Introducing the morally grey girlgroup concept (or: why Twice, Babymonster and NMIXX flopped)

Quote from Catgirl

This was created for enjoyers of WhyKnock s content

Quote from Catgirl

There are many different approaches to creating a deep and interesting character, but these days, both readers and writers have noticed a new trend evolving: the morally grey character

There have always been characters like this, the ones that are seemingly both good and bad at the same time, those who are called anti-heroes or anti-villains. Popular examples would be Severus Snape and Draco Malfoy from Harry Potter. They are bad guys, but at the same time, we are rooting for them for some reason. Why? Because they blur the line between good and bad. People love it because it feels way more natural. Humans make mistakes that could be labelled as bad sometimes, nobody is perfect.

Everyone can write a "good" or "bad" guy, but finding the in-between is way harder.

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In K-Pop, we used to have 2 concepts for girl groups. Cute, resembling the "good" characters and girlcrush, resembling the "bad" characters. Over the years, new concepts got popular, but we were always able to divide them into one of the categories (Elegant, Dark and Sexy for example are girlcrush. There are groups like Iz*One that popularised cute-elegant but they are 4th gen). However, a lot changed in 4th gen. Groups like IVE and NewJeans popularised a different approach to K-Pop concepts. In particular IVE manages to balance both the "good" and "bad" side, creating a well-developed "morally grey character". That's the reason those 2 groups are loved so much at the moment.

They aren't the first girlgroup with this concept though. We saw it happen with Red Velvet, who had a Red "cute" and Velvet "bad" side. However, back then, the concept of "morally grey" girlgroups wasn't as trendy as nowadays.

Now, let's talk about the groups I mentioned:

TWICE tried to balance both concepts but the GP wasn't used to them trying out something else, which is why they aren't as popular in SK anymore.

NMIXX tried to balance the concepts in a different way, creating "mixxpop" songs that had both cute and girlcrush characteristics. However, they didn't manage to find the balance in the way other groups did.

BABYMONSTER went with the typical girlcrush. They are totally out of trend.

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WhyKnock how does this sound? Yama-Chan what do you think abt it?

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There are no 'good' or 'bad' in KPop. Whatever sells is the 'good' and those who don't sell are bad.

JYP does not manage the 'darker' side well. That is for SM and potentially YG.

Lee Jieun, in her infamous song Twenty Three, showed that she could act good or bad , depending what the public wants. For example she has said that she wants to do a dark theme but since people did not want that she didn't do it, although ,given that her photos regarding the new album shows lots of ghosts, it is likely that the new album would be like the Cruel Fairy Tale, probably the most darkish song she ever did.

I think that would be the best way to approach this topic.

So you mean now they’re making pop music like American artists do without a proper concept with just looking goo in a beautiful set