A Thought-Provoking Analysis of Aespa Instagram Follower Counts

---===NEW: See here for the latest one-year (May 2024) update===---

Given that it's been six full months since Aespa members opened their individual Instagram accounts (they debuted them on May 22), I thought it would be fun and instructive to examine some data and trends related to their follower counts. Thus, I looked up numbers for daily changes in followers from K-Pop Radar and input the figures into a spreadsheet for analysis.

The first chart I generated shows the daily change in Instagram followers for each member:

AespaIG_Change.png

I also created a chart showing the total number of Instagram followers for each member over time:

AespaIG_Total.png

Here are some of my thoughts for consideration:

• What's going on with Giselle and Ningning? Why was Giselle able to take an early lead in follower counts?

  
  

  • And what caused Ningning to overtake Giselle back in mid-June?
  • The two have been tracking pretty closely since then, but will Giselle ever take back the lead?
• Winter has been firmly stuck in the middle since the beginning. Is that trend expected to continue?
  • It seems to me that she has the potential to do better.
• All the members received a bump in followers after their Drama comeback on November 10th, but the boost wasn't as large as I was expecting.
• Follower counts were very volatile from mid-August to mid-September? Do we know why?
• What caused Karina's large increase in followers in the October time frame?
  • And what about that smaller jump in early September?
• And in general, why does Karina have such a huge (nearly 50%) advantage in followers over the other members? Is it simply because she's the most attractive member?
  • I think it has to be more than that. After all, we don't see a similar situation happening with Blackpink (Jisoo) or Twice (Tzuyu), for example.
  • Does any other member even stand a chance of ever overtaking Karina? I'm doubtful myself.
• Taking a step back, are these results an accurate measure of global popularity? If not, why not?
• Finally, do you follow all the members? If not, why do you only follow some members? Personally, it would seem to me that an Aespa fan would want to follow all of them.

For reference, here are links to each member's Instagram accounts: Karina | Giselle | Winter | Ningning

Further Reading on This Topic:

The 1-Year Update

Quote from BEG4DAWIN

Where is my line with my 5 followers?

It's off the charts! (since the axis starts at 1.5 million)

Quote from ellenote

Ningning is very popular overseas compared to Giselle

Now why would that be the case? Given that Giselle has the best English skills, you'd think that she'd have the most "Western" appeal right?

Quote from SooYoung

Giselle was one of the most vocal member about wanting to get an instagram

and she used to say on bubble that she would post a lot more things when she'll have instagram, MYs have always liked her aesthetic

and she was one of the most active member on insta when they started

Ah thanks for the insight; I was unaware of that tidbit. Giselle still does have the most Instagram posts, but not by a large margin.

Quote from SooYoung

it's going to continue because Winter is much more popular than Giselle and Ning but not as popular than karina

Interestingly, despite being "much more" popular, Winter only has 5-8% more followers than Giselle/Ningning.

Quote from SooYoung

None of the idol you mention are actually the most popular of their group

Jisoo is probably the least popular from the 4 member

and Tzuyu seem to have lost a lot of interest and hype these past years

Meanwhile karina is a fan favorite and one of the non-fans favorite

Exactly. Even though Jisoo/Tzuyu are generally considered the most attractive of their groups, they're not the most popular nor the most followed. Thus, my thought is that Karina's popularity isn't simply due to her superior visuals, so what else makes her stand out?

Quote from killthisfenty

Giselle and winter have more followers however you look at the engagements, and Ningning leads she has posts with 3M likes and her average between 1,5M to 2,5M. Giselle rarely cracks 1M likes. I thinks sometimes some groups have bots because they’d increase massively for no reason while they stay stagnant.

I was curious about these claims, and I thus calculated the average likes and comments for each member's last 12 posts. The results are shown in the table below:

Based on this data, it appears that Karina, Winter, and Ningning all have a comparable number of likes and comments. It's only Giselle that lags behind noticeably. We also have to note that Karina has considerably less engagement given her huge lead in followers.

Quote from SooYoung

Karina isn't popular thanks to her visual like most people

A lot of people actually stan karina because she's really good at interacting with fans a lot of her post on bubble and fancall were trending on theqoo for how she treat fans

She's also very well rounded so a lot of people actually like that a visual isn't just a visual and that she could actually dance, sing, rap, write lyric, be a good performer etc...

And also lot of people like her personality because she's very flirty with fans and other members

And she's also very relatable because of the big otaku so a lot of people recognize themself into her and feel more close to her because they have similar interest

And that's why she's getting so much love people like this difference between her visual and the person she really is

She's often praise for her beauty so people expect her to act classy and cute to protect her princess image

And when you know avout her she's the kind of girl who's enjoy watching anime and drama, who's ready to book a cinema for herself just to watch an anime at the cinema

And consider that her favorite character in a manga is a guy who always have a runy noise, and lost balance when he's normal

This contrast gets her a lot of fan

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I appreciate the additional insight. I haven't watched Aespa's fan content, so I'm not familiar with the members' personalities, but what you're saying helps explain the situation.

Quote from thelightoftruth

From what I've noticed with the difference in popularity with Karina and the others....

Firstly, visual preference is personal opinion. That said, I think Karina has a strong and somewhat unique look/style. More mature or womanly perhaps, whereas Winter is "cuter" and Giselle and Ning2 kind of go between the two. She's just undeniably good looking regardless of your personal taste unless you're a hater or blind.

There's also a duality to her, where she seems like an actual dork off-stage, a down to earth jokester, but also comes across as very genuine and caring. That then contrasts with her on stage where she's quite a charismatic and strong performer (despite what antis like to claim). I think the others have much less of a gap between their on and off stage selves. Often these kind of idols are usually some of the most popular - think Jennie, Seulgi, Taeyeon, Sana. Great for variety and she has demonstrated this before, think Youngji's drinking show.

Finally, she's a talented all-rounder in a way that not many other centre/visual members ever have been from a girl group. No disrespect to anyone else but put her up against every other visual member from the most popular groups and she's amongst the strongest in singing, dancing and rapping.

Outside of a major scandal I don't think anyone in the group will surpass her in popularity. Especially since they haven't really even pushed her yet (it's starting though).

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Ah thanks for the additional information; that was enlightening, and I especially appreciate the concept of "duality" you mentioned.