can you please read riize current energy with this cb ? something feels sooo off like i feel there no creativity at all in this album process. So can you read about how both sm and riize feeling abt this cb
“RIIZE & SM Entertainment: A Rebrand, A Reckoning, and Some ✨Repressed Feelings✨”
So besties… let’s talk about the elephant in the room: SM and RIIZE are not exactly giving ‘happy family’ energy right now. The cards and the ghost of Baekhyun’s vocals were SCREAMING, so you know the tea is piping hot.
The Vibe Right Now? Tense, Tired, and Tightly Controlled
Virgo reversed, Libra reversed, and Moon reversed say it all:
There’s over-sanitized branding, fake smiles, and hidden agendas.
SM’s trying to keep things pretty and perfect, but it’s coming off cold and emotionally disconnected.
Trust? Wobbly. Authenticity? Debatable.
The boys? Feeling the pressure, but still pushing forward (low-key exhausted though & really wishing the company got their shit together).
The Comeback? A Full-On Identity Shift™
Yes babe, you’re not crazy—RIIZE is being slowly experimented with to see exactly what might work to garnish back the fans the company lost them .
The styling, the sound, the visuals? More...experimental and on purpose. From giving them ot5 TVXQ songs to having them try out NCT sounding/inspired vibes.
The multiple MVs & Sound switch up = SM throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks.
This isn’t just a comeback it’s damage control disguised as reinvention.
They’re desperately trying to regain fan favor after the member loss scandal and they’ve realized: “Just pretty boys with trendy jeans” isn’t gonna cut it anymore.
SM’s Game Plan? Total Creative Takeover
SM’s energy is giving tight-lipped boss lady clutching the purse strings.
Queen of Pentacles reversed + Page of Pentacles reversed = holding back support while demanding perfection.
Strength + Hanged Man = RIIZE is being told to endure and obey.
They're stuck in a limbo of “just debut but already expected to be legends.”
SM sees this comeback as RIIZE's second debut but instead of building up their unique identity, they’re molding them into something palatable and profitable. The Death card reversed says it all: they’re refusing to let go of old formulas even if it stifles growth.
The Boys’ Energy? Mixed but Resilient
Let’s assign some of those Wildwood Tarot vibes to the members:
10 of Bows Reversed (Responsibility) – Probably Wonbin or Sohee feeling the weight, maybe burnt out or over-tasked.
The Son of Life – Anton? That baby sunbeam still shining through. He’s the hope.
Three of Vessels (Joy) – Shotaro, bringing light and fun, trying to keep spirits up.
Nine of Arrows Reversed (Dedication) – Eunseok might be second-guessing or having doubts about the grind.
Six of Vessels (Reunion) – Seunghan’s energy still lingers, whether fans like it or not. There’s a missing piece.
The Ancestor – Sungchan, the old soul. He knows the SM system. He’s strategic. He’s watching.
Underneath the Surface? Feelings Bottled & Money-Minded
Four of Pentacles + Devil = Money, control, and fear.
The company won’t let go, and the boys feel like they’re walking on eggshells.
Three of Cups reversed = The vibes backstage? Not always friendly. Trust issues, cliques, possible tensions.
The Empress reversed = No room for creative nurturing. This isn’t about artistry it’s about image.
Five of Pentacles reversed = They're clawing their way back from the fallout.
Six of Swords reversed = But they’re still stuck in some old bad blood energy.
If they want true growth? SM has to release control and let the members’ personalities shine instead of forcing a brand onto them.
Final Vibe Check Summary:
RIIZE is in its chrysalis era pretty, fragile, and tightly wrapped in SM tape.
The company is trying to sculpt them into a palatable powerhouse, but right now?
“We Want Nct Sales Numbers With Shinee Aesthetics And Exo Loyalty… But Without The Effort Of Letting These Boys Be Themselves.”
The fans feel the artificiality. The boys feel the pressure. And Ghost by Baekhyun playing during this reading? Oh honey—
That’s the ancestors of SM’s past groups whispering warnings through the Spotify algorithm.
So I'm going to give more of my two cents at the end here. I feel like this is very interesting because I feel like I've kind of clocked this and some of their fans have. I have seen several people on YouTube and tiktok and Twitter who have sat there and talked about the fact that it's interesting that once the original fandom members started just demanding for the company to do better by the group. At the very least like if you weren't going to sit here and rectify the wrongdoings that you did in the first place and bring back Seunghan. Spend the very least you can do is sit there and protect the remaining six members and him from these absolute deranged Psychopaths that went on to harassing and sending funeral reefs and shit and the company didn't.
