I haven't talked about them yet, and now just seems like a good time.

I'm curious about everyone's opinions on aespa and their concept and whether they met your expectations or not.

I'm going to go a little in depth with this one because I have a lot of thoughts, including addressing some things people have been saying.

I don't think aespa is Karina and friends. I think Karina was heavily promoted as a marketing strategy, and reasonably so, since she's the center and face of the group. When people think Karina, they'll think aespa, not just her alone. I think people are giving her so much hate and spreading lies about her, which is sickening since she didn't even debut yet at the time.

Creativity? 2/10
The music video had so many similarities to other people's artworks, that it was too obvious. I mean it was aesthetically pleasing to watch, but damn SM is so allergic to giving credits (y'all remember the black woman who wrote Cherry Bomb and many other NCT songs and they only gave her less than $100?? How you have someone making bomb ass lyrics (pun intended) and you only giving her enough to buy a Gucci knockoff? Shady af).

Vocals? 8/10
I've gotta say that they DELIVERED on vocals. They all sound amazing and Ning Ning killed that high note.

Choreography/ Talent? 6/10
Honestly not impressed. I can see why Karina is the main dancer, she has better technique... and even hers could use work. I wished SM could've trained them a bit more in terms of dancing, I don't see the rush. To me, it makes the company look bad because why did he pick these specific members? Because they're all pretty or what? Because if you're telling me these are the best dancers they've got, then I've got a lot of questions. In the music video, they were so out of sync, and the backup dancers were so unnecessary and lacking in so many areas. The point of backup dancers is to make the dance stand out, yet it enhanced their inexperience. There were only two backup dancers that I liked. All the members could also work on their techniques. Karina's dancing was rushed at times, the synchronization was off, there was no teamwork. The choreography was cute and doesn't need an expert to kill it. I just think they need more practice and so it looks really rushed. I would've given it a 5/10 if they hadn't done better in the dance practice video.

Visuals? 10/10
They look like dolls. Beautiful. Gorgeous. Obviously beauty can go so far before the lack of talent becomes glaringly obvious. I am a fan, but I wished they had trained an extra year. They would've looked amazing if they'd done that.

Bias? Giselle
I don't know, something about her music video/ dance practice presence intrigued me. Plus, I've got a thing for rappers. I hope and pray that her rap isn't like Dahyun's kind of rapping (I love you sis, but that's fake rapping)

Concept? 6/10
Docking off points for creativity. I'm not mad that they took from K/DA though, I think it's cool to incorporate it into a real-life group. Also docking off points because they hardly showed any AI despite a lot of hype and promotion around it.

Storyline? 8/10
Creative. If you guys don't know the storyline, there's a quora post about it. Basically, the villian of the story (black mamba) lives in a virtual reality. She tricks Karina into releasing a virus into their computers. This virus allowed the black mamba to take control of Karina and infect their land with viruses. Because of this, the girls have lost contact with their AIs from the virtual reality and they're bringing an army to fight back and save their land as well as their AIs. At least that's a theory that makes a lot of sense if you look at the lyrics and MV.

Lyrics? 8/10
A lot of people said it didn't make sense, but a quora post broke it down and it's a lot more creative than you think. 8 for creativity. Also fits with the concept.

Stage performance? 6.5/10
*Based off of Music Bank Nov. 11, 2020 performance*
I give them credit for dancing in heels and making good eye contact with the camera. They were able to spot it easily and naturally, which is impressive for fresh rookies... and that's it. I don't know, I wasn't wowed by their performance. I could've done better and that's saying something. I wanted that sass they had in the dance practice, they killed it there. It just felt a little off.

Also I want to kindly assault their stylist for making them wear dresses and no shorts. I cringed seeing their underwear like bruh that's disgusting, please stop. They didn't work their ass off for years only to be sexualized now that's just plain disrespect. I also felt like the choreography would've looked better without dresses, much like the dance practice. It just looks more cohesive and y'all know the part before ayayayaya where they move their elbows? It just looks better with pants.

Anyways, stan aespa. I don't think they deserve ROTY, but obviously everyone would think otherwise simply because they're from SM.

Have a good day y'all.

Stan Hamilton while you're at it.

Also thinking of watching Vampire Diaries after seeing a compilation of Klaus and Caroline. Somebody convince me.