It was Izone disbandment that freed 4th generation. As long as Izone was still around, all attention was focused on them. Remember Aespa's debut and Stayc's debut flopped with Izone active.
But after March of 2021, the floodgates opened. Folks paid attention to ASAP, then of course Next Level bombed the charts. Savage, Eleven, Smiley, Run 2U, Tomboy, Love Dive, Fearless, Sneakers, and Attention/Hybe Boy all followed.
izone wasn't even popular to general public to get all the attention, most of the popular ggs this past years has done better digitally than izone including aespa