Which then led to the worldwide boycott. Which mind you in New York I can't talk about everywhere but the part of New York state that I live in and in New York City the K-pop stores that I go to to buy albums and stuff they still are refusing to restock any of these boys' albums and even their full length album that's coming out they're not going to have it in stock. Because they still stand by the ot7 fans and their message which is to protect the idols more than anything else which is what I think some people are kind of not understanding why the boycotting and people not supporting the group as hard as they used to is still happening. Because if we're still supporting them within the company is still allowing for these insane Psychopaths that they want to pretend are the main demography of fans for this group or for Kpop groups in general. There is no reason to keep giving this company money. They're going to keep allowing them to stalk the members follow them onto airplanes follow them to their hotels book hotel rooms and flight seats right next to them taking illegal pictures flying out of the country and stuff to stop them while the company sits back and does nothing. Literally they've already had several incidences of this group being stalked and basically harassed by ot 6 fans that were pissed off or wanted to show the boys see we care about you so we kicked out your friend and member to protect you which is stupid as hell to think and again I do want to put out there cuz I do feel like people don't understand that SM is one of the reasons why Idols do not have separate Airport entrances.
During that time airports came out and talked about how they were going to create a celebrity only entrance and exit. Fans and people can still take photos outside of the airport but they weren't going to let them inside. Rumor has it what are the reasons why they ended up pulling that idea because they announced it and then less than 12 hours later this afternoon said we're not doing this. Is because allegedly awesome and their friend company whose name I'm not going to mention but it wasn't YG or jyp threatened to have any advertisement with their artist pulled from the airports threatened to not allow their artists to fly in and out from those major airports and to basically take back any monetary gain that they possibly give to those airports meaning some of them have artists that literally or representatives of like travel Korea think new jeans right they were the ambassadors for like traveling into Korea and being like hey come to Korea look at our culture all those other stuff right they had advertisements everywhere in the major airports they still do if I'm remembering correctly. They basically were like Global ambassadors for tourism. These companies leaning heavily on SM especially basically sat there and threatened to not allow for any advertisements by their artists to ever be played at these airports. To stop using the airports and basically to publicly shun the airport to the international fan reach and the domestic one which could do absolute fucking damage to these airports. It would mean that people would all of a sudden not want to go to the airports to travel in and out of the country regardless of how good the airport is they would see it as a portrayal to the company and their favorite artists like you have to understand how brainwashed not all but a good chunk of the Asian fans are when it comes to shit like that. The difference is they're either brainwashed like that from their parasocial relationship with the idols which most of the time is perfectly okay as long as the idle themselves is also like very much so Force feeding them the anti delusional pills. But when they're falling for that from the companies that's when it gets real dangerous. That's why so many people are upset with certain fans and fandoms from certain companies that seem to be defending the company so heavy-handedly because it's like at that point you're not really a fan of the artist you're just being used and manipulated by the company and you're so far gone you don't even notice or realize it's happening. But like I was saying the airport didn't want to have to deal with a possibility of them losing that much money not only from the public backlash they might end up receiving cuz who knows what lies these companies would have came up with. But also the loss of money not just from tourism but you have to understand how much money they make off of having these artists fly out from them because not only do you have the idols catching flights but so is their teams right some of them are traveling with backup dancers, makeup artist, management teams, an entire arsenal of people sometimes they're taking up half of the plane seats on their own that's a lot of good money coming in and they might lose all of that just because the companies are like we don't give a shit about airport security or the security of our artists we just want to keep the fans happy delusional and make those viral moments happen.
