An Analysis of Nmixx Individual Member Fancam Views (or: How Popular Really Was Jinni?)

    As most of us know, Nmixx debuted in February this year to considerable fanfare. As JYPE's fifth girl group, they piqued my interest somewhat, so shortly after their debut, I started a long-term project to track their individual fancam views as a way to gauge the popularity of each member.


    My methodology was to search for official fancams on YouTube, then record the views for each member roughly a week after a particular fancam was uploaded. Now we have to keep in mind that fancam views can vary drastically depending on source (e.g. M Countdown tends to have more views than Show Champion), so in order to normalise views across sources, I calculated the average (mean) views for each set of fancams, then expressed each Nmixx member's performance *as a percentage* of that number.


    It was then simple to generate a time-phased presentation of the data, with each member's percentages for each set of fancams colour-coded in a green-yellow-red scale (with green being best). My results are shown in the figure below:


    NmixxFancams.png


    Observations and questions:

    • First of all, the various music shows are quite inconsistent in posting complete sets of fancams, so as we can see, it's often the case that fancams are missing for certain members.
    • As shown in the last row, I calculated the median value of the percentage scores for each member, and based on that, Nmixx's overall popularity ranking is as follows: Sullyoon, Haewon, Kyujin, Jinni, Lily, Jiwoo, Bae.
    • Now let's focus our attention on the upper portion of the figure, which deals with Nmixx's debut period, where they were performing "O.O" for the most part. It's obvious that Sullyoon completely dominated during this time, as she had by far the most fancam views. Is this simply because people were drawn to her visuals?
    • We see that Lily did well very right at the beginning, but her views quickly dropped off. Why was this the case? My guess is that people were intrigued by the novelty of Lily being multiracial, but she wasn't able to sustain that level of interest.
    • Moving to the lower portion of the figure now, if we take a look at Nmixx's comeback period for Entwurf, we see that Sullyoon's dominance has been significantly eroded by Haewon. What happened? How was Haewon able to achieve noticeably higher average fancam views during "Dice" promotions?
    • We also see that Kyujin's performance improved during the comeback. I've seen people on this forum claim that she was "pushed as the center", so I'm guessing that's the reason for her improvement.
    • Jinni's performance has actually remained relatively stable, and she's right in the middle in terms of fancam views. I've seen AKP posters say that she's the "stan attractor" of the group, but why isn't this reflected in her fancam views?
    • In a related question, even though Jinni is often considered the most attractive Nmixx member (as evidenced by this AKP poll), why is she unable to achieve anywhere near the numbers that Sullyoon is capable of? I don't understand it, especially since Sullyoon seems to be a weaker performer with a less engaging personality.
    • Taking a step back, are fancam views even an accurate measure of individual member popularity? I tend to believe that they're a relatively valid indicator.

    Edited once, last by wsoet ().

    And soyeon always consistently has the lowest fancam views in gidle, how popular really is she?? Is she even needed in the group?? :suure:

    Fancam views have some merits but should never be the be all end all measure of popularity. You also have to take into account the fact that most fancams are usually only streamed by people already in the fandom, whereas there are many instances when an idol is well known to casuals and non-fans, they just don’t have a big individual fandom to stream fancams, so looking only at fancams to gauge popularity is very short sighted and even wrong. Yunjin in lesserafim also has low fancam views but has a lot of casual fans and her instagram has more engagement than kazuha. So is she popular or not?? :suure:

    lily was absolutely squandered in this group. i remember i was excited to see her debut after her stint on kpop star back in the day. she was a charming girl with an amazing voice. but not only did jype not even market her, not even TRY to make the people that remembered her get hyped about her, they gave her the worst possible styling, and a debut with a song that was not created to really showcase anyone's vocal ability except for a brief section in the middle.


    lily had the most lines in o.o but she did not stand out. she was barely given a center part. and its just another example of jype not knowing how to handle their individual idols. they don't know how to play to their strengths at all.


    i feel sad for lily and i honestly think she would have been better off debuting in itzy or solo.

    Fancams aren't a reliable metric of popularity. Sometimes they correlate and other times they don't.


    Like it was mentioned earlier. Soyeon has the lowest fancams of (G)I-DLE and yet she has the most CFs

  • AllKill VIP

    thank you for your hard work

    things like this are always great to see

    you properly collected a lot of data


    the thing is Jinni just had her 5 minutes of fame

    her look on MAMA went viral in Korean forums and she was highly praised for beauty

    so in end year shows or during next comeback she would probably be ranking 3rd or even 2nd

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    For Lily's first 2 fancams it could be because of the highly viewed clips of her vocals singing Tank at their showcase on 2022-03-01. Or if they were still higher before the showcase, maybe because people knew she was Lily M. Or it could also be Australian people being "wow an Australian" but I don't think that would account for that much of an increase.


