Why did Joy never even come close to becoming an it-girl?

I think you've answered your own question?

I guess she got overshadowed by the strong competition and Irene's popularity along with her luxury brand deals.

Quote from Mark-Lee

I think you've answered your own question?

I guess she got overshadowed by the strong competition and Irene's popularity along with her luxury brand deals.

Summed it up

she got pushed but i guess the public preferred irene...

Quote from Mark-Lee

I think you've answered your own question?

I guess she got overshadowed by the strong competition and Irene's popularity along with her luxury brand deals.

I agree with this...

Isn’t she the second most popular tho? Either way, I think we all expected Irene to get the most popular bc she is the epitome of kbs, so...

Her image is all over the place

Because there are other girls who fit Korean beauty standards more than her. She is also not exceptionally talented at anything. She is a decent singer and dancer but she is not the greatest. SM also never supported her or gave her a solo/or creative freedom. People moved on I guess...

Because there's a more popular member in her group. Her situation's like Jisoo tbh.

But joy wasn't the most pushed tho, she's fourth when it comes to solo activities compared to Irene at #1 with 32 activities. Joy has only 25 if she was pushed she should have wayyyyyyyy more. So I don't know where that narrative came from. Offers she got were from higher ups personally requesting her. Sm had nothing to do with it.

This figure was before the seulrene subunit and reality show.

Whatever the case, Joy is doing amazing.

In fact, all Red Velvet members are thriving individually.

Joy is a cover girl with multiple endorsement deals and obviously, she'll be singing and acting more.

She got overshadowed by Irene

2 kdramas is a big push but her acting is bad

It's an SM thing to rotate having extra exposure (or push, or boost) for different girls in different eras.

And what exposure and sort of activities each girl will have will vary from era to era, depending on how things go.

This was the case for SNSD (eg. Taeyeon won award as OST queen in 2008 while at the same time Yoona slayed as acting lead in a megapopular soap series), it's not any different for Red Velvet.

In the debut years, Joy got the most push: she was the maknae, she was fun, people liked her, she got the We Got Married gig that she did well, and in the various comebacks and other promotions she got distinctive styling and other subtle ways that set her more apart from the other girls, to the point that it became noticeable to fans.

Those moderate early successes in popularity landed her her acting gigs, which did somewhat ok in the beginning - but they didn't lift off to elevate her to mega popularity, her last acting job even had a negative impact.

In the meantime, the other girls like Seulgi and Irene who started slower in the popularity race started setting off on their own paths and their own activities, and while Seulgi started building her name as a solid performer with quite some neat collabs, it was Irene whose achievements and popularity grew exponentially and she succeeded where Joy failed to close to deal:

Irene gained top tier popularity status, topped and trended frequently in branding and popularity rankings for some years, went viral from time to time and consecutively had various spectacular CF deals she closed.

That's basically it.

Over the years the RV girls had various openings and opportunities offered (or happen) to them where, based on their individual strengths, they had chances to reach the next level of popularity, and some were better able in cashing it in than others.

It's not any different for other groups btw, like SNSD, Mamamoo, Blackpink, (G)I-dle etc.

If Irene wasn't in RV my bias would probably be Joy [?] but yeah... Irene overshadowed everyone and despite her 'scandal' she is still going very strong.

She looks good but nothing close to a goddess level female idol based on Korean standards. Irene was there so Koreans chose her, but even if Irene wasn't an RV member, not like like it would make a difference??? Koreans aren't forced to choose a girl to be their beloved it-girl from Red Velvet. It's not like the is a shortage of pretty girls out there? Bunch of groups end up famous without having an outstanding member in that terms. Koreans would go look for some other girl from other group. Oh My Girl's Arin per say, has more potential than her considering the response she has been getting since 2019.