An end of a K-pop era is here and I’m not sure if the timing was this perfect by chance or by design. SM Entertainment announced that three members of the current eight member girl idol group Girl’s Generation will not be renewing their contracts with the agency. Sooyoung, Seohyun, and Tiffany have elected to move on to different agencies, with Tiffany planning to go to the US for further studies and Sooyoung and Seohyun transitioning their careers into acting. GG debuted in 2007 and this being 2017 with the group is now effectively disbanded, making it exactly one generation worth of one of the most well known and popular girl groups ever shot out from the Hallyu manufacturing cannon to entertain the world. I’ll fondly the best of GG and am quite impressed the group kept chugging along after the first departure of Jessica in 2014. Good luck to the departing and remaining with SM members, life keeps going but they and we will always have memories of this wildly successful K-pop group.
Ten years of idol life, it’s long ! They were brave ! I understand they want to quit this style of life but I never was impressed by their acting… So I don’t know if it’s a good choice to leave SM because they have a great power in the korean industry.
Wonder Girls, KARA, T-ara, 2NE1, Girls’ Generation… an end of an era, indeed! I’m gonna miss them so much. They’ve been an inspiration to many young women out there.
I was expecting Tiffany since rumors about her entering university has been floating around for a while. I wasn’t expecting Sooyoung but she has stated before that she wanted to get marry at the age of 24, so I wouldn’t be surprised if there would be any wedding announcement soon. She’s also my favorite actress among SNSD, that’s why I wouldn’t mind her focusing with acting. Seohyun, on the other hand, was the most shocking. Period.
End of an era. But SNSD lost its essence already when Jessica left. And now that T-ara and 2ne1 have disbanded too, this era truly ended.
I am shocked with seohyun and I like sooyoung acting for a while now. I think sooyoung wants to settle down and idol life as a group will be hard to maintain if that’s her plan. I hope all the best for all of the m
i thk among SNSD Sooyoung is the most natural in her acting. and also has the most stable & disclosed relationship. I thk its a great time for her to start a new chapter, away from SM. I wasnt that surprise with Seohyun, she always seem the odd one out. And she wasnt allowed to express herself the way she wanted to due to so much SM restrictions. But shes better at singing than acting.
Sooyoung wants to act and get get established as an actor. SM treats her poorly and doesn’t support her acting like they do Yoona. So I can see why she’d go elsewhere.
Don’t know why people are surprised about Seohyun. She has spoke about her resentment toward SM multiple times. They rejected two huge roles (Architecture 101, Train to Busan) for her, tried giving her a concept she didn’t like for her solo album and prevented her from composing songs. If I were her I would leave at the first chance I get.
As for Sooyoung, it was expected. She and Jung Kyung-ho probably want to settle down and get married. Tiffany is getting alot of hate since the flag incident, and would likely not get any good opportunities if she stays in South Korea. I am more surprised with Yoona staying since she’s the most successful actress.
Like someone said before, SNSD truly declined musically after Jessica left. SM should let the girls experiment and do the music they like but idk why they didn’t. Wonder Girls did a good job with their self composed music and I am sure SNSD would do a good job given the chance.
I also agree that Tiffany will have a hard time after the flag incident.
I will admit not knowing anything about idols but I have always wondered why Sooyoung, Seohyun was never promoted as much as Suzy. I don’t think they lack anything in terms of looks or ‘talent’ compared to her. Was it because SM had too many pretty female idols to look after?
Sooyoung isn’t considered pretty in South Korea. In fact, Koreans think she is ugly and consider her “south-east asian” looking.
Seohyun has always been overshadowed by Yoona. Both similar image, but Yoona has been far more popular since their debut, and received more attention as the center/visual.
Anyway, it’s impossible that any female idol in SM to be pushed like Suzy. They value the “group over individual” mentality, and would not allow any single member to overshadow the group’s success. Suzy was so successful that people started scolding her group members for “leeching” onto her.
Thanks for your reply. This also explains why Yoona who is also very popular, in fact in most polls I’ve seen from Weibo is always number 1 or 2 and yet she never gets the same promotion as Suzy when her drama aired.
@Abc Weibo is a Chinese site, not Korean, so it’s not really the best measure of popularity if you want to talk about something like domestic drama promotion.
In Korea at least Suzy is on top so it makes sense there’s more buzz about her drama. Comparing the dramas themselves WYWS has more hype than TKL, so again it makes sense that there’s more promotion for it.