    At first I wondered why Jiwoo seems to have more views overall than Bae but they are both rappers and Bae gets less lines while Jiwoo gets more important lines and is a main dancer of the group.

    Quote from wsoet
    • Moving to the lower portion of the figure now, if we take a look at Nmixx's comeback period for Entwurf, we see that Sullyoon's dominance has been significantly eroded by Haewon. What happened? How was Haewon able to achieve noticeably higher average fancam views during "Dice" promotions?
    • In a related question, even though Jinni is often considered the most attractive Nmixx member (as evidenced by this AKP poll), why is she unable to achieve anywhere near the numbers that Sullyoon is capable of? I don't understand it, especially since Sullyoon seems to be a weaker performer with a less engaging personality.
    • Taking a step back, are fancam views even an accurate measure of individual member popularity? I tend to believe that they're a relatively valid indicator.

    1. Maybe at the start people were more interested in all the different members of Nmixx as a group. Now in their first comeback there has been a big increase in fans more casual and dedicated that know about Haewon in addition to Sullyoon. (e.g. Increase in Haewon's popularity among both group fans and general K-pop fans)


    2. Jinni might be pretty if you look closely but it is nothing compared to how much people talk about Sullyoon. I think in a lot of groups there would be a huge gap in views between the visual everyone acknowledges and knows, and the second and third most attractive member. But then the question would be why Haewon over Jinni because Haewon is also popular for being pretty, maybe because her persona (leader, vocalist, innocent or lovely) is more popular than Jinni's (rapper, energetic)


    Maybe Jinni could be more popular in an alternate reality but it just happens Haewon is the most popular based on events now


    3. I think so because aside from first few days of the comeback, only group fans would be watching fancams for the most part

    The thing with Lily is that she used to be the most popular member in the beginning since she was a well known trainee since her appeareance on K-pop Star years ago and many were anticipating her debut.


    I suppose the way JYPE promoted her, within the group, didn't help to maintain the interest on her and the attention was switched to other members quickly.


    She's still known by non-fans for this said reason and her vocals, but this public might not even be casuals nor fans, so they won't stream fancams.

    Wow! Thanks for explaining your methodology and your hard work here.


    I disagree with people saying fancams aren’t an indication of popularity. While they aren’t always the most reliable because they may fluctuate by song or if something specific caught the public’s attention, they usually give you a directional trend: you generally can look across any group and see the most popular and least popular members in any fandom by looking at the fancam views.


    What I think were forgetting here are the KBS. I-fans might find Jinni the most beautiful, but Sullyoon matches more of Korea’s tastes and preferences.


    Also FWIW, having broken down two videos and one stage performance to make badges, Jinni actually had very little screen time (which surprised me). Sullyoon and Lily definitely had the most so there’s a bit of a chicken and the egg thing where the people getting the most attention in the videos are also the ones getting the most attention in the fancams. (Having worked on a number of badges for a number of groups, it’s obvious who the company priorities in their shots 😃)

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    Jinni was definitely one of the most popular members in the overall fandom.


    She did tend to lag in fancam views. Even during O.O and Tank where she had quite a bit of center time.


    However, her photo cards always sold the highest along with Haewon and Sullyoon. I think Haewon and Sullyoon are securely the top 2 members since they have both fandom (views and photo card prices) and GP attention (for the GP interested in NMIXX). Jinni has also generally been 3rd, but I do think that Kyujin grew amongst casuals and non-fans after Dice and Hype Boy so while I think Jinni was overall still #3 amongst the fandom, Kyujin did close some of that gap.


    The thing is, Jinni was PRIMED to really be THE one for NMIXX. I don't care what anyone says. The way she went viral during their pre-debut and the way she had so much focus initially for promoting O.O, but unfortunately, Sullyoon overshadowed her almost immediately. After that JYPE decided to switch her from the main face of the group to Sullyoon at the behest of fans and also to capitalize on how Sullyoon was BLOWING up. Then from there, Haewon also started to gain a lot of attention, which further overshadowed Jinni. Then, Dice happened where Sullyoon and Kyujin took most of the parts that probably would have gone to Jinni, which was weird, but I still think was only temporary.


    I think Jinni was really gearing up to grab some more attention with the GP after MAMA. While I loved Jinni's pink hair, a lot of k-netz preferred her pre-debut styling, which may have also lead to why she didn't take off like she could have. Her visuals were always praised by k-netz, but only jointly with Sullyoon. K-netz really wanted JYPE to push Sullyoon and Jinni together as a visual duo like Sulli and Krystal. However, Jinni did not get any individual attention until after she went back black. Who knows what would have happened if JYPE had really pushed her more during Dice or better yet during this upcoming comeback with her new hairstyle?


