Your Biggest Fan
OPPA!!!!Update:
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This is a mess. They were fine with 7 yesterday but not today. Smells fishy to me.
Wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't ever a confirmation of continuing as 7 and WakeOne was just trying to pressure 143 ent. Considering how negative a lot of people were it seems like it blew up in their faces.
Pretty much reads to me like WakeOne is trying to put fan pressure onto 143 Entertainment - as a fan of both groups involved here, I'm just exhausted and have been for several months now as the clock ticks closer and closer to disbandment.
I'm going to put this under a spoiler because it's pretty long but it honestly really annoys me when people who don't know the history involved make assumptions about the relationships at play here, but here's some background information about 143 Entertainment and the formation of LIMELIGHT:
Anyways! Flash forward to current day, and LIMELIGHT has their final OT3 comeback and 143 announces that new members will finally be joining the group later in the year. Everybody knows this means Mashiro and Yeseo, as Kep1er's exclusive contracts come to an end on July 3rd if an extension does not happen, and it's been a very open "secret" that this was the plan all along (even now, neither company seems to be denying that part of the story).
143 also announces shortly after this that they plan to launch a girl group survival show (ID143) later this year. We still don't really know much about this show, but you know who else has an ongoing girl group survival show right now? CJ ENM. Do you know who they plan to have manage the debut team from this show? WakeOne Entertainment.
So I don't think CJ ENM actually wants this extension to happen. I think they want to turn fans against 143 Ent in the same way they did to Starship Ent back when IZ*ONE plans were still in the "discussion" stages. I'm not stupid, I love them to death but I know that Mashiro and Yeseo are not anywhere close to the popularity level of Wonyoung and Yujin and that LIMELIGHT will never hit anywhere near as big as IVE has been able to. But their stories mirror each other for me quite a bit. Everyone knew Starship wanted their girls back because they had big plans that they obviously succeeded with, but there's still quite a lot of resentment towards the company because of how things played out back then.
How does CJ ENM benefit from this? They get to say "sorry, we tried! we really did!!!!!" when the extension completely falls through. All of the blame ends up in 143's lap and as a result, all of the fan anger and resentment gets taken out on them instead of WakeOne, who gets to go play with their new shiny ILAND 2 girl group (who is expected to get a full-length contract, by the way).
I'm going to put this under a spoiler because it's pretty long but it honestly really annoys me when people who don't know the history involved make assumptions about the relationships at play here, but here's some background information about 143 Entertainment and the formation of LIMELIGHT:
- Mashiro and Yeseo were seemingly always planned to be in 143 Ent's girl group, even before it officially became LIMELIGHT, even before Kep1er officially existed. Yeseo was actually 143's very first trainee, with Mashiro joining the company slightly after she did and Gaeun (LIMELIGHT member) joined after that. This trio trained together for quite a while before Girls Planet 999 began. I've never heard of any other trainees that were around back then - it was always the three of them and they are very close even now (Yeseo and Gaeun even just graduated together a few months ago).
- Fans who don't bias Mashiro or Yeseo usually don't know the things that they went through (which is fair, I wouldn't expect them to) before joining 143 Ent. In Mashiro's case, she tried to become a trainee and failed several times before finally being accepted into JYPE and training there for a few years - she later got cut from the potential lineup despite being a well-liked trainee during showcases and the like due to her age (1999 liner). She also was a member of a Stone Ent debut team at some point after this (with girls like KIOF Natty), which also fell through the cracks. After failing to debut more than once, she was forced to return home to Japan to work a "real job" to support her family. With Yeseo, she was previously a member of the group BUSTERS, and to say the least...that company was (and is) extremely exploitive and did absolutely nothing to protect the very young girls that they were responsible for. During the short time that she was part of this group and under this disgusting company, she grew so tired that she had completely given up on her dream of being an idol that she chased since she was basically a toddler and left the group.
- Despite all of what happened to the both of them (and I'm sure there's plenty of other things that the public have no idea about), someone at 143 Ent (who previously worked for CJ ENM...yep!) reached out to the girls individually after previously meeting them through their role at CJ ENM and managed to convince them both to give idol life another try. This involved Mashiro once again entirely uprooting her life and heading back to a foreign country to bravely chase her dream instead of supporting her family. These are not the kind of decisions that you make lightly.
- Girls Planet 999 happens and 143 Ent staff are incredibly supportive of both girls, constantly posting online on SNS to hype them up and to help get fan support projects arranged. Mashiro and Yeseo both make the final top 9 and debut as Kep1er members. During their time on the show, Mashiro becomes close with another J-Group trainee - Ito Miyu. Miyu was eliminated quite early in the show, but Mashiro uses her connections and recommends Miyu to 143, knowing that a girl group is being planned and wanting to help her new friend to maybe get a second chance like she did. Miyu goes into discussions with the company and is later signed to debut as a member of LIMELIGHT, along with Kim Suhye from My Teenage Girl and 143 Entertainment's trainee, Gaeun. Before LIMELIGHT officially debuts, the company releases a statement that announces that LIMELIGHT has no limit to the amount of members in the final team and that new members could join at any time. The company keeps open audition information on their social media pages this entire time and I believe still do to this day.
