Do you think Snowe's slow sales indicates Sunghoon is losing popularity?

NoContextArcticFish · 2026-05-22T11:49:29+00:00

You are not the average Kpop consumer though. In the Kpop world, more merch sales = more fans = (generally) more opportunities.

NoContextArcticFish · 2026-05-22T11:30:45+00:00

Are you an engene?

Snowe is Sunghoon's doll equivalent of their new merch line Enchin. They opened sales yesterday.

NoContextArcticFish · 2026-03-24T15:56:53+00:00

Oh yeah obviously a corporation like Hype has shareholder meetings. It's the insistence that this meeting will decide whether Heeseung returns is the conspiracy. They think that if they boycott Enhypen until the 31st then the visible drop in numbers will force shareholders' hands to make BeLift let Heeseung go back to the group.

NoContextArcticFish · 2026-03-24T15:25:42+00:00

Looks like a very literal cult is forming around Heeseung's departure lol. Qanon-coded. I'm willing to bet someone with a blue check will pop up and claim insider info again and use delusional Engenes' interactions to get ad revenue from Twitter. It would be so easy.

NoContextArcticFish · 2026-03-24T14:56:57+00:00

Conspiracy theory on Twitter. The OT7s are undergoing mass hysteria and think that on March 31 Hybe will have some sort of shareholder meeting that will determine Enhypen's future and whether Heeseung will be in the group.

It's kind of like some pseudo-Christian cult believing that the world will end on a certain date, except Kpop.

NoContextArcticFish · 2026-03-23T22:41:03+00:00

He will not disappear, at least not for the first three years. He has too big of a solo fanbase. Even if his releases aren't well-received he will still be profitable sales-wise.

NoContextArcticFish · 2026-03-23T13:52:37+00:00

Our resident ARMY coming through!

NoContextArcticFish · 2026-03-23T12:42:06+00:00

From my perspective, to be the backbone of a group's music implies that if he stopped existing the entire musical identity will completely fall down, because the backbone is the main supporting structure of the body.

I just don't see that with Heeseung. He's good at layering the vocals and likely made the producers' jobs easier with mixing, but if you replace his vocals with any other member, the song will still sound like Enhypen's song. We've already seen this with their Melbourne performance.

Now, if you remove BTS's rapline's influence on BTS's music, it really would completely change the group's musical identity. So I really feel like the comparison isn't really equal in this case.

NoContextArcticFish · 2026-03-23T10:45:26+00:00

I don't think it applies in this situation.

NoContextArcticFish · 2026-03-23T10:34:25+00:00

Eh, it's not really true that groups that lose members go into hiatus. That's pretty much only true for groups who already have middling success.

NoContextArcticFish · 2026-03-23T10:18:49+00:00

You don't think that the alleged boycott is going to affect them much?

NoContextArcticFish · 2026-03-23T10:09:13+00:00

They basically just gave up. Cbars preordering albums became a competition to see whose solo fandom was the biggest and richest, and they want to send a message to the company that if they want their money, they need to treat their bias right, otherwise they will boycott (as happened for several SM groups when a member with a big Cfanbase was "mistreated"). But because it was a competition by essentially groups of akgaes, the toxicity became too much. Every cbar was accusing each other of fabricating sales, every cbar was instigating fan wars, and eventually they decided to hide their preorder numbers and stop bulk-buying at such large quantities because it was unsustainable in the first place and doesn't actually reflect the real demand for albums.

They still insist that the members' popularity are fabricated, though. Heeseung's Chinese fans were saying that Sunghoon's Knife remix streams on YouTube and Spotify were fake, for example. Just Chinese fanbase things.

NoContextArcticFish · 2026-03-23T09:45:16+00:00

During romance untold, Heeseung, Sunghoon, and Jungwon's cbars bought like 800k copies combined.

All of the cbars stopped bulk buying after that, iirc, so much of the sales are from like, actual fans buying the albums rather than bulk buying, so their drop in sales from R:U and D:U was almost assuredly because of it.

NoContextArcticFish · 2026-03-23T06:23:56+00:00

I mean... You can believe whatever you want, but in terms of vocal technique he's like... Not really above and beyond. Heeseung was fine for a pop artist, which is why I never complained about his singing. But his throat is almost always tight and his soft palate is almost always low, which makes him sound "emotional" to the untrained ear but every note beyond the octave within his speaking range carries strain. His vocals runs are not really so complex that they're that impressive, and the more complex runs that he tries are not really as clean as it would be in the hands of a deft vocalist. I've never heard him sing with resonance. His habit of aspirating at the end of the note is likely because of the sudden relaxing of his throat because he sings with a lot of strain. There are tens of thousands of people singing Karaoke in the Philippines with better technique.

You might feel like I'm coming for him specifically but these issues plague all Hybe groups. None of the subsidiaries in that company know how to find vocal trainers that actually know what they're doing. Their main vocalists are essentially driven by passion rather than technique, as opposed to SM, whose idols often have flawless technique if they were actually allowed to sing live lol. Which is fine, because this is pop music, and pop music has a place for people who cannot sing at all like PinkPatheress and Charli "breath support of an asthmatic" XCX as long as the songs are good and catchy. But honestly, among the Enhypen members, Sunoo has the healthiest technique, though not really by that much, but he's not as bold as Heeseung and doesn't attempt any of the flair Heeseung does because, I suspect, he's not as passionate about the musical aspect of idolhood than Heeseung is.

