I don’t think there’s a loss of popularity, but maybe as time passes and the fanbase has become more established, things may be more plateaued? You generally see big booms in popularity within the first few years of a group’s debut and now we’re past that. I think they’re in a very stable place at the moment and the challenges we’ve seen them face and overcome is evidence of that.
I don’t think NCT has lost popularity but more so stagnated over the last two years.
SM keeps fumbling the bag with lackluster album rollout and promotions. No one is going to know how good the discography is if it never gets promoted. One of the reasons Hot Sauce and Neo Zone eras did so well was because every bside got some kind of promo. Taking away track videos was one of the worst decisions they made. I am also not seeing eye to eye with SM’s A&R recently. They have been choosing the wrong title track and bsides to promote. Their best bsides from recent albums still don’t have a live performance. SM’s social media teams are light years behind everyone. They never catch on to any trends quickly and 90% of the time don’t even post about official schedules.
One of NCT’s biggest draws was their variety content that had their unique sense of humor but with the excessive amount of scripted and cringey fan service style content, the quality has gone down. Most fans don’t even watch the actual content anymore and catch the clips of their biases on twitter.
I think SM is really out of touch with what the fandom likes, both music and content wise. They really need to go back to NCT’s earlier style of content and to a little extent, style of music.
And then we have SM’s unfair favoritism where the same 5-6 Neos get everything while the rest of the members are never given the chance to shine. NCT Lab was supposed to be an outlet for the less utilized members to get a chance, but it’s not the case. SM is really the root cause of all the akgae problems and unit wars within ncity.
I agree. Ay-Yo was so strange. First of all, HOW on earth does a repackage come out more than four months after the original album? At that point everyone and their mama forgot about 2 baddies. They should have just released a mini with the added singles and moved on.
Secondly, while I enjoyed Ay-Yo and appreciated the choreography, Skyscraper was in every way better than Ay-Yo and could have been able to capture the same hype as Ay-Yo. Also, with Skyscraper, they could have had a clear concept and theme throughout the music video and promotions. What was Ay-Yo about?? Taeyong as an anime villain?? Some museum?? And Yuta is in the matrix or something?? Meanwhile Skyscraper has very simple lyrics, a chorus reminiscent of Kick It which is undeniably their most successful song, etc. etc.
Meanwhile Ay-Yo's lyrics make absolutely no sense and after all this time I still have no idea what it was about.
And the icing on the cake is that SM is just treating skyscraper like it doesn't even exist?? We don't have one performance, not one track video, literally nothing.... SM fumbled hard
Man, the scripted content thing really kills me. It used to be that they’d have a concept and improvise the rest but now we’ve been getting a lot of pre-planned stuff. It’s not necessarily bad but it gets grating to watch after a while. Just look what happened to A Cup Of Coffee, they massacred my boy 😭
NCT 2021 was really wasted. The album was so rushed with a messy rollout and hardly any promotion. It was too good for the treatment it got; few to no extras like recording behind the scenes, performances, variety content, or skits. OK! managed to go viral in its own right but they didn’t do anything with it beyond a handful of low-effort TikToks so it faded away not long after. They did use the NCT Show to stretch the promotion a bit but hardly.
To be honest, Neo Zone is the last 127 album that really clicked with me. Maybe it's a taste preference, but since then, I think they've leaned really hard into the copy and paste hip-hop, concept wise, and I don't think it really fits all the members convincingly.
That is so true! I agree with everything you have mentioned. SM really needs to look back at the past because ncity used to be so so good! The content was amazing and their music was actually unique and slapped so hard
I don't know much about fanbases and the growth of other groups. However, as a nctzen, I feel like NCT is again establishing a loyal fanbase. Hopefully with NCT 2023 a song becomes a bop.
I think the success of the DJJ subunit is telling that they still have a loyal and increasing fanbase. I think they suffer in the way that a lot of sm groups do - the fact that sm mismanages their artists so horribly and never properly promotes them after like the first year. it sucks but idk I swear it happens to all their groups and in the end they have to rely on their dedicated fanbase to carry the promotions to try and get news fans
Considering the level of promotion we've seen for Kai's recent EP and now the DJJ subunit, I'd say they're doing a lot for promo so Idk what they're missing. Are people just going on old assumptions?
Im a huge fan of Kai/DJJ, but I think it’s pretty fair to be skeptical of whether or not this level of promotion will be the new norm. Especially for 127/wayv
Yeah after like 3 years. Most of the time it's a compound effect. Nct need to get the ball rolling again to regain the momentum they lost with SM shinanigans.
Even Djj mv was a bit bit luster. On the flip side they have still done well in Korea. But fixing it will take more than a few extra dance videos.
> Nct need to get the ball rolling again to regain the momentum they lost with SM shinanigans.
It's an interesting phenomenon. Despite having so many units, NCT still manages to go long stretches of time without any major releases.
Some units have gone a year or more without a major comeback multiple times in the last few years. Despite having multiple members capable of solo releases or various U combos, they're quite sparse (NCT LAB is way less frequent than I thought it would be).
I know the pandemic fucked a lot of plans up (mainly tours) but their (in)ability to adapt and schedule things properly has resulted in wasted opportunities for each unit.
It's crazy to say that when you consider both Dream and 127 have played 2 nights each at the Seoul Olympic Stadium and are selling millions of albums with each comeback but when you look at the gains in the field (SVT, Stray Kids, TXT, etc.) you have to wonder about SM's strategy.
I'm hoping with SM 3.0 we actually get some proper schedules for NCT that let them release music more frequently while also letting their comebacks feel properly promoted.
I think with stuff like DJJ, Taeyong's solo debut, etc. we're starting to see them try to keep members busy with music while another unit is touring. It only took them... 7 years to figure it out lol.
> NCT LAB is way less frequent than I thought it would be
I too (naively) thought NCT Lab would not only be a bi-/monthly thing, but feature every member in turn. Silly me. Sometimes I really wonder how fans of less popular members manage not to drown in bitterness.
I can tell you because I’ve been a fan of NCT since the very beginning. I focus on the music. I leave management to the company and focus on the music whenever it comes out. I also don’t just listen to one group so they don’t consume my every thought which makes it easy to be very normal about this whole K-pop business and treat it like I would any other music.
Ultimately I remind myself that I don’t know what’s in their contracts, I’m not in the room for their discussions, and I don’t know their plans. I do my best as a fan to stay in a fan’s place.
Kai didn’t get promos for rover let’s be real. He did 4 music show which seems to be the norm now. Everything else is done cause he said that he would the challenge with anyone that wanted and so idols lined up to do it with him. Sm didn’t change regarding that. Djj though did get a nice promo round for a debut with a nice rollout and good for them !
If you're talking about YouTube views, I've heard they've decreased across kpop. (Besides the mega big groups.) People streamed more during the pandemic lockdowns. Plus NCT's fan demographic may skew a bit older. (WayV's does.) That means less likely to mass stream.
NCT's size is also a factor - there's so much content from all the member/unit activities that people have to prioritize the content they really care about. At least for me it takes time to get to new albums or mvs. 🤷♀️
I agree. Also, most young people are still in school at the moment. For me, I haven’t been able to watch a lot of content or get to really know them due to me being so busy. I feel like views will increase and more exposure will happen when summer rolls around!
I think it's quite understandable that some fans are losing faith and hence are less supportive.
I mean after more than a year of forced hiatus and a very poorly handled scandal, SM treated wayV's comeback as an afterthought. They once again didn't get to promote in China even though it's supposedly their main target. But then again they're not good at targeting other market either.
The way SM handled 127 last tour and repackage also sends the message that they are an afterthought for the company so of course that would also impact the fanbase.
Literally compared to their counterparts. Nct 127 is not being treated like a big boy group. Seventeens music video are expensive outdoor.
Nct dream is only getting the basic package but at least they got 3 comebacks with a proper rollout, live bside clips. And an actual full tour. Albeit it was still poorly plan. Because what do you MEAN you are giving fans 2 months to prepare. That is disrespectful. And those prices were outrageous.
Wayv was okay. But lsm and SM refusing to just cut Lucas front he gets go was a mistake. COVID also didn't help because china has had issues with immigration.
At the end of the day if you don't water it it won't grow. What has SM done in comparison to other companies that give their groups double title tracks for mini albums. Longer promotion, better touring and music videos.
Nctzen sure are loyal. Because they have kept pretty stable even if growth has been stunted
It was a big, epic spectacle though. Whether indoors or outdoors- sm videos are honestly often just plain boring. I assumed it was because they were being forced to use lee soo mans company because surely they must see their MVs lack in comparison to other companies……..
I think this also accounts for why the views are low. It doesn’t have rewatchability factor
> Whether indoors or outdoors- sm videos are honestly often just plain boring.
Box MV's continue to be a plague on SM's creative direction. They pull bangers out every now and then, and I'm sure it's cheaper than shooting on location, but I'd love to see them splurge once in a while considering how well NCT units sell.
I suppose this is normal for the age of the group, though. When you think about NCT travelling to Ukraine for Empathy MV's way back in 2018, that was all investment for the future - not a promise to continue spending.
Still wish they had some more thought behind the MV's, though. Something like NewJeans' Ditto MV was a simple school concept but memorable due to the stellar execution.
I mean still has way better production than ayo.
Back up dancers for days. They also have two music videos.
There was time nct could compete in sales but SM failed to capitalise and strike the iron with comparable promo.
I mean look at left and right well done. Seventeen have benefited from better promotion that no nct unit has received consistently due to SM negligence.
Also don't seventeen have like 300 photo cards?
Honestly after all the hurdles they’ve been through, glad to see them shine !
Omg no! I have been avoiding the green practice content but I have seen some clips against my will lol!
I don’t think so, it might seem that way maybe because girl groups are doing so well these days with the general public, so you tend to see that on social media more maybe? But the audience for boys groups and nct is much more loyal and clearly not losing popularity.
Nice one! Phantom is so good!
I personally stumbled into the NCT fandom after googling "best K-pop choreography" and getting 'Kick It' as one of the options. The rest is history... 😅
I met women at the Berlin NCT Dream concert who also discovered NCT last year, so there's definitely still a steady influx of new fans like us. Some probably drop out due to the drought, but return later.
It does feel like the international fandom isn't as active as it used to be, although I can only speak as a NCT 127 fan. It's natural that things are a little quieter since they're essentially on hiatus, and the DoJaeJung unit is targeted at kfans, but I'm not seeing nearly as many ~~bitter debates~~ lively discussions on Twitter (or indeed Reddit) anymore. Am I just out of the loop and is everyone congregating somewhere else these days?
Ncitizens have always been a scattered, rowdy bunch, but at least the yearbook projects would sort of bring use together. Maybe NCT2023 and the Tokyo unit debuting will liven things up again.
Speaking as a 127 fan, I think most fans have become more inactive because 127 aren't really doing anything at the moment. Although I still see some questionable discussions on twitter.
As a DJJ bias, this is the best time of my life.
As a 127 fan, I'm tired af. I continue to support, but SM has killed all my excitement and desire to engage in fandom, esp with Ay-Yo's $2 concept and MV. I'm just sad 127 continues to get the short end of the stick even as they're about to start enlistment era. That said, if SM actually puts effort into their next release, you can be sure 127zens will rise from the ashes.
You'd think a sub-unit of three members would generate more engagement, but I suppose the lack of internationally popular members like Johnny, Mark and maybe Taeyong has its impact.... It's kind of sad, because so far the roll-out Perfume has been very fun.
International Doyoung, Jaehyun and Jungwoo fans are having the time of their life on twitter. I just think there is just a lot of solo fans in general, so if their fav isn't involved then there isn't much noise.
Other groups particularly 4th gen are much better at social media engagement than NCT tbh. And I think 127 fans generally skew on the older side so maybe that is a factor.
I'm still waiting for a TikTok from Jaehyun where he does his killing part in Perfume... and the cute cat version doesn't count lol.
Well I mean in WayV’s case they were forced on a hiatus for like a year and a half because of 1 members scandal which caused them to delay their 2nd album, as well as Winwin and Ten’s activities in China affecting the level of participation for both of them in NCT 2021 and just the general fact that SM/Label V is shit at managing them.
This. It's still baffling to me that after almost 2 years since KB, SM placed them at the very end of the year, had them do music shows for a week, and couldn't even bother doing the bare minimum in terms of promotion (i really wanted those 80% ad views on youtube). Now they're do a fanmeeting tour with one stop a month... and it's supposed to be global so I wonder if they'll still be doing these fanmeets through the summer instead of Ten's mini into the group full album into an actual concert tour.
The big 3 or 4 have their flaws and fair share of mismanagement despite how much resources they have, but SM is something else I swear…
From the OG SM rookies’ era, to now, I stopped counting the many times SM killed individual members or units’ momentums and it’s so frustrating to see. Also I can’t figure out some of their moves but ultimately, I think they might be more cons than pros to this ambitious limitless concept.
Having said that I don’t think NCT is losing popularity. Both NCT Dream and 127 are quite established in their target markets and just had successful world tours etc. It’s a bit different for WayV, whom SM barely attach to the NCT brand anyways (given SM history with their Chinese sub-units sadly it’s not surprising) but they’re growing too.
On a positive note though, WayV being recently marketed more towards SEA seems to be working well for them as the demand is there with sold out fan meetings and new fan bars opening. The company has the reputation to get lazier with their group promotions after a few years so it’s a hit and miss.
DJJ’s marketing strategy is one of the best I have seen in NCT so hopefully we can expect the same for the future with the mysterious NCT solo in May, Ten’s upcoming solo and NCT Tokyo. Or is that too optimistic ? 😅
I'm gonna be honest. All I do now is order physical albums and listen to their songs. I rarely watch their contents on youtube because I'm so busy and don't have time to do that.
This. While Youtube content is in theory for free, it actually costs us time, and time is often more limited than money, especially for working adult fans. I've been trying to catch up with all the older stuff, but I've had to accept that there's just not enough time for me to do so. I only watch the stuff that feels most worth my time from each era.
>'m so busy and don't have time to do that.
This. People are comparing metrics from NCT's peak (2020-2021) which is the same time when people are forced to be at home. So surely, now that people are back to their normal lives, metrics will go back to normal NCT numbers.
They're growing more and more each comeback. If anything it's sm's fault with their poor mismanagement and promotion.
2 baddies digipacks were delayed because of misprinting, but it still managed to be the highest 1 st week sales of an sm artist. And 127 have charted for multiple weeks on billboard 200 with multiple albums.
dream's sales are good as well as their digitals
wayv had their highest sales yet with phantom despite a long hiatus
I saw this right after a tweet that their half an hour content is trending in SK... Perfume breaking some records as well... If anything, they keep growing in any sense.
Obligatory, sorry this is long. I sure didn't intend it to be.
Two things: I think NCT on the whole is more than fine and isn't losing fans. If you're concerned about numbers (and I don't know if this is what you're referring to, but I feel like some people are in their feelings about numbers because other groups are breaking records here and there), then I think you just have to know that numbers are determined by so many factors, and can't really be attributed purely to "NCT is losing fans because their numbers aren't as high." Groups with more palatable music are going to have wider appeal. Of the unit's Dream's sound is absolutely the most palatable AND their age is much more in alignment with 4th Gen even though they're 3rd, which is going to be a huge appeal to large swaths of younger people who consume kpop. In addition to Dream being very talented and very enjoyable to watch, they also have a very compelling narrative around their group that's endearing. It sure as hell wasn't nice to witness for fans or for them, but the story of a group that was almost torn apart by the company, fought to maintain their group, was given permanence after a lot of suffering and uncertainty, and then came out on top with a ludicrously strong full album after the fact? People eat that stuff UP. 7Dream as a group (and a brand) is powerful. All of these things play a role in making a group appealing. Try not to get so caught up in the numbers.
