This situation is like the SNSD-2NE1 battle of late 2009.
SNSD's Genie fought against 2NE1's I don't care, and 2NE1 did score a HUGEla victory against the former.
Its impact was great , although not as great as SNSD' decisive defeat against Lee Jieun which was quite decisive. (Yes, I still tend to mention Lee Jieun in my posts.)
So, until late 2011, when SNSD was vanquished by the one singer remaining to fight her, 2NE1 enjoyed near top status in Korea, and much longer in the overseas since Lee Jieun was completely irrelevant outside of Korea.
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In the MAMA awards, NewJeans were NOT ranked in the same rank with IVE, NMIXX, Kep1er and Le Sserafim.
It is considered to be the contender for the top act among the 4th gen act, but IVE's stranglehold appears to be getting stronger every day.
Min Heejin's Red Velvet lost to So Sungjin's GFriend every time when she was running, and only after she left RV began to beat GF.
And she met So Sungjin again in Hybe, although he no longer has any power about how LeSserafim is run (It is run directly by Hybe people).
That, along with some other things , appears to make Min Heejin quite nervous; her ambition to be recognized as a major exec in K-O-R-E-A might be plaguing her decisions.
In the end Min Heejin's approach of running RV might have worked. RV is still going around while GF is no more, although not because GF lost to RV.
However, in the overseas where the money is, RV never really received the recognition Twice or BlackPink got, and its hey day only came after aespa and the 4th Gen debuted, and as we all know, SM tends to just let the older acts to run themselves , not really spending too much to advance them.
This comebeck will decide NewJean's fate. If Min Heejin focused it for K-O-R-E-A again, it will become a domestic act, powerful in Korea and not too so for the rest of the world.
She might be using NJ for her self gratification, just like Bang used BTS so he could play a mogul in K-O-R-E-A for one year, but that will not work well for the group's long term global success as we all know that K-O-R-E-A-N success is only fleeting.