    Guess we'll never know. I do think Jinni was overall a big stan attractor with i-fans along with Haewon (more than Sullyoon), but that did not translate as much in Korea, which is why I think there is some disconnect on how popular she was where it counted (Korea).


    Just a waste of potential.

    PGDPGT PRETTY GIRLS DOING PRETTY GIRL THINGS

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    Quote from eunchaepower

    IDK how people say Jinni was FOTG when Sullyoon is in two MV thumbnails.

    It's because pre-debut, Jinni was given a lot of focus and originally supposed to be the face of the group.


    However, Sullyoon gained a huge amount of popularity, and so JYPE switched them out.


    Did JYP Entertainment Change NMIXX's Center? Here's What Happened
    Fans believe that JYP Entertainment has changed the member in NMIXX's center position. Keep on reading to know what happened. #NMIXX #AD_MARE
    www.kpopstarz.com


    So, instead of Kyujin and Jinni being rotating centers (Jinni as the FOTG and Kyujin as the leader of the performances), Sullyoon became the FOTG and Kyujin continued to be the leader of the performances, which left Jinni's status a bit unknown.

    PGDPGT PRETTY GIRLS DOING PRETTY GIRL THINGS

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    I think Jinni dropped off due to her just not fitting the concept.


    If you look at the pre-debut vids that got her the initial hype, they had more of a girl-crush edge than anything she did post-debut. Nmixx was just a bad fit for her.

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    For older group, fancams is indeed display the popularity of the members not among the gp or casual listeners but fans. For example, Soyeon is really popular among gp and non fans but she doesn't have big fanbase for herself. She only sold 38k for her solo album compare to Miyeon with 113k which is really huge difference.


    But for Nmixx that relatively still new, I don't think fancams is the clear indication to show their popularity. I think most group in kpop started with the visual being the most popular one because they're being push to attract new fans. In two years from now, the popularity ranking among the members might change after all the members showing off their charms which now it still blurry so public and new fans might go with the one who being pushed the most.

    Lily was the only “known” member, for years there have been rumors about her debut that’s why people were interested but let’s be real despite being a great singer visuals >>>


    Jinni is the most consistent imo she’s more popular than Kyujin. Top 3.


    Sullyoon was highly hyped for her visuals but she doesn’t have a huge grow compared to haewon who’s the dark horse but she wasn’t unpopular, she has a big fanbase, viral videos on YouTube Korea, if you look at their IG, she has always the most liked posts.

    If the same members get the most viewed fancams every cb it does mean there are some members are the most populars like let’s stop being delusional.


    Quote from Whi

    And soyeon always consistently has the lowest fancam views in gidle, how popular really is she?? Is she even needed in the group?? :suure:

    Fancam views have some merits but should never be the be all end all measure of popularity. You also have to take into account the fact that most fancams are usually only streamed by people already in the fandom, whereas there are many instances when an idol is well known to casuals and non-fans, they just don’t have a big individual fandom to stream fancams, so looking only at fancams to gauge popularity is very short sighted and even wrong. Yunjin in lesserafim also has low fancam views but has a lot of casual fans and her instagram has more engagement than kazuha. So is she popular or not?? :suure:

    Miyeon is like the most popular member in Korea. Minnie was one of the most searched members in Korea. Soyeon May be well know but doesn’t mean she’s the most popular.

    Kazuha posts aren’t as interesting as Yunjin but her latest ones got 1M likes despite most of them being ads.


    Yunjin is the least popular in Korea and she’s neither more popular than Chaewon, Sakura and Kazuha internationally.

    I wasn’t arguing about the popularity ranking of gidle’s and lesserafim’s members, the point is it’s flawed to look only at fancams to determine how popular an idol is. Soyeon has the smallest hardcore fancam in gidle and thus low fancam views, but is the most well known / recognisable name from the group, so the fancams don’t paint a clear picture - you have to look at other measures as well. That’s the point

    Quote from Whi

    And soyeon always consistently has the lowest fancam views in gidle, how popular really is she?? Is she even needed in the group?? :suure:

    That's a fair point, though Soyeon is largely in charge of her group's musical direction, so her role is crucial regardless of popularity.

    Quote from Whi

    Fancam views have some merits but should never be the be all end all measure of popularity. You also have to take into account the fact that most fancams are usually only streamed by people already in the fandom, whereas there are many instances when an idol is well known to casuals and non-fans, they just don’t have a big individual fandom to stream fancams, so looking only at fancams to gauge popularity is very short sighted and even wrong.

