we’ll never be for sure but i’ve always assumed that it’s because of a combination of different things. for one, they’ve never tried to force the “we’re best friends, we’re inseparable” concept which, in my opinion, usually drives groups more apart than closer. it’s not even just a group related thing either: when you’re told to act a certain way, even if it’s realistic, it begins to become more of an act over time / you start to have a hard time with figuring out what’s real vs. what isn’t. shinee have had their problems in the past and they’ve never hid that from fans. they’ve been very open about how they’ve had fights (ie: minho and key admitting that there was a timeframe around their debut where they didn’t talk for months because of some petty teenage fight), they’ve had icy moments, and that they’ve gone through a lot together. they’ve also been open about how they started as simply as a group (as all groups do, of course) and, over time, developed a more organic personal relationship behind the scenes that they consider to be family esque now. in the last (almost) two years alone i’ve lost count of the number of times that the members have referred to each other as their “family”, and i genuinely believe it. like, look at how they basically raised taemin. he was an actual baby when they debuted and they did everything from helping him with his homework to giving him dating advice. the honesty feels very real to me and i think it’s for the best. i also feel like moving out of the dorm helped them a lot as well. they’ve spoken about good memories that they’ve had from back then but… sometimes you need distance from people that you’re around often, and moving out has given them that. (minus with onew and minho because they still live there, but they seem pretty busy with their individual schedules) being given space from time to time is important and usually helps relationships more than it damages them. anyway, they take the time to hang out sometimes out of schedules which is nice as well: going out for drinks (like jonghyun, minho and onew did last year), going to each other’s homes during the holidays (like jonghyun and taemin did at chuseok last year with onew’s family apparently), visiting each other on birthdays when they’re not together (like minho did with jonghyun this year), ect. plus their own families are like families: onew’s parents, key’s parents and taemin’s mom went to jjong’s first solo concert, and onew / jonghyun’s mom’s went to one key’s musical dates a few months back. there’s the little less talked about things too, like how key buys the members matching gifts for each of their anniversaries.
when it comes to performing: i think it helps that they seem to still have a “rookie mentality” when getting on stage, aka: they give it their all. plus they all seem to be passionate about music in different ways / passionate about the group as well. (remember how both taemin and jonghyun made a point to keep on referring to themselves as “shinee’s …” even during their respective solo promo cycles? yeah.)
tl;dr: they’re lowkey and private about things a lot of the time (which i can respect) but it’s obvious that they genuinely care about each other / they’ve gotten to a place where they’ve grown up and they enjoy each others company / are friends. (people like to say otherwise, but they’re mostly living in the past if they do.) blah, blah, they’re like family, redundant but true.
