You asked about additional older lore about ATEEZ, particularly in who the members saw as their competition. I don’t know if this is something you’ve already covered. But the year before ATEEZ debuted, there was a competition reality show, I’m assuming similar to the one you watched with ENHYPEN. My knowledge of it is based just on a couple of clips and what others have said about it. It was called MIXNINE and YG was involved. They went around to a bunch of companies to find contestants. And they came to KQ as well. All 8 members auditioned to a panel of judges. Hongjoong and Mingi rapped; Seonghwa, San and Jongho sang; Yunho, Yeosang and Wooyoung danced. 4 were selected - Hongjoong, Mingi, Wooyoung and Jongho. Apparently, the show itself was messy and even though they did form both a boy and a girl group in the end, they never debuted. So all for naught. I don’t think any of the members made it to the end, and I believe Hongjoong made it the farthest.
But coming back to the members who were chosen - I think this is a verifiable bit of “evidence” of which members stood out from the start. Which ones were more fully formed. When I watched clips of the auditions, it made sense to me. Jongho already had that VOICE, Hongjoong and Mingi had already developed their signature sounds, Wooyoung had both dance skills and charisma - there’s a whole clip where they focus on him just drinking water with other trainees who are probably watching a live feed ooohing and aaahing. Applying this to the real world, when we try out for something and don’t get it, of course there’s disappointment, but we usually also know who’s probably going to make it. And since the members had been training together, I would assume that they weren’t particularly surprised who was chosen. And even though they have all improved their skills and made individual spaces for themselves, I still do think that these 4 who stood out back then are still the ones who stand out now, except for one Major exception, in the way San has catapulted himself to the front of the pack.
post submitted March 3, published March 6, 2026.
HJ, Mingi, Wooyoung and Jongho being 'fully formed' and the remaining four taking longer to reach it is what I think as well.