I guess as could be expected, as more of the document from yesterday about HYBE‘s internal report/oppo research got sorted out, there would be more “content” to come from it. Indeed there was, and after stuff going after aespa, RIIZE, ZB1, DKB, NMIXX, and others yesterday, today the news is about “throwing” out NewJeans, taking shots at Stray Kids and NCT Dream, and more.
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For the most part, there’s some seeing how the sausage is made stuff, like how to frame their idols and maximize virality to monitoring fanfics and ships to observations about online communities (aside from the very messy plotting against Haewon that was mentioned last post*) and monitoring their own akgaes.
*I still think this is the worst planning/suggestion/whatever. To even suggest using anti-feminism in this environment to attack a young female idol or girl group knowing full well what those fuckers are capable of and what has happened to others in similar situations is deranged. I don’t care.
Perhaps most relevantly to the HYBE/ADOR stuff is the HYBE report talks about “throwing” NewJeans away.
As various communities began to use “HYBE’s New-ILL-LE” to refer to NewJeans, ILLIT, and LE SSERAFIM, people began to mention ILLIT more.
Right now, it might be necessary to tie LE SSERAFIM to BLACKPINK, aespa, and IVE into the category of girl groups as million sellers in the first week of sales and separate them from the 4th generation. We were plagued by the term New-ILL-LE for a few days, but we can just throw “New” away and start a whole new thing.
Probably not gonna help public perception that they wanted to replace NewJeans with ILLIT, no matter what authority the writer had.
They also talked some shit about Stray Kids…
Feel sorry because of the difference in physique. Feel even sorrier thinking about how when Stray Kids’ Changbin filmed a challenge with NMIXX, their heights were so similar. Keep feeling that way thinking about how it was when Changbin stood next to Yeonjun on camera, because he just so happened to be friends with Yeonjun.
…and NCT Dream…
Of course Yeonjun is good at performing and MC-ing. Even just standing still, he brings meaning [to things]. He just had to be the one interviewing NCT Dream and Stray Kids, and we felt sorry seeing how Yeonjun destroyed both groups with his physique. Soobin is known for his tall height, and his pure and naive image, so he didn’t look too out of place alongside them, but the difference between Yeonjun and Changbin when they stand next to each other is too much.
…and aespa again.
The most severe issue is that if you stop the video randomly at any point, there is never an instance when their choreographies actually match, even though there are only 4 of them. The criticism that they did not practice enough came up during ‘Girls‘, and even now, it looks like there was no improvement in teamwork. IVE and aespa may have chart topping hits and recognition from the public, but once they go on tour, the reactions will soon change for the worse when people witness their performances.
Then they compared LE SSERAFIM to BLACKPINK and TWICE, which netizens took as HYBE thinking they could use Coachella to spring LE SSERAFIM, but of course that backfired.
“Above all, since [LE SSERAFIM] has earned considerable trust in their performances as a team, we can now increase the scale of their tours and have them compete with boy groups. [BLACKPINK] conquered Coachella and interacted with many overseas celebrities but there was the issue with not operating the team effectively. [TWICE] has solidified their teamwork and is holding stadium concerts, but in terms of attracting attention, they’re lacking. If LE SSERAFIM combines the strengths of the two, it would be possible for them to fill the gap left behind by major girl groups.”
There was even some stuff about response to V’s album being “mediocre”, which I can’t imagine his fans would like to hear.
At first, the fans said that it was cute, but eventually, a criticism post was shared on Theqoowith over 1,000 comments, largely negative. In truth, it’s all because the response to V’s album was mediocre. If it were Jungkook, it would have been a major controversy.
I dunno, I guess things might continue to leak out as more and more documentation gets sorted through, but it’s ugly out there for HYBE.
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Like yeah, I’m not exactly surprised this kind of stuff would be done, and like others have mentioned I don’t doubt to some extent that other companies do similar. Thing is, now people know for sure HYBE is doing it, so they’re the ones that are gonna have to deal with the fallout of stuff going public. That’s how it is and why you don’t want to get into these things to begin with. It’s like suing somebody and being subjected to discovery when you have skeletons in your closet yourself, it’s a mess you didn’t want to deal with all around. I mean, really, people can type out whatever cope they want to cape for HYBE but my opinion on this doesn’t matter in the end, as this kind of stuff has effectively pissed off fandoms from every company, bottom line.
Personally though, I found it most interesting that this seemed to confirm a lot of my more cynical outlooks on the industry. About what is manufactured and planned, about how potential controversies are pushed more than others, about how they’re chronically online, and all that stuff. Seems to help validate skeptical looks on things that happen within the industry, so it’s fascinating on that front.
