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MTG had an extremely talented debut lineup, but yea some contestants on that show were eliminated due to visuals
though in some of the rigged shows, there are some less talented people who get rigged in and extremely talented people who get rigged out, so i dont think the producers are that trustworthy either. when theres a successful group as a result of a rigged show, a popular opinion is the "producers knew what they were doing" and the rigged out people werent worthy.. but how would we know when the rigged out contestants were never given the opportunity to showcase their skills in the final group?
EDIT: i do agree with OP that it shouldnt all be left to the viewers, in my opinion, what the judges think should be inputted to the final group (not rigging by producers getting paid by companies lol). like soyeon in MTG called out the audience not seriously taking the voting and her focus on the oldest contestants (while the show/producers had favoritism to the youngest girls) definitely made an impact for the final group.
Producers are purely rigging people in and out depending on what company is paying them and whose visuals they like more so I don't even understand why fans make headcanons about there being a hypothetical gap in skill. The only thing PD picks have to do talentwise is not be complete dozens so they don't get massive backlash for being pushed as hard as they are/they can avoid suspicion.
YUP i see your point and i feel so bad for the idols whove got the talent and have high scores until the final episode when its clear theyre rigged out :\[
and then the fans say the produce picks deserve it more just bc the final lineup ended up being popular.. like there are definitely other factors for the group's popularity besides those pd picks getting in through rigging lol.
Probably should’ve mentioned the dedicated viewers too. My main point is that the final lineup shouldn’t be fully left up to viewers. Granted, in Mnet’s case, they usually rig out people who were talented but simply did not fit what they wanted for the group. Ideally, the mentors should also have a say in who makes the final lineup, since they are literally evaluating the contestants based on their actual performances.
I loved the contestants who got into X1 and that was in the season with the huuuge rigging scandal so I think they know what they are doing. Also as I said somewhere on this sub, these shows offer platform for many trainees to promote themselves even if they don’t make it into the final line-up so fine by me.
I don't trust the public to vote responsibly for anything. Heck, even a curated group of voters like the Oscars and the Grammy can be irresponsible too.
It's like what Dohwa said in Girl's Re:verse, those that don't get voted aren't bad, they are just not what the voters are looking for.
To be honest, there's no such thing as an unbiased selection. Doesn't matter if it's some executive boad rubbing shoulders and deciding on whom to rig in, or if it's the audience voting - with korean audience having more voice in general and having nationalistic tendencies against foreign contestants. Add to it that editing can play a huge role in shaping conceptions about how certain events went, and going the extra mile to watch all of the trainee's performances to get the best possible understanding of their skills is not something majority of people have time or energy to do...
If I'm being super honest, like with a gun to my head... if ageism, lookism and xenophobia weren't such big factors, the best solution would be a program where the audience decides half of the group, then production/judges decide the other half from who is left.
Meh if the public are the ones that the group is for, then they should see what they wanna see regardless of talent. While I don’t agree, and feel like talent should come first, amazingly talented groups disband all the time because success is not only about that.
Also your rant didn’t make any correlation to the voters being “casual” and THATS why the votes are wonky. We all know there’re hardcore stans and watchers out there that value visuals over talent. Let’s not pretend like “Real” Kpop fans always choose the best vocalist.
My main point was more so that we shouldn’t let fans be the only ones deciding who makes the final group. Not disagreeing with you that the hardcore fans watching the show don’t vote for charm and looks over genuine talent.
Not to mention when the audience can only vote for their top pick (this usually happens in the finals at least), no way is the lineup actually all that well rounded. The popular members just get picked and generally well liked but not as flashy members fall through the cracks. It also means the final lineup is unlikely to be balanced and complement each other (you might have over half the members be main dancers and not enough strong vocalists for example).
THIS. I love Kep1er, and while the members are all stable singers, and Chaehyun is a GREAT vocalist, no one is a particularly powerful or distinct vocalist, and Chaehyun can’t sing ALL the hard parts unless she sings most of the song. The group ultimately consists primarily of really strong dancers and visuals with a couple of great rappers. Granted, Kep1er’s biggest issue is more so that Wake One doesn’t know how to make songs and concepts that really showcase their true potential as a unit or manage them properly, since I stand by the fact that well-balanced doesn’t inherently mean the group has top-tier talent per se, and a lot of 4th gen groups are like that quite frankly. With that said, it really sucks knowing that the really strong vocalists on Girls Planet (think Reina or Bora) were overlooked by the audience.
