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Would Kep1ler's Bahiyyih be popular without her brother?


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Before I say anything I just want to assert to all of you that I am not here to hate on Huening Bahiyyih, her brother, or her fans. I sympathize with her from the hate that she receives from a subset of GP999/Kep1er fans and I denounce all forms of harassment aimed at her or any other member. This thread is not meant to bash her - I just want to have a discussion about how all this came to be! ❤️ 

Since the beginning of GP999, Huening Bahiyyih immediately garnered a lot of buzz from being TXT Huening Kai's sister. TXT is one of the most popular 4th gen boy groups and are the successors of BTS under HYBE. Even items remotely linked to BTS or TXT members get a huge amount of attention - whether its an article of clothing that one of the members wore or a book that one of the members has read, it ends up selling completely out of stock once word gets out. Even something like RM's off comment suggestion of having a 1.5x size ramen package has the ability to influence the decisions of a multi-million dollar company and impact manufacturing and marketing. Yeonjun got ~3-4 million followers within a day of opening Instagram literally yesterday. It's no surprise, then, that being the sister of one of BTS or TXT's members and competing on an idol competition show would rake in HUGE amounts of attention, interest, and support. Since the beginning of the show, Bahiyyih had a jumping off point that many of the other trainees did not have. For better or for worse, she had access to a platform and a following that many other girls did not. Sure, other trainees came from past competition shows or were notable former trainees at big companies, but they had very little exposure prior to the show and did not have the hot buzz that Bahiyyih got/has. We've seen this previously with other idol siblings - for instance, even before f(x) debuted, Krystal received a huge amount of attention for being Jessica's sister, especially since f(x) debuted at SNSD's heydey in 2009. 

Bahiyyih had a relatively strong start to the show in the K group, but throughout the show, her ranking fell to a mid to low placement. In fact, she was almost eliminated at one point in the competition (I believe it was Episode 8, where she was P24 and right above the elimination cutoff). She consistently placed outside the top - and it was only at the very end that she shot up to #2. This was probably due to her cult fan following due to being her brother's sister, the change to a 1-vote mechanic causing all the K-group trainees to rise from Korean voters (esp. since Korean votes were worth more), and IMO - because she received an outpouring of support from i-fans in response to the hate she received from some  GP999 fans.

The reason why I think she's had an increasing amount of i-fan support since that last episode (separate from her cult following from the beginning) is because i-fans started to see something in her - themselves. Most Kpop fans are teenage girls - there's absolutely nothing wrong with that of course, and I also acknowledge that Kpop fans come in all ages and genders - but it's simply a widely accepted fact that the majority of Kpop fans, whether for girl or boy groups, are female, and are likely between the ages of 12-19. From my own experience, most of these fans are not "popular" in real life (hell, spend a day on Stan Twitter and you'll quickly be able to infer how fans are like irl). My theory is that they see themselves in Bahiyyih, who has that sort of same "underdog" image as Yeri from Red Velvet or Giselle in aespa - they're not the standouts of their groups in terms of Korean beauty standards or talent, which encourages support from people that sympathize with them. Bahiyyih is arguably one of if not the weakest vocalist, dancer, and overall performer in Kep1er. She's still awkward on stage, and she also unfortunately doesn't fit Korea's narrow beauty standards as much as other half-white idols have (e.g. her brother, Somi, Vernon).

She's not a particularly good performer, is racially ambiguous, is a little awkward, and is not conventionally "beautiful" to Koreans - and so she's become the self-insert for many i-fans, who see her as being someone that they perceive as achievable. They can be like her because they probably already possess aspects that she does. irl, they're probably not "popular" at school, are "quirky" but not in a particularly attractive way, and might not be conventionally attractive either. Bahiyyih being racially ambiguous also allows non-Korean or non-Asian fans in particular to see themselves in her, making her the ideal self-insert.

All this attention - from her brother, her cult fans, from i-fans, AND even from her haters - results in a huge amount of buzz around her name. That's also the reason why her fancams have at least 5x more views than any other member's thus far...

But that's just a theory. A GAME THEORY. THANKS FOR WATC- lmao jks. But seriously though, please don't send hate to her (or me). These are just my thoughts ❤️ and I'd be interested to know what you all think!

 

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On 1/7/2022 at 11:39 PM, StanSatan said:

No. Idk why you got clowned, that was actually an interesting take. But ultimately I would think that connection and money plays the biggest role.

What would be interesting is to see Giselle in a SM survival show that allows international voting. It would be easier to test this 'relatability' theory.  Since she isn't a sibling of anyone famous, and it wouldn't be a company support thing if it's a SM only show (like sixteen).

I don't want this to be rude, but for sm standards, objectively she doesn't have a skill that particularly stands out. Her dancing is weak, another contestant Karina can rap like her or better, and there's plenty of vocals. Some of the traditional visual contestants would get a pass for their lack of talent. Now, how much of the international votes would she reel in out of relatability? Would be interesting to find out.

I don't know why either, I thought I was being respectful but I guess some people didn't like my theory, which is fine xD

tbh with u, even as an aespa stan i agree re: giselle. for some reason, her dancing didnt stick out to me during black mamba, but i think it was only because they used a lot of backup dancers and she had very little lines & center, so my attention was constantly elsewhere. but in next level and savage, it was just the 4 girls so it became more obvious that her dancing was always lagging behind the other girls. i feel like most groups usually have 1 or 2 members that arent that great at dancing (even a dance-oriented group like itzy has lia) but because aespa has even fewer members, its just really noticeable when u have 3 girls with 4+ years of dance experience and 1 member that learned for less than a year. i was impressed with her rapping from her SYNK teaser when it first came out, but now that we have more material, i also feel that karina's rapping is a little stronger. even though theyre different songs, karina's rapping on "step back" rly impressed me, whereas giselle was underwhelming on "zoo". 

now that u mention it, i wish SM had done some sort of competition show instead of SM rookies - im not a super huge fan of competition shows because they necessitate cruelty (i.e. not everyone can debut), but SM ended up cutting like 90% of their female SM rookies from aespa's debut lineup anyway, so it wouldnt have made a difference in the end. if there had been a show like that, i still think karina would be the frontrunner (shes charismatic af and def center material), and winter and ningning would still have high placements - winter's a good all-rounder and ningning's vocal talent is undeniable. its interesting to speculate where giselle would be due to that relatability factor xD

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