I cannot believe “EXO is an unruly group” is the narrative SM ent has decided to establish

well fuck sm

Quote from Daisy_Queen

.... Another lawsuit incoming?

Quote from flowerteapetal

I've always thought it so weird that they didn't do more with EXO.

Why not do something with and promote the most popular group they have?

SM doesn't want money?

And I'm not talking about a year, this has been going on for half a decade or more.

My analysis from that:

You need to understand EXO situation from two perspective, brand side and fandom side. Brand size means the group will get promotions to general public/people outside fandom, this leads the group to be famous and have huge following, as well help the company name to be sold by extension. Fandom side means the group will get promotions and activities focused in fandom growth and engagement.

EXO is a famous group, so not only they make lots of money, but they used to be the face of the company as well. SM operates in a way they sell the company name (remember the whole SuperM circus) more than the groups name

SM built EXO to be a group to make waves in China and being SM representative in the country. Once the market closed, SM shifted the focus to Korea only, because it's what was left for them plus no other SM group was having hits in Korea, the focus moving to Korea wasn't some conscious choice SM wanted, its was simply using EXO to promote SM brand or nothing. It lasted until 2017

After 2017 SM decided to remove EXO from Korean TV, which coincides with the degradation of their brand in their home country, for the average Korean EXO is a name they don't see in many years now.

You want me to find a culprit for that? Okay, it was Red Velvet blooming. With RV having hits in both Korea and abroad to sell the SM brand EXO was no longer necessary. I must add that by that time RV was my favorite girlgroup and I have no ill memories towards them, if anything I'm glad they found success

Okay, now with RV being SM brand representative SM could finally turn EXO nothing more than touring slaves just like they do with other older groups like TVXQ

EXO would not get the biggest budgets anymore, but they were likely to at least have regular promotions and comeback to keep fandom engagement. Then, the enlistment rules hit Korea and SM discovered Xiumin would need to enlist as soon as 2019 instead of 2021/2022. Because of that SM suddenly realized that by the year of 2020 their biggest cash cow would be on hiatus for years

This propeled SM to accelerate NCT growth at the start of 2018 with NCT 2018 Empathy project, this of course came at the expense of promoting EXO as little as possible, because in 2018 SM wanted every new kpop fan to stan NCT, not EXO. Of course things don't happen exactly as planned, EXO having hits like Tempo and Love Shot (despite low budgets and lean promotions) were not something SM anticipated, but nonetheless SM did not wanted to take any advantage of EXO big momentum, they just let it go.

The rest is just the usual SM tyrany trying to keep the members for as long as they could

This post is becoming too big, and might have points that were not as well written as I wanted, so please forgive me, I'm typing from my phone during my lunch break lol. Still, those are thoughts I have reflected long time ago, and I think sharing them help me to think rationalize the whole situation

Thanks for reading until there

Quote from ISaidISaid

You’re telling me year after year PD after PD who have praised them and loved them and spoken highly of them are all wrong? Make up artists fellow idols fans staff crew : always in praise of how humble and sweet EXO were.

Nice one there SM.

Nice one.

I have no words.

“Resolution”

My ASS. What did you do to CBX to make them stay 💀

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I BET the have some personal info that they are threatening to unleash if they don`t behave and play good doggy

now roll

now you are still a bad doggy after all

Quote from Baekhyun_Anggeul

not the koreans, they sadly side with companies. they have the mentality of "we all suck it up, standing up for yourself makes you look greedy".

SM want to be popular not their groups. they want to be know as the company that can manufacture quality groups, while their groups are nothing without SM.

they sabotaged EXO because they were growing out of their reach.

That's disgusting and also dumb

Quote from Icaro_Ribeiro

My analysis from that:

You need to understand EXO situation from two perspective, brand side and fandom side. Brand size means the group will get promotions to general public/people outside fandom, this leads the group to be famous and have huge following, as well help the company name to be sold by extension. Fandom side means the group will get promotions and activities focused in fandom growth and engagement.

