Why does Aespa appeal to Korean male fans despite being “girl crush”?

  • “Girl crush” might not be accurate to describe Aespa but I use that word because Aespa music and image is far from the cute, light concepts that tend to appeal to male fans like Oh my girl, Fromis 9, Twice. Yet they are the group soldiers most wanted to see and Winter seems to have a lot of fanboys. Other groups like Blackpink, Itzy never seem to appeal this much to fanboys compared to “softer” girl group, but why is Aespa able to do this? Obviously Blackpink and Itzy has male fans too but Twice always seem to appeal to males more than Blackpink and same with Izone for Itzy. But now we have Stayc, Weeekly, and Aespa still manage to get equal or more male fans despite not being “soft.”

    Edited 2 times, last by bbb988 ().

  • when it comes to bp they always appealed to both genders they appealed more to male fans during their early era. there were many translated article during that time when they had like a higher male ratio

    I think bp just gained a lot more female fans in the last past years.


  • Different guys like different things.


    Besides, if the members are likable, they will have fans regardless of the concept. The members still have a soft image in real life, so that’s another part to it.

  • That said, aespa songs are catchy. They have good vocals to sing great bridges followed by catchy lines.

    Gimme gimme more tztztztz

    :happyr::happyr::happyr:

    its zuzuzuzu get it right :mad1:

  • People just like what they like. Some guys like girl crush for groups, some girls like cute groups. Aespa while being more girl crush also have qualities that guys like, probably mainly looks. They don't necessarily target either sex imo but SM ggs have a knack for have images that a lot of people can get into.


    SNSD is the ultimate example. They started cute and had mostly male fans, after their explosion in 2009 they got a ton of female fans and even much older fans (Gallup polls and TV ratings). At their peak they were roughly split 50/50 without really fitting into a specific concept (cute, girl crush, badass etc). They were just very appealing to both sexes. Aespa will probably have a similar route and might switch, temporarily at least, to something that more men will prefer.

  • People just like what they like. Some guys like girl crush for groups, some girls like cute groups. Aespa while being more girl crush also have qualities that guys like, probably mainly looks. They don't necessarily target either sex imo but SM ggs have a knack for have images that a lot of people can get into.


    SNSD is the ultimate example. They started cute and had mostly male fans, after their explosion in 2009 they got a ton of female fans and even much older fans (Gallup polls and TV ratings). At their peak they were roughly split 50/50 without really fitting into a specific concept (cute, girl crush, badass etc). They were just very appealing to both sexes. Aespa will probably have a similar route and might switch, temporarily at least, to something that more men will prefer.

    Do you think what Aespa sings about is responsible too? Blackpink, Itzy can have an attitude of “stronger, independent of men” while Aespa is just I’m killing a game character, which men can relate?

  • Do you think what Aespa sings about is responsible too? Blackpink, Itzy can have an attitude of “stronger, independent of men” while Aespa is just I’m killing a game character, which men can relate?

    There’s prob a small minority of dudes who may be into that but that’s a really niche type of basement dwelling gamer who would be fan simply because of some game references in lyrics. Imo their lyrics are closer to some of BP of being better and not needing (even hating) men so I guess it’s less about lyrics and more about the members and image that’s more appealing.

  • Winter has a lot of fanboys but majority of aespa's fans still consist of fangirls tho as shown from their listeners and fanacct. Most of Karina & Ningning's fans are fangirls. Karina also alrdy ranked top 10 among lesbians fav female idols while only being a year into her debut.

  • BP having few male fans is a myth

    exactly you are one yourself lol if anything bp has balanced gender ratio


    anyways it seems twice, bp and rev were popular in the army

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  • what world do you live in


    blackpink has the most fanboys in the entire world ( albeit maybe not the stereotypical "manly" men you are thinking of)

    most of it is because of sex appeal but its the same for most female kpop fans as well


    that said, who tf said we like soft concepts?

    i love creative badass concepts like Loona or WJSN's latest comeback


    i just hate sassy rich kid vibe and i imagine some other guys do too

    u r m o m g a y

    1e1282e4806e9f6f1080ccc53055ea21c0a98974.gifv6cc52730ebd88d19753cac6a9c1436f129e99705.gifv

  • Maybe because men like Aespa. And their songs. You don't have to be a cute girl group to have male fans! Don't generalize! (I'm saying this as a woman, though, but I feel like the question you're asking is just odd.)

