Posts by gugudadadan

I think they'll be successful. They have a Filipino member and as we've seen with UNIS, Philippines can harness the power of social media to get them trending. As we've seen with Kiss of Life, people are itching for that throwback Western girl group sound and Katseye is perfectly primed to take advantage of it.

Almost no actual Kissys talk about KIOF ages or how they're "grown women". Maybe some did at their debut but they don't now in 2024. The only people who are bringing up this 'grown women' BS are stans of other groups who sees people getting a hit tweet based on recycling some 9 months old screenshot from Tiktok and reposting on Twitter/Reddit to try and get a hit tweet/get people annoyed with so-called 'KIOF Stans' and how they supposedly can't shut up about KIOF being grown women.

90% of the time it's done by stans of some other GG who feel threatened by the success Kiss of Life is having but can't attack the girls for their talents, so they have to attack their stans by making stuff up and hoping others would jump on the hate train ("The maknae is 18!" "They're not grown women" "OMG SHUT UP WE GET IT!" "Wish KIOF stans would stop sexualizing them!" etc.) Half the time the people fighting with air are aware but pretend to be dumb so they can use the opportunity to pile on the hate.

This is literally what OP is doing & anyone with half a brain would recognize this for a set up.

Quote from blueyama016

Good vocals, now go train their dance because both are so bad at it.

KIOF are great dancers, dunno what you're taking about.

Baemon are amazing dancers too. Both are definitely talented. I'd say Baemon has more members who don't shine as much but that's only because it's a bigger group so naturally some members will shine less even though they're objectively very talented.

Now charting on Billboard! Girls from a nugu company did this!

I think the thing people don't talk about them is that they have a very clear concept but that concept is quite niche (J-Pop/anime-inspired sound). Therefore potential fans might think that a group with such concept won't ever make it big globally so they dismiss it before stanning.

Also even though this sound is currently popular in Korea (see Gidle's Fate), the moment the trend shifts to something else (which it will eventually) could be disastrous since they've locked themselves in so deeply into this concept that it'd be strange to see them do something else.

Woo!Ah!

Chiquita has funny, outgoing personality so people are more immediately drawn to her whereas Pharita's is kinda...just sitting pretty? She also seems pretty introverted and chill. Not that it's bad - some very popular idols like Mina makes it work.

It wasn't that bad but it definitely wasn't good. I think it would've been better for their reputation if they hadn't done it because now people will be using this to attack them years from now (like they've done with their encores).

Logically it's probably going to be one of the groups from a big company (most likely Hybe's), but my heart is really rooting for KIOF. I hope they pull a miracle.

IT'S GIVING MCBLING! IT'S GIVING 2000'S! IT'S GIVING BRITNEY! IT'S GIVING XTINA! IT'S GIVING BRATZ! IT'S GIVING CHEETAH GIRLS! IT'S GIVING Y2K REALNESS!

IT'S A BOP!!!!!!!

Her 'innocent' and fresh-faced visual is the exact reason she is so popular in the first place though. She had the shortest training period of the RUNext girls and wasn't particularly talented on stage. Most of the comments were on her youthful visuals were charming.

It's not specific to Korea either. Selena Gomez & Ariana Grande have been voted the sexiest women multiple times in many awards and both of them have neotenous baby features. Ariana in particular really played this up in her earlier days with the whole coquette, lolita aesthetics. She used to wear lots of ribbons, thigh high boots, babydoll dresses, oversized sweaters, etc. Her makeup also emphasized this and she was obviously styled to give of that 'sexy/cute' look.

To some extent, I agree. I think Newjeans & Illit were given better debut songs than Babymonster. Batter UP IS a bad song. I think we can all agree on that. It's formulaic, predictable, cringey lyrics, sonically not very interesting.

But other than the songs, I think it's the concept as well. More specifically, how well the concept fits the members both conceptually & visually. Newjeans & Illit's members fit their concepts to a T. Newjeans members are young, fresh and playful, just like their concept while Illit members really suit their cute magical girl style, especially the Japanese members & Wonhee. They look, act & sound like what the public expects so it's easy to buy into their concepts.

