
to such a gloomy conclusion for the group.
Firstly, the performance of ITZY has taken a deep nosedive and for some reasons, their
ranks on music charts also keeps sliding ever since the release of Mafia In The Morning.
Especially for the promotion of Loco, the group couldn't even overtake Lovesick Girls
of BLACPINK, which was released about one year prior, and was only ranked above We Ride
by Brave Girls.
The MV’s view within 24 hours also took a deep dive.
Besides, the appearance of aespa and IVE also said to pull the attention away from ITZY
and compete with ITZY to be the leading girl group of gen4
As if things weren’t bad enough, the fire was also fueled when Lia got caught up in
a bullying scandal, which resulted in many MIDZYs deciding to leave the fandom though
JYP Entertainment had taken swift legal action to deny all allegations.
Besides, some pointed out that the dramatic differences between the budgets for ITZY’s
MVs versus those for NMIXX also screamed inequality.
Though ITZY has already been active for several years and brought a fair amount of profits
to JYP Entertainment, hardly was there a heavily invested MV with a ton of realistic CGI, avant-garde
backgrounds, and various tailor-made designs specifically chosen to represent the spirit
of each specific set.
In fact, you can just ignore those little details and look at the fact that Coca Cola
had sponsored for this debut to understand how scarily big the investment was because
big companies rarely put sponsorships explicitly into their artists’ MVs to avoid downgrading
the group’s value.
However, JYP Entertainment did that exact same thing and the most mind-blowing fact
about NMIXX is that, the company not only put Coca Cola into the MV but also save a
sweet spot for it in the lyrics.
Of course it’s still hard to tell exactly what will happen down the road but just by
looking at the debut trailer of ITZY and NMIXX, some have already sensed the smell of injustice.
Apparently this doesn’t necessarily mean the debut trailer of ITZY was not good but
when comparing to that of NMIXX, including the Avenger-movie-like trailers, carefulness
to details of individual teasers, massive scale of the project and the futuristic concept
that required an exhaustive budget, while for ITZY’s debut, all they had for the teasers
were some ordinary monochrome backgrounds, some basic props, the simplest camera work
ever seen and the gleaming background when the group poses together to cover up the low
budget of the set.
In fact, netizens even said ITZY was just an experimental group of JYP and all resources
have long been set to only be used for the black horse NMIXX because even in the pre-debut
era, the bias toward NMIXX was already seen clearly.
While the company did send Ryujin and Yeji to survival shows and showcase Chaeryeong
a little bit in SIXTEEN, that effort was nothing compared to the large scale project QUALIFYING
where each member of NMIXX had their own little MV to show off the powerful vocal capabilities,
groovy dance moves, and alluring stage presence.
Basically, though this has never been the situation that MIDZYs want to see, they still
have to mentally prepare for what is about to come considering the scary investment of
JYP toward the monster rookie NMIXX.
2.
BLACKPINK (by TREASURE)
Surprisingly, BLACKPINK is also here on the list though achievement-wise, the group is
still leading many categories in the K-Pop industry.
Things all started after TREASURE came back with the heavily invested JIKJIN promotion
that cost half a billion won, which was around 410,000 USD.
The determination of YG Entertainment in going big or going home with TREASURE this time
was also shown through the way they hired Lee Sang Yoon, the former director of MAMA,
to produce the MV, borrowed lots of expensive cars to highlight the ambition of conquering
speed, and especially prepare various expensive sets as well as costumes to flex the wild
investment of YG.
For some, that was extremely good news because TREASURE had been on a hiatus for quite some
time but the fact the YG agreed to spend such a whopping amount of money on the group, especially
when they had only been in the industry for two years, spoke a lot about the boys’ potential
and talents.
However, to many BLINKs, this was nothing but the sign of a gloomy scenario looming
large where BLACKPINK was dungeoned and taken advantage of to promote TREASURE.
Some even mocked TREASURES, saying that everyone knew where their investment came from
Others expressed discontent when seeing all members of BLACKPINK went on a hiatus for
even longer than the time of a male idol serving in the military while a group like TREASURE,
who was said to have no salient achievements, received that whopping amount of money for
their promotion.
