Both groups came out strong out of the gate and then had a hit song that went viral as well.
aespa just managed to come out when kpop was in the middle its huge sales/views bubble its currently in, during the early days of 4th gen when the big companies, besides JYP hadn't yet debuted their 4th gen gg's. They easily became the big flavor of the month and took the "4th Gen queens" crown because the only other group really fighting for it put up no resistance.
aespa is still going strong for now, but I can already see the signs that the momentum is stalled and cracks are showing.
Theres minor controversies with some members already, some of which are deserved (Giselle's use of the word), some less so like the NingNing Olympics thing. But they are there. Some of the Korean gp have also been increasingly racist towards Gis/NN. For example, while i-nets seemed to agree Gis/NN did the best at Coach, the k-nets sites only praised Karina and Winter.
Their constant controversies with the live and show performances as well. Constantly getting sprung lip syncing badly. Mediocre stage presence. Mediocre dance. Lame attempts to integrate the not hugely popular AI thing. There was Coachella, but even that seems to be more they did fine, but didnt set the world on fire. The University thing is just another one on that pile.
Then theres their lack of fan interaction, slow release of other content.
Basically, like people claim happened to itzy, I can easily see aespa getting left behind. People are already finding new flavors of the month and shiny new toys to play with and like JYP with itzy, so far SM is being lazy and not doing enough to keep aespas momentum going in the face of more and more challenges, or to plug the holes that are appearing.
I can’t 
