PSA: on hating Wanna One
If you hate, dislike, or harbor any negative feeling whatsoever regarding Wanna One, I strongly encourage you to read this post.
The way we learn is not through affirming our mentalities and ideas, but instead by questioning and listening to other opinions.
As someone who is strongly multi-fandom, I’m going to keep this as unbiased as possible here. The group doesn’t have much time left, so I’d say give this a go. It won’t take long to read.
(@ wannables: please rt so we can spread the word! this is honestly the best time to be a multifandom wannable because we have so many interactions rn!! and if you’re a wannable that hates other groups, you better read this too)
Lately we’ve been seeing a lot of interactions between Wanna One and other (especially male) idol groups.
So, a lot of us Wannables have become increasingly multi-fandom (more than we were already: nobody begins their run with kpop with a survival show) - but, alas, we have found that a LOT of people from international k-pop fandoms, for some unknown reason, hate Wanna One with a burning passion.
For the relatively small international fandom, the amount of international hate towards Wanna One is overwhelming and hard to deal with.
So, without further ado, let me clear up some of the misconceptions you may have about the group!
Wanna One is friends with or looks up to the GROUPS YOU STAN.
tl;dr they friendly. Wannables know this, so a lot of us are multifandom - after all, not many people got into kpop BECAUSE of Produce 101. A lot of us have been around for a while and stan other groups.
Kang Daniel: Friends with Woozi (SEVENTEEN), Suga (BTS), Zico, Xiumin (EXO), Chanyeol (EXO), Mark (NCT) and many more - let’s be real Kang Daniel can be friends with whoever he wants, role model is Kai (EXO), TWICE Fanboy
Ha Sungwoon: Friends for years with Jimin (BTS), Taemin (SHINee), Kai (EXO) and also many more
Park Jihoon: Is literally in love with V (BTS), has said multiple times he looks up to V and pursued K-Pop because of him, in a gaming group with Jin (BTS), Eunkwang (BtoB), Youngjae (B.A.P), Ken (VIXX) - seen eating out together
Lee Daehwi: BFFs with Somi (Produce 101, JYP Sixteen - the show that formed Twice), remixed Got7 Hard Carry for produce 101 audition, Heize fangirls over him, friends with Bang Chan (Stray Kids), TWICE Fanboy
Ong Seongwoo: Friends with Mark (NCT), Kwangjin (N.Flying), Mina (gugudan), Namjoo (APink), role model is Kai (EXO), worked with Heize
Hwang Minhyun: caught fanboying over Red Velvet on insta, got acknowledged by NELL
Lai Guanlin: friends with Sehun (EXO), is in love with Wooseok (Pentagon), fanboyed over him in front of HyunA herself
Bae Jinyoung: EXO Fanboy, Sehun Fanboy
Park Woojin: Zico Fanboy, knows Zico irl now
Yoon Jisung: probably has friends but he won’t tell us, acknowledged by NELL
Kim Jaehwan: Embarrassed himself in front of Zico
Why do international fans hate Wanna One?
tl;dr Essentially, Wanna One is really popular in Korea - and not internationally - so the international fans hate them, pretty much because they’re successful. Large biased, sh*t reporting media sites like Allkpop and Netizenbuzz recognize this, and spew out bad articles on them with wrong translations and incorrect info because it gets them attention
Produce 101 season 2, the group that formed Wanna One, was hugely popular in Korea, not so much internationally. A large part of this may be because international fans couldn’t vote in the show
After produce 101 finished airing, it was obvious Wanna One would be popular in Korea. However, a lot of international fans didn’t know about this
So, when Wanna One debuted, their popularity was obviously very high. They began playing with the best, with groups that had been around for years
This resulted in the Wanna One members being called ungrateful, achieving fame “too fast”, even though it’s just a different means of getting there.