    ₊˚⊹♡ 단 ♡⊹˚₊

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  • bbb988

    Changed the title of the thread from “Why does Aespa appeal to male fans despite being “girl crush”?” to “Why does Aespa appeal to Korean male fans despite being “girl crush”?”.
  • what does girl crush has to do with number of male fans?

    and when did BP has few male fanboys compared to other girlgroups, if i say i see tons of males who are fanboys of Blackpink, that one German reactor guy i guess name is Duke on yt being major example, even one local actor in my country said her crush is Lisa lmao, and didn't know Aespa has big male fans

    I just added Korean male fans.

    Comparing Blackpink and Twice. When Twice was at their peak, they were known for the Korean fanboys. Fanboys going crazy when Cheer Up playing, doing the Shy Shy Shy move, Nayeon, Sana,… known as the ideal type, male fans getting angry when Jihyo dated, none of that hysteria seem to be the case with Blackpink, I don’t see videos of Korean men going crazy with DDDD dance moves, even when Jennie dated it didn’t seem to anger a lot of male fans. Obviously, we dont know the exact number of male fans, but in terms of phenomena, Twice seem to bring out a lot of hysteria in male fans, and people attribute that to them making “cute” music compared to Blackpink’s girlcrush.

    But now, there are still ”light” groups like Stayc, Weeekly, Fromis 9, but we don’t see the male fans going that crazy over them compared to Aespa. Men doing Next Level moves, saying Winter their ideal types,…but Aespa makes quite hard hitting music so applying the argument for Twice making “cute” music therefore appealing to Korean male fans the most doesn’t seem to hold quite well. That’s just what I’m observing.


  • I just added Korean male fans.

    Comparing Blackpink and Twice. When Twice was at their peak, they were known for the Korean fanboys. Fanboys going crazy when Cheer Up playing, doing the Shy Shy Shy move, Nayeon, Sana,… known as the ideal type, male fans getting angry when Jihyo dated, none of that hysteria seem to be the case with Blackpink, I don’t see videos of Korean men going crazy with DDDD dance moves, even when Jennie dated it didn’t seem to anger a lot of male fans. Obviously, we dont know the exact number of male fans, but in terms of phenomena, Twice seem to bring out a lot of hysteria in male fans, and people attribute that to them making “cute” music compared to Blackpink’s girlcrush.

    But now, there are still ”light” groups like Stayc, Weeekly, Fromis 9, but we don’t see the male fans going that crazy over them compared to Aespa. Men doing Next Level moves, saying Winter their ideal types,…but Aespa makes quite hard hitting music so applying the argument for Twice making “cute” music therefore appealing to Korean male fans the most doesn’t seem to hold quite well. That’s just what I’m observing.

    did you ignore my posts? lol they were literally chosen as the girl group that soldiers wanted to meet in 2018

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    this site doesn't translate anymore but look at the gender ratio ^

  • did you ignore my posts? lol they were literally chosen as the girl group that soldiers wanted to meet in 2018

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    this site doesn't translate anymore but look at the gender ratio ^

    yeah thanks for adding that. but still there are other factors like i added, the hysteria of people dancing, girlfriend image,… which they dont seem to have as much as twice. again, im not saying that they have few male fans, they have a lot, but for the male fans they have, they don’t seem to be as loud as the ones for Twice or Izone.

  • They’re standard pretty and have very delicate features, always have very lady like outfits, styling etc even their dance moves are more on the delicate/pretty side instead of something more hard hitting, I’d be surprised if they were NOT popular. The only girl group I can think right now that didn’t have this appeal was 2ne1 and somewhat Mamamoo but they had a lot of sexy concepts that definitely appealed to male fans.

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