Quote from 0ppar

SM terminates exclusive contract with Taeil

10. Why are SM’s standards so high? Please lower your standards, idiot

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To put #10 into context, they're saying why is the standards for breaking up (terminating the contract) so high for SM or to put it another way, why is SM so tolerant of idol's bad behavior

Quote from rain07

k/cfans ended one career

Ifans trying to end the other 6

It's more correct to say k/c/j fans since the opposition was from all 3.

I will never understand the Ifans on why they feel the need to punish the other 6 members.

Quote from supa

Wouldn't this just hurt the remaining Riize members more than anyone?

Yes, it would and also the reason why I won't be boycotting them.

If I weren't on a business trip during their Mnet US stop, I would go and support them there. And even if some places boycott, it won't really affect me in buying their products. There are no shortage of places to get them; that's the beauty of the times we live in. If one place does not carry their product, other places will. So not too worried about those stores boycotting. Where there's demand, there will be sellers. I suspect that is true of most places.

To be frank, after doing my research and reading through all details (allegations, pictures, video clip, and all), I can't say I'm surprised he was not kept. I'm actually more surprised SM kept him as long as they did and even tried to bring him back. Idol market place has not been/nor is it a forgiving place; it's even notorious for how unforgiving it can be. So it can't be said people weren't warned or aware before they go into these fields.

Besides his past scandals, sasaengs and his former "friends" were starting to slowly release new things about SeungHan - related to his old scandals and new ones, as well as what he was doing while he was on hiatus. Frankly, I'm surprised SM dared to try and bring the guy back when they already had past threats that the leaker would release more things about SeungHan if he continued with promotions. At the least, they needed to have addressed the situation with a lawsuit and closed it out effectively before considering his return otherwise he's no different from a ticking time bomb.

While I feel sorry for the guy, I question his judgment. He hung around with people who did and likely will sell him out in a heartbeat on what he was doing as well as share alleged new texts. The person dumping those things wrote like I can likely be sued for sharing truths but I can't stand by and watch and continue to watch. He or she then proceeded to dump the supposed text between SeungHan and someone else. If people are interested, that posting might still be up on X.

Also, SeungHan's judgment to supposedly share moments of intimacy with his girlfriend and all on GC of all places. Was he expecting people in his GC to keep it all hush-hush or something? Lmao Sorry I have to question his judgment and side eye him for doing that.

Is it a crime to date and have sex? No. But I will forever side-eye anyone who thinks it's normal to share pics like that on a GC and expect it to remain private. If people want that type of life, they should stay clear of being a K-pop idol.

Also, for those who trivialize SeungHan's matter as just dating, remember that Korea has and continues to have a significant problem with dating abuse, especially in regards to intimate pics/videos being taken, shared, and used against women, sometimes even as blackmail against women.

People should recall his past leaker's threat to release more material if SeungHan continued his activities—my speculation is that they may have followed through with a direct message to SM about the new scandal.

SM brought the guy back and used their most popular member to block criticism (evident in the news articles using WonBin's name to mute criticism—just check Naver), they were expecting some form of protest and braced for it. It is uncharacteristic of SM to fold that quickly without something serious to make them backtrack. Even if SM was worried about future sales, it was really uncharacteristic of them to fold in that short amount of time. The threat of a new scandal is, of course, all speculation but one based on seeing what was happening on X and a few other places.

Sigh. It's been stressful watching what was going on for me since this is a group that I genuinely like and likely the last Kpop idol that I will stan. With that said, I think I side do not fully grasp the full issues of why the K fans were so vehemently against SeungHan. It's not a simple matter of the fact that he dated but of course many do not want to understand why and instead want to act superior to K fans by ignoring and even ratioing and harassing K fans who try to rationally explain things to them. I know because I saw it in action on X and it was truly ugly and all of this was before SeungHan's announcement of return/withdrawal.

And so my theory on why I think I fans are not effective is multifold.

First is the fact that many who were going to boycott RIIZE were already boycotting, which meant that the majority of RIIZE's sales were from K fans and also, to some extent, from Chinese and Japanese fans. Even a high school economics/math could tell you where the profits were coming from if you looked at numbers for RIIZE. My acquaintance who visited Korea told me that RIIZE is everywhere in Korea from their music being played in cafe to their ads being plastered in many places. So yeah, on the economic side, it's pretty elementary why SM would choose K fans.

Second, the fandom itself barely knows SeungHan. He was active as RIIZE for a little over two months. I'm one of those who came to know RIIZE after SeungHan was put on hiatus. I have my favorite and I liked what I saw. RIIZE had a significant influx of people come into the fandom when SeungHan was not active, and to someone like me who uses social media for quick information scans, he did not really register. This means that the fandom itself was not on board with boycotting. I can say a lot about what a boycott means to a rookie group that was barely months old when the boycott was underway on the I side, but I won't go there since it's outside the topic.