    Agreed. The distinction between fandom popularity and "general public" popularity is something that I also thought of when writing this post, so I'm glad you brought it up so quickly.

    Quote from Whi

    Yunjin in lesserafim also has low fancam views but has a lot of casual fans and her instagram has more engagement than kazuha. So is she popular or not?? :suure:

    Coincidentally, I've also put together a similar fancam analysis for Le Sserafim, and can confirm that Yunjin has the lowest views overall. Now on the topic of Instagram, I notice that you specifically mentioned *engagement*, which I'm assuming means likes and comments. Do you feel that engagement is more of an accurate measure of popularity than follower count?

    Quote from aclassyteaparty

    lily was absolutely squandered in this group. i remember i was excited to see her debut after her stint on kpop star back in the day. she was a charming girl with an amazing voice. but not only did jype not even market her, not even TRY to make the people that remembered her get hyped about her, they gave her the worst possible styling, and a debut with a song that was not created to really showcase anyone's vocal ability except for a brief section in the middle.

    Thanks for bringing that up! I'd forgotten about Lily's 4th place finish on K-pop Star 4 back in 2015, and agree about the questionable styling and lack of showcasing of her vocal ability.

    Quote from wsoet

    That's a fair point, though Soyeon is largely in charge of her group's musical direction, so her role is crucial regardless of popularity.

    Agreed. The distinction between fandom popularity and "general public" popularity is something that I also thought of when writing this post, so I'm glad you brought it up so quickly.

    Coincidentally, I've also put together a similar fancam analysis for Le Sserafim, and can confirm that Yunjin has the lowest views overall. Now on the topic of Instagram, I notice that you specifically mentioned *engagement*, which I'm assuming means likes and comments. Do you feel that engagement is more of an accurate measure of popularity than follower count?

    yeah i was being sarcastic when I mentioned soyeon lol obviously she’s the most crucial member in gidle even if her hardcore fandom is the smallest in the group


    I don’t think there’s a hard metric that’s vastly above the rest to measure these intangible things. The big picture is a composite of all its small details, not just one. And imo follower count and engagement both have merits and should be looked at concurrently when gauging a celebrity’s popularity, and it’s unwise to claim one measure is definitely more accurate or important than the other


    Soyeon's like definitively the most searched member in Korea. And she has the most CFs, and the most variety show appearances. You can certainly argue miyeon has the biggest individual fanbase, but in Korea, Soyeon's kinda definitively top dog at least when it comes to KR.

    Quote from bartkun

    the thing is Jinni just had her 5 minutes of fame

    her look on MAMA went viral in Korean forums and she was highly praised for beauty

    so in end year shows or during next comeback she would probably be ranking 3rd or even 2nd

    Yeah I saw people talking about Jinni's MAMA styling on AKP as well. I wonder if that would've resulted in an uptick in her popularity, but I guess we'll never know.

    Quote from Help1

    At first I wondered why Jiwoo seems to have more views overall than Bae but they are both rappers and Bae gets less lines while Jiwoo gets more important lines and is a main dancer of the group.

    Now I'm wondering, do people generally prefer Jiwoo's visuals to Bae's?

    Quote from Help1

    But then the question would be why Haewon over Jinni because Haewon is also popular for being pretty, maybe because her persona (leader, vocalist, innocent or lovely) is more popular than Jinni's (rapper, energetic)

    So this begs the question: why did it take so long for people to notice Haewon? Her visuals haven't really changed much since debut.

    Quote from wsoet

    Now I'm wondering, do people generally prefer Jiwoo's visuals to Bae's?

    So this begs the question: why did it take so long for people to notice Haewon? Her visuals haven't really changed much since debut.

    From what I have seen, Bae's visuals are liked. They consider Bae pretty, but they think Jiwoo is pretty enough for visual status.


    A lot of people said that Jiwoo was up there with Sullyoon and Jinni in terms of visuals, but because she's a bit thicker than those other two, they said she needed to "manage" herself better. After Jinni left, they felt like Jiwoo needed to slim down to take her place.


    When JYPE was pushing Kyujin, Sullyoon, and Jinni as the NMIXX "Bermuda Triangle", people were saying the true "Bermuda Triangle" was Jiwoo, Sullyoon, and Jinni.


    Also, Haewon's attention is not solely based on her visuals. It's her visuals, her personality, and her stage presence. She really started blowing up after NMIXX started performing and releasing content. On still pictures, Jinni and Sullyoon probably steal your attention first, but Haewon is considered by some people to have one of the best stage presences within NMIXX (even with Jinni still there), and she also went viral a few times for her dancing, her variety skills, and just being charismatic.