All of these boys weren’t just lucky. They worked extremely hard in their own way to get to this point, and they are aware that the group isn’t permanent. They know that it’s not going to all be smooth sailing from here - they’ve written songs on the impermanence of this feeling (see: hourglass, forever+1, always, I promise you, hell they have an album called “nothing without you”)
Sungwoon, Minhyun - both in “unsuccessful” groups for years before (Hotshot, Nu’est), had to strip off their “idol” image and perform as “trainees”
Daniel, Jisung - trainees for years under an unknown entertainment label (MMO) that likely wouldn’t have debuted them but instead used them for backup dancers (Daniel was actually going to leave to live in Canada - pd101 was his last resort, Jisung would have had to go to the military)
Jihoon, Jinyoung - have you ever heard of maroo or c9 entertainment? Likely would have debuted into a no name group
Daehwi, Woojin - Daehwi has already gotten so much hate from the start of the show even though he’s already 16, yet remained positive. Woojin rose from the 70s rank up until 6 through hard work alone.
Guanlin - moved from Taiwan by himself at 16 without knowing Korean to pursue his dream, is always showing thanks to fans, trying to speak in both English and Taiwanese as well
Jaehwan - won an entire TV show but nobody paid attention to him. Busked on the streets.
Seongwoo - nobody can deny that he is always thinks of the fans. writes his own freaking poetry for us
All of them always express their thanks to the fans, and even the man of the year, Kang Daniel, is commonly reported by outside sources (producers, tv show directors, other idols, etc) as simple - friendly and humble. Even though he’s always tired and in the public’s eye, he is one of the most active members on fancafe, even tries to respond to foreign fans in English
Haven’t they been involved with a lot of controversies?
tl;dr They’ve all been refuted. This is an unusual situation that happens when a group is popular, and the international fandom isn’t big enough to fight it.
Sites like Allkpop and Netizenbuzz just add fuel to the fire, releasing articles on untrue information, and then not releasing articles quickly or at all on clarifications
Also YMC/Swing sucks and doesn’t protect the boys (literally and figuratively) or the fandom. Instead of explaining situations or taking legal actions, they will either use the boys as a shield for their own mistakes, or force the boys to apologize for things they didn’t do.
Wannables in their natural habitat are fighting YMC (and now Swing entertainment) for something or the other. Right now the big deal is that Swing has banned fansites from taking pictures and Wannables are irate af lemme tell u
They’re not talented.
untrue
produce 101 was a show that if a mistake was made (all live btw), mnet would repeat the same clip 11 times with different angles and reactions
and wanna one is who we are left with. so make what you want of that
(lots of live performances to go around also)
I just don’t like their music.
Not a reason to hate a group.
Their music is pretty much generic K-pop. If you like K-pop, chances are you’ll like their music
Also, for their recent comeback they’ve worked with really incredible artists (Zico, Heize, NELL, Dynamic Duo). Try one of those
If you like kHipHop/kR&B
Kangaroo (prod. Zico)
Hourglass (prod. Heize)
11 (prod. Dynamic Duo)
If you like ballads/sad sh*t
Forever+1 (prod. NELL)
Always
I Promise You (confession version)
Beautiful
I wanna have (this is the GOAT)
If you like k-pop
Energetic (prod. Hui of Pentagon)
Light
Boomerang (okay we don’t really talk about this one tho)
Wannables are a toxic fandom.
This is something that gets thrown around a LOT. But in reality, most wannables are very multi-fandom. I will repeat it for a third time: nobody starts liking K-Pop because of a survival show, especially internationally. A lot of us are fans of other groups, so it sucks when our other home fandoms reject us.
The international Wannable community is extremely small (case in point: the company reducing the concert venue sizes by thousands in the US due to tickets not selling). This means our influence is also very small. It’s very unlikely that you have experienced such toxicity from a true Wannable.
On the topic of akgaes: look we don’t like them either, but even though the show was based on voting for your fave, most Wannables aren’t hating on the groupmates and literal friends of their biases. You could help us get rid of this image by promoting ot11!
KWannables are commonly seen supporting other groups, because they are very well aware of the fact that Wanna One is friends with/looks up to/likes other kpop groups.
They don’t want the group to disband. Of course, there’s a part of every Wannable that dreads that day. But, most of us understand that there’s more waiting for them, and we’ll continue to support in the future!
There’s more to say. But life and Wanna One’s run are both too short to spend hating a group of sweet, talented boys. There’s so much toxicity in K-pop. Imagine how your bias would feel if they knew you were attacking their friends or people that look up to them.
Let’s spread positivity, not all this hate.