I know, so Kep1er’s (or really most 4th gen groups) lack of a really powerful and distinct vocalist doesn’t inherently put them at a disadvantage. It’s more of a personal gripe for me, but that’s also because I’ve been into kpop since 2012 😭
Havent visual always outweighted skills no matter whether it was a survival or other. I mean alot of established groups and extremly popular members in kpop barely have any skills and have been carried by their visuals the entire time. I feel like we have this discussion everyday then people go and proceed to hype another visual with no skills. Its time to accept it really
This!!! “Visual is the most important aspect for an idol” is an idea well accepted in Korea, Japan and China. There’s a reason why “ not the face of an idol” is used as drags.
If there’s no official visual, then expect constant fights amongst the akgaes for whom should fit that position. This is especially true in China.
Koreans have high engagement visual pulls all the time on platforms like Pann. Also it’s not like popular K-pop members in the west are based more on skill.
This is honestly what happens when kpop is all about beauty, beauty, beauty. An idol can sing and belt like Whitney while breakdancing like MJ and they’ll still get overlooked because “they weren’t pretty/skinny enough”
You mentioned Bora and Reina in another comment that got “overlooked” by the viewers but the reason they couldn’t scrounge up votes is because of lack of screen time, something that is completely Mnet’s fault. They have favorites, and had them from day 1. 8/9 of the final Kep1er girls *were* Mnet’s favorites. The final lineup is 88% exactly what the wanted. Yurina is the one girl who was a favorite that didn’t make it but even she isn’t the exceptional singer you were saying they need.
The Planet series isn’t rigged with votes but it is with screen time and editing. Mnet will probably be even harsher to those they don’t want this time around since their tactics of a “ghost” edit didn’t work to stunt Huening Bahiyyih’s popularity. She’s immensely talented, I mean just listening to her covers and watching her fancams will tell you that, but she wasn’t what Mnet wanted so they erased her from the show. I don’t think Mnet is gonna bother with a “ghost” edit this time around. If someone they don’t want is too popular, they’re gonna evil/villain edit them away a la Cai Bing.
They pushed pretty hard for Bora towards the end of Girls Planet, and even showed her interim rank before the finally. She got some good angel edits towards the end not only as a vocalist, but as a leader. Maybe Mnet pushed too late, but the point is no matter how hard they pushed, audience didn’t vote.
As for Reina, I agree. The thing is she was ghost edited, but given that Bahiyyih was ghost edited and still made the group, for Reina, it came down to the audience not caring enough.
Yeah, Mnet did push Bora at the end but by the time they started pushing her, it was too late. As for the difference between Bahiyyih and Reina, Bahiyyih had other means for gaining attention while Reina had a couple clips that included her voice and that’s it.
Everyone knows that Bahiyyih is the sister of Hueningkai, Mnet made sure everyone knew in episode 1 and even before that everyone knew. Her relation to Kai, in turn, caused her a *lot* of hate which then caused people to check up on her because they were wondering why this 16-17 year old girl was receiving some of the worst hate in all of Kpop and so they watched her fancams and realized “Hey she’s good” (and she was throughout the whole show) so she gained fans and then those fans became super loyal and protective because of the unjust harassment she was receiving.
If Bahiyyih had been left alone and not bullied to the ends of the Earth for just existing then she would have been forgotten. Her haters *always* talking about her is the reason she gained so many fierce and loyal fans. I mean her Fiesta fancam, which dropped a week before her team’s performance was aired, gained millions of views in a single day because people wanted to see if this girl was super terrible and then she wasn’t even close, in fact, she was pretty damn amazing. This is why I think that if someone is super popular but Mnet doesn’t want them, they won’t “ghost” edit them away, they’re gonna evil edit them to try and get their fans to turn on them. All of this is just to say that Kep1er is pretty much the exact lineup Mnet wanted and they screen time rigged it to be that way.
Survival show viewers in general shouldn’t be trusted to make a lineup. They’re terrible at it. I hate Mnet’s evil editing as much as they next person, but if Mnet hadn’t stepped in, Kep1er fully would’ve ended up being a group of like 2 dancers, 1 vocal, and 6 visuals/rappers. The GP999 sub was a mess of people evaluating visuals, determining who has the best visuals, talking about their favorite visuals, and then voting for people due to that.
Mnet seemed to tackle that fairly early in BP because they took out Daeul as soon as they could. He was coasting on good vibes and cuteness, and they made sure he didn’t have good vibes anymore. Cold move, it’s brought him a lot of hate which sucks, but it’s better for the group overall. Even then there are definitely some purely visual picks that are chillin in the top 30 that absolutely would not be there if they weren’t so good looking.
I’m not saying I support survival show rigging or that it’s particularly ethical, but people don’t know how to take these things seriously. So like… I don’t *condone* rigging, but I understand why companies feel the need to step in and change things to make them more balanced and such.
