NCT Dream fans have gotten their wish granted!
On April 14, SM Entertainment released an official statement announcing the future plans of NCT Dream and how the members will reorganize following their upcoming comeback.
The comeback will be with the current members Renjun, Jeno, Haechan, Jaemin, Chenle, and Jisung, the new album “Reload” will be released on April 29, after that they will continue with a reorganized system.
Originally, the members were supposed to graduate after becoming 20-years-old. However, due to being extremely beloved with their current lineup, fans have been protesting the system asking SM to change that. SM revealed in their official statement that the current members will not graduate (including Mark), and the seven members will carry out their promotions in a similar fashion to NCT U.
Added to that, NCT Dream’s Renjun, Jeno, Jaemin, Chenle, and Jisung will join as members of new NCT teams and will naturally participate in future activities on a global scale as well.
In their closing statement, SM thanks fans for showing lots of support to NCT Dream and asks fans for their continuous love and support for NCT Dream and the members.
Fans couldn’t have been happier with the news, a dream has come true. They’re glad to see that the members won’t all graduate and will stay as a fixed unit.
What do you think of this?
Source: (A)
My Personal Thoughts
SM will slowly come to the realization that such type of system doesn’t work in South Korea. EVER. What’s puzzling to me is that they even thought such a system works to begin with.
I couldn’t get behind NCT the moment I heard of the system. SM has too many trainees to keep count of and continuously adding and swapping members as they please under the term ‘graduate’ isn’t something that I’ll ever support or endorse.
Since I am older than most Kpop stans, I can explain why this decision was purely money driven. Here is why: this gives SM full control over the units and gives them the ability to play around with the members as they please. This puts them at an advantage, a member missing from a comeback? graduated? what happened to A? graduated…
However, such a system doesn’t work with Kpop fans because it messes with the entire fundamentals of what it means to be a Kpop stan. Fans stan the group for the idols as much as they do for the music, if you swap that with other members, fans won’t like it and naturally won’t be as supportive.
To explain it simply from a business POV, SM was trying to build a brand. NCT was the brand. Regardless of who was in what unit, SM assumed they could get kpop fans to support the brand, not the members. This is similar to Disney’s model, people go watch Cinderella or whatever Disney movie because of the character regardless of who’s playing it. The same goes for superhero movies. This is why people still go to the cinema to watch the next spiderman movie even when in the past 20 years; the lead has changed 3 times already. People know the story and how it’s gonna end, but they still go to watch.
I don’t like such systems because they put the members at a disadvantage.
Slowly, but surely, SM will come to the conclusion that’s it’s better to stop messing with the lineups changing them as a whole. Considering how they’ve been in the market for so long, you’d think they can figure out such a tactic doesn’t work in the Kpop world, but then you’d be wrong.