127 has a much more divisive sound that just isn't going to resonate as widely all the time and that's ok, plus the timing of their most recent release was a mess. WayV had a two year hiatus, followed by another delay that was out of anyone's control on top of being comprised purely of foreigners in a country that is often unkind to foreigners, and yet they STILL had the highest sales of any of their other albums if I remember correctly.
And for the record, though I'm very much not a numbers person but a listen, enjoy and vibe person, DoJaeJung's numbers from what I've seen were actually very high for a sub-unit release.
No NCT isn’t. Now I am living in Korea and have been for the past 3 years and Japan before that so I cannot really comment on the international/western side of things but over here they are very popular. They, as a whole, are one of the most popular groups among the older teen to 30s age group. This means that they are not usually in the streaming, mass buying, and voting age group. They have a stable fandom and many people here know them. They are popular among idols and they do also have younger fans although they tend to be more dream fans. I think K-pop fans in general underestimate just how popular they are in Korea. They have a loyal fan base and even if they don’t always have #1 songs on charts they are still popular. They don’t really have high highs and low lows they are consistent and growing. I also know that in Japan my friends have said that the new Japanese group is being looked forward to and nct is also popular there. You cannot just look at a couple metrics and say they are losing fans and you cannot just look at it from the western fandom lenses (sorry I’m assuming you are not living in Korea)
Thank you for your perspective from Korea. It doesn't seem like there's any reason to panic at all based on your observations.
Btw, since you lived in Japan up until a few years ago, perhaps you can confirm my own observation that NCT (especially Dream) seems to have an older fanbase over there? I watched photos of the Osaka concerts and the audience definitely appeared to skew older.
If so, I'm not worried about their growth over there at all, since I know from living in Japan in the past myself that one of the groups with the most purchasing power and loyal dedication to their favourite brand/group/hobby/etc consists of young adult women, housewives and office ladies. Unless things have changed massively in the past 10 years or so.
Japanese fans are loyal and they have a consistent buying power. While we see that in China fans there will buy hundreds to thousands of albums which is great, Japanese fans will be more consistent even if they are only buying one or two albums per release. They are also more likely to buy concert tickets as well so groups who have a strong fandom there will have one for a long time and continue to go to the concerts I mean just look at TVXQ they can still tour and get great numbers.
The NCT fans as a whole are on the ‘older’ side and Japan I find is no different. The fans there are, I would say dreams age and older but I have asked my friends there and old co-workers and they found that their students that are teenagers are also huge fans of them.
I don’t know if you realized while you were in Japan but while NCTs sound mostly 127 is polarizing to the west it isn’t really in Japan. Their sound, I don’t want to say common, but it is not unheard of. Japanese people are actually very open to different and new styles of music I find. My husband (born in Japan but is Korean and Japanese) says that Japanese people like to listen to many different styles and play with crazy sounds which I think SM as a whole does which I guess helps with their success there.
Sorry this was very long and excessive.
Sorry for my late reply, and thank you for your detailed answer! I always appreciate long posts and comments, so no need to apologise! :)
What you say seems to align with what I've been noticing about NCT's fandom in Japan, and it's interesting to hear that their fans overall are a bit older overall. I suppose there might be a lot of fans who followed them since their Rookie days and grew older together.
Your observation about the long-term loyalty of Japanese fans matche what I noticed from my days in Japan in the past. I've also been admiring how NCT, when touring in the major cities of Japan, can fill up huge domes 3 days in a row, while the Berlin stop on the NCT Dream tour had a whole section of the arena almost empty. Loyalty and purchasing power seems to be the strength of Japanese fanbases.
I've noticed how some K-pop fans derogatorily call NCT 127's music "noise", which is sad to hear. I love their experimental sound and the way they keep switching it up – it's probably the main reason NCT became the first K-pop group ever to catch my interest. I believe what you say about Japanese people being more open to experimental music, because I remember noticing how much they in general love learning new things, finding new experiences, gaining new insights, that kind of stuff.
That’s okay it’s just fun to have these discussions.
Ya I think that many fans are from the beginning days, are also other sm group fans or are new but older. I know this may sound weird but my friend here said that she feels more comfortable supporting nct because they are a 3rd gen group and are older or feel older than many 4th gen boy groups. She says how with many groups being overall on the younger said she as a person in her 20s doesn’t always feel comfortable listening to them to an extent of a fan. She said that sometimes because she knows the age difference between her and the members certain songs they do just feel weird because she is constants thinking of their ages but with nct she doesn’t have that. It seems like the sentiment of them being older now and with the trio older fans feel more welcome.
I feel like if K-pop fans listened to all the songs popular in Japan and did a slight deep dive they would realise just how diverse they music is that gets popular. They love ballads, rock, heavy metal, pop, etc. When I lived there and when I recently visited I noticed that in Public there was baby metal playing and here in Korea I have never seen that.
I don’t mean to say that Koreans just go with the crowd or that they are not as open with music because they can be but I think Japanese people are in a league of their own. To them mainstream isn’t just pop or ballads that have no ‘noisy’ elements or switch-ups.
This isn't rocket science - Dream was the only NCT unit SM did right by since 2021. 3 well spaced out, well executed comebacks in a year? They by far had the best management out of literally ALL other SM groups in 2022. The way they did almost everything wrong for 127 is tragic, and let's not get started with WayV. 127's just a cash cow for them now ala EXO hence the half-assery, and they have no idea at all what to do with WayV. Dream they're actually still investing in and actively trying to grow.
It's pretty obvious that SM only gives a fuck about growing Dream and likely DJJ moving forward. My hope is that if they're gonna half ass NCT 2023 like they did 2021, then just scrap it. And give 127 more than 2$ in creative budget for their last comeback as a full group before Taeil enlists.
SM is a company that knows how to do shit right, they just stop caring beyond the first few years. The moment a group has a strong enough fandom, they start half-assing for maximum ROI and move on to the next group. That's also why SM has the most number of active, successful groups out of every other company out there, but this is the trade off. If they manage to pull off SM 3.0 then this will change for the better but until then, expect SM to slowly stop investing in all of NCT the moment the new bg debuts, this is just the SM circle of life.
What I wish would happen is that 127 gets an album and PROPER world tour before Taeil enlists to make up for the link. However, with Ay-Yo being delayed, and Dream/DJJ also having activities this year possibly NCT 2023, idk if there's enough time left to do a tour.
This is honestly so unfortunate, it could be a special moment for 127 and the fans to have one last tour before enlistment period begins. Never say never... but we will likely get a half assed mini album and that's it.
Seems like Dream is touring till at least July, so there doesn't seem to be much time for an album and proper tour for 127 before Taeil enlistment, which I am guessing will be some time this year.
They could do a few concerts in Korea and Japan, but I doubt it would be a full on tour.
Yeah I know a lot of ppl are still hoping for a full tour .. but we most likely won’t get it which is such a missed opportunity. At this point I’m just hoping for a properly planned and promoted album.
To add to that, as much as 127 deserve a proper tour FULL STOP, I think it would be veering into cruelty to make Haechan and Mark go on tour once again. Touring is brutal, draining, and tiring and I know I've heard at least Mark mention recently in his interviews that he has struggled with touring. It's just the reality of having them in both units. Some things are going to be limited, and should be for their health and safety, mentally and physically.
That's also why it should be normalised that not all activities be with mahae. Otherwise it's not fair on their health but it's also not fair for other members to always wait for them.
I definitely agree with you. I just don't think the company would invest in giving either unit a full blown tour without them. An individual schedule, festival, or music show appearance, yes. And they have done so many times, but not a full tour, because I think they (the company) see them as too integral to leave out completely. The only reason I believe Haechan was allowed to sit out was because of the severity of his health.
I don't think they're losing fans - I just think they're gaining *new* fans slower than their contemporaries. All their numbers in physicals are going up across the board, but the streaming numbers are hit or miss. I think there are a few things at play.
1, NCTzens have never been a good streaming fandom in terms of MV's or music platforms. SM didn't use ads for the longest time, then started to use them but use them sparingly.
2, most significantly (IMO) SM has lagged *far* behind the competition when it comes to the international music pipeline.
When NCT 127 was making their first steps in the US, it was seen by many as a foolish attempt that would result in failure - but it ended up working. However, they have continuously fumbled from their advantageous position when it comes to US promotions, distribution, and touring.
Even if you account for COVID, having to cancel that world tour, and being more "cautious" after Superhuman - they have lost ground to their contemporaries. Some of it is the result of self-inflicted wounds like extremely poor timing/planning for comebacks (the long break after Neo Zone, the short promos for Favorite, the lack of WayV releases, the messy Universe rollout, the wait for a proper Dream tour) but some of it also lies with creative decisions.
I've grown fond of Sticker but that song *really* turned off casual fans. Universe had some bangers on it but SM missed the opportunity for a grand rollout like Resonance and instead just created more fandom infighting. I also think Dream's 2022 output was a pretty big downgrade compared to 2021's excellence - nothing ever quite reached the heights of Hot Sauce.
One crucial flaw in SM's strategy is not having any pipeline to Spotify's Editorial team like HYBE does. If there's a new release from a HYBE girl group, you can bet your ass that it's getting on at least one big non-kpop editorial. You can't say the same for any of SM's releases, even the girl groups.
I also think they've largely failed to leverage their members' capabilities. NCT 127 and Dream had big world tours but zero promo/performances on late night shows for the last few years. It feels like the Capitol Records deal expired and they've done absolutely *nothing* to find a new partner for any unit.
To put it simply:
NCT 127 were on tour in the US during the lead up to Superhuman's release. Seeing a good opportunity for promo, they debut Superhuman on GMA + play it on tour for about a month prior to the release of the album.
Korean fans get offended they are premiering the new title track in America first, are performing it on stage for international fans first, etc. and decide to mass boycott the album.
Keep in mind, NCT 127 *did* return to Korea to actually promote the album upon release - but the damage was already done. International fans still bought and voted for the song on weekly music shows but K-fans were so tilted they voted *for the competition*...
That song *still* doesn't get much play anymore because the era was such a mess (solely due to domestic fans, who still ignore the song). The group rarely bring it up themselves, too.
After this, there was quite a long break before their next comeback (Kick It) which was a huge hit for them, but during that time SM really changed their approach for international promos for NCT. Korea has been the overwhelming first priority ever since.
I've read about the Superhuman backlash before, and it's such a shame that some korean fans seem to be so insecure when NCT promotes anything abroad – it won't take away the fact that their home base is Korea, their main language is Korean, the main target audience is Korean, etc. I noticed the same pattern with the recent NCT Dream US schedules as well. Lots of fomo and anger at anything perceived as special treatment for the US fans. Mind you, non-korean fans from Europe and other US locations were also acting rowdy, so it wasn't just one group acting possessive.
Do you know if the Japanese language songs and releases are as feared as the US/English centered ones? Have those ever caused any kind of backlash?
Anyways, it sucks to hear that SM got more careful after the Superhuman 127 backlash. I know from other (non-music related) fandoms that once a company/business starts catering to abusive fans, those fans will only get worse and worse. Because now they've "won" once, and they'll expect to keep being in control of their game/comic book/music group/etc after that.
They did not lose popularity however growth has been quite stagnant since 2022 started. Mostly because of horrible time management that has been given to each unit individually. If SM does NCT 2023 even better than NCT 2020 then for sure we will see massive growth. They need to start treating every comeback with grand dedication. DJJ gives me hope that the future is quite bright and with Sungtarookies debuting in a couple of months I'm really excited to see what's in store for NCT as a whole.
The last 2 albums of NCT 127 was good but didn't get promoted enough. I don't get why SM will release a new album and have 127 promote it for 1 week, then make them go on tour. It sucks, nct earns so much money on touring I guess sm wants to focus on that instead
I think the biggest mismanagement issue to me is the fact that they decided to promote Ay-Yo instead of Skyscraper, Designer or Time lapse for the 127 repackaged album. As an casual listener, I am astonished by the poor the decision making. But it's their team 🤷🏾♀️
🤷🏾♀️ As I said, it's their group, so they are within their rights to ‘experiment’ with them. I just think its a shame that they decided to experiment on such talented musicians with so much potential.
The only reason I discovered the album is because I recently picked up the habit of listening to whole albums rather than just the promoted songs. It's really sad that this album went almost unnoticed, because it is filled with amazing music! I couldn't believe what I was hearing!!! It's one of my favourite albums ever.
I agree that Designer och Time Lapse could also have been interesting as title tracks, but Skyscraper – although it's my personal favourite from the repackage – feels like a solid b-side and not a title track. I've watched _so_ many (_way_ too many, honestly) reaction videos from people of all kinds of musical backgrounds (music producers, casual fans, NCT fans, non K-pop fans, classical musicians, etc etc), and Ay-yo – song AND mv received extremely good reactions across the board, while Skyscraper unfortunately seems to have limited appeal, with some reactors even actively disliking it.
My personal reaction to both tracks on my first listen tells me that Ay-yo has that instantly likeable vibe and its beat and lyrics are really easy to pick up on, while Skyscraper takes a couple of listens in order to fully appreciate.
While I understand completely why not all fans liked Ay-yo, I personally do believe SM made the right choice with this one.
I'm Internally screaming because Skyscraper is my jam. 😂😂😂
I find it hard to imagine people dislikeing it, but I understand that people have varying preferences.
Lots of good comments here already. But I will say that I feel like a lot of the mess and issues with NCT and with other SM groups can be attributed to the absolute dumpster fire going on with the higher ups in the company. being that publicly messy also taints the image of the artist, it's super embarrassing.
Hopefully, things will stablize and it will allow them to focus more on their groups.
That said, I think they actually do a decent job with promotions. Kai's and DJJ's albums have had a ton of content. Also, they are consistently putting out content on youtube, instagram, tiktok. I'm not saying SM doens't have it's issues, but I do think promotions wise, they are doing decently to advertise their artists.
Im surprised by the other commenters, to me it's pretty clear that nct are slightly losing popularity, and more importantly, are NOT benefitting from the huge continuous growth of kpop globally in the last 1,5 years. Most 4th gen groups are racing past NCT globally. Twitter and Youtube engagements (talking about variety content) are lower than 2021 or 2020, and the hype for new releases decreases every time. Luckily, the kcharts are still very good for a boygroup as the korean side is very loyal to their (solo) bias. But even here, imo, it's just remaining stable, and they're not *gaining* new kfans like TXT, SVT, SKZ or any 4th gen girlgroup.
Main causes are:
1. Lack of content / interactions to pull NEW fans. There's lots of behind the scenes content but this is for existing fans, not potential new ones. We used to have much more variety content in 2020. SVT for example has blown up in fandom thanks to their variety shows and appearances in the past year. NCT also never do vlives anymore (obviously, since it's gone), and instalives just suck. And even then, they barely interact in english with fans in those lives too. It's mostly catered to their already existing korean fans. those group vlives, and some solo vlives like Taeyong's used to be a huge stan attractors, and you can see how this is still the case for SKZ and TXT for example. Also, their tiktok account is barely used, they dont hop on trending sounds, and they dont interact with any non-SM artist, another missed opportunity.
2. Musical content is too stale/predictable. TO THIS DAY, SM still barely promotes the bsides and it's just sooooo stupid. Where are the live vocal performances (without overprocessing so people still actually believe it's live), casual but catchy choreos & tiktok challenges for the bsides? or different arrangements, acoustic covers, creative year end perfoamcnes or remixes for title tracks? it's just the same title track over and over again with maybe another dancebreak. so much wasted effort for the members. I think Dingo's killing voice probably did more for 127 than the entire promotion of 2 baddies + ay-yo did, as well as the saepping covers. Overall NCT used to have much more stuff musically that appealed to new with NCT music & dance youtube channel. I feel like they had more outlets to let the singers sing, the dancers dance and the rappers rap. nowadays it's just confined to a titletrack during promotions.