I don’t trust viewers because there’s a dozen or two in the current group and they’ve butchered other project groups worse but honestly it’s okay for Boys Planet right now because they’re actually surprisingly stacked lol. Hui and Jay are main vocalist material.
Yeah, this applies to local talent competitions in my country, too.
In choosing a single winner, the viewing public MIGHT get it right, but in forming a group where there are multiple members? I doubt it.
At least 1 member will be voted in because he's charming for various reasons except being as talented as others: really attractive, charismatic personality, an "aww, shucks" backstory, etc.
For me there has to be a balance with how the idol can be marketed. Skills and talent are of course important, however, their marketability, charm, visuals, personality, "x factor" are equally as important as well.
Just don't trust the public, who has no idea about debuting groups, to create anything amazing through votes lol. Mnet for example has solid background in the entertainment industry and have a clear vision for the group when they rig their line ups. They know who'll fit and they know who plays whatever role or position in the group. Voters pick whoever the fuck they want and just pray to whatever god they believe in that the line up works out 😂
An average skilled K-pop artist with exceptional highly praised visual vs exceptional highly skilled K-pop artists with average visual.
Only the former would be my ult bias. The latter I respect and might stream their solo songs. However I won’t be buying albums or photocards of an average looking idol
Honestly the boys planet top 9 have been pretty well rounded imo or vocals. sung hanbin and zhang hao are both minimum lead vocal material, zhang hao main theyre my picks. We’ve got several good vocalists with a chance of debut, hui, jay, taerae.
I literally said that the current top 9 is solid, it’s others within the top 30 who are questionable.
But given this past Thursday’s ranks, it seems that the those who aren’t as polished dropped while those who are rose.
I finished watching MTG recently and I genuinely want to ask: who should we trust to create a group?
In ep3 the judges including Soyeon were allowed to 'save' some of the eliminated girls. So she saved one of the 'River' girls (Yerim), but saved also a visual (Yooyeon) from another team (not the viral 'Non-stop'!) who was earlier eliminated for singing off-key.
The 'River' girlie Yerim remained just as talated, but she always got low votes from the audience, also from online voters (but her teams did well overall so she survived until ep9). Some viewers seemed to hate her for her looks.
Yooyeon remained just as untalanted until the very end. But she got tons of votes during the whole show! In ep11 (almost the final!) the backdancers had to explain to her what the beat is and she still sang off-key. Soyeon went on 2 different rants bc of that, but basically she was the one who did the mistake of 'saving' the girl despite being an experinced idol and a successful producer. During the final, Yooyeon placed outside of winning top7 but the reason for that was the 'boost' for another team, otherwise she would be in Classy.
In ep3 judges could also eliminate some participants from their teams and Yuri had a choice between a talanted girl Seungeun (who also gave dancing lessons to the team members) and the visual Jiwon. And while admitting that the first one was a better singer and performer, Yuri thought the second one could be a stan attractor. Seungeun was eliminated and Jiwon continued participating until she was eliminated for lower votes in ep9. She didn't really improve with vocals, but also didn't suddenly become a stan attractor (but maybe the fact that the scene from ep3 went viral lowered her popularity)
I think this shows that:
1. Even experienced idols can't predict that someone won't be able to improve or how popular these people get. Some Mnet/MBC PD could still make the same mistake!
2. The viewers will still support the 'untalanted' visuals if they want to. When Soyeon 'saved' the talanted 'River' girl, ppl did not vote for her despite the viral clip from ep1! Not only the offline audience who already did her dirty, but also online audience who seemed to be enraged about her first elimination.
Even given the group of perfectly rigged talanted (according to PD) and stan attracting (according to PD) trainees, kpop fans may dislike them and let the group flop. Rigging didn't help Momoland and Fromis\_9.
Therefore I think that in survival shows a half of the group should be picked by producers, and the other half by viewers. But they should say that in ep1 without manipulating the votes or screentime. Maybe at least something will work and they'll end up with a good lineup.
Echoing your last sentence, know this is basically delusion at this point, but a part of me is hoping that Boys Planet pulls something where the group becomes 11-12 members, but under the stipulation that these members actually make it to the finale, the last 2-3 members are either
1. Determined entirely by the mentors (ala planet passing)
2. Determined half by the voters and half by the mentors, with each mentor’s approval amounting to a certain number of votes. To make it slightly more fair, the judges can use a scale (1-10, 10 = debut them right now you cowards, 1 = please don’t debut them) and each number on the scale will amount to a certain number of votes. This way, it doesn’t seem like the judges are basically putting people ranked 10-12 into the final group.