Again depending on when you got into Kpop you will know that things like fan cams and Airport fashion pictures and videos were always taking by fans before companies found out they can monetize it. You would be able to go to the live tapings of like M countdown, music Bank Etc and you were allowed to film The live performances you just couldn't post them up until at the end of the day after the official performances have erred on TV and then been uploaded to YouTube but that's where the fan cams had come from they weren't taken by and countdown or by music Bank like they are now where it's legitimately them just having an AI tracking camera stationed and set up to follow the members. This was taken by the fans and that's what created those viral moments. And it's the same with airport fashion moments it wasn't a shit ton of press there and then a shit ton of fan sites rushing to like take a bunch of pictures and put them online no it was normally like a handful of fans depending on how big the group was who found out like cuz companies are stupid and they do put out like all the artists are going to be leaving on this day from this airport even if they didn't give a time it didn't matter fans would just show up after searching when the flights from Korea to like Japan or America or whatever it is that they have schedule and was going to be happening and then they will be the ones taking these pictures and these pictures and sometimes even these interactions would go viral because it'll be like a random fan be able to say hi or saying something cute or giving like a letter or something to the artist while also getting like a picture or video of them in their outfit and then it would go viral. Then it became like a weird circus performance because companies and magazines and stuff figured out oh my God we can monetize this but then it also ended up hitting the artist in danger now I'm done with this part of the little rant and my thoughts on this.
But they started off trying to recapture fans by having the boys come out with I believe it was hug now the reason why this didn't work as well as I think as I wanted it to is if you understand the message behind hug. It was their debut songs and it talked about that longing for wanting to belong and for love and to be held and affection in all this other shit and if you ever see the jyj members specifically the three members that left TVXQ when they have talked about it before they talked about how this song was kind of like a love letter to the fans that they were going to have before they had even debuted the members and the producers and the people in charge were like what where are we going to go with your debut we want to keep it this like team concept Etc and they were like we kind of want to come out swinging until this became their debut song. So imagine how it feels to then take a group that the company kicked a member out of for the dumbest of reasons and have them recreate the song about loneliness and wanting to connect with someone and have that loving relationship Etc right after the company again just kicked out a member and it technically is also a song from a group where three of the members had to sue the company and and their contracts for unfair treatment and payment and the company having favoritism and giving them slave contracts but then also never giving them actual activities and favoriting the other two members that stayed with them in terms of like solo activities Etc whatever and it kind of feels like a slap in the face. Not only was it a slap in the face to the TV excuse fans and also people who are fans of jyj and any of those members and their soul careers but it also felt like a slap in the face to ot7 fans. Ask some thought instead it would evoke that old SM Vibe and people would fall in love and they would like it and it didn't happen. So then it felt like they kind of had to Pivot again then they thought maybe we can go with something a little EXO sounding but then it was like now that would be too obvious so then they were like what about something a little NCT sounding and then instead we ended up getting this album now I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with this as their debut full-length album cuz I'm pretty sure that's what it is. But I saw people who had already been watching the music videos and listening to the songs and there's been way too many people pointing out the fact that certain songs sound like this could have been an NCT song and other songs I've seen people be like as someone who was a fan of EXO during the 2010s when they debuted and everything this is giving 2015 EXO Vibes or whatever and it's like it's very telling and it's kind of interesting that it almost feels as if currently with RIIZE. SM is is doing everything except take accountability and suing and going after the wrongdoers in order to recreate that organic success that this group already had off the bat with their debut.
The members feel like they're just tired they're exhausted. It feels like the company has tightened its range on them in terms of like what they're allowed to say what they're allowed to do how they can act like everything is being scrutinized under a microscope to the point where like they feel uncomfortable to even be breathing in that building or at the dorms at this point in time. Yet they're still pushing for it and they're trying to do whatever they can in order to just assure life and it makes sense they kind of have to. Like they can't really do anything about it outside of just sitting there and dealing with it. They see what happens when you try to go against the company legally look at EXO CBX & Jaejoon X TVXQ member literally talked about how he only recently has been able to start appearing on shows and things in Korea even though he ended their contract in the early 2000s. It is 2025 them slave contracts at SM had with them which I believe was about 10 to 15 years and then the black listing of artists would prevent anyone from sitting there and trying to find any other means to get out of their contract with them. So they're kind of just stuck between a rock and a hard place they have a part of their own fandom which is the loud majority who think that they're happy that their member was kicked out and that they did them a great service when in actuality they kind of just want to yell and scream at them. Then they have the part of the fandom that they do appreciate and like what they can't say anything or show support to them because then they'll most likely end up being punished in some way shape or form by the company itself on top of those other insane fans who happen to also stock and follow them places trying to possibly retaliate or even trying to kick other members out or ruin the group as a whole. So it's kind of like there's not much they can do but their relationship with the company seems to basically just be non-existent at this point it's like so on the Rocks they might as well be standing at the edge of a cliff being ready to jump down to jack it Cliffside and praying that they're taking out before they drown.