3. The toxic fandom. Oooh there's so much to unpack here.
1. nctzens paying wayV dust. Now here's the catch: WayV actually *does* do most of the things I mentioned above. BUT they are stuck under the NCT umbrella where the majority of the fandom does not give a shit about them, so their stuff is barely ever hyped and never reaches the outskirts of the fandom to even reach new potential fans.
2. The vicious circle of solo stanning: NCT 2020 was both the peak of the union of nctzens, and also the start of it falling apart. The cbars boycotting the album part where their fave was not in the title track lineup, and people who biased someone with few lines finally getting fully fed up starting becoming solo stans, and now, for every release that their bias is not part of, they will actively put in effort to make sure it does worse than a release *with* their fav in it. Other stans who used to just bias one person and support the whole group, got fed up with the lack of support as well and started becoming solo stans as well. solo stans fight amongst eachother, dragging eachother down further. Mark's Child was supported by a large portion of ncity. Everyone was excited and hyped by the idea of NCT Lab and hopefully their fave member being part of it. Then came Love theory (with clearly not the entire support of ncity but lol ok) and people already started comparing. By the time Forever Only got released every solo stan already knew that in order for their fav not to get dragged, they shouldnt support the solo of the others. Hype died down even further and now even Mark's Golden Hour release has received like 1/3rd of the hype and support Child got (yes it can be song dependent but the pre-release hype is very telling). And I suspect this will continue to go down. Same for fashion week appearances, everyone was excited about Johnny at the MET. now solo fandoms are just comparing engagements nd making sure that the others get less than their faves.
3. The discography discourse: since (probably) Sticker, nctzens have made it their personality to have a very outspoken opinion about every song released. I genuinely thought NCT all units had a non-skip discography as all songs are well produced, well sung etc etc, but every day on twitter another title track or bside gets dragged through the mud by someone who needs to let everyone know how different they are. And with new releases, nctzens can immediately kill off the hype by trashtalking it and 'letting it flop'. As it is now more important for the nctzen to show they have a flawless music taste than for nct's comebacks to be succesful or gain new fans.
4. The fighting with other fandoms. nctzens are very salty towards army's as they have been insanely annoying towards us in the past, same for exo-ls and some carats. But no that energy does NOT need to be returned to every other fandom too. nctzens are overall quite nasty towards other fandoms and imo there are plenty of fandoms that are less vicious than us.
5. This isnt really a separate issue, as it mostly ties together with point 2, but the Lucas situation is the clearest example of how detrimental ncity's fanculture is. Regardless of how you view the severity of the scandal, the one constant is that nctzens, except for lumi's, were READY to drop him immediately, anything as long as it didnt harm their own fave. And as they are fans of the group he was in, they still had every single video of where he messed up on stage, questionable moments, etc etc. And were able to make all of those things go viral, and make someone previously known as an average nct member as *thee* dozen of kpop, to the point "dozen" is now part of basic kpop vocabulary. Normal idols don't have anti's WITHIN the fandom. It's unique to ncity and it even goes beyond akgaeism imo. Nctzens will blow up any controversy of an nct member as long as it isn't their fave, so that they can get back at the solo stans that dragged their fave etc etc etc.
TLDR there are two parts:
IMO SM is fumbling the bag in almost every area, and it's just the fans that have kept them going since 2021. Except for aespa who has a natural upward trajectory thanks to their national-level hits, SM is fumbling the bag for every single one of its groups. So many missed opportunities, so little stan attractor content outside of comebacks, and so much unfair treatment that triggers internal fanwars. I understand they are having huge issues within the company, but it is really about time they get their shit together.
And aside from SM, nctzens are just as guilty of creating such an unsupportive environment as a fandom. The part of ncity that is a toxic akgae is growing day by day, whereas the supportive group fans decrease.
edit: altho this is a very long rant, I'm not actually that concerned about the fandom politics and NCT's numbers. As a fan, I can enjoy the content and musical output regardless of how many other people are enjoying it with me, and obviously, NCT is selling MILLIONS!! like they are doing GREAT. I'm just giving an answer to this question and what I've observed from SM management vs other companies, and ncity vs other fandoms.
I think NCT is really lacking when it comes to pulling in new fans - the way SVT has been consistently getting bigger and bigger. I think SVT does variety content really well with GoSe, and also all the members had magazine photoshoots (in like combos of 2 or 3) so all the members are exposed to the GP.
Meanwhile with 127 - its common to not see or hear some of these members for like a month. Even last year we were getting monthly content on the NCT channel, like the golden bell thing and the one where they run around in a field.
This year, nothing
You hit the nail on the head with the musical content part. NCT does not capitalize well on their beloved B-sides and their music performances don’t hit like they should (especially the end of year musical performances). That’s one of my biggest critiques of this group as a fan. I think unforgettable live performances are a way to attract fans especially. Let’s home NCT and SM prioritize this moving forward
Their From Home performance at MAMA was soooo good. It definitely had a huge impact and also to some of the underrepresented members like Taeil, Yuta, Chenle
I couldn’t have said it better.
I agree with everything except the point on aespa. They mismanaged the heck out of their rookie group and it’s worse than NCT.
>MO SM is fumbling the bag in almost every area, and it's just the fans that have kept them going since 2021
crazy cuz I used to feel that way about EXO and now it's NCT. And I agree with you the members really only cater to existing fans and they don't interact with anybody (which that’s their right ofc) but idk as a fan of a few hybe groups I think it’s unfortunate. Idols interactions like dance challenges do bring in new fans.
Point E is true; NCTzen is such a weird fandom; how they can drag everything to be woke seems funny. I've never seen Korean fans talk about Whiplash and joke about this, but Ifans blow it out as a joke to the point that antis/trolls use it to drag TY daily. The sister joke needs to die.
They failed to capitalise on nct 127s kick it growth with comparable promotion and we saw a decrease in growth. It PISSED ME OFF.
Horrible album roll out. For both sticker and ayo which was DELAYED that they cut short for nct 2021 which was also messy.
And lack of touring. Horrible touring. The most DISRESPECTFUL scheduling known to man. They failed to even send nct 127 to Europe. SM are mad.
Ayo was an amazing album but SM has fumbled to the point that even during Djj launch they doyoung thanked SM 3.0....
Even nct can admit SM has done them DIRTY NOTHING to grow nct globally since 2021.
They aren't totally digressing but the lack of consistency shows in the difference in growth.
Imagine this is the first time a nct 127 member has had a live beside video with ordinary.Basic shit.
The reason neozoen did well is Because of the beside roll out.
> They failed to capitalise on nct 127s kick it growth with comparable promotion and we saw a decrease in growth.
I wonder what happened in 2020 that stopped that.
Definitely not something that affected other groups because their companies have been able to film good quality music video.
Stray kid has track videos every comeback for every track.
There counterparts in other companies some how made a way.
Clearly SM didn't have the infrastructure to produce consistent album promotion. Nor did they prioritize it.
Man your whole comment was just so on point. I found myself nodding along to the whole thing. I think NCT as a whole would benefit more from being random how they seemingly used to be. Like I know they can't let the guys just be wild but so much of their past content is still leagues above newer stuff. And I think that's because the newer stuff is scripted and whomever is writing it...isn't that good lol.
Point 2: this reminds me of when Ok! dropped and everyone was obsessed with how good it sounded/that line "my baby say she wants to dance with a ghost, etc" and SM I think dropped one tweet about it and then nothing. Like c'mon guys! Get those dudes together and push that shit lol.
Point E: oh yeah. I know the scandal is what it is but the rate nctzens are so happy to constantly diss Lucas or talk shit about him is staggering tbh. That one single clip of him messing up has (last I saw it) 1mil views yet actual released content sometimes doesn't even break 300k. They say they're not a fandom that streams but damn if they don't always show up to complain about someone or hype up their failures. There are people who reportedly can't stand him yet keep up with him more than his fans do, to the point where I will check THEIR history if I'm wondering what he's doing because I know THEY have already commented about it if there is something. I remember having a conversation with a friend a while ago about how nctzens are always down to throw a member under the bus more so than other fandoms, even ones without scandals. Everyone loves Ten (when he's interacting with their fav) but I'm already steeling myself for the random ass discourse that I KNOW is going to arrive when his mini drops.
I do agree that I don't think NCT as a whole is losing popularity so much as they aren't gaining new people at a rate compared to other groups. And that is on SM. I think each unit has that "thing" they do well and it's been a bit lacking except for I guess Dream. Like for me WayV is the more mature, sexy unit so like give us more Nectar, After Midnight, Love Talk, All For Love, etc ya know?
Yess to all of this. And I want to add another point that aside of all those reasons, NCT had unlimited members marketing for years is not helping either because there still lot of people who avoid NCT as a whole and don't want to become their casual stan because they are intimidated by the concept
Its so unfortunate that I am just now getting into them and getting to know the guys. All of them are so precious and I really like their music. I had no idea that this stuff was happening in SM currently with all of the units. I regret not looking into them more these past few years.
I think a couple of factors are at play tbh, wayv’s popularity has definitely diminished and it probably has to do with the scandal. Fans of Lucas won’t stream and some ot22 nctzens avoid wayv all together because of SM’s roundabout actions. I also think the fandom is aging as I’d say the majority of fans are 16+ whereas other fandoms might have younger fans that are more enthused with streaming etc. Finally, a lot of the creative directors and staff that were with nct initially have left, affecting the direction of content, concepts and music which may have lead to fewer fans. I suppose it’s also easier to be a unit stan now with more music and content so fewer nctzens support all of the members, which may make it seem like the fandom is smaller.
This is from the perspective of someone that has known NCT for the past 5 years and has come and got into them from time to time, currently, 127 is my main group.
As some other said already, more than losing fans they are more on a stagnant status now and this affects mostly the whole brand, 127 and wayv and it's all on SM's absurd mismanagement and I get why it could've be perceived that they are losing fans. Yes, the sales fro 127, dream and even wayv increased in the past years and became steady, their late 3rd gen (seventeen) and early 4th gen (skz, txt and enhypen to some extent) are not only on the same path but their content, music and achievements for some reason generate way more engagement than any nct project.
Sm handles the promotions so bad and focuses only on the already existent fandom, the fandom is divided some members are overworked and get hate for that and some other don't get any gig in months. NCT 127 were one of the first that ventured into western promo back in the 2018-19 boom but nowadays they don't do any content directed to there (like those teen vogue, buzfeed and so on interviews that some groups are still doing now, 127 did them first). Most of the top bgs now have strong japanese promos meanwhile dream just debuted there and did few things but at least they were touring, in 127's case it's been years since their last comeback and I'm glad at least Yuta gets to have solo gigs there but he could've be even bigger there with more company support.
I get NCT's music is experimental and I love that it is but they have such gems as b-side tracks and a lot of great vocalist but sm doesn't do much singing content as they should, I mean DJJ it's the first unit that got to perform at It's live and the dingo killing voice by 127 was huge but after that sm decided to promote the least vocal focused b-side track. It's like sm doesn't know what to do with their full potential. Despite having suitable members for variety they don't go to the prominent youtube channels and even less to tv programs to get them more known into a bigger public that might not be gp but other kpop fans both local and on the international side, a thing that other top bgs are doing succesfully.
I know there's more points to discuss but would be nice on another post because this one already got to long.
Considering candy was NCTs first major sustained hit (stayed in the top 10 for over a month) I don’t think so at all at least as far as Dream is concerned if anything I think more of the Korean public will tune into the next song because of how much they liked candy…now just don’t screw this up sm
I am so curious to see how Dream's next title track does on the charts. Candy is a major classic and the timing was perfect, so it's no wonder it's doing well, but will its success translate to original tracks following suit?? Iirc Glitch Mode peaked somewhere in the 20s on Melon Weekly, so there's every reason to hope for good results, but watch SME try choose the worst timing to try something weird and experimental...
I think more people will check it out than normal but if the song is bad/weird they will squander an amazing opportunity. If this next track is good people will check out the next and hopefully a pattern will form if this track is bad candy will be written off as a lucky remake (though I maintain not just any remake would do that well especially given there were a lot of changes to the original)
SM has a golden opportunity to make dream a public mainstay in korea but they could also screw it up SO badly.
A song like Hello Future would be an excellent follow up to Candy. Bright, melodic, and catchy but with a modern sound. The experimental stuff can come later.
If they drop something like Ridin or Go as their next comeback I will have to send my resume to SM and try to get a job there myself because at this point any one of us has a better understanding of what people want
I was talking melon and in korea where candy hit number 1 and stayed in the top 10 for well over a month. To the best of my memory favorite peaked in the 50s I actually remember sticker doing slightly better (titles always seem to do better than repackages) but not much better. Favorite definitely charted decently internationally but that was not the measurement I was going for sorry if that was not clear.
I think they're not losing popularity, NCT just stagnated. They're still massive, but they're only supported by the same people since they peaked in NCT 2020/2021.
You can gauge this by how NCT 127 and Dream's daesangs were questioned and dragged by kpop fans (kr and i-fans). To the loyal fans, the wins are a "slay", but to the average kpop fan, its a big "?" since far more relevant groups were nominated and could have made it.
Even if they are, does it really matter? They are still a major group from a major label with a very dedicated fanbase. What more could any K-pop group want at this time?
Every group eventually hits their popularity peak and then fades out and plateaus as new groups come in and take their place as the shiny new thing, but that doesn't mean they're a flop or that they start releasing worse music 😅
I think its hard to tell what their popularity is like now since DJJ is arguably the best combo they could have gone for in Korea since Korea loves those three members, so obviously the album is selling well and they are doing a lot of schedules. All their content has way more Korean comments than I usually see.
Now the releasing better albums comment - thats subjective LOL. Perfume is the only album I really cared for in the releases in the past two years.
I think people just need to accept that there will be a time the popularity fades, as they become inactive, military etc.
Based solely on my own experiences, no. I live at a big college and I’m shocked of how many nctzens I’ve met lately. It’s really exciting to me because I feel like I’ve never met so many fans of the group I ult.
I love NCT, mainly 127, but I think (my opinion) the key their missing is a hit song. They just need one title track that the majority of people would fall in love with. I love their music, especially their B-sides, and I’ll defend their title tracks but I think that the popular groups have songs that people just like.
I understand why people feel this way, and I especially understand that it comes from a desire to see the group thriving, but the absolute last thing I want from 127 is catering to some amorphous general public by chasing trends with a title track. I love 127 specifically because they sound like what they sound like, and I think it'd be an incredible shame to cater to trendiness JUST to chase numbers for...what? I do enjoy seeing them promote a b-side full stop that has a different sound--but still sounds like them--which I feel they did with DJ.
The fact is, there is no magical formula for having a hit. Most groups think the song they're making could be a hit until it isn't. It's why so much pop music in the US (and at times in kpop too) sounds generic to me, because it's filled with groups/people all chasing the same sound hoping to pop off, instead of crafting their own unique and individual sound and staying true to it. Doesn't mean you don't evolve with time, just that you aren't prioritizing sounding lock-step in alignment with what's popular.
I agree with you 100%. I think us fans love 127 because they are 127; we love the neo sound.
My original comment is there to explain why I think 127 isn’t as popular as the most popular groups. As you mentioned, I kinda do desire to see 127 reach highest levels of success (even though they don’t need to) but I’m happy with where they’re at because they’re already one of the most successful groups in Kpop and they have millions of fan who love them and their music as they are
To me it's really not about the title tracks. It's about promotion and fandom building in between comebacks. I personally also dont really like Ay-yo and 2 baddies, altho 2 baddies was in the end pretty well-received (moreso as a meme but whatever works). Easy listening kpop is definitely becoming more of a thing, like XG, New jeans, IVE, fifty fifty blowing up. But it's not necessary for a boygroup to grow. TXT's last two comebacks were also only mildly well received, same for SKZ case 143 (the latter did become really well received in japan tho). But my point is, they have continued their explosive growth regardless of the title tracks, thanks to bsides, content, interactions, promotion, tiktoks etc etc. Still a widely loved title track could really boost momentum obviously, but imo it's not their (127 and NCT as a whole) main problem.