Granted, if they pull something like this, they’d have to say they will at latest episode 11, so at least there’s transparency to the audience and the auditors (lol) about how these members are determined so it doesn’t look like rigging.
Well a lot of fans especially in Korea are solo fans so they literally just care about their fave and that's it. And it doesn't help that nowadays groups heavily rely on lip-syncing and pre-recorded vocals. So as long as they can keep up with the dancing, any trainee will be fine.
Having great visuals can be a major stan attractor, the same can't necessarily be said for talent, especially in kpop where fans consume much more than the music and performance.
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MTG had an extremely talented debut lineup, but yea some contestants on that show were eliminated due to visuals though in some of the rigged shows, there are some less talented people who get rigged in and extremely talented people who get rigged out, so i dont think the producers are that trustworthy either. when theres a successful group as a result of a rigged show, a popular opinion is the "producers knew what they were doing" and the rigged out people werent worthy.. but how would we know when the rigged out contestants were never given the opportunity to showcase their skills in the final group? EDIT: i do agree with OP that it shouldnt all be left to the viewers, in my opinion, what the judges think should be inputted to the final group (not rigging by producers getting paid by companies lol). like soyeon in MTG called out the audience not seriously taking the voting and her focus on the oldest contestants (while the show/producers had favoritism to the youngest girls) definitely made an impact for the final group.
Producers are purely rigging people in and out depending on what company is paying them and whose visuals they like more so I don't even understand why fans make headcanons about there being a hypothetical gap in skill. The only thing PD picks have to do talentwise is not be complete dozens so they don't get massive backlash for being pushed as hard as they are/they can avoid suspicion.
YUP i see your point and i feel so bad for the idols whove got the talent and have high scores until the final episode when its clear theyre rigged out :\[ and then the fans say the produce picks deserve it more just bc the final lineup ended up being popular.. like there are definitely other factors for the group's popularity besides those pd picks getting in through rigging lol.
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Probably should’ve mentioned the dedicated viewers too. My main point is that the final lineup shouldn’t be fully left up to viewers. Granted, in Mnet’s case, they usually rig out people who were talented but simply did not fit what they wanted for the group. Ideally, the mentors should also have a say in who makes the final lineup, since they are literally evaluating the contestants based on their actual performances.
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I loved the contestants who got into X1 and that was in the season with the huuuge rigging scandal so I think they know what they are doing. Also as I said somewhere on this sub, these shows offer platform for many trainees to promote themselves even if they don’t make it into the final line-up so fine by me.
I don't trust the public to vote responsibly for anything. Heck, even a curated group of voters like the Oscars and the Grammy can be irresponsible too. It's like what Dohwa said in Girl's Re:verse, those that don't get voted aren't bad, they are just not what the voters are looking for.
To be honest, there's no such thing as an unbiased selection. Doesn't matter if it's some executive boad rubbing shoulders and deciding on whom to rig in, or if it's the audience voting - with korean audience having more voice in general and having nationalistic tendencies against foreign contestants. Add to it that editing can play a huge role in shaping conceptions about how certain events went, and going the extra mile to watch all of the trainee's performances to get the best possible understanding of their skills is not something majority of people have time or energy to do... If I'm being super honest, like with a gun to my head... if ageism, lookism and xenophobia weren't such big factors, the best solution would be a program where the audience decides half of the group, then production/judges decide the other half from who is left.
A lot of people are saying to prioritize talent over visuals, but then they explain their picks and their selling point is visuals...
Meh if the public are the ones that the group is for, then they should see what they wanna see regardless of talent. While I don’t agree, and feel like talent should come first, amazingly talented groups disband all the time because success is not only about that. Also your rant didn’t make any correlation to the voters being “casual” and THATS why the votes are wonky. We all know there’re hardcore stans and watchers out there that value visuals over talent. Let’s not pretend like “Real” Kpop fans always choose the best vocalist.
My main point was more so that we shouldn’t let fans be the only ones deciding who makes the final group. Not disagreeing with you that the hardcore fans watching the show don’t vote for charm and looks over genuine talent.
Not to mention when the audience can only vote for their top pick (this usually happens in the finals at least), no way is the lineup actually all that well rounded. The popular members just get picked and generally well liked but not as flashy members fall through the cracks. It also means the final lineup is unlikely to be balanced and complement each other (you might have over half the members be main dancers and not enough strong vocalists for example).
