ITZY Became Controversial AF, but What Really Happened?

It's no secret that K-pop has been the biggest music genre in recent years, with bands like BTS and BlackPink breaking streaming records, selling out world tours and making more people fall in love with their music with each passing year. However, due to the increased exposure, K-pop has become quite a competitive genre, as many bands have begun to fight for their time in the spotlight, either cementing themselves as music icons or disappearing forever.

And while the girl group ITZY is still quite popular, it seems that they are already losing momentum with fans as more and more controversies plague this once successful group.

A reason to hate

Just a few years ago, ITZY were hailed as the best new band in K-pop thanks to their fresh production, interesting videos and hit songs. However, fans soon began to hate on ITZY, all because of another popular band - aespa.

Both bands shared the same level of freshness, and both began their popularity by destroying the girl band stereotypes once imposed by BlackPink. However, it was clear that only one new girl band would become the best, and aespa did everything in their power to deny ITZY a chance at global stardom.

So when aespa's song Savage became a huge hit while ITZY's anthem Loco struggled to reach any kind of audience, fans began to ridicule the band for their decline and underperformance, starting a real hate campaign in the process. From that point on, ITZY were often referred to as a train wreck of a K-pop band, even though they were still making music.

Because of this perception, the band's album Checkmate ruined their once promising career for good, as it was objectively not great. If fans hadn't already ridiculed ITZY for falling off the wagon in the months leading up to the release of an album, people would have forgiven the lack of quality songs on the band's LP, but unfortunately it became the final nail in ITZY's coffin, cementing the band as a total disappointment.