Recently IVE got me thinking with this whole NOBODY situation. They have 6 members and chose to send the most popular one which I get as a business decision but at the same time. Imagine you're in a group and two of your members come from a very popular former group, and they come into the group with years of experience and individual fandoms. Then the company pushes those two the most. What can you even do to catch up? Le Sserafim is the same but with them I hear about the other members as well, yes there's a popularity gap especially with Sakura. But it makes sense considering Sakura has been a very popular idol for 12 years in 3 extremely popular groups. But overall, I hear about the other members often. I also see them often, Eun-Chae does a bunch of stuff, Kazuha has photoshoots and CF, Yun-jin has made several solo songs.
With IVE I only hear about Wonyoung the most, then Yujin, Liz I only hear about when they're body shaming her. The rest? Gaeul and Leeseo are still the same person for me, neither of them stands out, neither does Rei. And I have followed this group since their debut. I am not a super close stan (but then again I am not like that for any group) but I do regularly watch the performances and listen to their songs. Being an unpopular member is a catch 22. On one hand the company makes more money by promoting the popular one but on the other how can you get more popular without promotion?