Why do we have so few "It-Girls" compared to previous gens?

  • In 2nd gen kpop was swimming in it girls. We had

    SNSD's Yoona

    Miss A's Suzy

    AOA's Seolhyun

    Apink's Naeun

    After School's Nana

    F(X)'s Sulli and Krystal

    Kara's Goo Hara

    T-ARA's Jiyeon

    EXID's Hani

    4minute's Hyuna

    and probably many more I'm forgetting.


    Then in 3rd gen we didn't have as many but there was still a lot compared to today

    Twice's Tzuyu

    Red Velvet's Irene

    Blackpink's Jennie and Lisa

    Mamamoo's Hwasa


    Meanwhile, in 4th gen we only have Wonyoung and Yujin as huge it girls. There are popular members of other groups but only Wonyoung and Yujin are sweeping CF's like previous it girls did. Why does it feel ike there are less it girls then in previous generations?

  • From a website not liked by allkpop


    8 “It Girls” From Lesser-Known K-Pop Girl Groups, According To Fans


    1. Doyeon (Weki Meki)

    2. Sohee (ALICE)

    3. Jiwon (Cherry Bullet)

    4. Sihyeon (EVERGLOW)

    5. Yuki (PURPLE KISS)

    6. Dia (PIXY)

    7. Nana (woo!ah!)

    8. Nina (IRRIS)

  • My opinion


    1, 2 and 7; Yes for sure, they should be top girls with lots of ads and sponsorships.


    4 and 8; Maybe


    3, 5 and 6; hard to see

  • 3rd gen, 4th gen and onwards are less heavily reliant on appearing in heavily promoting on television: variety shows, acting gigs, shows etc. as way of promotions. hence, less exposure to certain portion of gp.

  • Terrible mismanagement by JYP and SM in not promoting Karina and Yuna. YG not moving on a 4th gen GG. Karina to me is the biggest waste, she is the main rival for Wonyoung right now, imagine if she was promoted better.


    WY and YJ's fellow Izone stars all have drawbacks, Sakura being Japanese, Chaewon not being your standard Korean visual, and Minju retiring from Kpop.


    I do think Minji from NJ has an opportunity now though, hopefully MHJ executes their solo endeavors the same way she did their group rollout which was practically perfect.


    The other candidate i would watch out for is my Yuri. If she makes waves with Squid Games in Korea...it will be lights out for the rest of Kpop.

  • Because SM is holding back Winter and Karina


    how many time these girls trended in korea and made the buzz just by breathing


    but it's clear that even if SM is giving them more freedom by giving them individual schedules, it's only for little apparition here and there

    and want to continue to push Aespa as a full GG, that's why all their work are as a group, cf, ost and collab etc...


    Ash Island (a popular korean rapper) have talk so many times about how Giselle is his favorite female idol rapper and how much he would like to have the chance to collaborate with her

    or how Dina ayada ( a US singer) have sent love signal to giselle and even invited her to her studio in the US and SM never took this opportunity


    SM is holding back Aespa girls for so many opportunities

    ✩We Born with the X-Gene✩

    #aespa from GOMAWO TAEYEON #aespa from GOMAWO TAEYEON #aespa from GOMAWO TAEYEON

  • I hope Minji gets pushed individually as well. Now that NewJeans have wrapped up their first year I hope ADOR now focuses on building the girl's solo popularity. Personally, I can see Minji acting in the near future. She's expressed multiple times that's something she'd like to do and Danielle's Little Mermaid gig gives me hope that acting is something ADOR would let her do even while she's promoting as an idol.

  • Well, we don't have an it girl, but at least we have a 1,344 years old It Hag.

    Did you buy tickets for her fan concert yet?

  • Because being a Korean IT girl doesn't matter much anymore.


    BP and Twice are getting far more profits outside Korea. The more time they spend in Korea the less money they make. Thats why the other big agencies are following suit. It is all about overseas growth and concerts overseas now.