Third, as much as people can understand/speak Korean, they often miss cultural, political, and sometimes even business aspects of Kpop. I did think it was funny how gaslighted I side of the BRIIZE was on how much support they thought SeungHan had before K BRIIZE protested. They mistook K side ignoring SeungHan as them being ok with him or at least many I fans tried to paint it that way and that he had a lot of support in Korea when in fact he doesn't. I fans and SeungHan's own K fans have created a lot of hostility among the K fans about their treatment of the active members. As the people on theqoo joked, they achieved what not even politicians could - solid opposition from the majority of fandom from Korea, China, and Japan.

There are other issues which factored into it of course but just providing the major obvious ones.

RIIZE has a show called Boss RIIZE that is available on different platforms. It starts out slowly but it's pretty fun. My poor WonBunnie got betrayed in the last episode

But this is him next morning

btw ellenote will you updating this page? RIIZE now has a color and all; it would be nice to update the first page. Thanks in advance if you update it before I visit again. If you are busy then I would be happy to help update the page.

Combo was performed during their finale fan concert in Seoul

The production, performance, and everything just left me speechless. Sometimes it's easy to forget that the group is just a year old

And this gem called Combo (a fan song)

Too bad they're not promoting this song. It took me a few listens before I could get used to it though

I had to pause in the middle of the song for Wonbin though

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Real life is so tough.

Here's some RIIZE content. WB is fantastic as always; everyone in RIIZE does not disappoint. They're really a fantastic group.

Boom Boom Bass dance switch up

and their Japanese debut song Lucky

and their Japanese OST Same Key (sound only)

Live fancon of Same Key (love love it)

Quote from sveznalica

There is? Literally girls themselves saying that managers of other groups told others to ignore them, other hybe employees leaving awful comments about them, hybe saying they want to basically send nwjs on hiatus, hybe not taking any serious actions about nwjs deepfakes etc.

This is not a company which has girls best intrest in mind.

There's also that blind forum where Hybe employee, back when this mess started, was speaking disparagingly about NJs. They were also talking about teenage girls like they were a product and expressed opinions such as can't wait to test or testdrive new things with NJs.

Sigh. I sometimes return here to catch up on NJ's situation and this is what I see today.

I hope people can be more sympathetic and empathetic to teenagers who have experienced a lot of turmoil and upheaval in their lives in recent months. It's alarming to see some people posting about them so harshly.

First, greetings in Korean culture, especially in a business setting, are not as trivial as some would have them be. My Korean coworker emphasized the greeting culture at workplace in Korea and it's not that difficult to find this information online too - "If you are visiting South Korea for the first time do not be surprised to see an emphasis on greeting etiquette more than in other countries."

But let's be honest. It's not just about the greeting itself. What Hybe is doing is isolating the girls and, in effect, making them into a pariah/outcast -- trying their best using media manipulation to decrease NJs impact through articles such as those titled few fans at airport to greet NJs and now this blatant act of a manager telling another group to ignore NJs loud enough that NJs member heard it and then the new Ador CEO pretty much calling that member a liar saying you have no proof of this incident -- all purposely meant to deteriorate NJs standing, relationship, and demoralize them.

I've seen this type of workplace harassment before and it really starts at the top and works its way down. In situations like this, the only real path open to the affected individual is to leave. So is it a case where MHJ was trying to leave and take the girls, or is it a case where Hybe was doing their best to make it so unbearable for them that they ultimately are forced into choosing to leave? Honestly, this is tough on even adults but to see adults using these tactics against teenagers is not pretty and genuinely makes me disgusted.

It makes me wonder just how much more happened and is happening to the girls and MHJ herself than what is publicly known. Truly, Hybe execs/managers make me feel disgusted.

With the Inkigayo win, RIIZE achieved a grand slam on music shows (it could have been a grand slam if Music Core had not canceled and had a concert in Japan instead).

Congratulations to my favorite rookie group!

WonBin and Irene did cosmic dance challenge and the response was very good

lmao I'll post some other things to share with everyone who periodically stops by here like me

Quote from SandyBee3

No, they quietly removed him and everyone is acting as if he was never part of the Group.

This situation has made me less interested in them tbh. I was very excited when they debuted.

That's a shame. I've discovered them after all the mess and did some digging and I can see why SM management made the decision they made. In hindsight, this is just a guess on my part, but I think SM had little choice once it started to affect idols in other company (Hybe in this case). At the time of the incident, I believe Hybe was a major shareholder in SM so could be they also pushed for it too. Too many things to factor in but SM at the time probably did not have complete control to do what they wanted to do.

In any case, I really like RIIZE, and I hope they continue to gain new fans.

Quote from hypernova

they should have kept seunghan. i have to hear about this guy every week because my girlfriend is still pissed off that sm thanos snapped the guy

lol I did run into some very extreme SH fans on social media. I'm a relatively new fan of RIIZE, and while I sympathize with his situation, some of his fans are way too extreme, like crazy extreme. They act like weird brain-washed cult members on social media like X, TikTok, and all. They actually think they can bully SM into doing what they want. They are still telling people to boycott and hounding others to join them while trying to raise funds to send more protest/support trucks and whatnot using the R7 label. Mind you, all this while using the R7 label but only showing support for SH. From a logical perspective, this felt like a scam to me.

