OMONA THEY DID(N&#39;T)!

yeah there was a rumour last week from the same person who announced the 127 lineup but there's a new rumour every week so to have it come true so quickly is a shock lmao

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byeolbyeol.livejournal.com

now that i think of it, i think i saw something about "dream" something attached to nct's name somewhere recently but i brushed it off after this article came out on... sunday? monday? kst about sm being in the midst of prep for the china unit along with shinee / rv's comebacks. i guess they're going all out!! idk i can't keep up anymore

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anewtrilogy.livejournal.com

I really thought this rumour is fake sdkj i didnt expect it to be true at all... especially not so quickly

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kaypukis.livejournal.com

i need like 3minute to function again after i saw the update in nct vyrl about this.

damn, who would predict mark will be debuting 3times in a row? #markisfullycapableindeed

edit: what the hell happened with jisung haiir??? please2 let this kid debut with normal hair

Edited Date: 2016-08-18 05:41 pm (UTC)

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i hope mark is taking care of himself, boy's been working non stop the whole year.
jisung's had blonde hair for like 2 months now? i should have known lmao i thought he just wanted to try it out and someone let him

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ohlookshiny.livejournal.com

oh yeah the mystery of jisung's blonde hair is solved!!!!

i was more worried about taeyong and jae bc they seemed visibly tired during nct u promos and then they had yet another promo cycle. mark seemed ok and not too worn out but really 3 units in a row is too much. this is ridiculous. and he has had school as well. how does he even do it??

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they're still on summer holiday and i doubt they would have gone in anyway, with their schedules starting so early every day

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kaypukis.livejournal.com

and with his perfectionist and dilligent habbit, god know how much he prepared for all of these debuts :/

but i believe he will be not in china unit? so he can rest after this nct dream cycle promo over..

Edited Date: 2016-08-18 11:48 pm (UTC)

(deleted comment)

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he'll come. we already waited this long

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forsureyoudo.livejournal.com

im so damn mad ughhhh hes being fucked by sm

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how's that? he's gonna debut within the next 6 months if not earlier.

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ohlookshiny.livejournal.com

wth?????? is going on??? they're just babies sm stop this. they're cute and talented but. wth.

I CAN'T GET OVER THE AWFUL HAIR OMG

nct dream is such a nice name for a unit imo but the graphics on that poster... lol

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honey-baymax.livejournal.com

Ohhh so this is really happening. I love the mini rookies, so I support this. I feel like this is gonna be so cute, I won't be able to handle it.

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avrgaesthetics.livejournal.com

im hype!!!! all the nct comebacks! I love it!

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timetobegin.livejournal.com

'Mini rookies unit'? Does that mean all of the members are going to be 2002 line and younger??? Cause I'll have to pass then.

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99-02

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timetobegin.livejournal.com

I'm getting way to old for Kpop oh my goooood.

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Welp, I was on the cusp of stanning but I guess this is my cue to take a giant step back. I love NCT 127 + Ten and Doyoung, and the minis are adorable, but this system is a mess. I don't know what SM is expecting to accomplish by just churning out units one after another without giving any of them proper time to make an impression and stick.

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I mean you can just stick to stanning individual subunits instead of NCT as a whole, seeing as each subunit will have individual concepts anyway.

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lxvecrimes.livejournal.com

yeah exactly lmao

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That was my initial plan, but there's too much overlap and uncertainty with this system. I feel like I'd spend most of my stanning being frustrated because other units will affect NCT 127. If members take part in different units, how often can NCT 127 comeback? And how overworked are the members going to be? How is NCT 127 supposed to establish itself in Korea as the Seoul/Korean unit when SM is debuting different units one after another? And what even makes NCT 127 the Korean unit other than its name, given that NCT Dream and likely most other future units will promote in Korea too? And this system is ripe for crazy stan wars between stans of individual members and also between stans of the different units. Not worth it for me.

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sm has been promoting nct really well so far and 127 isn't going to stop promoting because of dream. they still have a bunch of (big) endorsements to come out and they deserve some rest too since some of them have been going for months. they'll just pass the torch to another unit to keep the nct name present with the public but i really don't think it's going to interfere with anything. anyone promoting in korea will be just fine. the foreign units tho i'd be worried about more given sm's past track record

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I don't know that I agree that SM has been doing well with NCT. The NCT system itself works against them as it's opposite of what fandoms build upon, and these units are just confusing most people. They aren't piquing interest, they're making a lot of people more inclined to dismiss them because they don't want to get involved with something so complicated and drawn-out. SM should be focusing on establishing NCT 127 and other city-based units before debuting concept/genre/whatever units like NCT Dream. Debuting different units one after another before any one of them is established doesn't accomplish anything. If they first properly establish NCT 127 then future units can build upon the brand name, but as of now one unit promotes, then they're gone before they've made any particular impact. Maybe NCT Dream will be able to create some buzz with their ages being so young, but then what? They end promotions then another different unit debuts and confuses people again?