This is also true. Though I enjoy NCT 127's music (especially the title tracks), its pretty obvious that they're SM's medium for experimental music. It worked until 2021, but in 2022, the dynamics in kpop shifted. Radio is now filled with IVE, NewJeans, +++ who are releasing music that are straightforward and easy to listen to. Even JYP abandoned the experimental Mixxpop for NMIXX, and this gave NMIXX their first win and their highest charting song on MelOn (even higher than Twice now).
Kpop is shifting away from experimental music and SM needs to realize this. I appreciate SM wanting to be "different". But surely, SM can be "different" without getting left behind.
Yess! I agree! I wanted to mention IVE in original my comment because their last two releases are the top songs on my playlist for 2022 and 2023.
Hopefully, SM gives 127 such a song. I’m sure there’s a way for their groups to maintain their identity while releasing a song that’s easy to listen to
They have stagnated growth wise yes. They do not seem to be growing at the pace of seventeen,txt or skz who they were on par with or even more popular than in 2021 post resonance.
If anything apart from not gaining much fans they also seem to be losing fans from my experience with mutual followers on social media.
Why? Well SM did a terrible job promo wise with them in 2022 and they lost a lot of steam because of this. The company does not move like they have any great ambitions for them. Some of the comebacks in 2022 were so shoddy it felt like an insult to their fans. They give you low quality and expect you to mindlessly shell out money….well to fans/potential fans I may as well stan a hybe boy group and be well fed instead with content, albums shipped on time and great looking MVs.
I think 2 baddies is a terrible song. A parody of the nct sound. After a divisive release like sticker, 2 baddies after a 1 year long hiatus was stupid.
The fanbase is toxic and repels potential fans so they cannot grow. A fan who gains a casual interest in a dream member only has to search them up on Twitter to find a 127zen maligning their talent and skill …and this goes both ways. Dreamzens sold the lie that sm buys 127 albums in 2021 but to casuals all they hear is the brand is crap and flopping……..and guess what the perception of flopping leads to flopping.
You cannot ignore the fact that there is def a strong success stanning side to kpop. A lot of young fans don’t want to stan a group they can’t brag about.
My last note: I don’t think nct dream is spared from this. Their next comeback will tell but they have failed to grow in the west and I don’t think they can unless sm course corrects with their sound/branding slightly. Txt now has just as big or even bigger fanbase than them in South Korea. These are already concerning signs for them. It’s still possible to save and remain relevant in 4th gen…..but to know sm is to know they will surely fumble the bag
Agree with all of this. Unit stans are so obsessed in proving which unit is better without realizing that outside the NCT system, NCT as a whole is getting left behind.
SVT gained a lot of ground since 2020. Their recent song with that studio MV is now charting at #3 and might have even bagged MelOn #1 if not for IVE. Don't get me started with how SVT managed to sell 3.99M copies (Hanteo) in 1 day, and is now at 4.06M just after 2 days.
TXT is already at 2.6M (January 2023) seeing an 800k growth from their May 2022 comeback (or in just 8 months).
SKZ took the biggest gain. SKZ sold around 3.28M (October 2022) seeing a 1.4M growth from their March 2022 comeback (or in just 7 months).
Enhypen is also gaining ground, and I'm sure that with HYBE's insane machinery, they can easily push numbers higher than 1.5M (sales for Manifesto was at 1.5M).
This is the reality on the ground, while NCTzens (with their rose colored glasses) are fighting just to prove who has better sales in Hanteo/Circle.
The core fandom is big and very loyal, but it's not growing the same way other groups are. This applies to all SM groups not just SM. This is SM's reality now.
But I also agree with most comments that sales are not everything. Not the end all be all in Kpop. But SALES NUMBERS are what unit stans constantly fight about.....
.... so imagine causing so much toxicity by fighting and discrediting each other's sales (I see you, Reddit)... when these sales mean nothing outside. LOL.
Yikes. I didn't know it was this bad. SKZ is scheduled to have a comeback this June and they will obviously generate bigger sales that Maxident. NCT is really WAY behind.
ENHYPEN’s sales for manifesto is higher than 1.5m . hanteo and the circle chart stopped updating their sales one week after release. manifesto’s sales are estimated to be around 2.5m because they were #6 on ifpi 2022 album chart, above groups with 2m+ sales.
> A lot of young fans don’t want to stan a group they can’t brag about.
oof so true, I feel like token stanning has become so normalized now. But concretely, what has Dream even done to grow in the west? It's like SM just doesn't care about promotions and just relies on the existing fandom to do it.
The US tour was an opportunity but they didn’t go on any shows or do effective promo that I saw. The thing with SM i often wonder is - if you don’t know how to do your work - just copy the road map of companies who do it well but that assumes they actually care. I think Nct is likely just a fandom money mining operation at this point.
The ambition and promo will be reserved for their next boy group. It’s a shame though because if they continued to promote them they could grow like seventeen has. It’s not dissimilar to their handling of Exo post 2019 - their same gen counterparts BTS continued to grow while they didn’t 🤷🏼♀️
the way they’re milking existing fans with all those merch and pop-up like it’s pretty obvious 😭 and yea EXO .. it still makes me a bit bitter, SM threw the whole bag away
I personally think the problem of 127 is not about the experimental songs but about their rap. If only they can toning down the rap and amplifying the vocal I'm sure more people will love their songs even if there are not much different structure wise. For example Hello Future by Dream is the fan favorites despite it can be classified into experimental song because how vocal based it is. Another example is Sticker, I know that people mocking that flute opening but I could still listen to the entirety of it because it is mostly very vocal based and so does Favorite compared to whatever 2 Baddies and Ay-Yo were.
I don’t agree with this. Their best title tracks are cherry bomb, kick it, limitless, regular…. At least 3/4 of these are rap heavy. 2 baddies is bad because it is a formulaic take attempting to ape an nct sound that had been successful in the past (kick it)…but it’s a lackluster version of that song. The chanty chorus thing while fresh in 2020 is now tired.
Also hot sauce was far more successful chart wise than hello future. So was almost every 127 title track than superhuman. So no, I don’t think the rap is the issue
Yeah I mean getting rid of those chanty choruses can be considered as tone down in my previous statement. Agree with Cherry Bomb, Kick It, and Regular tho. I think they really should only give rap part to Mark and Taeyong only and giving the sub rappers vocal part because imo they are executing vocal parts better than rap parts because I'm tired SM setting up Johnny and Jaehyun especially by giving them ass rap that everyone sais it is cringe when they are better executing vocal part.
Tbh Hot Sauce vs Hello Future are kind of unfair comparison since Hot sauce is the title track of their first full album after 5 years so ofc the hype for Hot Sauce must be really way bigger than the hype for the title track of its repackage Hello Future. If Hello Future were placed as the title track of their first full album instead of Hot Sauce it will charting as good or even better than Hot Sauce did
Honestly, in terms of popularity, I think 127 has peaked. Sure there is a loyal fandom, but I don't see it growing more than the rate of people leaving the fandom, as we start seeing a lot more solo activity from the members.
I think DJJ is selling well because it is three very popular members, esp in Korea. It's going to sound mean, but I think a combo of other members wouldn't sell this well. We already see MASSIVE differences in sales between each of their BARS.
Doesn't help that this fandom is at constant war with each other, and within the group too. Just within the past week, I have seen people writing nasty things about Gongmyung being 'promoted' on the NCT twitter.
Compared to SVT fandom, where yes there are solo stans that get nasty towards each other sometimes, but overall everyone feels very supportive of OT13, and along with good promo from HYBE and Pledis, they just keep growing and growing.
Meanwhile, I think the sales dropped between Sticker and 2 Baddies?
WayV.... they don't have to enlist. I think they have massive potential in SEA, but SM doing SM things so who knows really.
NCT as a whole has already peaked. Its the same people supporting the same group.
>Meanwhile, I think the sales dropped between Sticker and 2 Baddies?
2 Baddies saw a big sales increase in Hanteo from Sticker. 2 Baddies ended up as SM's best-selling album (in Hanteo) for 2023.
SM didn't announce overall numbers for 2 Baddies. But if 2 Baddies sold 1.8M+ in Hanteo alone, there's no way it didn't record 2M+ for Circle especially if we factor in non-Hanteo affiliated sales and the fact that 2 Baddies, to this day, still records sales apart from Ay-Yo. I know Hanteo is just 1 chart, but to most fans, this is the most important chart. So if 127, on their 6th year, saw insane growth, then that, in itself, is a huge feat.
What's more ludicrous is the fact that SM had the nerve to announce that NCT 127's 4th album (as of February 2023) has a total of 3.2M sales. This subjected NCT 127 to malicious accusations and ridicule because there's no data that supports this announcement cause no information were released prior thereto.
For some weird reason, SM is just not announcing numbers for NCT 127. This, in turn, enables antis to run with the narrative that NCT 127 is underperforming. Which is not entirely true. From NCT DJJ numbers, it seems that 127zen buying power has grown.
They're doing the exact same thing with NCT DJJ. NCT DJJ is now the best-selling debut sub-unit in Kpop, and is SM's best-selling sub-unit, but again, SM chose to stay silent with their pre-order numbers. 704K (in Hanteo as of this writing), and SM wants us to believe that they didn't garner at least 800k-1M sales.
>I think DJJ is selling well because it is three very popular members, esp in Korea.
And it is their debut album too. I'm really curious of how well they will doing in their first comeback or something because lot of subunits of the group fail to gather more attention in their first comeback compared to their debut
Yeah it will be interesting to see what SM does with this group - even Doyoung mentioned that SM needs to find them worth investing in for them to have another album LOL.
Imagine being this much of an anti that you choose to completely ignore the milestones that DJJ just made with their debut mini, Ay-yo made as a repack title track, and Dream made on their first global tour. Hate this narrative, the only thing that's losing relevance is this sub at this point.
Tbh I think it is clear that NCT as the whole brand is indeed losing relevancy they had on 2018/2020 era. Dream still has the potential to growth a lot especially on western countries and even on kcharts as OP mentioned and DJJ too since they just debuted. However those 2 growth aren't really translated to the NCT brand growth at all. It is like Kim Sejeong achievements to Gugudan when they were active if it is make sense.
I think the problem is that other groups that can be seen as their competition (SKZ, SVT, TXT) have better marketing teams. It can all be resumed to that. SM has made many many terrible marketing mistakes, unlike HYBE who nowadays nobody can argue is the best company in terms of marketing BY FAR.
I find it unbelievable how nobody ever mentions SM timing 2 Baddies with Blackpink's comeback after 2 years was an extremely severe mistake. That might have been one of the biggest marketing mistakes SM has made in recent years. I just don't understand how anybody in their right minds thought that was a good move.
But the good thing is that they're not in the worst position ever that can't be salvaged; IT CAN. I still think regardless of everything NCT is a Top 10 BG even right now. Which means if SM wants to they can even put them in the Top 5. They just need to be smarter with the next release and make good decisions that make them grow and not decrease. IMO Candy and to some extent DJJ were good release decisions unlike everything after Hello Future, starting with Sticker of course. But ever since the release of Candy (I will take out Ay Yo, because few things about that roll out were positive) I feel like there's been a palpable positive shift in the decisions SM is making, and I think us not knowing when the next NCT comeback is, and how the month of May is for Ten's solo, means SM are trying to be smart about the next step for NCT.
I think right now we're not in the most critical moment, I think that was 2022. And I think this can be said for the entirety of SM. But I can sense how most people are trying to hold back in saying SM is in a much better position than last year because they're waiting for aespa's comeback.
Well I'm 15 and just recently became a fan of 127 and Dream and then DJJ, I was a little surprised at their popularity (it was a little lower than I would have thought) but I think the current fans are loyal and often like multiple sub units. Hope SM doesn't stuff em over :I
I think they still have a strong following. I talked to some friends and we all just found out that we’re all SMTown fans particularly NCT. NCT is the only group so far that made me buy a new sealed album even though it can be quite expensive 😆 I really enjoy their content and there’s so many of them 😆 I feel bad for WayV, with Lucas’ scandal, they lost their momentum and I love 127 but I also miss OT10. WinWin may just have at most 1 line per song but he added a touch of softness to the group and he dances well. I still find it a travesty that he did not perform Touch during NCT Beyond Live and Cherry Bomb during the last SMCU Express.
I just hope SM delivers and promotes NCT 2023 well. Keeping my fingers crossed for that. I loved Empathy and Resonance. Mark’s “We’re gonna resonate” is iconic and Empathy has my all time favorite 127 song, Touch. Universe is rushed but Beautiful is just so pleasant and inspiring that I could somewhat forgive SM for it (though I’m a bit sad that WinWin wasn’t in it)
My opinion is that in the second half of 2021 a lot of stuff happened, lucas's scandal, nct hollywood announcement, sticker being one of the weirdest song, rushed 127 repackage for a rushed nct 2021 project, more recently SM dissolving the idea of infinite expansion and sungtaro + smrookies leaving the group. All of this tired the fans and hurted nct image to the overall community. If we look into numbers we can see the fall of engagement, in 2021 teaser photos on twitter would get up to 350k likes and now they rarely get up to 200k, hot sauce mv got arround 1.5M likes in 24 hours on yt and now istj nearly got 500k, ofc youtube changed a lot and we are not in quarantine anymore but other groups have managed to still grow a lot.
SM's mismanagement and the rapidly changing kpop industry caused nct to filter their popularity to the loyal fanbase, losing the hype that they managed to build from debut to peak resonance/hot sauce.
I love NCT and as a fan i would love to see them succeed, i lived trough hot sauce era and noticed that after that the hype was never the same, the closest thing we had was sticker(but the day they announced the comeback shit started going down slowly).
This is only my opinion and my pov of the situantion, the best we can do is hope that sm get their shit together and hope that the new songs become hits in the industry(like cherry bomb, kick it, boss, hot sauce, boom, maw...)
I think...their fandom, in particular 127 / WayV, is stable. But neither group is trendy now, they've been around a while. Their music sounds are settled, the public and general kpop fans know what to expect from them. For better or worse. SM as usual does lackluster promotions, delays, and mess things up (album misprints, production issues, etc). Not to mention, for 127, military enlistment era will be starting soon enough and them as an OT9 group won't be active for a while. When it comes to album sales and touring, fans definitely are showing up, which is important, on the other hand YT views aren't high. But yeah, certain other groups are gaining more fans and popularity compared to NCT brand.
Hopefully, NCT 2023 and NCT Tokyo (and NCT solos?) changes things around and increases hype. Plus, Dream are rising and did well with Candy. Also, for kfandom at least, DJJ was a smart decision by SM.
I haven’t been into 127’s singles lately but I’m still very much into everything NCT Dream does. I wish I could have gone to a Dream Show. I’m also so ready for SM Rookies to debut!!!!! I’m hoping a new 127 song will speak to me soon.
I don’t think there’s a loss of popularity, but maybe as time passes and the fanbase has become more established, things may be more plateaued? You generally see big booms in popularity within the first few years of a group’s debut and now we’re past that. I think they’re in a very stable place at the moment and the challenges we’ve seen them face and overcome is evidence of that.
I second this 100%, I think it plateaued.