    Edited once, last by K-PL ().

  • It’s not really important for GG idols to be forced into Korean variety nor lesser paying CF’s to stay afloat any more.

    Top GG’s can make money releasing music and touring just like BG’s now and probably that’s worth more money.

    all these GG members do have many high profile endorsements and trend and that’s enough.

    We have to reevaluate what it means to be an IT girl that’s all.

  • globalization and increased kpop popularity means more and more idols are getting recognised (which is a good thing) which means that less cfs and deals and so forth are going to a select few idols (aka it girls) but being spread around

  • The ones you named were sure popular and had their moments, but I wouldnt say all of them were It girls. Some were popular variety personalities like Hani but others like Son Naeun whos has her peak moments and wasnt quite there exactly.


    Third gen had girls like that as well. IOI has Sejeong and Jung Chaeyeon who were everywhere, Kim Doyeon goes viral every 2 weeks on social media. April's Naeun was creeping onto that level before her controversy/scandal and Oh My Girl's Arin was almost like that as well.


    But I guess it depends on your definition of It girls because those 2nd gen ones from that list were not all on the same level.

    Edited 2 times, last by ks8126 ().

  • Maybe because Wonyoung's IT girl popularity is so dam fking high


    That every other supposedly IT girls who are actually IT girls, don't look like IT girls compared to the one at the top. The gap is too huge.


    It's like when you have a class and the top of the class has a score of 99/100, while the 2nd 3rd 4th 5th are all average score of 70/100 that they don't seem to be the "top IT girl" despite them actually being 2nd 3rd 4th etc

  • “it girl” in a kpop group just isn’t the focus anymore. companies quickly learned from suzy & miss a or hyuna and 4minute.


    having “it girls” can really hinder the rest of the members and the group as a whole.


    instead of majorly promoting one member, the focus has shifted towards making an “it group” instead.

  • “it girl” in a kpop group just isn’t the focus anymore. companies quickly learned from suzy & miss a or hyuna and 4minute.


    having “it girls” can really hinder the rest of the members and the group as a whole.


    instead of majorly promoting one member, the focus has shifted towards making an “it group” instead.

    Not at all. Jennie's it girl status in Korea has contributed massively for BP's popularity there, the same way Wonyoung and Yujin helped to boost Ive's popularity there. It didnt work for Suzy and Hyuna because unlike Starship and YG did for their ggs there was zero effort from JYP and Cube to push the other members and as we all know only one member will never be enough to sustain a group's popularity. Another example: Eunwoo. It will always help, not hinder, but it will never be a key factor.

    narcissistic, my god i love it

    JCsIq3Q.gif

  • Not at all. Jennie's it girl status in Korea has contributed massively for BP's popularity there, the same way Wonyoung and Yujin helped to boost Ive's popularity there. It didnt work for Suzy and Hyuna because unlike Starship and YG did for their ggs there was zero effort from JYP and Cube to push the other members and as we all know only one member will never be enough to sustain a group's popularity. Another example: Eunwoo. It will always help, not hinder, but it will never be a key factor.

    I think it's other way around bp star status helped jennie IT girl status maybe they both correlate each other.

  • That's because just half of your list was really it girls
    And most of them just trended for a few moment

    -

    btw kpopfans rewriting story and say that Nana was a it girl need to be study

    because she was never a thing

  • It's not really a necessity to go for individual activities and CFs when GG members and their company can make money through touring and albums sales with no problem. I don't think it's a coincidence that the only "notable" IT girl we have this gen is from a smaller company and not from the big3. Most of the idols that get major CFs are from smaller companies too like Chuu.


    I agree that we probably have to redefine what it means to be an IT girl with this current generation, as the markings that people use are pretty outdated. I'd also argue that female idols face more 'IT girl' competition from people that go viral organically as opposed to pushed to the GP like before, like Noze and Song Jia before their scandals, Youngji etc

  • I think you are confusing idols who were infamous for their visuals but most of them were never IT girls (despite me being a fan of almost all of girls you mentioned).