I hope I'm being needlessly pessimistic but I just don't see any rhyme or reason in how SM is handling this system, and it's frustrating because they're working with such a solid pool of members with a lot of potential.

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Business-wise, NCT's concept can actually have potential to be a great moneymaker. With the different concepts they're churning out, they will appeal to a larger audience. If you enjoy the concept of one subunit, there's a chance you will become a stan of the members in that subunit. When some of those members carry over to a separate unit, there's a greater chance you will check out and support that unit as well. That's in fact what happened to several fans thus far. Some were drawn by NCT U others by NCT 127, but now many of them are drawn into the general fandom of NCT and will continue to support the brand. The whole mystique and speculative factor of NCT is a point of excitement for a lot of the fandom actually. You can tell from the amount of fan theories that goes around on SNS. If you follow NCT the concept isn't that confusing at all. Of course there's always that initial furor over the lineups, but people get over that soon like they did with 127.

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If it goes according to plan, yes, of course, but the issue is how risky of a venture it is and if it'll pay off enough to justify going with this experimental fluid system over more traditional fixed debuts that would have been more foolproof. What you describe is ideally how the system should work and what SM is banking on, with fans being brought into the fandom by one unit and eventually supporting others. And that course may very well work with those who do become fans, but how many fans will they actually manage to bring in when the system acts as a deterrent for many of those who are on middle ground? There are potential fans who are interested by the group or certain members look into them, learn about the system, and then make the decision to stay away because of the potential headache. Korean fans who have followed them since the Rookies days still aren't completely sure on what to expect with this system or how it's going to operate in the long-term.

And when will all the subunits debut, or what constitutes of "all" of them? I don't see a definitive end to this system going by what SM has revealed thus far. SM itself has referred to it as being ever-growing and that even they themselves don't know when it'll end in terms of expansion. There is no clear cut end and they can always introduce new trainees into the system and create new units, both city-based and concept/genre based. And even if every member is in only two fixed units, a city-based unit with a non-city based unit, that can still potentially lead to too-long breaks between comebacks. I don't see this being as much of an issue if it's done so once the fixed units are properly established, but as of now SM doesn't seem to be concentrating on establishing them. EXO vs BTS are two unrelated groups so while the petty fan fights are annoying, the potential annoyance of stan wars with NCT is that it'll be inner-fandom stans. It'll be fighting over who is in what unit or how many units and how the promo cycle of one unit will push back the promo cycle of another and how new members will be received and who or which unit is being favored. It'll be like the EXO-K/EXO-M arguments magnified tenfold.

Of course, I might be getting ahead of myself, I often do, but I'm a worrier by nature and I'm just a bit taken aback by NCT Dream. I expected the debuts of more units to elucidate the system, but it's just confusing me more as it shakes up my previous understanding of the group system, which had been fairly on the mark until now.

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Yes, there's always going to be people turned off to a concept. That goes for every group, whether it be because of the music, the members, or the "confusing" concept. It's not going to please everyone, but SM is willing to eat the losses because they are banking it will pay off in the long run. That's the entire point of an experimental venture. Like how capitalists invest in start ups even if they can't 100% guarantee it will profit in the long run. That's the nature of business. Business cannot stay stagnant or play it safe all the time, especially one as big as SM who can afford to experiment. Google for instance started as only a search engine, but now it make cell phones and self-driving cars. Or the iPad, which many people thought would utterly fail and people who swore it off because it seemed stupid but in the end it ignited a whole market of tablets since then. All experimental ventures that paid off eventually for them. NCT 127 has done pretty well so far even with their less than public friendly and non-traditionally SM songs and concepts. So it's not as if it's been an utter failure so far. NCT isn't really even very much out there for a concept.

SM has more than just the 15 smrookies. They have a pool of hidden trainees to choose from. They went heavy on the 15 known smrookies for the first two units because those members had previous visibility and that would be a better foot to start off on having subunits consisting of already known trainees. The units they plan to expand to reach in father regions doesn't have to consist of the members we already know of, so it doesn't necessarily mean all the members will be stretched thin. They can hold auditions and accrue an entirely new pool of trainees if they don't have them already. They already had advertisements for auditions in Thailand. These groups will be based in separate regions, so groups are able to have parallel promotion periods. The fandom wars will only be a problem in the initial period when the lineups are still in the air. And I suspect most of that will die down once Johnny and Hansol debut. NCT U and NCT 127 had typical promotion times. If anything NCT U added momentum to NCT 127's debut and helped establish NCT's brand even further. And NCT 127 will add momentum to NCT DREAM. SM's focus above all is the NCT brand. Especially with the whole 'debut JohnSol' ordeal and fandom worry about lineups it's good that they're getting a lot of these units out, which was already their initial plan at the beginning of the year. To release 4 subunits in 2016.

What part of NCT Dream is confusing to you? It's assumed to be just another Korea-based subunit.

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