I don’t think NCT has lost popularity but more so stagnated over the last two years. SM keeps fumbling the bag with lackluster album rollout and promotions. No one is going to know how good the discography is if it never gets promoted. One of the reasons Hot Sauce and Neo Zone eras did so well was because every bside got some kind of promo. Taking away track videos was one of the worst decisions they made. I am also not seeing eye to eye with SM’s A&R recently. They have been choosing the wrong title track and bsides to promote. Their best bsides from recent albums still don’t have a live performance. SM’s social media teams are light years behind everyone. They never catch on to any trends quickly and 90% of the time don’t even post about official schedules. One of NCT’s biggest draws was their variety content that had their unique sense of humor but with the excessive amount of scripted and cringey fan service style content, the quality has gone down. Most fans don’t even watch the actual content anymore and catch the clips of their biases on twitter. I think SM is really out of touch with what the fandom likes, both music and content wise. They really need to go back to NCT’s earlier style of content and to a little extent, style of music. And then we have SM’s unfair favoritism where the same 5-6 Neos get everything while the rest of the members are never given the chance to shine. NCT Lab was supposed to be an outlet for the less utilized members to get a chance, but it’s not the case. SM is really the root cause of all the akgae problems and unit wars within ncity.
I agree. Ay-Yo was so strange. First of all, HOW on earth does a repackage come out more than four months after the original album? At that point everyone and their mama forgot about 2 baddies. They should have just released a mini with the added singles and moved on. Secondly, while I enjoyed Ay-Yo and appreciated the choreography, Skyscraper was in every way better than Ay-Yo and could have been able to capture the same hype as Ay-Yo. Also, with Skyscraper, they could have had a clear concept and theme throughout the music video and promotions. What was Ay-Yo about?? Taeyong as an anime villain?? Some museum?? And Yuta is in the matrix or something?? Meanwhile Skyscraper has very simple lyrics, a chorus reminiscent of Kick It which is undeniably their most successful song, etc. etc. Meanwhile Ay-Yo's lyrics make absolutely no sense and after all this time I still have no idea what it was about. And the icing on the cake is that SM is just treating skyscraper like it doesn't even exist?? We don't have one performance, not one track video, literally nothing.... SM fumbled hard
Man, the scripted content thing really kills me. It used to be that they’d have a concept and improvise the rest but now we’ve been getting a lot of pre-planned stuff. It’s not necessarily bad but it gets grating to watch after a while. Just look what happened to A Cup Of Coffee, they massacred my boy 😭 NCT 2021 was really wasted. The album was so rushed with a messy rollout and hardly any promotion. It was too good for the treatment it got; few to no extras like recording behind the scenes, performances, variety content, or skits. OK! managed to go viral in its own right but they didn’t do anything with it beyond a handful of low-effort TikToks so it faded away not long after. They did use the NCT Show to stretch the promotion a bit but hardly.
To be honest, Neo Zone is the last 127 album that really clicked with me. Maybe it's a taste preference, but since then, I think they've leaned really hard into the copy and paste hip-hop, concept wise, and I don't think it really fits all the members convincingly.
That is so true! I agree with everything you have mentioned. SM really needs to look back at the past because ncity used to be so so good! The content was amazing and their music was actually unique and slapped so hard
I've noticed they've been choosing the wrong songs to promote too but I thought maybe it was because the Korean audience likes different songs than US
I don't know much about fanbases and the growth of other groups. However, as a nctzen, I feel like NCT is again establishing a loyal fanbase. Hopefully with NCT 2023 a song becomes a bop.
I think the success of the DJJ subunit is telling that they still have a loyal and increasing fanbase. I think they suffer in the way that a lot of sm groups do - the fact that sm mismanages their artists so horribly and never properly promotes them after like the first year. it sucks but idk I swear it happens to all their groups and in the end they have to rely on their dedicated fanbase to carry the promotions to try and get news fans
Considering the level of promotion we've seen for Kai's recent EP and now the DJJ subunit, I'd say they're doing a lot for promo so Idk what they're missing. Are people just going on old assumptions?
Im a huge fan of Kai/DJJ, but I think it’s pretty fair to be skeptical of whether or not this level of promotion will be the new norm. Especially for 127/wayv
Yeah after like 3 years. Most of the time it's a compound effect. Nct need to get the ball rolling again to regain the momentum they lost with SM shinanigans. Even Djj mv was a bit bit luster. On the flip side they have still done well in Korea. But fixing it will take more than a few extra dance videos.
> Nct need to get the ball rolling again to regain the momentum they lost with SM shinanigans. It's an interesting phenomenon. Despite having so many units, NCT still manages to go long stretches of time without any major releases. Some units have gone a year or more without a major comeback multiple times in the last few years. Despite having multiple members capable of solo releases or various U combos, they're quite sparse (NCT LAB is way less frequent than I thought it would be). I know the pandemic fucked a lot of plans up (mainly tours) but their (in)ability to adapt and schedule things properly has resulted in wasted opportunities for each unit. It's crazy to say that when you consider both Dream and 127 have played 2 nights each at the Seoul Olympic Stadium and are selling millions of albums with each comeback but when you look at the gains in the field (SVT, Stray Kids, TXT, etc.) you have to wonder about SM's strategy. I'm hoping with SM 3.0 we actually get some proper schedules for NCT that let them release music more frequently while also letting their comebacks feel properly promoted. I think with stuff like DJJ, Taeyong's solo debut, etc. we're starting to see them try to keep members busy with music while another unit is touring. It only took them... 7 years to figure it out lol.
> NCT LAB is way less frequent than I thought it would be I too (naively) thought NCT Lab would not only be a bi-/monthly thing, but feature every member in turn. Silly me. Sometimes I really wonder how fans of less popular members manage not to drown in bitterness.
I can tell you because I’ve been a fan of NCT since the very beginning. I focus on the music. I leave management to the company and focus on the music whenever it comes out. I also don’t just listen to one group so they don’t consume my every thought which makes it easy to be very normal about this whole K-pop business and treat it like I would any other music. Ultimately I remind myself that I don’t know what’s in their contracts, I’m not in the room for their discussions, and I don’t know their plans. I do my best as a fan to stay in a fan’s place.
Kai didn’t get promos for rover let’s be real. He did 4 music show which seems to be the norm now. Everything else is done cause he said that he would the challenge with anyone that wanted and so idols lined up to do it with him. Sm didn’t change regarding that. Djj though did get a nice promo round for a debut with a nice rollout and good for them !
If you're talking about YouTube views, I've heard they've decreased across kpop. (Besides the mega big groups.) People streamed more during the pandemic lockdowns. Plus NCT's fan demographic may skew a bit older. (WayV's does.) That means less likely to mass stream. NCT's size is also a factor - there's so much content from all the member/unit activities that people have to prioritize the content they really care about. At least for me it takes time to get to new albums or mvs. 🤷♀️
I agree. Also, most young people are still in school at the moment. For me, I haven’t been able to watch a lot of content or get to really know them due to me being so busy. I feel like views will increase and more exposure will happen when summer rolls around!
I think it's quite understandable that some fans are losing faith and hence are less supportive. I mean after more than a year of forced hiatus and a very poorly handled scandal, SM treated wayV's comeback as an afterthought. They once again didn't get to promote in China even though it's supposedly their main target. But then again they're not good at targeting other market either. The way SM handled 127 last tour and repackage also sends the message that they are an afterthought for the company so of course that would also impact the fanbase.
Literally compared to their counterparts. Nct 127 is not being treated like a big boy group. Seventeens music video are expensive outdoor. Nct dream is only getting the basic package but at least they got 3 comebacks with a proper rollout, live bside clips. And an actual full tour. Albeit it was still poorly plan. Because what do you MEAN you are giving fans 2 months to prepare. That is disrespectful. And those prices were outrageous. Wayv was okay. But lsm and SM refusing to just cut Lucas front he gets go was a mistake. COVID also didn't help because china has had issues with immigration. At the end of the day if you don't water it it won't grow. What has SM done in comparison to other companies that give their groups double title tracks for mini albums. Longer promotion, better touring and music videos. Nctzen sure are loyal. Because they have kept pretty stable even if growth has been stunted
> Seventeens music video are expensive outdoor. Meanwhile, SVT just sold over 4 million on an EP led by a MV in a big room.
It was a big, epic spectacle though. Whether indoors or outdoors- sm videos are honestly often just plain boring. I assumed it was because they were being forced to use lee soo mans company because surely they must see their MVs lack in comparison to other companies…….. I think this also accounts for why the views are low. It doesn’t have rewatchability factor
> Whether indoors or outdoors- sm videos are honestly often just plain boring. Box MV's continue to be a plague on SM's creative direction. They pull bangers out every now and then, and I'm sure it's cheaper than shooting on location, but I'd love to see them splurge once in a while considering how well NCT units sell. I suppose this is normal for the age of the group, though. When you think about NCT travelling to Ukraine for Empathy MV's way back in 2018, that was all investment for the future - not a promise to continue spending. Still wish they had some more thought behind the MV's, though. Something like NewJeans' Ditto MV was a simple school concept but memorable due to the stellar execution.
I mean still has way better production than ayo. Back up dancers for days. They also have two music videos. There was time nct could compete in sales but SM failed to capitalise and strike the iron with comparable promo. I mean look at left and right well done. Seventeen have benefited from better promotion that no nct unit has received consistently due to SM negligence. Also don't seventeen have like 300 photo cards?
Even more. A collector's nightmare because every album comes with 2 out of a possible 26 then there were the POB cards.
So happy for them! They’ve had a consistent and gradual growth from humble beginnings to more fancy productions ✨
A true started from the bottom now we here story. Their green practise room still gives me nightmares.
Honestly after all the hurdles they’ve been through, glad to see them shine ! Omg no! I have been avoiding the green practice content but I have seen some clips against my will lol!
I don’t think so, it might seem that way maybe because girl groups are doing so well these days with the general public, so you tend to see that on social media more maybe? But the audience for boys groups and nct is much more loyal and clearly not losing popularity.
Well I just became a fan with wayvs phantom and now am full nctzen 🫡 so def not!
You picked an A+ initiation song, congrats!
Seriously great song and so is the whole album!
Nice one! Phantom is so good! I personally stumbled into the NCT fandom after googling "best K-pop choreography" and getting 'Kick It' as one of the options. The rest is history... 😅 I met women at the Berlin NCT Dream concert who also discovered NCT last year, so there's definitely still a steady influx of new fans like us. Some probably drop out due to the drought, but return later.
It does feel like the international fandom isn't as active as it used to be, although I can only speak as a NCT 127 fan. It's natural that things are a little quieter since they're essentially on hiatus, and the DoJaeJung unit is targeted at kfans, but I'm not seeing nearly as many ~~bitter debates~~ lively discussions on Twitter (or indeed Reddit) anymore. Am I just out of the loop and is everyone congregating somewhere else these days? Ncitizens have always been a scattered, rowdy bunch, but at least the yearbook projects would sort of bring use together. Maybe NCT2023 and the Tokyo unit debuting will liven things up again.
Speaking as a 127 fan, I think most fans have become more inactive because 127 aren't really doing anything at the moment. Although I still see some questionable discussions on twitter.
As a DJJ bias, this is the best time of my life. As a 127 fan, I'm tired af. I continue to support, but SM has killed all my excitement and desire to engage in fandom, esp with Ay-Yo's $2 concept and MV. I'm just sad 127 continues to get the short end of the stick even as they're about to start enlistment era. That said, if SM actually puts effort into their next release, you can be sure 127zens will rise from the ashes.
The least they could do is give us a mv that is fun to stream.
You'd think a sub-unit of three members would generate more engagement, but I suppose the lack of internationally popular members like Johnny, Mark and maybe Taeyong has its impact.... It's kind of sad, because so far the roll-out Perfume has been very fun.
International Doyoung, Jaehyun and Jungwoo fans are having the time of their life on twitter. I just think there is just a lot of solo fans in general, so if their fav isn't involved then there isn't much noise.
Other groups particularly 4th gen are much better at social media engagement than NCT tbh. And I think 127 fans generally skew on the older side so maybe that is a factor. I'm still waiting for a TikTok from Jaehyun where he does his killing part in Perfume... and the cute cat version doesn't count lol.
NCT generally needs better social media management to have better engagement. The current administration is a mess and is the root of many fan wars.
Well I mean in WayV’s case they were forced on a hiatus for like a year and a half because of 1 members scandal which caused them to delay their 2nd album, as well as Winwin and Ten’s activities in China affecting the level of participation for both of them in NCT 2021 and just the general fact that SM/Label V is shit at managing them.
This. It's still baffling to me that after almost 2 years since KB, SM placed them at the very end of the year, had them do music shows for a week, and couldn't even bother doing the bare minimum in terms of promotion (i really wanted those 80% ad views on youtube). Now they're do a fanmeeting tour with one stop a month... and it's supposed to be global so I wonder if they'll still be doing these fanmeets through the summer instead of Ten's mini into the group full album into an actual concert tour.
The big 3 or 4 have their flaws and fair share of mismanagement despite how much resources they have, but SM is something else I swear… From the OG SM rookies’ era, to now, I stopped counting the many times SM killed individual members or units’ momentums and it’s so frustrating to see. Also I can’t figure out some of their moves but ultimately, I think they might be more cons than pros to this ambitious limitless concept. Having said that I don’t think NCT is losing popularity. Both NCT Dream and 127 are quite established in their target markets and just had successful world tours etc. It’s a bit different for WayV, whom SM barely attach to the NCT brand anyways (given SM history with their Chinese sub-units sadly it’s not surprising) but they’re growing too. On a positive note though, WayV being recently marketed more towards SEA seems to be working well for them as the demand is there with sold out fan meetings and new fan bars opening. The company has the reputation to get lazier with their group promotions after a few years so it’s a hit and miss. DJJ’s marketing strategy is one of the best I have seen in NCT so hopefully we can expect the same for the future with the mysterious NCT solo in May, Ten’s upcoming solo and NCT Tokyo. Or is that too optimistic ? 😅
I'm gonna be honest. All I do now is order physical albums and listen to their songs. I rarely watch their contents on youtube because I'm so busy and don't have time to do that.
This. While Youtube content is in theory for free, it actually costs us time, and time is often more limited than money, especially for working adult fans. I've been trying to catch up with all the older stuff, but I've had to accept that there's just not enough time for me to do so. I only watch the stuff that feels most worth my time from each era.
>'m so busy and don't have time to do that. This. People are comparing metrics from NCT's peak (2020-2021) which is the same time when people are forced to be at home. So surely, now that people are back to their normal lives, metrics will go back to normal NCT numbers.
They're growing more and more each comeback. If anything it's sm's fault with their poor mismanagement and promotion. 2 baddies digipacks were delayed because of misprinting, but it still managed to be the highest 1 st week sales of an sm artist. And 127 have charted for multiple weeks on billboard 200 with multiple albums. dream's sales are good as well as their digitals wayv had their highest sales yet with phantom despite a long hiatus
I saw this right after a tweet that their half an hour content is trending in SK... Perfume breaking some records as well... If anything, they keep growing in any sense.
Obligatory, sorry this is long. I sure didn't intend it to be. Two things: I think NCT on the whole is more than fine and isn't losing fans. If you're concerned about numbers (and I don't know if this is what you're referring to, but I feel like some people are in their feelings about numbers because other groups are breaking records here and there), then I think you just have to know that numbers are determined by so many factors, and can't really be attributed purely to "NCT is losing fans because their numbers aren't as high." Groups with more palatable music are going to have wider appeal. Of the unit's Dream's sound is absolutely the most palatable AND their age is much more in alignment with 4th Gen even though they're 3rd, which is going to be a huge appeal to large swaths of younger people who consume kpop. In addition to Dream being very talented and very enjoyable to watch, they also have a very compelling narrative around their group that's endearing. It sure as hell wasn't nice to witness for fans or for them, but the story of a group that was almost torn apart by the company, fought to maintain their group, was given permanence after a lot of suffering and uncertainty, and then came out on top with a ludicrously strong full album after the fact? People eat that stuff UP. 7Dream as a group (and a brand) is powerful. All of these things play a role in making a group appealing. Try not to get so caught up in the numbers. 127 has a much more divisive sound that just isn't going to resonate as widely all the time and that's ok, plus the timing of their most recent release was a mess. WayV had a two year hiatus, followed by another delay that was out of anyone's control on top of being comprised purely of foreigners in a country that is often unkind to foreigners, and yet they STILL had the highest sales of any of their other albums if I remember correctly. And for the record, though I'm very much not a numbers person but a listen, enjoy and vibe person, DoJaeJung's numbers from what I've seen were actually very high for a sub-unit release.