3.
Red Velvet (by aespa)
Besides BLACKPINK, Red Velvet is also predicted to soon be dungeoned by SM Entertainment though
for the past years, the group has always been the black horse of the company with Irene
not only standing out in the fashion field but also CFs and acting; Joy, Seulgi, and
Wendy gaining lots of attention for their duos and solos, as well as Yeri for her promising
capabilities in acting and fashion.
However, with the infamous tradition of “new one in, old one out” and the obvious negligence
of SM toward Red Velvet in recent time, including the way they took care of the latest comeback
Feel My Rhythm of the group, many believed the worst fear of Redvelvet had eventually
came true because the attention of SM Entertainment seemingly has all been poured into promoting
aespa.
Maybe many of you didn’t notice this but for the latest promotion, the MV of Feel My
Rhythm was posted around 10 minutes late compared to the official time disclosed on the teasers,
leading to the anger of many Redveluvs as they believed this was a sign of negligence.
Also, fans noticed that Red Velvet only had 5 dance practice videos for a total of 20
comebacks throughout their eight-year career, which are Rookie, Umpah Umpah, Naught, Psycho
and Look.
Even when the members tries to plead fans and leak some snippets of their dance practice
for Happiness, Dumb Dumb, and Power Up, SM still didn’t bother to upload the official
ones and just let things slide like that.
However, things are completely different when it comes to aespa because ever since day one,
the company has already recorded and published lots of dance practice for the group.
Redveluvs were even more triggered to see that aespa not only had one but various versions
of dance practice for one song, along with various concepts and costumes, and even a
video dedicated for the camera work guide.
Looking back on this mistreatment, many fans believed this was the reason why Red Velvet
couldn’t thrive as much as other acts like TWICE and BLACKPINK though talent-and-visual-wise,
they were all on the same bars.
Some even pointed out that SM promoted Red Velvet as if they debuted from a mid-tier
company while everything for aespa screamed money and top-tier management company.
As many Redveluvs knew that some might say this example wasn’t enough to say that SM
was dungeoning Red Velvet and fans were just blowing things out of proportion, they pointed
out another thing SM did to the group to prove negligence.
While everyone knows that SM has always wanted to conquer the US market considering their
debuting Super M, investing in NCT and most recently aespa, somehow the company still
turned down lots of collaboration invitations of big records to Red Velvet.
For example, back in the end of 2019, aka the time SM started to prepare and promoted
Karina and tease the public about the appearance of a new girl group, fans noticed the company
completely turned a deaf ears to Nicole Frantz, CEO of Capitol Music Group, when she said
it was her dream to work with an act like Red Velvet at the 2019 Seoul International
Music Fair after watching them performed.
What’s even more annoying to fans was that, SM didn’t bother to release any information
or music after the collaboration with Phil Quartararo, the CEO of Virgin Records managing
Mariah Carey, and Warner Bros Records managing The Beatles, though he himself had to say
that his company was ALREADY collaborating with Red Velvet.
4.
MOMOLAND (by T149)
Used to be famous with the massive hit Bboom Bboom, MOMOLAND quickly garnered a whopping
amount of public attention and managed to achieve various noble titles.
However, as the K-Pop race became more bloodily competitive and the group themselves also
suffered from the bullying scandal among members, which eventually led to Daisy’s departure,
MOMOLAND’s reputation took a nosedive and MLD Entertainment also seemed to give up on
the group.
As if making MOMOLAND go on an extended hiatus, letting them have a comeback for show with
an extremely low budget MV and zero album despite the long break wasn’t beyond the
limits of fans’ tolerance, MLD then even took advantage of MOMOLAND’s remaining reputation,
printing photos of their new boy group T1419 act on the back of MOMOLAND’s latest photobook.
According to fans, this action was nothing but a slap to both MOMOLAND and Merry-G0-Rounds
and despite the fact that the girls used to be the main income of the company, MLD now
couldn’t even respect MOMOLAND just a little bit.
So as a fan, which case do you find most frustrating?
Do you think these groups will soon be abandoned as many fans worry?
Comment down below to share your thoughts with us.
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