I've said so many times that the industry is oversaturated, I am very aware of it. So I thought I was prepared for anything when it comes to group & fandom names. I understand that every group will try to be unique and different. The thing is, I couldn't help but have high hopes that the next group name will be 'cool' and subsequently the fandom name will be 'pretty'. Obviously, my definition of 'cool' and 'pretty' influenced a lot by the western language, both the sound and meaning.

ENHYPEN? Ergh. I know that they tried to make the group name sounds cool but literally using the word 'hype' trying to get hype is kinda lame. It was confusing, too. They said the name means that the group would be like hyphens that connect two words to make new meaning, so is it enhypen ... or enhyphen? While it would make no difference when pronouncing both words in Korean because there is no f sounding consonant in their language, it would make a difference everywhere else in the world. I know they intentionally changed hyphen into hypen as a wordplay to also include the word 'hype' in the name, but I personally would like it better with the extra h. But okay, fine. I'll make peace with it. It's not awful and we'll get used to it.

And today we got our fandom name.... ENGENE. My reaction was WUT. I didn't submit any suggestions myself, but I did browse some fan suggestion lists just to prepare myself for what's coming, and NONE of them listed ENGENE, therefore, I was not mentally prepared. Just like the group name, it's not awful but still left a big question mark on our heads. Why. When they explained the meaning behind it, I was kind of offended lol. It's pronounced 'en-gene' so we're like the engines that keep ENHYPEN running. You're saying we're engines? Yes, I know we'll function as your ATM machines and hype bots in the future but isn't that a little too on the nose? I know, I know that they didn't mean it that way. Additionally, they also said 'en-gene' because we share the same genes. No, we don't. Go away lol. They addressed us as such two times already today and to every notification that popped up on my phone I said 'Ew, don't call me that'. I guess I hate it more than I thought.

Fans of boy groups are mostly girls, and as an old girl, I can say at least for myself that we like pretty things and we would love to be called pretty words. ENGENE doesn't sound pretty or cute at all to me, it sounds exactly like the word engine, and I can't imagine a cute engine. In fact, today ENGENE was trending on Twitter under 'technology' and not KPop.

However, if we take Korean culture and language into consideration, ENGENE is easy to pronounce in Korean, and there are a lot of common girl names that end in Jin like Yujin, Ryujin, Hyejin, Hyunjin, so it must've sounded a little cuter in Hangul? In Korea, it is also common to name siblings with the same first or second syllable, so it's nice to share the same 'EN' syllable in front of our names. It definitely makes the connection. It would be nicer if the next word is something prettier than GENE though, lol. Anyway, it has been decided and I'll make peace with it.

It has only been two weeks since the last episode of I-LAND, but it really feels like forever. We're getting updates here and there, haphazard spin-off contents, the fucking boring notes videos, awkward vlives, twitter posts, naver posts, weverse moments, but all of those combined still aren't able to replace the joy of watching a fully produced reality tv show. I'll be honest, without 'real' things to be excited about, the kids are boring. I'm bored. The kids are trying too hard to hide their presumably new hair colors and or style, it's getting on my nerves. And it's only been two weeks! We're getting something soon, I'm sure. In the meantime, I'll just go do something else and forget about all this lol.

During this pandemic, I've been obsessed with a lot of things fast, but they've only been able to catch my attention for a bit before the excitement wears off and I moved on to something else. I wonder if I-LAND/ENHYPEN is just one of them or whether this group will truly stay in my heart and mind.

I remember I also was obsessed with Stray Kids after their TV show, but now I'm just a casual fan. I watched Treasure Box and was very obsessed as well in the beginning, but the debut took forever and while I still do watch their contents, I'm just a casual fan. I also watched some parts of Undernineteen and PD X, but yeah. Maybe, my attention for groups formed by survival shows just doesn't last. It was exciting because of the TV show. Or my love for BTS is just too strong, nothing will be able to replace it. Plus, the fandom is currently enjoying the highest highs, with many achievements and overflowing content. I don't know if any other fandom will ever be able to take my full attention and love away from BTS.

Oh and actually, I've also been keeping an eye on everyone who is debuting this year, and one of the groups I'm quite excited about is DRIPPIN! I'm not familiar with Woollim Ent, to be honest, but I knew the kids from PD X, and I watched their YouTube stuff and they're such a fun group of people! Their contents are much more fresh and interesting to watch due to their personalities. Even Junho who was told he lacked expressions is much more lively and fun now. Hyeop is just loud. Yunseong is such a good leader, I love him, And I've always been fascinated by polyglots, so getting to know Alex, the maknae, has been wonderful. I love him already. His background! His mom is a Korean who works as an interpreter, and his dad is German.

This actually just reminds me of one more thing that bothers me about ENHYPEN. They keep saying that they're a global group, and that's also the premise of the whole show, and we can see CLEARLY that there are more English comments in ANY of the twitter posts or weverse or VLIVEs, but they did not even try to talk to us in English??? Like, almost at all??? This bugs me to no end.

Now I can sleep peacefully.

It took a lot of mental preparation for me to face today. I took a day off and painted my walls during the day to calm down. The result is great, the process was easy and it's now exactly how I envisioned it to be, just a little too yellow (?).

The final show was too long. I didn't watch part 1 so I neither know nor care about these other characters. The Into The I-LAND performance was good, though. The kids looked amazing with proper stage make-up and outfit.

My point of this post is: I'm very happy with the debut line-up. Jake made it, Sunghoon made it, 2002 line all made it, and that was enough to give me peace of mind. The group consists of kids born in 2001 - 2005, it's cohesive, it makes sense. I said in my prediction, it's either go up in age with K or down with Niki and can't be both. Because if both make it, the age gap becomes a little too wide (7 years, for a 7 members group).

I'm actually grateful I did not watch the show from the beginning and invested more in K. Otherwise, I would be devastated today. I know he is very capable & talented, he was constantly in I-LAND (never the GROUND) and got the best score several times. It just didn't work for him in the end.

Oh, and the group name ... I'll make peace with it.