Twice, WJSN, OMG, Gfriend, Dia,… at one point almost all groups were doing cute/magical girl concept. Yet now you can’t even catch one group doing cute concept anymore. Who killed cute concepts?
You answered your own question. Everybody was doing it so it got stale. Everything sounded samey and songs got very generic as a result. Then when something different got popular (girl crush) people moved to that since it was fresh.
And now Girl Crush is losing its appeal because every other group has been doing it.
The culture has just changed. Females understandably want to be shown as stronger and more independent, it has just taken it longer to reach South Korea. Cute concept groups with large male fanbases is going to become a niche, I'd argue it already is. Female fans are more powerful than ever and can carry girl groups to huge numbers on their own now.
At this point it's not a fad that will come back en masse. You look into the gender divide that exists in South Korea these days especially after the last election and it's obvious to see. Outside of summer songs the demand is just not there for it.
WJSN did MOMOMO and Happy which were cutesy
OMG did Liar liar, Coloring book, Nonstop which were cutesy
group popularizes concept -> other groups, especially low- and mid-tier ones follow it -> the concept becomes oversaturated -> a relatively popular group does something different and groups that haven't had success with following the previous concept slowly attempt to replicate it -> the cycle repeats
this happened to cute concepts, "regular" girl crush, itzy-like teen crush, and is happening to "aespa inspired" girl crush
I'm pretty sure the next trend is going to be elegant concepts
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