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This is a sideblog for idols. I may post NSFW and RPF content.
Tags: - Reaction posts
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Fanfiction recommendation posts: - EXO - NCT - Seventeen
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210212 tobenstagram: 새해 복 많이 받으세요🐶
260720 EXO Keep Your Head Down
WayV 'Vision Wings' Schedule Poster
WayV The 8th Mini Album 【Vision Wings】
➫ 2026.08.10 (CST/KST)
Album Pre-Order: July 20
Schedule Poster: July 21
M/V Trailer (Vision Wings): July 27
Mood Sampler: July 29
Teaser (Yin and Yang): July 30-31
Teaser (Yuan): August 4-5
Teaser (Shen): August 6-7
M/V Teaser: August 8
Album + M/V Release: August 10
6/♣ chenbaek moments || 90:2014 Ep.5
260603 EXO_NEWS_JP Twitter update
You hit me like a shock, wherever I go, I can only hear you…
2024 EXO SEASON’S GREETINGS
[260717] V8 LIVE IN HONGKONG DAY1
[260717] HAPPY BIRTHDAY WONWOO 🦊💎
[260719] jeonghaniyoo_n IG
260720 weareoneEXO: EXhOrizon in #KAOHSIUNG DAY 2🌈
one of the reasons i started moving away from way/v was because they stopped performing music in chinese.
i am a chinese diaspora who grew up and still lives in the west. as a youngster, i was more into japanese pop culture, namely anime and jpop. as i grew older i also got to know more about kpop. japan and south korea had the cool fun trendy stuff. meanwhile, chinese (and sinosphere) pop culture kind of lagged behind in coolness. i personally didn't really like hk dramas, taiwanese dramas, or cdramas at that time. but the one thing i did engage with was chinese pop music. cantopop and mandopop were the soundtracks of my youth.
when i was in university i had a period of internalized racism. i won't get into why. during those years i just felt so disconnected from being chinese. i wouldn't say i hated being chinese, but there were times when i thought being chinese was such an inconvenience.
when i needed it the most, i found cdramas. i rediscovered a genre i'd always loved which was guzhuang (historicals), particularly political historical dramas.
through cdramas, i discovered lay zhang, who was from e/x/o. whether he's still in e/x/o is another question that i won't address right now. i discovered him and his music. at the time, he had just released lit. those of you know how big he is on representing chinese culture. and his music reminded me that yes, i can be chinese and i can be cool. his whole lit era reached me at a time when i needed it the most and for that i will always be grateful. (in addition, it was through lay that i finally got into e/x/o and kp*p in general but that's not relevant to this topic for today). i think lay kind of overdoes it now tbh, but anyway, lit was very important to me.
now we have way/v. every time i talk about way/v, there are tomes of backstory so i will try to keep it short.
the original plan was to set up nct china. however, the softban on kp*p in china would make it hard for nct china to make it into the chinese market. instead, sm transitioned to way/v. they were ambiguous about it. it was supposed to be set up as a totally different group, but it clearly held deep ties to n/c/t. there were a lot of questions over whether it was even part of n/c/t but that's not relevant.
way/v first tried to get into the chinese market through its individual members gaining popularity. lucas became the most popular, having earned a spot on china's running man. win/win and ten also had activities though were not as big as lucas. when lucas had his scandal, his entire reputation fell apart. seriously i was a little surprised by how quickly it happened. but because of the fallout, sm withdrew way/v's activities and basically suspended them for a while.
they regrouped, and their new strategy was to market the group globally instead. way/v released music in korean, in english, in japanese. i personally did not like this. way/v was built to be a chinese group. i liked listening to them sing in chinese. i don't understand korean or japanese, but when i listen to them sing in english, i can't take it seriously. especially because english lyrics in kp*p songs aren't particularly special imo.
in addition, i am into idols for the variety content and they really weren't going on any shows either. they went on some korean shows i guess, but i couldn't really relate. i guess i could relate to the diaspora experience but otherwise i just felt disconnected. i preferred seeing them more comfortable in chinese variety content.
in the pivot from chinese to global, the company was basically saying that it's not worth it to market to china. we're going to have this group of chinese guys (excluding ten because he's not chinese and he was placed in way/v for other reasons) who was made to integrate into the chinese entertainment system, and instead make them forget all that and integrate to a ??? what system exactly? they're not in the western entertainment system, they're not in the japanese entertainment system. they were only just barely getting into the korean entertainment system because sm finally started putting them on variety shows.
i'm getting rambly so let me make a few points.
chinese music really does hit different. you may know that chinese dialects have tones and that makes lyricism difficult in chinese music. when a lyric matches the music, it fits like a puzzle piece. to deprive way/v of that when most of them naturally have the ability to pronounce mandarin properly is a disservice to them. (i say most because a few of them do have accents. ten obviously has an accent as he's not a native speaker, but lucas and hen/dery also have noticeable cantonese accents). i was interested in this group of mostly chinese dudes and i want to hear them sing in chinese. hopes this makes sense.
sm collected a bunch of mostly chinese dudes and was like actually being chinese is too hard, why don't you try to be something cooler like korean or japanese or english? you see how that fucked with me who had internalized racism? this is the bigger/biggest point for me.
related is sm not committing to their plans. if they committed to way/v being a chinese group then they would have found other ways to make the group thrive. i always say they should have just moved the guys over to china so that they could actually work there. like what's the fucking point of entering the chinese market all the way from fucking south korea. or they should have marketed way/v as a kp*p group to begin with. look at groups like seventeen or i-dle or z/b/1 that are fully kp*p groups but have chinese members? they are still immensely popular in china because they get regular activities. even when sm pivoted way/v to being an 'international' group, they didn't start putting them in the kp*p variety circuit although way/v IS a funny group of guys.
i was just reminded of these feelings after seeing the teaser for the new way/v comeback and how they might be making chinese music again. like better late than never i guess but it is too late for me.
about the upcoming wv comeback
i'm salty that wv are having what seems to be a traditional chinese themed comeback right after ww left. because he would eat that concept up. though he probably still wouldn't be able to make the comeback considering his schedule and sm's schedule just never matched up for the last two years.
i'm surprised they're already having a comeback so soon after tn left sm. but the timeline for tn is all out of whack. normally when artists leave sm but stay in the group, the group is already pretty mature and are slowing down activities. but tn debuted so long before wv did. i don't think wv is quite that mature so maybe that's why they're still going to have more frequent comebacks.
in light of the above, i'm surprised wv has a comeback because i just saw promos for tn's solo comeback in september
i'm glad that they seem to finally be putting out chinese music again. part of why i moved away from them was because they pivoted hard away from chinese music for a while.
my feelings are all over the place
260719 NCTsmtown Twitter Update
"2026 RENJUN&CHENLE FANMEETING [ROOMMATE] in #GUANGZHOU with NCTzens"
