There, I said it.
I‘m sick of people acting as if IVE‘s success is solely because of the Produce members.
We’ve seen it with the other produce groups. Produce privilege is only enough to check out the group once, and if you believe the group sucks, you’ll most likely drop it.
Same with the produce fans. If they were dissatisfied with the debut, they’d simple unfollow, which we saw with many post-IOI and WANNA ONE groups.
And this situation is absolutely not the case with the Big4. Most people thought NMIXX‘s debut sucked, but despite that, everyone will check out their next comeback.
If their next comeback would flop, people will still check the next one out. Everyone says “give them time, they’ll hit it big soon“. That’s a privilege non-big4 groups don’t have.
If IVE would have debuted with OO and their members would not have been as charismatic as they are, they would have flopped severely and people would have no longer checked them out.
YJ and WY‘s produce hype was only enough to make people check out the group. If it hadn’t been a fantastic debut, no one would have stayed. We saw it with the other produce groups.
Therefore, stop discrediting IVE‘s success saying that it’s only because of the produce hype. It’s not.
TLDR: People are willing to give Big4 groups more chances, even if their songs flop, as opposed to non-big4 groups