- Even while the girls have been under an exclusive contract as Kep1er members with WakeOne, 143 Ent never stopped posting about and supporting Mashiro and Yeseo. They share Kep1er music videos and other content regularly, even though they honestly have no real obligation to do so. After all, they are essentially promoting LIMELIGHT's competition for free and MS/YS are not technically their artists right now. 143 Ent staff often attends things like birthday cafes (even when the members weren't scheduled to come) and they also attended Kep1er's Korean fanmeeting (where LIMELIGHT members also came to support their good friends). None of the other Kep1er members' companies have shown anywhere near this level of support for the group or even their own member - but like I said, it's competition. Why should they promote another company's artist?
- Fans who don't bias Mashiro or Yeseo usually don't know the things that they went through (which is fair, I wouldn't expect them to) before joining 143 Ent. In Mashiro's case, she tried to become a trainee and failed several times before finally being accepted into JYPE and training there for a few years - she later got cut from the potential lineup despite being a well-liked trainee during showcases and the like due to her age (1999 liner). She also was a member of a Stone Ent debut team at some point after this (with girls like KIOF Natty), which also fell through the cracks. After failing to debut more than once, she was forced to return home to Japan to work a "real job" to support her family. With Yeseo, she was previously a member of the group BUSTERS, and to say the least...that company was (and is) extremely exploitive and did absolutely nothing to protect the very young girls that they were responsible for. During the short time that she was part of this group and under this disgusting company, she grew so tired that she had completely given up on her dream of being an idol that she chased since she was basically a toddler and left the group.
- Despite all of what happened to the both of them (and I'm sure there's plenty of other things that the public have no idea about), someone at 143 Ent (who previously worked for CJ ENM...yep!) reached out to the girls individually after previously meeting them through their role at CJ ENM and managed to convince them both to give idol life another try. This involved Mashiro once again entirely uprooting her life and heading back to a foreign country to bravely chase her dream instead of supporting her family. These are not the kind of decisions that you make lightly.
- Girls Planet 999 happens and 143 Ent staff are incredibly supportive of both girls, constantly posting online on SNS to hype them up and to help get fan support projects arranged. Mashiro and Yeseo both make the final top 9 and debut as Kep1er members. During their time on the show, Mashiro becomes close with another J-Group trainee - Ito Miyu. Miyu was eliminated quite early in the show, but Mashiro uses her connections and recommends Miyu to 143, knowing that a girl group is being planned and wanting to help her new friend to maybe get a second chance like she did. Miyu goes into discussions with the company and is later signed to debut as a member of LIMELIGHT, along with Kim Suhye from My Teenage Girl and 143 Entertainment's trainee, Gaeun. Before LIMELIGHT officially debuts, the company releases a statement that announces that LIMELIGHT has no limit to the amount of members in the final team and that new members could join at any time. The company keeps open audition information on their social media pages this entire time and I believe still do to this day.
- Even while the girls have been under an exclusive contract as Kep1er members with WakeOne, 143 Ent never stopped posting about and supporting Mashiro and Yeseo. They share Kep1er music videos and other content regularly, even though they honestly have no real obligation to do so. After all, they are essentially promoting LIMELIGHT's competition for free and MS/YS are not technically their artists right now. 143 Ent staff often attends things like birthday cafes (even when the members weren't scheduled to come) and they also attended Kep1er's Korean fanmeeting (where LIMELIGHT members also came to support their good friends). None of the other Kep1er members' companies have shown anywhere near this level of support for the group or even their own member - but like I said, it's competition. Why should they promote another company's artist?
Anyways! Flash forward to current day, and LIMELIGHT has their final OT3 comeback and 143 announces that new members will finally be joining the group later in the year. Everybody knows this means Mashiro and Yeseo, as Kep1er's exclusive contracts come to an end on July 3rd if an extension does not happen, and it's been a very open "secret" that this was the plan all along (even now, neither company seems to be denying that part of the story).
143 also announces shortly after this that they plan to launch a girl group survival show (ID143) later this year. We still don't really know much about this show, but you know who else has an ongoing girl group survival show right now? CJ ENM. Do you know who they plan to have manage the debut team from this show? WakeOne Entertainment.
So I don't think CJ ENM actually wants this extension to happen. I think they want to turn fans against 143 Ent in the same way they did to Starship Ent back when IZ*ONE plans were still in the "discussion" stages. I'm not stupid, I love them to death but I know that Mashiro and Yeseo are not anywhere close to the popularity level of Wonyoung and Yujin and that LIMELIGHT will never hit anywhere near as big as IVE has been able to. But their stories mirror each other for me quite a bit. Everyone knew Starship wanted their girls back because they had big plans that they obviously succeeded with, but there's still quite a lot of resentment towards the company because of how things played out back then.
How does CJ ENM benefit from this? They get to say "sorry, we tried! we really did!!!!!" when the extension completely falls through. All of the blame ends up in 143's lap and as a result, all of the fan anger and resentment gets taken out on them instead of WakeOne, who gets to go play with their new shiny ILAND 2 girl group (who is expected to get a full-length contract, by the way).
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This mess is extremely tiring as a fan and honestly at this point I just wish all parties involved would just give up and let them disband as it was originally planned.