I wasn't sure if I should feel pity for them for their naivety and the waste of money or disdain that they're harassing people to join them and them thinking that they can make SM change their mind. It was kind of amusing to see them hound one of the C5 SM creative director, saying return SH and all. Poor guy. I'm willing to bet he does not have the final say, but they were harassing him on his personal account and all and doing other batshit crazy things that are perhaps on par or worse than saesangs/akgaes.

edit ---

reposting this from earlier so people can appreciate their encore live

edit 2 ----

Please look at them kindly

Quote from Prongs

There is also allegations about how they differentiate between male member and female member by how they draw their crotch .

Their market clearly are Japanese otaku.

Are they going to use AI for the singing also, lol?

Can we just stand Korean soloist ? Kpop group becoming bizarre and weird, and their agency only care about money.

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lmao I stan IU as soloist but yes definitely also stan soloists.

RIIZE and NJs are the first groups that I started to stan in a long while.

To be honest, I don't really find all that cult/supernatural stuff that well done or interesting. Well to be fair, I did think EXO concept was kind of novel and interesting at the time. But in general I don't support anything that touches upon religious symmetry or mock religion in general.

It's unfortunate that kpop is veering into weird territories. I don't think they need to completely emulate/replicate what the west is doing or go into this fetish AI world. I mean the natural evolution from that is the human like robots. There were even talks of using those kind of things in the sex industry. All of this is kind of freaky to me and why I don't support it.

Quote from SandyBee3

Wonbin is ok, but based on the distribution it’s obvious this song was produced with Seunghan in mind. Now they had to distribute his lines among the other members. The other members obviously got lines that were actually meant for Seunghan and now they struggling.

They should have distributed it more to the vocal lines. WB had very little solo vocal time for this. And really, I don't know SH but I think producer was trying to make line distribution more fair to others since their solo fans were complaining about it and cut WB's part down too. I'm of the opinion that SH likely will not be coming back to the group.

Quote from kingkook

I mean I thought it was obvious they traded the main vocalist positions for great dancers. Again their vocals are on par with the industry standards (I've seen plenty of BG encores) but because they are a SM group, they are on the spotlight.

I believe they will grow with time and with experience and come up to speed quickly.

I think they're doing pretty well for a group that debuted September 2023.

Quote from Panpriyah-lice

Yeah, his side profile... but if you look closely, there is a difference.

I don't know if he is the visual or center but he seems to be the most attractive

WonBin is the center and because I am biased I agree that he's the most attractive.

Yeah, there are times when I can see some bit of Kai in him and even DO at times. But could just be styling and the camera angle. This is also him

Quote from SandyBee3

This wouldn’t have happened if they kept Seunghan in the Group…

Sohee alone can not carry the vocal department of this Group

WonBin does a good job but the production team did the distribution wrong on BBB. They'll be fine. I got to know RIIZE after SH so no comments.

Quote from Panpriyah-lice

So this is Riize, I see their face for the first time.

For a second, I thought I saw Kai. One of these guys has similar visual features.

Who? WonBin?

Quote from SooYoung

Honestly SM need to let them rest

I know they are rookies and they need to surf on it to build a fanbase and keep the public attention

But they really need to rest

They debuted in september 2023

And since their debut they fully promoted 5 songs in 6 months (get a guitar, talk saxy, love 119, impossible, boom boom bass)

Which means pratically 1 comeback every months

+ 1 full fanmeet tour

On the other side to compare with other artist of 4 th gen who are very active currently

Aespa had made a comeback only 2 times in the past 6 months ( drama + armaggedon album)

It practically means that for the past 6 months they didn't have any week of rest

They are probably the most overworked rookie in kpop i've ever seen

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They are actually a very hot group right now in Korea. I guess they're trying to strike while the iron is hot so to speak and not lose momentum. Probably not a bad strategy if they can space things out a little better to give the boys some rest. SM has gold on their hand. If they make the right moves and give them some hit songs that fit with their vocals, RIIZE has the potential to be huge. Too bad SM hasn't been able to do it yet with RIIZE like they did with their gen 1 - gen 4 groups. But I think maybe they can do it. I hope SM still has enough creative juice left for RIIZE and makes them a huge success, and maybe then they will start treating them better since we know companies treat their successful acts better.

Well Hybe's creative team or whoever is in charge sure like invoking cultlike images.

lol not my cup of tea.

Quote from Cocomars

oldies I thought of you when news of this group first popped up since we were talking about AI briefly. I suspected they would go otaku gamer bro, but not like this

I was actually expecting something but not this. lmao

There was an article a while back about how Hybe was caught stealing/using image of RIIZE's WonBin for something. Too bad I didn't bookmark it because I can't find it now. I didn't really know RIIZE at the time But for real Hybe has serious obsession with SM.