SM wants to deliberately accelerate EXO's decline
EXOL-Ls read this carefully and spread the word bc this post isn’t paranoid trolling but sadly the cold hard reality.
After 1 and a half year of drought, EXO just came back with what could be their best album yet, a banger of a title track, and nothing but quality. They drop the MV, do a few lives at music stations and then….nada, zilch, nothing. SM have been doing this since 2016, but at least even then they gave us a few crumbs to live off. Now? EXO in their SIXTH year are being treated like 12 year old groups–no, worse. Even older SM groups who had comebacks this year still got to promote. Shinee were everywhere. Boa variety, Suju variety, Yuri variety. Even Key who just had a pre release already had more promotion than EXO.
It’s not like EXO doesn’t have time, it’s not like they havn’t BEGGED to go on them, it’s not like shows left and right arent asking for them, it’s not like they dont have fans everywhere ready to promote the shit out of everything they do.It’s just SM not giving one shit about EXO, even though they’ve gotten such amazing results in their coming 6th year, STILL rising higher and higher even while fans are in a drought in an age of social media and exposure where everyone and their mothers try to give their groups 45674565 content we’re still surviving on content from fucking 2013, EXO’s last reality show and maybe a vlive every 6 months (iirc they once said they wanted to do more vlives but their managers said no!).
It’s strange from a business point of view bc SM have always been about one thing and that’s MONEY. What is EXO doing all year round if not bringin in truckloads of just that?? Shipped off to tour as soon as they can. Consistently selling millions. Just last year had their biggest hit since Growl. Performed at the Olympics. And what did SM do to capitalize on that?? NOTHING. SM isn’t even doing the MINIMAL they used to do. It’s like they WANT the lack of promotions to let people slowly forget about EXO, as if they thought EXO should have faded away by now so they could implement the next part of their plan for other groups.
In SM ’s mind, EXO should have started to decline by their 5th year and then they could shift the fans’ to a newer groups. But instead of a semi decent group who maintained a few years of Growl’s hype, they got a 23 daesang winner who have maintained and ROSE to the APEX of the music industry even WITHOUT SM’s help, mediaplay, and efforts. To SM, this means that their plans of putting EXO on the “has beens” shelf is postponed and worse that EXO was rapidly gaining influence could loosen their control on the group. SM has been known to deny their artists huge opportunities whenever they start making too big a splash. EXO’s maintained influence is a phenomenon that they did not predict, factor that doesn’t fit in with their plan, an uncontrollable variable. EXO’s contract renewals will come soon and It’s the age old truth to clip the wings of the bird if you want it to stay in the nest, right in the palm of your hand so they can continue laying you eggs.
Through the drought tactics they want to prevent new fans from joining the fandom and old fans to get tired until EXO fades away and so when contracts come, the members think they’ll need the SM name to survive. This HAS happened before repeatedly. We’ve all seen how SJ’s promos halted around 2013, how SM used SNSD’s anniversary promotions and understocked to threaten members during contract renewals. This is not a conspiracy theory, but known and repeated SM tactics. The only difference is that EXO has shown no hint of slowing down and so their limiting actions have come much earlier in the schedule. Just because SM is stuck in their crude, old fashioned mindset and older groups had to suffer doesn’t mean that EXO-Ls have to take this lying down and accept this treatment.
We are a MASSIVELY influential fandom, WE got EXO to play in Dubai, WE got EXO’s faces all over huge towers and the Burj Khalifa, the messages and promos we do are far reaching. If EXO-Ls make enough noise, it is not utterly impossible for SM to listen. Spread this on twitter, trend a hashtag, complain, protest, do something…anything to let SM know we will not take this quietly like previous fandoms and that times are changed. EXO-Ls are still here and will continue to support EXO and promote EXO where SM won’t. Nothing SM does or is planning will make us leave and they need to know that.
Most importantly….as a top tier group that has put in time, sweat, and tears into bringing glory to this waste of a company, EXO deserves better treatment than to be shelved like an old can of used goods at ridiculous whims. Far better.
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