DID AESPA SURPASS NEWJEANS? 30
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Yes (15) 50%
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No (15) 50%
I see a lot of discourse online about this, and I think in some ways they have and in some ways they haven't.
People tend to have a recency bias so it seems that a lot of kpop stans forgot just how successful NewJeans was in 2022 and 2023, just because aespa had an incredibly successful 2024. I like both groups and to me it seems like aespa is more popular at the moment (because they are more active), but only time will tell who will be overall more famous in the next couple of years.
When it comes to the amount of people listening to their music, even though they are inactive now, NewJeans still has the upper hand. Aespa released Dirty Work very recently, but their daily streams and monthly listeners on Spotify are lower than NewJeans who haven't released anything in more than a year. That doesn't mean aespa isn't doing well and I hope no one takes this post as me downplaying the success of either group, I'm just pointing out some things I noticed with no bad intentions. NewJeans bsides also have a lot of streams, and even though aespa title tracks always do great, looking at different music platforms, it seems like not a lot of their fans actually listen to the bsides.
When it comes to the members' individual branding, aespa has the upper hand right now. Karina is the most followed 4th gen female idol on instagram and the most searched 4th gen female idol on google in the first half of 2025. Even though she is clearly the most popular member, Winter, Giselle and Ningning are all very popular individually too and all aespa members have a lot of brand deals. And yes, I know NewJeans also had a lot of brand deals and it's not really fair to compare a group on hiatus whose members don't even have individual instagram accounts to a very active group whose members have had their own instagram accounts for more than 2 years, but I'm just stating the current situation as it is.
And when it comes to reputation and public opinion, unfortunately it seems that a lot of knetz turned against NewJeans ever since their feud with hybe started (which is ridiculous, because the girls get a crazy amount of hate just for standing up for themselves). Meanwhile, aespa, despite always having a certain amount of haters (like all groups do, because that is something that just comes with success, unfortunately), seems to be untouchable when it comes to controversies because Karina's jacket scandal didn't do any real damage to their reputation and popularity overall (kpop fans talked about it for a few days, but everyone moved on pretty quickly after Karina apologized, Karina's instagram followers did drop from 24,2 million to 23 million ever since that happened - but i'm pretty sure most of that is just instagram deleting bots).
I think aespa is now at a level of success where nothing can bring them down and they will continue to dominate korean charts, and also accomplish good results with international fans. NewJeans, on the other hand, is still having great results despite being inactive, but if the hiatus goes on for too long, they will naturally start falling behind. I hope both groups keep being successful, and I think whether aespa will or won't surpass NewJeans in terms of overall popularity and sucess on the international charts depends on how the whole NewJeans vs hybe situation plays out.
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I think individually aespa members seem stronger, and I also agree with what the OP said about the songs. so do you guys think Aespa has actually overtaken NewJeans?
Embarrassinggg
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