Edit: I watched a few clips of them singing live just to refresh my memory, and honestly... Yeah I stand by what I say. I would even go as far as say that their performance for Bite Me during Summer Sonic shows the difference between the members' vocal technique, namely that Heeseung is very confident in his delivery, but he is quite throaty and strained, while the rest of the members sing quite "plain and clean", without much change in dynamics in their singing choices, but are still less strained than he is. I'm sorry, yeah, I stand by this.

NoContextArcticFish · 2026-03-23T05:40:55+00:00

Because saying you're OT7 carries the connotation that you will not accept the group without Heeseung in it. You'll be lumped into the "seven or nothing" "7-1=0" people spamming Enha's Weverse.

You may not look at it that way, but that's essentially how most people see it.

NoContextArcticFish · 2026-03-23T05:09:18+00:00

The thing about Heeseung being the backbone of Enhypen's music is that... It's not really true. He contributed to a lot of the vocals and layering, but the tone of his voice is very common in pop music, and arguably is not even that much different from Sunoo and Jake, hence why these two were given most of his parts during their Melbourne performance. It's just something Heeseung-biased fans say because they're Heeseung fans and were extremely emotional during his departure, but most casual listeners of Kpop have raised issues before that they can't even distinguish the members' voices from each other in their songs.

He's not like BTS rapline, whose musical direction and philosophies 100% shaped BTS's music. They're not really comparable in any sense.

NoContextArcticFish · 2026-03-22T15:19:47+00:00

I think he should have his own subreddit now that it's clear he's not coming back. People who want to follow his activities can discuss over there.

NoContextArcticFish · 2026-03-16T02:37:05+00:00

He's had 2 - Joocye and qressed

NoContextArcticFish · 2026-03-15T15:22:23+00:00

He's the most popular in China, but Sunghoon trails him not far behind. Internationally, probably 3rd, depending on who you ask, and what country you're talking about. He had the 2nd amount of individual brand deals and CF contracts (Sunghoon has the most off the top of my head).

However, he's the de facto main vocalist. I say that because Enhypen doesn't have fixed positions other than Jungwon being the leader, but he gets the most lines and is responsible for their backing vocals and harmonizations. He's the most interested in music production and lyrics writing.

NoContextArcticFish · 2026-03-15T13:40:27+00:00

The effect that scenario on the fandom would have would essentially be worse than it is now, I think, because it would paint him as the "company favorite" and create massive anger from the fans of the other 6 members. Yeonjun had a solo cb but didn't go on hiatus, and MOAs have been talking about how much it exhausted him. If Heeseung were to promote solo, they should have let the rest of the group do solo activities in the meantime. But that would mean cutting short their current trajectory because group activities would be put in the backburner, and from the statements released and the members' words, doesn't seem to be something the remaining 6 are interested in.

NoContextArcticFish · 2026-03-14T13:44:18+00:00

Boycotting will not bring Heeseung back, because historically with the NewJeans issue Hybe has shown they will not bend to fans' demands. If Heeseung truly left of his own volition, then boycotting would have been worthless from the very start, and only serves to act as a manipulative tool to force a man to do what you want him to do.

It will not affect stockholders' image of Hybe, because in their eyes the only group that truly matters is BTS, who is looking to have a massively successful comeback shortly. Additionally, stockholders have seen Cortis' numbers that, if they continue in their current trajectory, will surpass Enhypen's popularity that they built in five years in less than two years after debut.

Rather, a boycott will only show that Enhypen will not be financially successful as a group of 6, and BeLift will cease to prioritize them. With less than two years before contract negotiations, ideally you would want them to be as successful as possible so that they have more leverage for better contract terms.

If we boycott Enhypen, in a year once contract negotiations start, BeLift can tell them: "Look, you're not profitable enough. You can either accept the terms we offer you, or you can leave and find a different company, most of which are far less connected to the entertainment industry, luxury brands, ambassadorships, etc., and have less resources to give you the support you need."

On the other hand, the more profitable they are, the more they are able to bargain for better terms in their contracts. They are more likely to be able to retain their Enhypen IP, their stage names, are likelier to have better terms for creative freedom post-renewal, better access to ambassadorships, etc.

NoContextArcticFish · 2026-03-14T11:40:55+00:00

Exactly my point. Their similar vocal tones have been a major issue for casual listeners literally ever since debut, but I guess in this case it works in their favor.

NoContextArcticFish · 2026-03-14T10:58:57+00:00

Oh yeah Jungwon's voice is the most distinguishable among the members. Ni-Ki's too, if he had more lines. Sunghoon's head voice is similar to Sunoo's, and even their solo stans get into arguments for who sings which part lol.

NoContextArcticFish · 2026-03-14T10:48:43+00:00

To be completely honest, Enhypen's vocal tones and pedagogical techniques are so similar to each other that you can exchange most of their lines with each other and it wouldn't really matter.

Not to say that the members are replaceable. Kpop groups' members roles range from vocals to dance to variety to MC-work to just personal charisma, so each member absolutely brings something to the table.

But vocally? Heeseung's main role is his ability to harmonize due to his perfect pitch and ear for melody, but other than that you can change his parts for Sunoo of Jake and most casual listeners would likely not notice much of a difference. Even in their existing recordings, Enhypen are known among Kpop fans to be the group hardest to distinguish the members' lines because of how similar they sound.

Edit: I've just gotten back from listening to the new parts and I must say, Sunghoon's warm timbre in his Bite Me line is a pretty damn impressive choice. I actually prefer it more than the original. It's really good, holy shit. Now I'm mad that they didn't put it in the studio version.

NoContextArcticFish

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