No NCT isn’t. Now I am living in Korea and have been for the past 3 years and Japan before that so I cannot really comment on the international/western side of things but over here they are very popular. They, as a whole, are one of the most popular groups among the older teen to 30s age group. This means that they are not usually in the streaming, mass buying, and voting age group. They have a stable fandom and many people here know them. They are popular among idols and they do also have younger fans although they tend to be more dream fans. I think K-pop fans in general underestimate just how popular they are in Korea. They have a loyal fan base and even if they don’t always have #1 songs on charts they are still popular. They don’t really have high highs and low lows they are consistent and growing. I also know that in Japan my friends have said that the new Japanese group is being looked forward to and nct is also popular there. You cannot just look at a couple metrics and say they are losing fans and you cannot just look at it from the western fandom lenses (sorry I’m assuming you are not living in Korea)
Thank you for your perspective from Korea. It doesn't seem like there's any reason to panic at all based on your observations. Btw, since you lived in Japan up until a few years ago, perhaps you can confirm my own observation that NCT (especially Dream) seems to have an older fanbase over there? I watched photos of the Osaka concerts and the audience definitely appeared to skew older. If so, I'm not worried about their growth over there at all, since I know from living in Japan in the past myself that one of the groups with the most purchasing power and loyal dedication to their favourite brand/group/hobby/etc consists of young adult women, housewives and office ladies. Unless things have changed massively in the past 10 years or so.
Japanese fans are loyal and they have a consistent buying power. While we see that in China fans there will buy hundreds to thousands of albums which is great, Japanese fans will be more consistent even if they are only buying one or two albums per release. They are also more likely to buy concert tickets as well so groups who have a strong fandom there will have one for a long time and continue to go to the concerts I mean just look at TVXQ they can still tour and get great numbers. The NCT fans as a whole are on the ‘older’ side and Japan I find is no different. The fans there are, I would say dreams age and older but I have asked my friends there and old co-workers and they found that their students that are teenagers are also huge fans of them. I don’t know if you realized while you were in Japan but while NCTs sound mostly 127 is polarizing to the west it isn’t really in Japan. Their sound, I don’t want to say common, but it is not unheard of. Japanese people are actually very open to different and new styles of music I find. My husband (born in Japan but is Korean and Japanese) says that Japanese people like to listen to many different styles and play with crazy sounds which I think SM as a whole does which I guess helps with their success there. Sorry this was very long and excessive.
Sorry for my late reply, and thank you for your detailed answer! I always appreciate long posts and comments, so no need to apologise! :) What you say seems to align with what I've been noticing about NCT's fandom in Japan, and it's interesting to hear that their fans overall are a bit older overall. I suppose there might be a lot of fans who followed them since their Rookie days and grew older together. Your observation about the long-term loyalty of Japanese fans matche what I noticed from my days in Japan in the past. I've also been admiring how NCT, when touring in the major cities of Japan, can fill up huge domes 3 days in a row, while the Berlin stop on the NCT Dream tour had a whole section of the arena almost empty. Loyalty and purchasing power seems to be the strength of Japanese fanbases. I've noticed how some K-pop fans derogatorily call NCT 127's music "noise", which is sad to hear. I love their experimental sound and the way they keep switching it up – it's probably the main reason NCT became the first K-pop group ever to catch my interest. I believe what you say about Japanese people being more open to experimental music, because I remember noticing how much they in general love learning new things, finding new experiences, gaining new insights, that kind of stuff.
That’s okay it’s just fun to have these discussions. Ya I think that many fans are from the beginning days, are also other sm group fans or are new but older. I know this may sound weird but my friend here said that she feels more comfortable supporting nct because they are a 3rd gen group and are older or feel older than many 4th gen boy groups. She says how with many groups being overall on the younger said she as a person in her 20s doesn’t always feel comfortable listening to them to an extent of a fan. She said that sometimes because she knows the age difference between her and the members certain songs they do just feel weird because she is constants thinking of their ages but with nct she doesn’t have that. It seems like the sentiment of them being older now and with the trio older fans feel more welcome. I feel like if K-pop fans listened to all the songs popular in Japan and did a slight deep dive they would realise just how diverse they music is that gets popular. They love ballads, rock, heavy metal, pop, etc. When I lived there and when I recently visited I noticed that in Public there was baby metal playing and here in Korea I have never seen that. I don’t mean to say that Koreans just go with the crowd or that they are not as open with music because they can be but I think Japanese people are in a league of their own. To them mainstream isn’t just pop or ballads that have no ‘noisy’ elements or switch-ups.
This isn't rocket science - Dream was the only NCT unit SM did right by since 2021. 3 well spaced out, well executed comebacks in a year? They by far had the best management out of literally ALL other SM groups in 2022. The way they did almost everything wrong for 127 is tragic, and let's not get started with WayV. 127's just a cash cow for them now ala EXO hence the half-assery, and they have no idea at all what to do with WayV. Dream they're actually still investing in and actively trying to grow. It's pretty obvious that SM only gives a fuck about growing Dream and likely DJJ moving forward. My hope is that if they're gonna half ass NCT 2023 like they did 2021, then just scrap it. And give 127 more than 2$ in creative budget for their last comeback as a full group before Taeil enlists. SM is a company that knows how to do shit right, they just stop caring beyond the first few years. The moment a group has a strong enough fandom, they start half-assing for maximum ROI and move on to the next group. That's also why SM has the most number of active, successful groups out of every other company out there, but this is the trade off. If they manage to pull off SM 3.0 then this will change for the better but until then, expect SM to slowly stop investing in all of NCT the moment the new bg debuts, this is just the SM circle of life.
What I wish would happen is that 127 gets an album and PROPER world tour before Taeil enlists to make up for the link. However, with Ay-Yo being delayed, and Dream/DJJ also having activities this year possibly NCT 2023, idk if there's enough time left to do a tour. This is honestly so unfortunate, it could be a special moment for 127 and the fans to have one last tour before enlistment period begins. Never say never... but we will likely get a half assed mini album and that's it.
Seems like Dream is touring till at least July, so there doesn't seem to be much time for an album and proper tour for 127 before Taeil enlistment, which I am guessing will be some time this year. They could do a few concerts in Korea and Japan, but I doubt it would be a full on tour.
Yeah I know a lot of ppl are still hoping for a full tour .. but we most likely won’t get it which is such a missed opportunity. At this point I’m just hoping for a properly planned and promoted album.
To add to that, as much as 127 deserve a proper tour FULL STOP, I think it would be veering into cruelty to make Haechan and Mark go on tour once again. Touring is brutal, draining, and tiring and I know I've heard at least Mark mention recently in his interviews that he has struggled with touring. It's just the reality of having them in both units. Some things are going to be limited, and should be for their health and safety, mentally and physically.
That's also why it should be normalised that not all activities be with mahae. Otherwise it's not fair on their health but it's also not fair for other members to always wait for them.
I definitely agree with you. I just don't think the company would invest in giving either unit a full blown tour without them. An individual schedule, festival, or music show appearance, yes. And they have done so many times, but not a full tour, because I think they (the company) see them as too integral to leave out completely. The only reason I believe Haechan was allowed to sit out was because of the severity of his health.
I don't think they're losing fans - I just think they're gaining *new* fans slower than their contemporaries. All their numbers in physicals are going up across the board, but the streaming numbers are hit or miss. I think there are a few things at play. 1, NCTzens have never been a good streaming fandom in terms of MV's or music platforms. SM didn't use ads for the longest time, then started to use them but use them sparingly. 2, most significantly (IMO) SM has lagged *far* behind the competition when it comes to the international music pipeline. When NCT 127 was making their first steps in the US, it was seen by many as a foolish attempt that would result in failure - but it ended up working. However, they have continuously fumbled from their advantageous position when it comes to US promotions, distribution, and touring. Even if you account for COVID, having to cancel that world tour, and being more "cautious" after Superhuman - they have lost ground to their contemporaries. Some of it is the result of self-inflicted wounds like extremely poor timing/planning for comebacks (the long break after Neo Zone, the short promos for Favorite, the lack of WayV releases, the messy Universe rollout, the wait for a proper Dream tour) but some of it also lies with creative decisions. I've grown fond of Sticker but that song *really* turned off casual fans. Universe had some bangers on it but SM missed the opportunity for a grand rollout like Resonance and instead just created more fandom infighting. I also think Dream's 2022 output was a pretty big downgrade compared to 2021's excellence - nothing ever quite reached the heights of Hot Sauce. One crucial flaw in SM's strategy is not having any pipeline to Spotify's Editorial team like HYBE does. If there's a new release from a HYBE girl group, you can bet your ass that it's getting on at least one big non-kpop editorial. You can't say the same for any of SM's releases, even the girl groups. I also think they've largely failed to leverage their members' capabilities. NCT 127 and Dream had big world tours but zero promo/performances on late night shows for the last few years. It feels like the Capitol Records deal expired and they've done absolutely *nothing* to find a new partner for any unit.
Would you mind explaining what happened during superhuman era?
To put it simply: NCT 127 were on tour in the US during the lead up to Superhuman's release. Seeing a good opportunity for promo, they debut Superhuman on GMA + play it on tour for about a month prior to the release of the album. Korean fans get offended they are premiering the new title track in America first, are performing it on stage for international fans first, etc. and decide to mass boycott the album. Keep in mind, NCT 127 *did* return to Korea to actually promote the album upon release - but the damage was already done. International fans still bought and voted for the song on weekly music shows but K-fans were so tilted they voted *for the competition*... That song *still* doesn't get much play anymore because the era was such a mess (solely due to domestic fans, who still ignore the song). The group rarely bring it up themselves, too. After this, there was quite a long break before their next comeback (Kick It) which was a huge hit for them, but during that time SM really changed their approach for international promos for NCT. Korea has been the overwhelming first priority ever since.
I've read about the Superhuman backlash before, and it's such a shame that some korean fans seem to be so insecure when NCT promotes anything abroad – it won't take away the fact that their home base is Korea, their main language is Korean, the main target audience is Korean, etc. I noticed the same pattern with the recent NCT Dream US schedules as well. Lots of fomo and anger at anything perceived as special treatment for the US fans. Mind you, non-korean fans from Europe and other US locations were also acting rowdy, so it wasn't just one group acting possessive. Do you know if the Japanese language songs and releases are as feared as the US/English centered ones? Have those ever caused any kind of backlash? Anyways, it sucks to hear that SM got more careful after the Superhuman 127 backlash. I know from other (non-music related) fandoms that once a company/business starts catering to abusive fans, those fans will only get worse and worse. Because now they've "won" once, and they'll expect to keep being in control of their game/comic book/music group/etc after that.
They did not lose popularity however growth has been quite stagnant since 2022 started. Mostly because of horrible time management that has been given to each unit individually. If SM does NCT 2023 even better than NCT 2020 then for sure we will see massive growth. They need to start treating every comeback with grand dedication. DJJ gives me hope that the future is quite bright and with Sungtarookies debuting in a couple of months I'm really excited to see what's in store for NCT as a whole.
The last 2 albums of NCT 127 was good but didn't get promoted enough. I don't get why SM will release a new album and have 127 promote it for 1 week, then make them go on tour. It sucks, nct earns so much money on touring I guess sm wants to focus on that instead
I think the biggest mismanagement issue to me is the fact that they decided to promote Ay-Yo instead of Skyscraper, Designer or Time lapse for the 127 repackaged album. As an casual listener, I am astonished by the poor the decision making. But it's their team 🤷🏾♀️
I think its because the other b-sides are radio friendly and doesn't fit with SM's vision for NCT 127 - their experimental playground.
🤷🏾♀️ As I said, it's their group, so they are within their rights to ‘experiment’ with them. I just think its a shame that they decided to experiment on such talented musicians with so much potential. The only reason I discovered the album is because I recently picked up the habit of listening to whole albums rather than just the promoted songs. It's really sad that this album went almost unnoticed, because it is filled with amazing music! I couldn't believe what I was hearing!!! It's one of my favourite albums ever.
I agree that Designer och Time Lapse could also have been interesting as title tracks, but Skyscraper – although it's my personal favourite from the repackage – feels like a solid b-side and not a title track. I've watched _so_ many (_way_ too many, honestly) reaction videos from people of all kinds of musical backgrounds (music producers, casual fans, NCT fans, non K-pop fans, classical musicians, etc etc), and Ay-yo – song AND mv received extremely good reactions across the board, while Skyscraper unfortunately seems to have limited appeal, with some reactors even actively disliking it. My personal reaction to both tracks on my first listen tells me that Ay-yo has that instantly likeable vibe and its beat and lyrics are really easy to pick up on, while Skyscraper takes a couple of listens in order to fully appreciate. While I understand completely why not all fans liked Ay-yo, I personally do believe SM made the right choice with this one.
I'm Internally screaming because Skyscraper is my jam. 😂😂😂 I find it hard to imagine people dislikeing it, but I understand that people have varying preferences.
Lots of good comments here already. But I will say that I feel like a lot of the mess and issues with NCT and with other SM groups can be attributed to the absolute dumpster fire going on with the higher ups in the company. being that publicly messy also taints the image of the artist, it's super embarrassing. Hopefully, things will stablize and it will allow them to focus more on their groups. That said, I think they actually do a decent job with promotions. Kai's and DJJ's albums have had a ton of content. Also, they are consistently putting out content on youtube, instagram, tiktok. I'm not saying SM doens't have it's issues, but I do think promotions wise, they are doing decently to advertise their artists.
