Trainees are generally divided into two kinds: one is called non-public trainees, such as Sunny, JOY, and Winter, and the other is called open trainees, such as Girls' Generation, except for Sunny, the members are all famous public trainees of SM back then, and the others will not be counted one by one.
In the millennium when the Internet was just emerging, SM was very relaxed about the "online socialization" of trainees, and a large number of trainees at the same time as a teenager, many of them had their own social platform accounts, and Korea were very keen to play CYWorld (similar to QQ space) at that time.
When I was a trainee at the time, I often uploaded a lot of selfies on my CYWorld, and even let my familiar fans post their own selfies, and they would reply to fan messages, but they all logged out of their social accounts before their debut.
We see a lot of photos before their debut when they were young, most of them from the CY account they ran back then.
At that time, Lin Yuna, Zheng Xiuyan and Sun Anna, who had not debuted, were named "SM Three Beautiful Trainees" by Chinese netizens because of their beautiful appearance.
In addition to the voices of these trainees, their names, nationalities, dates of birth and other information are all well known to fans. In 04-05, China also began to have a lot of public trainee support stations, and these trainees have been out of the circle on a small scale before they debuted.
Since the early days, SM has liked to place his favorite trainees in the MVs and stages of artists to help them cultivate a fan base, and these people are regarded by the public as "debut escorts", the most famous of this period is DANA, and later the more famous Jung Yun-ho.
IN RECENT YEARS, SM HAS SIMPLY MADE MANY HIGH-QUALITY TRAINEES PUBLIC, AND ESTABLISHED THE SM ROOKIES PROGRAM TO ALLOW THESE TRAINEES TO TAKE UP THEIR POSTS IN ADVANCE.
Since almost all of the members of Red Velvet and NCT are born from the ROOKIES project, it is even more misleading to think that Gao Eun, HINA, LAMI, Seo Yeyang, Hyein, etc. will also become members of SM's fifth-generation girl group.
Who knows, in the end, none of these people debuted, and even if LAMI debuted, he debuted as an actor. The current SM no longer discloses the information of trainees in large quantities, and the trainees of the new girl group are either behind or wearing masks every time, which makes people feel very mysterious.
In an era when marketing is needed and information is more developed, SM is more conservative about being open to trainees. In the final analysis, in the era of streaming, although artists with a large fan base will be attacked by the public because of some details, let alone a trainee, it is not necessarily a good thing to disclose too much information or contact fans in advance.
So now, even SM newcomers are not allowed to open social platforms privately in the early days of their debut, so as not to breed trouble.
In addition, it seems that the popularity of the trainees can be better observed by the open trainees, so that they can bet on the power in the future.
However, the examples of the previous generation Kim Hyo-yeon and YERI have already told everyone that some people tend to be popular when they are trainees, but after their debut, they are overwhelmed by their teammates, and there is almost no possibility of their popularity rising after that.
Therefore, although the trainees are made public in advance, it seems that they cannot estimate their popularity in the future, and they cannot accurately predict the aesthetic orientation of the audience.
In the past, it was possible to make a large number of high-quality trainees appear in the music videos of active artists, which was done by various companies at the time, but now it is no longer a trend.
No matter how popular the trainees are, as long as the company's plan changes, they will be removed at any time, and it is better not to make it public.
SM's new girl group is about to debut, what style of girl group do you hope SM will launch?
-END-