    Only true IT girls of 2nd gen were Yoona and Bae Suzy, and Seohyun for a while. The rest of the girls were popul, famous for their visuals, they trended, could sell out stuff, faces of their respective groups but they were never IT girl level.

    - You don't like my aesthetic?

    - Shut up, you're gonna like it today!

  • I'm not sure if the 2th generation had more "It-girls" (I never use that term myself...) compare to now, but I kind if feel it was like that. Today a lot of the so called "It-girls" feels like they mostly are girls that the group fans are talking about, not girls that are talked about a lot outside the core of fans.

    I'm not lying when I say I can't name one girl from any group that debuting the last two-three years. Well, Aespa is proably the newest group I could name at least one or more members in the gorup. I was not not much better with the 2th generation groups, well I know my favorite groups, but not much more. But....... some names always poped up in the headlines and I learned regonize them in away I don't do with the groups of today. Like Crystal and Suli. I mean, I have no clue how they acctually looked like, I would not be able to point them on in a photo, but I they was member in f(x) when saw the names.


    I think one reason that the 2th generation maybe had more "It-girls" is that competion was a bit smaller and today the girls competes for the spotlight both against their own "generation" and the older girls that still hangs arround in the background or still are active. Suzy, Yoona, IU are girls that still hanging around and have not left the building, and we also have the obvious stars of 3rd generation Lisa, Jennie , the Twice girls and so on. It's bit more crowded today and we only have place of a limited amount of "it-girls".

  • Maybe Wonyoung's got Korea in a vice-grip? She's been in the public eye since her IZONE days and the public is watching her grow up. She apparently breathes the wrong way A LOT because they don't need anymore material, LOL.

    I think it also might be due to the fact that none of these bigger companies are pushing their girls like Starship pushes Wonyoung and Yujin. Starship has Wonyoung in every CF under the sun and Yujin is blowing up in variety. I don't think the Korean gp is just so obsessed with Wonyoung that they won't pay attention to other idols, they have shown major interest in idols like Yuna, Karina, Winter, Minji, and Haerin. But JYPE and SM aren't promoting any of their popular female idols; we literally watched as Yuna's it-girl potential got wasted and SM seems to be doing the same thing with Karina and Winter. Minji and Haerin have larger chances to grow their popularity due to ADOR showing they are willing to give the members big solo projects but only time will tell.

  • IT-girl is someone whom everyone (symbolically) on the planet knows who she is and does make an impact on what she does!


    Tbh I can only call the BLACKPINK girls IT-GIRL. They're global brand ambassadors or house ambassadors of luxury brands.


    Ranking by popularity:

    No.1 Lisa 100% IT-GIRL

    No.2 Jennie 80% you can call it.

    No.3 Rosé 70%

    No.4 Jisoo 60% (even though she got brand like Dior but her IMAGE (as IT-girl) is still quite weak internationally. And lately Cartier went to V BTS.

  • This doesn't even make sense because Hwasa and Seolhyun weren't from big3, were still IT girls and no one had an issue with that, you're making up problems that don't exist to get mad at

  • I believe now the bigger companies do not want a standout member, like a Suzy and friends. Because as soon as they start to get ideas about more solo activities, the group is at risk.


    The classic example in recent times is Chuu. One member wants to do more and more solo activities, and the whole group goes to poop.


    Is Jennie as big as Suzy or Yoona at their peak were in Korea? No. Yoona was in a daily drama getting ratings of 43%+, which meant ~40% of the population was watching her every day for months. But she definitely is as big globally. Another 4th gen person mentioned here by some group stans isn't even close, and basically since the end of last year every member of NJ is more popular that her.

  • This thread contains 7 more posts that have been hidden for guests, please register yourself or login to continue reading.

Participate now!

Don’t have an account yet? Register yourself now and be a part of our community!