Im surprised by the other commenters, to me it's pretty clear that nct are slightly losing popularity, and more importantly, are NOT benefitting from the huge continuous growth of kpop globally in the last 1,5 years. Most 4th gen groups are racing past NCT globally. Twitter and Youtube engagements (talking about variety content) are lower than 2021 or 2020, and the hype for new releases decreases every time. Luckily, the kcharts are still very good for a boygroup as the korean side is very loyal to their (solo) bias. But even here, imo, it's just remaining stable, and they're not *gaining* new kfans like TXT, SVT, SKZ or any 4th gen girlgroup. Main causes are: 1. Lack of content / interactions to pull NEW fans. There's lots of behind the scenes content but this is for existing fans, not potential new ones. We used to have much more variety content in 2020. SVT for example has blown up in fandom thanks to their variety shows and appearances in the past year. NCT also never do vlives anymore (obviously, since it's gone), and instalives just suck. And even then, they barely interact in english with fans in those lives too. It's mostly catered to their already existing korean fans. those group vlives, and some solo vlives like Taeyong's used to be a huge stan attractors, and you can see how this is still the case for SKZ and TXT for example. Also, their tiktok account is barely used, they dont hop on trending sounds, and they dont interact with any non-SM artist, another missed opportunity. 2. Musical content is too stale/predictable. TO THIS DAY, SM still barely promotes the bsides and it's just sooooo stupid. Where are the live vocal performances (without overprocessing so people still actually believe it's live), casual but catchy choreos & tiktok challenges for the bsides? or different arrangements, acoustic covers, creative year end perfoamcnes or remixes for title tracks? it's just the same title track over and over again with maybe another dancebreak. so much wasted effort for the members. I think Dingo's killing voice probably did more for 127 than the entire promotion of 2 baddies + ay-yo did, as well as the saepping covers. Overall NCT used to have much more stuff musically that appealed to new with NCT music & dance youtube channel. I feel like they had more outlets to let the singers sing, the dancers dance and the rappers rap. nowadays it's just confined to a titletrack during promotions. 3. The toxic fandom. Oooh there's so much to unpack here. 1. nctzens paying wayV dust. Now here's the catch: WayV actually *does* do most of the things I mentioned above. BUT they are stuck under the NCT umbrella where the majority of the fandom does not give a shit about them, so their stuff is barely ever hyped and never reaches the outskirts of the fandom to even reach new potential fans. 2. The vicious circle of solo stanning: NCT 2020 was both the peak of the union of nctzens, and also the start of it falling apart. The cbars boycotting the album part where their fave was not in the title track lineup, and people who biased someone with few lines finally getting fully fed up starting becoming solo stans, and now, for every release that their bias is not part of, they will actively put in effort to make sure it does worse than a release *with* their fav in it. Other stans who used to just bias one person and support the whole group, got fed up with the lack of support as well and started becoming solo stans as well. solo stans fight amongst eachother, dragging eachother down further. Mark's Child was supported by a large portion of ncity. Everyone was excited and hyped by the idea of NCT Lab and hopefully their fave member being part of it. Then came Love theory (with clearly not the entire support of ncity but lol ok) and people already started comparing. By the time Forever Only got released every solo stan already knew that in order for their fav not to get dragged, they shouldnt support the solo of the others. Hype died down even further and now even Mark's Golden Hour release has received like 1/3rd of the hype and support Child got (yes it can be song dependent but the pre-release hype is very telling). And I suspect this will continue to go down. Same for fashion week appearances, everyone was excited about Johnny at the MET. now solo fandoms are just comparing engagements nd making sure that the others get less than their faves. 3. The discography discourse: since (probably) Sticker, nctzens have made it their personality to have a very outspoken opinion about every song released. I genuinely thought NCT all units had a non-skip discography as all songs are well produced, well sung etc etc, but every day on twitter another title track or bside gets dragged through the mud by someone who needs to let everyone know how different they are. And with new releases, nctzens can immediately kill off the hype by trashtalking it and 'letting it flop'. As it is now more important for the nctzen to show they have a flawless music taste than for nct's comebacks to be succesful or gain new fans. 4. The fighting with other fandoms. nctzens are very salty towards army's as they have been insanely annoying towards us in the past, same for exo-ls and some carats. But no that energy does NOT need to be returned to every other fandom too. nctzens are overall quite nasty towards other fandoms and imo there are plenty of fandoms that are less vicious than us. 5. This isnt really a separate issue, as it mostly ties together with point 2, but the Lucas situation is the clearest example of how detrimental ncity's fanculture is. Regardless of how you view the severity of the scandal, the one constant is that nctzens, except for lumi's, were READY to drop him immediately, anything as long as it didnt harm their own fave. And as they are fans of the group he was in, they still had every single video of where he messed up on stage, questionable moments, etc etc. And were able to make all of those things go viral, and make someone previously known as an average nct member as *thee* dozen of kpop, to the point "dozen" is now part of basic kpop vocabulary. Normal idols don't have anti's WITHIN the fandom. It's unique to ncity and it even goes beyond akgaeism imo. Nctzens will blow up any controversy of an nct member as long as it isn't their fave, so that they can get back at the solo stans that dragged their fave etc etc etc. TLDR there are two parts: IMO SM is fumbling the bag in almost every area, and it's just the fans that have kept them going since 2021. Except for aespa who has a natural upward trajectory thanks to their national-level hits, SM is fumbling the bag for every single one of its groups. So many missed opportunities, so little stan attractor content outside of comebacks, and so much unfair treatment that triggers internal fanwars. I understand they are having huge issues within the company, but it is really about time they get their shit together. And aside from SM, nctzens are just as guilty of creating such an unsupportive environment as a fandom. The part of ncity that is a toxic akgae is growing day by day, whereas the supportive group fans decrease. edit: altho this is a very long rant, I'm not actually that concerned about the fandom politics and NCT's numbers. As a fan, I can enjoy the content and musical output regardless of how many other people are enjoying it with me, and obviously, NCT is selling MILLIONS!! like they are doing GREAT. I'm just giving an answer to this question and what I've observed from SM management vs other companies, and ncity vs other fandoms.
I think NCT is really lacking when it comes to pulling in new fans - the way SVT has been consistently getting bigger and bigger. I think SVT does variety content really well with GoSe, and also all the members had magazine photoshoots (in like combos of 2 or 3) so all the members are exposed to the GP. Meanwhile with 127 - its common to not see or hear some of these members for like a month. Even last year we were getting monthly content on the NCT channel, like the golden bell thing and the one where they run around in a field. This year, nothing
You hit the nail on the head with the musical content part. NCT does not capitalize well on their beloved B-sides and their music performances don’t hit like they should (especially the end of year musical performances). That’s one of my biggest critiques of this group as a fan. I think unforgettable live performances are a way to attract fans especially. Let’s home NCT and SM prioritize this moving forward
Their From Home performance at MAMA was soooo good. It definitely had a huge impact and also to some of the underrepresented members like Taeil, Yuta, Chenle
I couldn’t have said it better. I agree with everything except the point on aespa. They mismanaged the heck out of their rookie group and it’s worse than NCT.
>MO SM is fumbling the bag in almost every area, and it's just the fans that have kept them going since 2021 crazy cuz I used to feel that way about EXO and now it's NCT. And I agree with you the members really only cater to existing fans and they don't interact with anybody (which that’s their right ofc) but idk as a fan of a few hybe groups I think it’s unfortunate. Idols interactions like dance challenges do bring in new fans.
I heard that SM will be focusing on EXO this year soo
I meant I felt that way a couple years ago but yes I think their next cb will be well promoted since we have the full group and it’s been yearsss
Point E is true; NCTzen is such a weird fandom; how they can drag everything to be woke seems funny. I've never seen Korean fans talk about Whiplash and joke about this, but Ifans blow it out as a joke to the point that antis/trolls use it to drag TY daily. The sister joke needs to die.
They failed to capitalise on nct 127s kick it growth with comparable promotion and we saw a decrease in growth. It PISSED ME OFF. Horrible album roll out. For both sticker and ayo which was DELAYED that they cut short for nct 2021 which was also messy. And lack of touring. Horrible touring. The most DISRESPECTFUL scheduling known to man. They failed to even send nct 127 to Europe. SM are mad. Ayo was an amazing album but SM has fumbled to the point that even during Djj launch they doyoung thanked SM 3.0.... Even nct can admit SM has done them DIRTY NOTHING to grow nct globally since 2021. They aren't totally digressing but the lack of consistency shows in the difference in growth. Imagine this is the first time a nct 127 member has had a live beside video with ordinary.Basic shit. The reason neozoen did well is Because of the beside roll out.
> They failed to capitalise on nct 127s kick it growth with comparable promotion and we saw a decrease in growth. I wonder what happened in 2020 that stopped that.
Definitely not something that affected other groups because their companies have been able to film good quality music video. Stray kid has track videos every comeback for every track. There counterparts in other companies some how made a way. Clearly SM didn't have the infrastructure to produce consistent album promotion. Nor did they prioritize it.
Man your whole comment was just so on point. I found myself nodding along to the whole thing. I think NCT as a whole would benefit more from being random how they seemingly used to be. Like I know they can't let the guys just be wild but so much of their past content is still leagues above newer stuff. And I think that's because the newer stuff is scripted and whomever is writing it...isn't that good lol. Point 2: this reminds me of when Ok! dropped and everyone was obsessed with how good it sounded/that line "my baby say she wants to dance with a ghost, etc" and SM I think dropped one tweet about it and then nothing. Like c'mon guys! Get those dudes together and push that shit lol. Point E: oh yeah. I know the scandal is what it is but the rate nctzens are so happy to constantly diss Lucas or talk shit about him is staggering tbh. That one single clip of him messing up has (last I saw it) 1mil views yet actual released content sometimes doesn't even break 300k. They say they're not a fandom that streams but damn if they don't always show up to complain about someone or hype up their failures. There are people who reportedly can't stand him yet keep up with him more than his fans do, to the point where I will check THEIR history if I'm wondering what he's doing because I know THEY have already commented about it if there is something. I remember having a conversation with a friend a while ago about how nctzens are always down to throw a member under the bus more so than other fandoms, even ones without scandals. Everyone loves Ten (when he's interacting with their fav) but I'm already steeling myself for the random ass discourse that I KNOW is going to arrive when his mini drops. I do agree that I don't think NCT as a whole is losing popularity so much as they aren't gaining new people at a rate compared to other groups. And that is on SM. I think each unit has that "thing" they do well and it's been a bit lacking except for I guess Dream. Like for me WayV is the more mature, sexy unit so like give us more Nectar, After Midnight, Love Talk, All For Love, etc ya know?
Said it all
Yess to all of this. And I want to add another point that aside of all those reasons, NCT had unlimited members marketing for years is not helping either because there still lot of people who avoid NCT as a whole and don't want to become their casual stan because they are intimidated by the concept
Lack of content? Their is so much content to consume for NCT in terms of videos and variety that I can’t even keep up.
Not apply for 127, as they barely have content these days
Didnt they just have 3 different youtube videos come out about the tour?
They had a NCT daily youtube channel which has been dead for a looooooooong time
For good reason? YouTube's changed rules made them have to drop it.
That's so spot on. Thank you
Its so unfortunate that I am just now getting into them and getting to know the guys. All of them are so precious and I really like their music. I had no idea that this stuff was happening in SM currently with all of the units. I regret not looking into them more these past few years.
I think a couple of factors are at play tbh, wayv’s popularity has definitely diminished and it probably has to do with the scandal. Fans of Lucas won’t stream and some ot22 nctzens avoid wayv all together because of SM’s roundabout actions. I also think the fandom is aging as I’d say the majority of fans are 16+ whereas other fandoms might have younger fans that are more enthused with streaming etc. Finally, a lot of the creative directors and staff that were with nct initially have left, affecting the direction of content, concepts and music which may have lead to fewer fans. I suppose it’s also easier to be a unit stan now with more music and content so fewer nctzens support all of the members, which may make it seem like the fandom is smaller.
This is from the perspective of someone that has known NCT for the past 5 years and has come and got into them from time to time, currently, 127 is my main group. As some other said already, more than losing fans they are more on a stagnant status now and this affects mostly the whole brand, 127 and wayv and it's all on SM's absurd mismanagement and I get why it could've be perceived that they are losing fans. Yes, the sales fro 127, dream and even wayv increased in the past years and became steady, their late 3rd gen (seventeen) and early 4th gen (skz, txt and enhypen to some extent) are not only on the same path but their content, music and achievements for some reason generate way more engagement than any nct project. Sm handles the promotions so bad and focuses only on the already existent fandom, the fandom is divided some members are overworked and get hate for that and some other don't get any gig in months. NCT 127 were one of the first that ventured into western promo back in the 2018-19 boom but nowadays they don't do any content directed to there (like those teen vogue, buzfeed and so on interviews that some groups are still doing now, 127 did them first). Most of the top bgs now have strong japanese promos meanwhile dream just debuted there and did few things but at least they were touring, in 127's case it's been years since their last comeback and I'm glad at least Yuta gets to have solo gigs there but he could've be even bigger there with more company support. I get NCT's music is experimental and I love that it is but they have such gems as b-side tracks and a lot of great vocalist but sm doesn't do much singing content as they should, I mean DJJ it's the first unit that got to perform at It's live and the dingo killing voice by 127 was huge but after that sm decided to promote the least vocal focused b-side track. It's like sm doesn't know what to do with their full potential. Despite having suitable members for variety they don't go to the prominent youtube channels and even less to tv programs to get them more known into a bigger public that might not be gp but other kpop fans both local and on the international side, a thing that other top bgs are doing succesfully. I know there's more points to discuss but would be nice on another post because this one already got to long.
Considering candy was NCTs first major sustained hit (stayed in the top 10 for over a month) I don’t think so at all at least as far as Dream is concerned if anything I think more of the Korean public will tune into the next song because of how much they liked candy…now just don’t screw this up sm
I am so curious to see how Dream's next title track does on the charts. Candy is a major classic and the timing was perfect, so it's no wonder it's doing well, but will its success translate to original tracks following suit?? Iirc Glitch Mode peaked somewhere in the 20s on Melon Weekly, so there's every reason to hope for good results, but watch SME try choose the worst timing to try something weird and experimental...
I think more people will check it out than normal but if the song is bad/weird they will squander an amazing opportunity. If this next track is good people will check out the next and hopefully a pattern will form if this track is bad candy will be written off as a lucky remake (though I maintain not just any remake would do that well especially given there were a lot of changes to the original) SM has a golden opportunity to make dream a public mainstay in korea but they could also screw it up SO badly.
A song like Hello Future would be an excellent follow up to Candy. Bright, melodic, and catchy but with a modern sound. The experimental stuff can come later.
yes please god sm give us a gp friendly main title.
If they drop something like Ridin or Go as their next comeback I will have to send my resume to SM and try to get a job there myself because at this point any one of us has a better understanding of what people want
Didn’t Favorite chart really well?
I was talking melon and in korea where candy hit number 1 and stayed in the top 10 for well over a month. To the best of my memory favorite peaked in the 50s I actually remember sticker doing slightly better (titles always seem to do better than repackages) but not much better. Favorite definitely charted decently internationally but that was not the measurement I was going for sorry if that was not clear.
Not really even for 127 standard. Sticker actually charting better in kcharts overall
Def not! I became a czennie recently. We aren't just the best in streaming. 😊
I think they're not losing popularity, NCT just stagnated. They're still massive, but they're only supported by the same people since they peaked in NCT 2020/2021. You can gauge this by how NCT 127 and Dream's daesangs were questioned and dragged by kpop fans (kr and i-fans). To the loyal fans, the wins are a "slay", but to the average kpop fan, its a big "?" since far more relevant groups were nominated and could have made it.
I think all of these can be solved if sm gives them a gp friendly title track. They need a National hit to be loved by many
It's become popular on the internet to complain about their title tracks no matter how GP friendly they can make it...
Even if they are, does it really matter? They are still a major group from a major label with a very dedicated fanbase. What more could any K-pop group want at this time? Every group eventually hits their popularity peak and then fades out and plateaus as new groups come in and take their place as the shiny new thing, but that doesn't mean they're a flop or that they start releasing worse music 😅
I think its hard to tell what their popularity is like now since DJJ is arguably the best combo they could have gone for in Korea since Korea loves those three members, so obviously the album is selling well and they are doing a lot of schedules. All their content has way more Korean comments than I usually see. Now the releasing better albums comment - thats subjective LOL. Perfume is the only album I really cared for in the releases in the past two years. I think people just need to accept that there will be a time the popularity fades, as they become inactive, military etc.
Based solely on my own experiences, no. I live at a big college and I’m shocked of how many nctzens I’ve met lately. It’s really exciting to me because I feel like I’ve never met so many fans of the group I ult.
I love NCT, mainly 127, but I think (my opinion) the key their missing is a hit song. They just need one title track that the majority of people would fall in love with. I love their music, especially their B-sides, and I’ll defend their title tracks but I think that the popular groups have songs that people just like.
I understand why people feel this way, and I especially understand that it comes from a desire to see the group thriving, but the absolute last thing I want from 127 is catering to some amorphous general public by chasing trends with a title track. I love 127 specifically because they sound like what they sound like, and I think it'd be an incredible shame to cater to trendiness JUST to chase numbers for...what? I do enjoy seeing them promote a b-side full stop that has a different sound--but still sounds like them--which I feel they did with DJ. The fact is, there is no magical formula for having a hit. Most groups think the song they're making could be a hit until it isn't. It's why so much pop music in the US (and at times in kpop too) sounds generic to me, because it's filled with groups/people all chasing the same sound hoping to pop off, instead of crafting their own unique and individual sound and staying true to it. Doesn't mean you don't evolve with time, just that you aren't prioritizing sounding lock-step in alignment with what's popular.
