That’s what surprised me as well, so definitely had a good laugh there. In what way is Seventeen full of controversy? Most of their scandals were misunderstandings, and weren’t a big a deal.
Back to the thread topic:
This topic was very heavily debated back in 2017-2018, I remember people being split 50/50 at that time, because of W1’s overwhelming public recognition and digitals in Korea, and Seventeen’s strong physicals and touring. However, I would say W1 did have a bit of lead over Seventeen at that time.
Though, now I don’t think this should be a debate, because 1st of all, Wanna One disbanded, and Seventeen’s popularity and other success metric isn’t comparable to their past self. There is no metric to compare these two anymore. Plus, Seventeen has grew rapidly ever since 2019 hit around. They have been very digitally stable as well. Aju Nice was a hit, but people over look it because it wasn’t as big as Bboom Bboom or Love Scenario. They have also made and broke numerous records, as well as received awards by the South Korean government. Their variety web series itself is a huge hit in Korea. 5 million-seller albums back to back, and 2M seller album as well. Even to this date, variety shows, all the way to survival shows, still use the term “EBS” to describe the TOP 3.