Hi Storkmuffin,
I would love to get your opinion on how Yeosang and Seonghwa approach the visual label of Ateez. From what I've seen binge watching years of content their approach is very different. Yeosang seems to take that label as very restricting and avoids it unless forced by his members or others, which he trys to deflect it in various polite & charming ways. Seonghwa on the other hand seems to actively go for that label. Introducing himself as and wanting to be acknowledged by his members as the visual.
If I was to speculate it seems to me the visual/beautiful label for Yeosang has been more of a burden/hindrance for him and that is why he responds that way. Seonghwa seems to get validation and happiness from the label.
I'm very curious what your meta on this will be.
ask sent January 8, 2026
Yeosang, from when he was a baby all the way through his entire life to date, is exceptionally beautiful. I think of all of the Ateez members he had the least done to his face. He also has very beautiful eyes, and just, generally a princely air. The unusual voice adds to this, as well as having all these markers of being higher class - educator family, good at school, lovely manners. I've said this before but like professional make up artists and people like Kim Jayjoong, who is himself a great beauty and now a producer of Idol teams, all feel compelled to remark how beautiful his face or eyes or both are when they spend any amount of time with him. Woosan get what I consider cuteness aggression about Yeosang. Both Mingi, who is an open connoisseur of male beauty and Jongho, who is not into any of that, find Yeosang beautiful.
As a result, Yeosang behaves exactly like extremely beautiful girls I've known who are also really nice and socially skilled do - they deflect, demur, return the compliment, graciously accept and otherwise do whatever it is necessary to make the exclamation about their beauty come to an end so they can have a normal conversation like ordinary looking people do.
Seonghwa, through the development of his Idol look and judicious application of plastic surgery and styling, keeps evolving his look to be more otherwordly, but he does not at all fit what is considered the standard mold for what is "The Visual" in Idoldom. There's kind of a pretty-boy-frontman that a lot of American hairbands have, you know, as a phenotype, and The Visual Idol conjures a specific phenotype. Seonghwa says it because nobody else will say it.
His sly smile and semi-ironic attitude when he calls himself 'the visual' is kind of his putting the idea out there, in case there are any takers. And I've also wondered if Seonghwa is somewhat acknowledging that nobody in Ateez exactly fit the mold for what was considered the "Standard" or "Fashionable" Idol look the year they debuted, as in, I might as well be the visual, because if none of us are, then all of us can be.