OTOH, YG is trying to make Babymonster fit that badass textbook girl crush mold when most of the girls can't pull it off convincingly. Most people aren't going to take 15/16 year olds singing about being bad bitches seriously. The only members who can kind of pull it off are Chiquita (ironic given that she's like 15 and the youngest) and to an extent, Ruka. The rest of the girls with their baby cheeks and doe eyes (Ahyeon, Rora, Pharita, Haram, Asa) just look way too sweet for this concept despite being obviously talented. If a group like, say Kiss of Life or the rumored TBL new girl group (despite probably being in a similar age range as BM) did this concept, I think the public will be more willing to suspend their disbelief and buy the idea that these girls can fuck you up. They have that bad girl ABG vibe that most BM members lack. They're trying to pull off a Blackpink without Jennie & Lisa.

Unfortunately, looking at the upcoming release (Sheesh), it seems YG is still insistent on forcing this concept on them so it doesn't look good for BM. It's like a designer forcing a model to wear cloths 3 sizes too big and then getting frustrated why they don't look good. What they need to do right now is really figure out what concept DOES fit with BM and go all in with that. It just seems like they haven't really given much thought at all with BM's concept and just recycling the same old and hoping it would stick. Also, they can start by changing the cringey name Babymonster to the much better Baemon.

TLDR: Babymonsters are like Barbie dolls while YG are trying to make them be Bratz dolls and the end result just looks too weird and try-hard that the public has a hard time buying it.

Quote from Minazuki

You basically described Stray Kids. Seems pretty equal

My apologies, I guess I was under the assumption that the Big 4 would be more micromanagey given how they've treated their other groups but I'm glad to learn that SKZ is an exception and they're also very self-made. Despite not being a boy group stan, I still have to respect them because of that, similar to how I hope people will respect (G)I-DLE even if they aren't Neverlands (which is why I questioned the person I quoted why they think Idle has less control over their music than SKZ).

Kiss of Life. They're everything I want in a group. Just wish they had the company/finances to back it up so they get the attention they deserve.

Quote from ava-beatrix

However, neither groups have as much control over their music as SKZ so I don't know how independent from their labels they could be.

Why do you think this is the case with Idle? They make their own music (4/5 members are involved in song writing/composing their songs), EVERY song on their albums were written by a member, they decide on the concept themselves, decide on line distribution, decide the title track, etc. I'd say they have absolute control over their music, perhaps even more than a Big 4 group.

Quote from selfmate

I think they'll do a BP and go separate ways for their individual activities and maybe still be under Cube for Gidle activities...

but all of the members have lots of solo activities so them doing their own things wouldn't be a surprise...

As I was saying in another thread - the only member I'm curious about is Yuqi and whether she will continue to promote and undertake activities in SK since history and precedent tells us that all (I think it's all) chinese idols return to China and never return back to SK lol - Yuqi being the only one who has made previous comments about remaining/liking SK enough to continue to undertake activities here

Yeah, Yuqi mentioned before that she will always put the group activity before her individual activity.

Personally, I doubt Gidle will stay with Cube because they always talk about how long they've got left on their contracts. I'd love it it they joined up with a popular, self-producing boy group (a la Stray Kidz) to set up their own company and share resources for both BB & GG divisions. That combined power will be amazing, and the members are already friends anyway (for example, Bang Chan is really close to Minnie)!

Quote from WhyKnock

Minnie's first language is also Chinese since although she is a Thai citizen they only speak Chinese among their own circle.

Quote from WhyKnock

She does say that to not to alienate the Thai fans, but her family is ethnic chinese and upper class ethnic Chinese in SE Asia tend not to speak the local language among their own circle

lol you literally just be saying anything now. Probably less than 20 percent of Thai-Chinese speak Teochew (maybe less than 10% for people younger than 30), and probably less than 5 percent speak Mandarin, even amongst ourselves.