Personally while I do think SM prefers the “group over individual” mentality for their groups at the beginning, it doesn’t really apply to groups as old as SNSD. Taeyeon’s solo music career and digital sales completely overshadowed SNSD’S this year, which could hardly happen if SM were still thinking of “group over individual”.
@kpopfan, excuse you, about Sooyoung, even for South East asian she’d be considered ugly and common looking. look for Sam Pinto and Jennylyn Mercado, those are considered South East asian beauties, your Sooyoung would look like a toenail beside them, those girls mentioned even didnt go under knife but are natural face.
Suzy is not with SM
Everything will eventually came to an end however it is still sad to see them go but good luck to everyone. It’ve been a great pleasure to be able to listen to them sing for a decade.
It about time.
Nice to see them grow up nicely and spread their wings and go where they desire. Progression instead of some old idol groups especially male ones still prancing around…
next may be f(x)
Poor f(x) they haven’t produced any songs (or promoted as a group) in a while and I would consider them already disbanded and forgotten. SM really did a poor job with them and I think Red Velvet has essentially replaced them. At least Krystal has her acting career, Amber has a youtube channel and does some other social media type things, Victoria I think is acting in Taiwanese dramas, and poor Luna has had no exposure or promotion it seems.
Not really surprised. Some of those girls have been with SM most of their lives. I know SM did them dirty for their comeback, but they’ve been falling off for awhile. Would have been better go out on top like Sistar than stick around for longer than the public cared.
Yeah. Seohyun, like Yoona, has been training with SM since she was 10. I believe Sooyoung has also been a trainee since she was 12. But the group is iconic anyway you put it. Many of the girl groups that have debuted are influenced by SNSD one way or another. (Agencies are still debuting girl groups with default 8-9 members, who resemble SNSD in earlier concepts.) Even YG’s Yang Hyun Suk admitted in an interview last year that he wanted to debut a pretty girl group similar to SNSD but doing hip hop.
10 years is a long journey though I thought they could be last longer.
Not familiar with idol life but once they have serious relationship (and getting older), it will hard to be an idol.
Recently in Three Meals A Day, where Eric is casted, he talked that difficult to be an idol in his age especially when they’re not young anymore. For the girls, it will be harder since they will be a mother one day. It takes everything for survive. The company, the whole member and their vision of life. If no agreement, better separate in a good way.
Believe me, working as team for 10 years is admirable enough. I applaud them to be together this long.
I’m not surprised at all. I think after 10 years of dedication to the life as an idol it’s time to move on. New projects, new perspectives.
With Sooyoung: I can’t guess a celebrity’s private life but she has been dating Jung Kyung Ho for 4 years now, so I guess she may settle down now. Building her own career and getting married to Jung Kyung Ho. Or maybe not. Who knows? I would be happy for them either way. 🙂
I kinda saw this coming already but I would’ve wanted a more proper farewell from SM. SNSD only promoted their latest album, Holiday Night, for about a week. I’m sad that this is the end of the group but I wish the individual members all the best in their solo careers. They’ve achieved a lot as a group, even opened a lot of doors for other Kpop groups along the way, and now is the best time for them to try other stuff.
With the end of SNSD really comes the end of a K-pop era. They truly held the “nation’s girl group” title for so long and are one of the first groups that come to mind when you think of K-pop. Their legacy will live on forever and girl groups now and forever will strive to reach the success that Girl’s Generation had.
They haven’t really been the same since Jessica left the group after. I kinda thought they would get a bigger send off since they are K-pop royalty. No one can really blame these girls who devoted their teens and 20’s to a slave contract and to a company like SM that is creatively stifling be mad that they want to move on and pursue other avenues now though. I hope Seohyun and Sooyoung can be more open with choosing roles to grow their acting careers and in Seohyun’s case more creative with her music as well since she has writing credits for some GG songs. Tiffany is said to be going abroad to study acting but her acting always seems very forced and not natural, I thought like Jessica she may go into fashion or hosting as she is more natural as herself and is very good at interviewing people (also a plus for her is that she speaks fluent English).
Well all the best to the departing members and to the remaining members of GG, although it only seems like maybe Taeyeon and Hyoyeon will continue with their music careers, Sunny has her DJ career (although would she ever be able to leave as it is her family’s company?), and Yoona and Yuri will have acting as their fallback. Thanks for all the great songs, choreography, cool concepts, trends, and being trailblazers for K-pop!