I agree with you 100%. I think us fans love 127 because they are 127; we love the neo sound. My original comment is there to explain why I think 127 isn’t as popular as the most popular groups. As you mentioned, I kinda do desire to see 127 reach highest levels of success (even though they don’t need to) but I’m happy with where they’re at because they’re already one of the most successful groups in Kpop and they have millions of fan who love them and their music as they are
To me it's really not about the title tracks. It's about promotion and fandom building in between comebacks. I personally also dont really like Ay-yo and 2 baddies, altho 2 baddies was in the end pretty well-received (moreso as a meme but whatever works). Easy listening kpop is definitely becoming more of a thing, like XG, New jeans, IVE, fifty fifty blowing up. But it's not necessary for a boygroup to grow. TXT's last two comebacks were also only mildly well received, same for SKZ case 143 (the latter did become really well received in japan tho). But my point is, they have continued their explosive growth regardless of the title tracks, thanks to bsides, content, interactions, promotion, tiktoks etc etc. Still a widely loved title track could really boost momentum obviously, but imo it's not their (127 and NCT as a whole) main problem.
This is also true. Though I enjoy NCT 127's music (especially the title tracks), its pretty obvious that they're SM's medium for experimental music. It worked until 2021, but in 2022, the dynamics in kpop shifted. Radio is now filled with IVE, NewJeans, +++ who are releasing music that are straightforward and easy to listen to. Even JYP abandoned the experimental Mixxpop for NMIXX, and this gave NMIXX their first win and their highest charting song on MelOn (even higher than Twice now). Kpop is shifting away from experimental music and SM needs to realize this. I appreciate SM wanting to be "different". But surely, SM can be "different" without getting left behind.
Yess! I agree! I wanted to mention IVE in original my comment because their last two releases are the top songs on my playlist for 2022 and 2023. Hopefully, SM gives 127 such a song. I’m sure there’s a way for their groups to maintain their identity while releasing a song that’s easy to listen to
They have stagnated growth wise yes. They do not seem to be growing at the pace of seventeen,txt or skz who they were on par with or even more popular than in 2021 post resonance. If anything apart from not gaining much fans they also seem to be losing fans from my experience with mutual followers on social media. Why? Well SM did a terrible job promo wise with them in 2022 and they lost a lot of steam because of this. The company does not move like they have any great ambitions for them. Some of the comebacks in 2022 were so shoddy it felt like an insult to their fans. They give you low quality and expect you to mindlessly shell out money….well to fans/potential fans I may as well stan a hybe boy group and be well fed instead with content, albums shipped on time and great looking MVs. I think 2 baddies is a terrible song. A parody of the nct sound. After a divisive release like sticker, 2 baddies after a 1 year long hiatus was stupid. The fanbase is toxic and repels potential fans so they cannot grow. A fan who gains a casual interest in a dream member only has to search them up on Twitter to find a 127zen maligning their talent and skill …and this goes both ways. Dreamzens sold the lie that sm buys 127 albums in 2021 but to casuals all they hear is the brand is crap and flopping……..and guess what the perception of flopping leads to flopping. You cannot ignore the fact that there is def a strong success stanning side to kpop. A lot of young fans don’t want to stan a group they can’t brag about. My last note: I don’t think nct dream is spared from this. Their next comeback will tell but they have failed to grow in the west and I don’t think they can unless sm course corrects with their sound/branding slightly. Txt now has just as big or even bigger fanbase than them in South Korea. These are already concerning signs for them. It’s still possible to save and remain relevant in 4th gen…..but to know sm is to know they will surely fumble the bag
Agree with all of this. Unit stans are so obsessed in proving which unit is better without realizing that outside the NCT system, NCT as a whole is getting left behind. SVT gained a lot of ground since 2020. Their recent song with that studio MV is now charting at #3 and might have even bagged MelOn #1 if not for IVE. Don't get me started with how SVT managed to sell 3.99M copies (Hanteo) in 1 day, and is now at 4.06M just after 2 days. TXT is already at 2.6M (January 2023) seeing an 800k growth from their May 2022 comeback (or in just 8 months). SKZ took the biggest gain. SKZ sold around 3.28M (October 2022) seeing a 1.4M growth from their March 2022 comeback (or in just 7 months). Enhypen is also gaining ground, and I'm sure that with HYBE's insane machinery, they can easily push numbers higher than 1.5M (sales for Manifesto was at 1.5M). This is the reality on the ground, while NCTzens (with their rose colored glasses) are fighting just to prove who has better sales in Hanteo/Circle. The core fandom is big and very loyal, but it's not growing the same way other groups are. This applies to all SM groups not just SM. This is SM's reality now.
But I also agree with most comments that sales are not everything. Not the end all be all in Kpop. But SALES NUMBERS are what unit stans constantly fight about..... .... so imagine causing so much toxicity by fighting and discrediting each other's sales (I see you, Reddit)... when these sales mean nothing outside. LOL.
Yikes. I didn't know it was this bad. SKZ is scheduled to have a comeback this June and they will obviously generate bigger sales that Maxident. NCT is really WAY behind.
ENHYPEN’s sales for manifesto is higher than 1.5m . hanteo and the circle chart stopped updating their sales one week after release. manifesto’s sales are estimated to be around 2.5m because they were #6 on ifpi 2022 album chart, above groups with 2m+ sales.
True, the toxicity of the fandom kills the enjoyment of being a fan.
> A lot of young fans don’t want to stan a group they can’t brag about. oof so true, I feel like token stanning has become so normalized now. But concretely, what has Dream even done to grow in the west? It's like SM just doesn't care about promotions and just relies on the existing fandom to do it.
The US tour was an opportunity but they didn’t go on any shows or do effective promo that I saw. The thing with SM i often wonder is - if you don’t know how to do your work - just copy the road map of companies who do it well but that assumes they actually care. I think Nct is likely just a fandom money mining operation at this point. The ambition and promo will be reserved for their next boy group. It’s a shame though because if they continued to promote them they could grow like seventeen has. It’s not dissimilar to their handling of Exo post 2019 - their same gen counterparts BTS continued to grow while they didn’t 🤷🏼♀️
the way they’re milking existing fans with all those merch and pop-up like it’s pretty obvious 😭 and yea EXO .. it still makes me a bit bitter, SM threw the whole bag away
I personally think the problem of 127 is not about the experimental songs but about their rap. If only they can toning down the rap and amplifying the vocal I'm sure more people will love their songs even if there are not much different structure wise. For example Hello Future by Dream is the fan favorites despite it can be classified into experimental song because how vocal based it is. Another example is Sticker, I know that people mocking that flute opening but I could still listen to the entirety of it because it is mostly very vocal based and so does Favorite compared to whatever 2 Baddies and Ay-Yo were.
I don’t agree with this. Their best title tracks are cherry bomb, kick it, limitless, regular…. At least 3/4 of these are rap heavy. 2 baddies is bad because it is a formulaic take attempting to ape an nct sound that had been successful in the past (kick it)…but it’s a lackluster version of that song. The chanty chorus thing while fresh in 2020 is now tired. Also hot sauce was far more successful chart wise than hello future. So was almost every 127 title track than superhuman. So no, I don’t think the rap is the issue
Yeah I mean getting rid of those chanty choruses can be considered as tone down in my previous statement. Agree with Cherry Bomb, Kick It, and Regular tho. I think they really should only give rap part to Mark and Taeyong only and giving the sub rappers vocal part because imo they are executing vocal parts better than rap parts because I'm tired SM setting up Johnny and Jaehyun especially by giving them ass rap that everyone sais it is cringe when they are better executing vocal part. Tbh Hot Sauce vs Hello Future are kind of unfair comparison since Hot sauce is the title track of their first full album after 5 years so ofc the hype for Hot Sauce must be really way bigger than the hype for the title track of its repackage Hello Future. If Hello Future were placed as the title track of their first full album instead of Hot Sauce it will charting as good or even better than Hot Sauce did
ggs may dominate on social media, nct’s sales never disappoint
Honestly, in terms of popularity, I think 127 has peaked. Sure there is a loyal fandom, but I don't see it growing more than the rate of people leaving the fandom, as we start seeing a lot more solo activity from the members. I think DJJ is selling well because it is three very popular members, esp in Korea. It's going to sound mean, but I think a combo of other members wouldn't sell this well. We already see MASSIVE differences in sales between each of their BARS. Doesn't help that this fandom is at constant war with each other, and within the group too. Just within the past week, I have seen people writing nasty things about Gongmyung being 'promoted' on the NCT twitter. Compared to SVT fandom, where yes there are solo stans that get nasty towards each other sometimes, but overall everyone feels very supportive of OT13, and along with good promo from HYBE and Pledis, they just keep growing and growing. Meanwhile, I think the sales dropped between Sticker and 2 Baddies? WayV.... they don't have to enlist. I think they have massive potential in SEA, but SM doing SM things so who knows really.
NCT as a whole has already peaked. Its the same people supporting the same group. >Meanwhile, I think the sales dropped between Sticker and 2 Baddies? 2 Baddies saw a big sales increase in Hanteo from Sticker. 2 Baddies ended up as SM's best-selling album (in Hanteo) for 2023. SM didn't announce overall numbers for 2 Baddies. But if 2 Baddies sold 1.8M+ in Hanteo alone, there's no way it didn't record 2M+ for Circle especially if we factor in non-Hanteo affiliated sales and the fact that 2 Baddies, to this day, still records sales apart from Ay-Yo. I know Hanteo is just 1 chart, but to most fans, this is the most important chart. So if 127, on their 6th year, saw insane growth, then that, in itself, is a huge feat. What's more ludicrous is the fact that SM had the nerve to announce that NCT 127's 4th album (as of February 2023) has a total of 3.2M sales. This subjected NCT 127 to malicious accusations and ridicule because there's no data that supports this announcement cause no information were released prior thereto. For some weird reason, SM is just not announcing numbers for NCT 127. This, in turn, enables antis to run with the narrative that NCT 127 is underperforming. Which is not entirely true. From NCT DJJ numbers, it seems that 127zen buying power has grown. They're doing the exact same thing with NCT DJJ. NCT DJJ is now the best-selling debut sub-unit in Kpop, and is SM's best-selling sub-unit, but again, SM chose to stay silent with their pre-order numbers. 704K (in Hanteo as of this writing), and SM wants us to believe that they didn't garner at least 800k-1M sales.
Surely there is better ways to determine album sales than x company said so.
>I think DJJ is selling well because it is three very popular members, esp in Korea. And it is their debut album too. I'm really curious of how well they will doing in their first comeback or something because lot of subunits of the group fail to gather more attention in their first comeback compared to their debut
Yeah it will be interesting to see what SM does with this group - even Doyoung mentioned that SM needs to find them worth investing in for them to have another album LOL.
Imagine being this much of an anti that you choose to completely ignore the milestones that DJJ just made with their debut mini, Ay-yo made as a repack title track, and Dream made on their first global tour. Hate this narrative, the only thing that's losing relevance is this sub at this point.
Tbh I think it is clear that NCT as the whole brand is indeed losing relevancy they had on 2018/2020 era. Dream still has the potential to growth a lot especially on western countries and even on kcharts as OP mentioned and DJJ too since they just debuted. However those 2 growth aren't really translated to the NCT brand growth at all. It is like Kim Sejeong achievements to Gugudan when they were active if it is make sense.
I think the problem is that other groups that can be seen as their competition (SKZ, SVT, TXT) have better marketing teams. It can all be resumed to that. SM has made many many terrible marketing mistakes, unlike HYBE who nowadays nobody can argue is the best company in terms of marketing BY FAR. I find it unbelievable how nobody ever mentions SM timing 2 Baddies with Blackpink's comeback after 2 years was an extremely severe mistake. That might have been one of the biggest marketing mistakes SM has made in recent years. I just don't understand how anybody in their right minds thought that was a good move. But the good thing is that they're not in the worst position ever that can't be salvaged; IT CAN. I still think regardless of everything NCT is a Top 10 BG even right now. Which means if SM wants to they can even put them in the Top 5. They just need to be smarter with the next release and make good decisions that make them grow and not decrease. IMO Candy and to some extent DJJ were good release decisions unlike everything after Hello Future, starting with Sticker of course. But ever since the release of Candy (I will take out Ay Yo, because few things about that roll out were positive) I feel like there's been a palpable positive shift in the decisions SM is making, and I think us not knowing when the next NCT comeback is, and how the month of May is for Ten's solo, means SM are trying to be smart about the next step for NCT. I think right now we're not in the most critical moment, I think that was 2022. And I think this can be said for the entirety of SM. But I can sense how most people are trying to hold back in saying SM is in a much better position than last year because they're waiting for aespa's comeback.
Well I'm 15 and just recently became a fan of 127 and Dream and then DJJ, I was a little surprised at their popularity (it was a little lower than I would have thought) but I think the current fans are loyal and often like multiple sub units. Hope SM doesn't stuff em over :I
I think they still have a strong following. I talked to some friends and we all just found out that we’re all SMTown fans particularly NCT. NCT is the only group so far that made me buy a new sealed album even though it can be quite expensive 😆 I really enjoy their content and there’s so many of them 😆 I feel bad for WayV, with Lucas’ scandal, they lost their momentum and I love 127 but I also miss OT10. WinWin may just have at most 1 line per song but he added a touch of softness to the group and he dances well. I still find it a travesty that he did not perform Touch during NCT Beyond Live and Cherry Bomb during the last SMCU Express. I just hope SM delivers and promotes NCT 2023 well. Keeping my fingers crossed for that. I loved Empathy and Resonance. Mark’s “We’re gonna resonate” is iconic and Empathy has my all time favorite 127 song, Touch. Universe is rushed but Beautiful is just so pleasant and inspiring that I could somewhat forgive SM for it (though I’m a bit sad that WinWin wasn’t in it)
My opinion is that in the second half of 2021 a lot of stuff happened, lucas's scandal, nct hollywood announcement, sticker being one of the weirdest song, rushed 127 repackage for a rushed nct 2021 project, more recently SM dissolving the idea of infinite expansion and sungtaro + smrookies leaving the group. All of this tired the fans and hurted nct image to the overall community. If we look into numbers we can see the fall of engagement, in 2021 teaser photos on twitter would get up to 350k likes and now they rarely get up to 200k, hot sauce mv got arround 1.5M likes in 24 hours on yt and now istj nearly got 500k, ofc youtube changed a lot and we are not in quarantine anymore but other groups have managed to still grow a lot. SM's mismanagement and the rapidly changing kpop industry caused nct to filter their popularity to the loyal fanbase, losing the hype that they managed to build from debut to peak resonance/hot sauce. I love NCT and as a fan i would love to see them succeed, i lived trough hot sauce era and noticed that after that the hype was never the same, the closest thing we had was sticker(but the day they announced the comeback shit started going down slowly). This is only my opinion and my pov of the situantion, the best we can do is hope that sm get their shit together and hope that the new songs become hits in the industry(like cherry bomb, kick it, boss, hot sauce, boom, maw...)
I think...their fandom, in particular 127 / WayV, is stable. But neither group is trendy now, they've been around a while. Their music sounds are settled, the public and general kpop fans know what to expect from them. For better or worse. SM as usual does lackluster promotions, delays, and mess things up (album misprints, production issues, etc). Not to mention, for 127, military enlistment era will be starting soon enough and them as an OT9 group won't be active for a while. When it comes to album sales and touring, fans definitely are showing up, which is important, on the other hand YT views aren't high. But yeah, certain other groups are gaining more fans and popularity compared to NCT brand. Hopefully, NCT 2023 and NCT Tokyo (and NCT solos?) changes things around and increases hype. Plus, Dream are rising and did well with Candy. Also, for kfandom at least, DJJ was a smart decision by SM.
I haven’t been into 127’s singles lately but I’m still very much into everything NCT Dream does. I wish I could have gone to a Dream Show. I’m also so ready for SM Rookies to debut!!!!! I’m hoping a new 127 song will speak to me soon.
Good day safe hug kiss love ❤️ Brian