    PGDPGT PRETTY GIRLS DOING PRETTY GIRL THINGS

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    Quote from keyboardwarrior7

    Sullyoon overshadowed her almost immediately

    Ah, I still don't quite get the hype with Sullyoon, but it appears I'm in the minority here.

    Quote from keyboardwarrior7

    Then from there, Haewon also started to gain a lot of attention

    Now I'm wondering, what exactly was the cause for Haewon's rise?

    Quote from keyboardwarrior7

    I think Jinni was really gearing up to grab some more attention with the GP after MAMA. While I loved Jinni's pink hair, a lot of k-netz preferred her pre-debut styling, which may have also lead to why she didn't take off like she could have.

    I never thought that hair color could have such an impact. Personally, I was also a fan of the pink hair, and didn't care for Jinni's bangs at MAMA.

    Quote from wsoet

    Now I'm wondering, do people generally prefer Jiwoo's visuals to Bae's?

    So this begs the question: why did it take so long for people to notice Haewon? Her visuals haven't really changed much since debut.

    Personally I thought Haewon stood out from the start because of looks and getting important parts/line distribution, any other clips of her on variety or off stage were a complete non factor for me but I can see how those probably helped a ton of people to notice her presence.

    Quote from wsoet

    Ah, I still don't quite get the hype with Sullyoon, but it appears I'm in the minority here.

    I think Sullyoon is at the top in terms of buzz for visuals because although I didn't notice her until those inkigayo photos, after I noticed her features, its like I can't unsee the strong impression. To a higher degree than other famous visuals. Other famous visuals also get talked about being pretty so often that you get used to seeing them that way, but for Sullyoon:


    1. she is the one with the greatest degree of looking unreal/unnatural because of her small face/head shape. So she gives a stronger impression than other people considered attractive. and


    2. Relatedly, I can't find as many photos of her as other visuals where she looks just normal or average for a K-pop idol. The main ones I could find were album concept photos and a few selfies where her face looks tall rather than round. I haven't checked everyone so I don't know for sure, but I just guess that her features remain more consistently impressive in different angles and photos, than other beautiful idols. Or it could just be that she has good selfie angles/hair and makeup styling that give this consistent impression.




    It's so crazy to me how it wasn't just a temporary interest from people but the amount of views she gets on her fancams even after the first few days, remain higher than other membrs, that it actualy tranlated to more individual fans

    Quote from hammerstan

    I think Jinni dropped off due to her just not fitting the concept.


    If you look at the pre-debut vids that got her the initial hype, they had more of a girl-crush edge than anything she did post-debut. Nmixx was just a bad fit for her.

    I checked the her Tank fancam. Jinni definitely gave a very expressive and beautiful facial performance in a song like that. She fits the O.O concept very well too. Jinni was also very noticeable in O.O. I only thought her style didn't suit concept like Dice very well. She suits mostly Girlcrush styles. For some reason, I feel like Jyp strategically dropped Jinni so that the group would gain attention and become popular. So it may not have happened at all. When the reason was not explained, I could not think of any other logical explanation.

    Quote from Selynn

    I checked the her Tank fancam. Jinni definitely gave a very expressive and beautiful facial performance in a song like that. She fits the O.O concept very well too. Jinni was also very noticeable in O.O. I only thought her style didn't suit concept like Dice very well. She suits mostly Girlcrush styles. For some reason, I feel like Jyp strategically dropped Jinni so that the group would gain attention and become popular. So it may not have happened at all. When the reason was not explained, I could not think of any other logical explanation.

    Jinni is generally good with expressions, but her vibe really stands out with girlcrush. If anything, she would probably shine with an even more badass girlcrush concept than she has shown so far. Like 2NE1's CL, except as an allrounder instead of a main rapper.


    Nmixx's concept has been moving her in the wrong direction.

    The Five Horsemen Of The Apocalypse
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    Quote from Selynn

    She suits mostly Girlcrush styles. For some reason, I feel like Jyp strategically dropped Jinni so that the group would gain attention and become popular. So it may not have happened at all. When the reason was not explained, I could not think of any other logical explanation.

    I think personal/health emergency or breaking company values makes more sense than that

    Quote from Bananapple

    In two years from now, the popularity ranking among the members might change after all the members showing off their charms which now it still blurry so public and new fans might go with the one who being pushed the most.

    Yeah that's a good point. I'm also curious to see how Nmixx members' popularity evolves over time, so I imagine I'll keep tracking their fancam views in the future.

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