[1/31] Kpop News Roundup (STAYC, NCT, I:MOND, and more)

[RussianRoulette]

₊˚⊹ ʚɞ Howdy Howdy ɞ ‧₊˚ ౨ৎ

Not much has happened this week but here's a few things i've decided to shout out.

₊˚⊹ ʚɞ ࣭ ⊹ㅤ𝜗𝜚⊹ ‧₊˚ ౨ৎ₊˚⊹ ʚɞ ࣭ ⊹ㅤ𝜗𝜚⊹ ‧₊˚ ౨ৎ

Doyoung Under Fire

NCT's Doyoung was under fire by Knetz this week.

Doyoung shared an article in his instagram stories that was praising NCT 127's hard work lately promoting as 6 members. In the article they referred to kpop idols being a physical labor job and this really set off Knetz.

Knetz started to attack Doyoung, saying what Kpop idols do is not considered physical labor and claiming kpop idols get paid too much for it to be considered a physical labor job as well.

Doyoung later had to issue an apology on his bubble account for sharing the article.

STAYC Future

STAYC's Yoon has recently shared her concerns about the future of the group on a recent youtube show.

On the show she shared how their last two comebacks were considered flops and she's concerned about their future comeback in March.

Here is her direct quote:​

"Since debuting, it’s always been like this (up and down), you know. We do well, and then we fall. It’s always been like that. But now, we’ve fallen two times in a row. We’re preparing for an album in February, will it do well?"​

Here is the video link.

For some side context: It seems the comeback was originally scheduled for February but it has now been pushed back to March.

Following their March comeback, STAYC also announced that they will be going on another world tour starting in April. As of right now only the Seoul stop has been announced, no further information on the tour has been shared yet. It's apparently going to be this spring though?

STAYC's company is also set to debut a new girl group this year featuring former child dancer and SM trainee Ha Naeun.

Mark Rolex

About 1 month ago Mark made his comeback with the song Fraktsiya featuring soloist Lee Youngji

To thank her for her feature on the song Mark gifted Youngji a Rolex watch! I have seen people say that the Rolex is priced around 10-12 thousand USD.

Lee Youngji shared that she was very emotionally moved by the gift because she's usually the one gifting presents to others, not the other way around.

Due to the high price of the Rolex Mark's generous gift to Youngji was heavily talked about online. (I'm low-key shocked it didn't start dating rumors tbh?)

What a sweet friendship between the two of them! Congrats on your successful collaboration Mark and Youngji!

Jennie Tiktok Challenge

A lot have talk has started online over a recent comment by Jennie.

Jennie is currently preparing for her first full solo album to be released soon and has been dropping MV's for various songs on the album sporadically.

Jennie said recently that she's sad she's never been invited to film tiktok challenges with anyone and was wondering how people get invited to film them.

A lot of people commented that she doesn't seem to promote much in Korea which could be why.

Something I would like to chime in is that Jennie is also not that active on Tiktok, and she also never made an official Tiktok dance challenge for Mantra. If she isn't active on where people do dance challenges (Tiktok), and also have no tiktok dance challenge herself for people to participate in, I kind of understand why she was probably not invited to do dance challenges with anyone.
If you start a dance challenge with your upcoming album then I hope you get to do dance challenges with a lot of other people Jennie!
I:mond

I wanted to take a minute to shout out a new-ish group called i:mond!

i:mond originally debuted in June (?) of 2024 under Be the max Ent but left their company by July 2024. They then worked on setting up their own independent label, EMMP Company, and are having their own self-produced comeback with their first mini album Under My on February 14th!

The girls truly did put in all of the work to put out this mini album. The group's leader, Eseol, put in a lot of work personally doing things such as directing, leading the production process, writing lyrics, making choreography, and leading the visual concepts of the album herself.

I also want to mention the group members are all adults with the oldest being a 98-liner and the youngest being an 01-liner!
Good luck on your comeback girls!

Their comeback album is already available for preorder online on kpop album sites!

Topdates (Top Updates)

Did you all ask for updates on T.O.P? No. But I'm updating y'all anyway

Netflix Korea is still pushing their promotions with T.O.P They recently had him reacting to tiktok memes/videos of Thanos.

T.O.P shared he has been watching all of the fan's edits of him online and that he and Squid Game's director share videos with each other and he usually wakes up in the morning watching the fan videos.

This made fans really happy because he stated in a previous interview that his wish was to hit a point where he doesn't wake up to hate comments anymore and now he's smiling and waking up to fan videos

Spoiler

They also made him do Aegyo:

Spoiler

I'm glad T.O.P is happy and living his best life
(I'm also shocked he has tiktok and watches tiktoks? )
(I also want to ask, should I be calling him TOP? Or Choi Seunghyun? He's introducing himself as Choi Seunghyun for his acting promotions though the entire internet is still calling him T.O.P )

Happy Birthday

Ending January, we are wishing a very happy birthday to Miyeon of Gidle!

Happy Birthday Miyeon! May you have a very wonderful birthday and may you have a successful year with your new contract with Cube!

₊˚⊹ ʚɞ ࣭ ⊹ㅤ𝜗𝜚⊹ ‧₊˚ ౨ৎ₊˚⊹ ʚɞ ࣭ ⊹ㅤ𝜗𝜚⊹ ‧₊˚⊹ ʚɞ
To cheer Yoon up, today's QOTD is:

What is your favorite STAYC song and who is your bias?

I think ASAP is still my favorite STAYC song but I have been loving GPT since it's release! I also don't quite think I have a bias.

I also want to ask, do y'all notice when I change up the colors and emoticons when I make these? I feel like no one does (•̀⤙•́ )

₊˚⊹ ʚɞTune in next time for another Kpop News Roundup! ‧₊˚⊹ ʚɞ​

 

[Polaris_Tae]

What is your favorite STAYC song and who is your bias?

Can I say their debut song? So Bad. I remember liking it. Plus, I haven't heard a single other StayC release.

I:mond's teasers have me interested, I hope they have a successful comeback and it's nice to see some new(ish) groups with older idols finally

Glad that TOP's doing so well with his career resurgence post-Squid Game

Jennie could do dance challenges via YouTube shorts if she wanted to, or even Insta could work. Some of the idols I follow end up uploading some of their dance challenges on these platforms as well. I hope that some idols will start reaching out to her to ask for her to participate in their dance challenges now ~

 

[choively]

idk : ( yoonie idk

my bias is yoonie.

 

[SirTim0thy]

I wish STAYC well. I want to like them, but haven't found myself locked in yet.

Favorite song? I think I gotta go with ASAP (maybe RUN2U as runner-up.)
No bias for me.

I also want to ask, do y'all notice when I change up the colors and emoticons when I make these? I feel like no one does (•̀⤙•́ )

₊˚⊹ ʚɞTune in next time for another Kpop News Roundup! ‧₊˚⊹ ʚɞ​

I'll be honest, I'm not sure I've noticed!


Btw, I'm on board with T.O.P updates