And speaking from personal experience, 90% of us would identify ourselves as solely Thai. We say we're "Thai-Chinese" the same way Americans say "I'm Irish!". Thai-Chinese are not them same as other Chinese in Southeast Asia. Me (as well as many other Thai-Chinese) find it quite offensive actually when we meet foreigners/Chinese people who say "Oh! So you're actually Chinese!". No, we're Thai.

Quote from merv1782

Maybe, it is a big possibility but i would like to see them in one company tho

As a Neverland, I DO NOT want to see the girls split up. Blackpink is really the exception to the rule and most K-Pop idols won't be more successful solo than as a group (heck, even Blackpink is probably stronger as a group despite how well they're doing solo at the moment).

(G)I-DLE is a pretty clear case of this. Despite all the girls have strong unique personas (that's their whole concept), they're really stronger than the sum of their parts. We've seen glimpses of their solo careers in their predebut/hiatus era and it was NOT good. Even the strongest member - someone insanely talented with a distinct image like Soyeon was flopping solo until she managed to gather Idle together. I can't imagine Shuhua fighting out a solo career as a singer in Korea, despite not being able to imagine Gidle without her in the group.

Quote from gerrard174

While the intetion of this thread is good, highlighting how people undestimated GIDLE...

they DIDNT rise from bottom. They literally grab a music show win 20days into their debut ... they already made some impact in the industry on debut era. They were drown out during Senorita & Uh Oh era but they kinda grab back attention with Dumdi dumdi + the whole Queendom session

They were undestimated because they are not from big 3 BUT CUBE is not a small company also. I believe people underestimated CUBE more than they underestimated GIDLE. CUBE was the home to 4minutes, BTOB, B2ST and used to have Apink. While Cube didnt supply them songs, cube provided all the fundings for MVs, promotions etc.. song issue is always a problem for CUBE GGs cause most of them dont write unlike B2ST and BTOB which mostly written by members themselves.

Is 260 albums on Hanteo for first day sales not starting from the bottom?

CLC never made a profit, similarly Lightsum. Their new BG also didn't make a splash. If Cube was such a big company that guarantees all the funding and success, why don't they have any successful act since 2nd Gen other than Idle?

Does it matter that Cube is 'not a small company' when the market valuation gap between them and JYP is like 10X? Yeah, they used to have moderately successful groups in the past - companies fortunes can go up and down. DSP used to be part of the big three - they had Finkl, SS501, Kara, etc. If DSP debuted a group that became one of the top groups of their generation, are people going to use the same argument "DSP isn't a small company! They were right behind the big 3, they had blah blah blah legendary acts a decade ago" like????

They have all the makings of a Top 4th gen group. They have an outstanding leader who writes, produce, creative directs all their title tracks (Soyeon). They have vocalists with some of the most unique & distinct voices in the industry (Minnie/ Yuqi). Great visuals that are no less beautiful than any other top groups' visuals (Miyeon/Shuhua). They even had a stan-attracting, viral, X-Factor main dancer (Soojin). So they have all the required ingredients of a top group.

The reality is NewJeans, Ive, Lesserafim, Aespa, Itzy (maybe less the case for Itzy now) outperforms them on some metrics (while Idle outperforms them on others), so there's no clear winner. But those groups all came from the Big 4 or with members from a hit Produce show (the center and 1st ranking IT girl no less). They all had huge predebut fandoms ready to support them even before they released any music. Yet Idle can compete with these group despite coming from a much smaller company.

Before people say "But Cube is a big company" - um, yeah, maybe in comparison to all other companies in the industry but that doesn't mean much when the valuation in the stock market between Cube and say JYP (the smallest Big 4) is like 10X. Their building don't even have airconditioning in the practice room, all the furniture are broken, the fridge doesn't work & they even have to recycle trash sofa thrown out by Minnie. Almost any money they have now is earned by Idle - every cent spent on them they've earned for themselves.

I love that Gidle was a serious contender for Top 3 in late 3rd Gen and still clawing their way to become one of the top groups in 4th Gen despite being a girl group/ from a small-ish company/ being self-produced.

A win for the hags.