#how are they performing? intense choreo to let sh shine or a more laid back one?

[jongace]

ok let me try to be a little more coherent than usual and present my hot (or possibly lukewarm) take on all of this

people have noticed, sm doesn’t care about exo anymore.

as someone who’s a fan of several sm groups, i can say with a certain confidence that exo is sm’s biggest project, and for quite some time, their number one priority. they put immense amount of planning into debuting exo, and has since always put a lot of thought behind all of their comebacks (most of them, anyway). this has proven to be a success and exo have basically acquired legend status at this point. so now that the members are getting older and having to enlist, sm are in trouble. they are used to moving onto the next, younger and more relevant group once their old one has reached a certain point, but exo are still flourishing in popularity, and while the nct boys are popular they’re not really where exo were at that point in their career. so last year, exols were quick to notice exo getting a cold shoulder from sm for... a longer time, and when they finally had their comeback the promotions were inadequate. was this a deliberate attempt to make fans leave exo now that they’re going to lose relevance? makes you think 🤔

anyway, we could still expect some activity before the inevitable enlistments, right? a last comeback during spring 2019, or that concert that was hinted at in february? nope. rumours concerning a conflict between members of exo and sm surfaced, which imo seems pretty legit. think about ji for example, after jen/kai i’m sure he would’ve got a chance to shine, perhaps participate in a subunit (sky?) or finally get that solo that’s been hinted at for literal years. but no, he’s been uncharacteristically inactive. not to mention ksoo, who’s been absent for months only to finally drop the news that he’s enlisting early (and yes i know about the film, but in that case, why not enlist directly after their promotions ended? it’s like sm had more things planned for them).

anyway, the alleged beef seemed to put a stop to any full group promotions so sm had to take a step back and rethink their ideas. time for plan b: jd’s solo debut. i love him and i loved his album, but it all seemed like an afterthought. there was almost nothing there in preparation apart for the opening of his youtube channel, barely any efforts to create hype and music show promotions that lasted only for a week... jd was a safe card; someone out of the remaining members would have to go solo sooner or later and he’s the main vocalist, just let him sing some ballads and get that public recognition. another reason for jd being there “”first”” is that he’s the only who doesn’t have anything else going for him. unlike the other members he doesn’t act, doesn’t model, doesn’t have any other projects (like bbh and privé for example) apart from singing for osts which he already had released quite a few of, so a solo debut was really the only way for him to be promoted outside of exo. they threw him out there, played it safe and the ball was rolling. who’s next?

this irritates me so much because he deserved some proper promotions. as does chan/hun and bbh. i’ve been pretty sceptical towards a chan/hun subunit for some time, it feels like something sm threw together just to make more money out of exo when there are more members missing than before. bbh’s announcement didn’t really surprise me, but i’m annoyed at it being so soon. it’s like nothing is properly planned; they just throw solo and unit debuts out there as if the world is ending this autumn. i know neither of bbh or chan/hun are going to get adequate promotions if they’re all debuting in the same. fucking. month. as well as it being the same month as their concerts (featuring six members, i am so thrilled, thank you sm).

basically: sm doesn’t want to focus on exo or put maximum effort into their promotions due to them aging and becoming less relevant, but at the same time they know they bring in money so they still have to promote them during the enlistments. this results in many brief, half-assed attempts at securing a future for the currently active members and milking as much money from the fans as possible. exo fans are not used to exo being sm’s second, or third, or fourth, priority and people like me end up missing the old way of promoting exo through well-thought out comebacks and not random decisions made on the fly with little to no planning. really, as exols we have become so spoiled with good content and amazing comebacks so things like these make a major difference. thanks for listening to my whining.