EXO is a famous group, so not only they make lots of money, but they used to be the face of the company as well. SM operates in a way they sell the company name (remember the whole SuperM circus) more than the groups name

SM built EXO to be a group to make waves in China and being SM representative in the country. Once the market closed, SM shifted the focus to Korea only, because it's what was left for them plus no other SM group was having hits in Korea, the focus moving to Korea wasn't some conscious choice SM wanted, its was simply using EXO to promote SM brand or nothing. It lasted until 2017

After 2017 SM decided to remove EXO from Korean TV, which coincides with the degradation of their brand in their home country, for the average Korean EXO is a name they don't see in many years now.

You want me to find a culprit for that? Okay, it was Red Velvet blooming. With RV having hits in both Korea and abroad to sell the SM brand EXO was no longer necessary. I must add that by that time RV was my favorite girlgroup and I have no ill memories towards them, if anything I'm glad they found success

Okay, now with RV being SM brand representative SM could finally turn EXO nothing more than touring slaves just like they do with other older groups like TVXQ

EXO would not get the biggest budgets anymore, but they were likely to at least have regular promotions and comeback to keep fandom engagement. Then, the enlistment rules hit Korea and SM discovered Xiumin would need to enlist as soon as 2019 instead of 2021/2022. Because of that SM suddenly realized that by the year of 2020 their biggest cash cow would be on hiatus for years

This propeled SM to accelerate NCT growth at the start of 2018 with NCT 2018 Empathy project, this of course came at the expense of promoting EXO as little as possible, because in 2018 SM wanted every new kpop fan to stan NCT, not EXO. Of course things don't happen exactly as planned, EXO having hits like Tempo and Love Shot (despite low budgets and lean promotions) were not something SM anticipated, but nonetheless SM did not wanted to take any advantage of EXO big momentum, they just let it go.

The rest is just the usual SM tyrany trying to keep the members for as long as they could

This post is becoming too big, and might have points that were not as well written as I wanted, so please forgive me, I'm typing from my phone during my lunch break lol. Still, those are thoughts I have reflected long time ago, and I think sharing them help me to think rationalize the whole situation

Thanks for reading until there

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Thank you for explaining.

I never got it and still kind of don't/

No need for apologizing for the length of your post. It must suck to support them and then have to deal with their crazy company

Quote from flowerteapetal

Thank you for explaining.

I never got it and still kind of don't/

No need for apologizing for the length of your post. It must suck to support them and then have to deal with their crazy company

Well I feel frustrated bc of SM but even if we joke sometimes, being an Exo-l is sth i never regret. On the contrary I feel so lucky

I just hope Exo can work under fair conditions and continue to release good music for a long time

Quote from ISaidISaid

I disagree I don’t think red velvet was ever the face of anything for SM. They “side lined” EXO with RV they never even made them the face ever in the first place. Because right from the start RV was never a top group and didn’t complete with their peers for sales. Which

Is such a catch 22 because with better push RV could have easily done well in all metrics.

Whether SM succeed or not is not the point, for the average kpop fan EXO was by all accounts the SM representative group and their hiatus left a void in the company that was only fulfilled in the moment aespa released Next Level. But we could see a difference in treatment for Red Velvet after Red Flavour release, even more so after Bad Boy release. This coincides with EXO erasure from k-media, that's why I made the link.

Could it be just a coincidence? Sure, but knowing SM and knowing they never liked EXO to be their representative group I don't think it was

Nonetheless SM fucked up with RV eventually too, giving them big hiatus and weird songs, but at least the hit songs as well as their individual activities made RV a big name

Proof is despite everything going against them RV sold close to 1 million their last album.

Quote from novemberrain

Well I feel frustrated bc of SM but even if we joke sometimes, being an Exo-l is sth i never regret. On the contrary I feel so lucky

I just hope Exo can work under fair conditions and continue to release good music for a long time

Good. You shouldn't regret supporting your fave artists.

Keep supporting. I will stream along with you guys just to help out a bit.

Always protect artists against weird company BS