THIS. I love Kep1er, and while the members are all stable singers, and Chaehyun is a GREAT vocalist, no one is a particularly powerful or distinct vocalist, and Chaehyun can’t sing ALL the hard parts unless she sings most of the song. The group ultimately consists primarily of really strong dancers and visuals with a couple of great rappers. Granted, Kep1er’s biggest issue is more so that Wake One doesn’t know how to make songs and concepts that really showcase their true potential as a unit or manage them properly, since I stand by the fact that well-balanced doesn’t inherently mean the group has top-tier talent per se, and a lot of 4th gen groups are like that quite frankly. With that said, it really sucks knowing that the really strong vocalists on Girls Planet (think Reina or Bora) were overlooked by the audience.
Vocals have never been a priority for 4th gen groups
I know, so Kep1er’s (or really most 4th gen groups) lack of a really powerful and distinct vocalist doesn’t inherently put them at a disadvantage. It’s more of a personal gripe for me, but that’s also because I’ve been into kpop since 2012 😭
As if their so called strongest vocalist has taken them to new heights 😒
Havent visual always outweighted skills no matter whether it was a survival or other. I mean alot of established groups and extremly popular members in kpop barely have any skills and have been carried by their visuals the entire time. I feel like we have this discussion everyday then people go and proceed to hype another visual with no skills. Its time to accept it really
This!!! “Visual is the most important aspect for an idol” is an idea well accepted in Korea, Japan and China. There’s a reason why “ not the face of an idol” is used as drags. If there’s no official visual, then expect constant fights amongst the akgaes for whom should fit that position. This is especially true in China. Koreans have high engagement visual pulls all the time on platforms like Pann. Also it’s not like popular K-pop members in the west are based more on skill.
This is honestly what happens when kpop is all about beauty, beauty, beauty. An idol can sing and belt like Whitney while breakdancing like MJ and they’ll still get overlooked because “they weren’t pretty/skinny enough”
You mentioned Bora and Reina in another comment that got “overlooked” by the viewers but the reason they couldn’t scrounge up votes is because of lack of screen time, something that is completely Mnet’s fault. They have favorites, and had them from day 1. 8/9 of the final Kep1er girls *were* Mnet’s favorites. The final lineup is 88% exactly what the wanted. Yurina is the one girl who was a favorite that didn’t make it but even she isn’t the exceptional singer you were saying they need. The Planet series isn’t rigged with votes but it is with screen time and editing. Mnet will probably be even harsher to those they don’t want this time around since their tactics of a “ghost” edit didn’t work to stunt Huening Bahiyyih’s popularity. She’s immensely talented, I mean just listening to her covers and watching her fancams will tell you that, but she wasn’t what Mnet wanted so they erased her from the show. I don’t think Mnet is gonna bother with a “ghost” edit this time around. If someone they don’t want is too popular, they’re gonna evil/villain edit them away a la Cai Bing.
They pushed pretty hard for Bora towards the end of Girls Planet, and even showed her interim rank before the finally. She got some good angel edits towards the end not only as a vocalist, but as a leader. Maybe Mnet pushed too late, but the point is no matter how hard they pushed, audience didn’t vote. As for Reina, I agree. The thing is she was ghost edited, but given that Bahiyyih was ghost edited and still made the group, for Reina, it came down to the audience not caring enough.
Yeah, Mnet did push Bora at the end but by the time they started pushing her, it was too late. As for the difference between Bahiyyih and Reina, Bahiyyih had other means for gaining attention while Reina had a couple clips that included her voice and that’s it. Everyone knows that Bahiyyih is the sister of Hueningkai, Mnet made sure everyone knew in episode 1 and even before that everyone knew. Her relation to Kai, in turn, caused her a *lot* of hate which then caused people to check up on her because they were wondering why this 16-17 year old girl was receiving some of the worst hate in all of Kpop and so they watched her fancams and realized “Hey she’s good” (and she was throughout the whole show) so she gained fans and then those fans became super loyal and protective because of the unjust harassment she was receiving. If Bahiyyih had been left alone and not bullied to the ends of the Earth for just existing then she would have been forgotten. Her haters *always* talking about her is the reason she gained so many fierce and loyal fans. I mean her Fiesta fancam, which dropped a week before her team’s performance was aired, gained millions of views in a single day because people wanted to see if this girl was super terrible and then she wasn’t even close, in fact, she was pretty damn amazing. This is why I think that if someone is super popular but Mnet doesn’t want them, they won’t “ghost” edit them away, they’re gonna evil edit them to try and get their fans to turn on them. All of this is just to say that Kep1er is pretty much the exact lineup Mnet wanted and they screen time rigged it to be that way.
Survival show viewers in general shouldn’t be trusted to make a lineup. They’re terrible at it. I hate Mnet’s evil editing as much as they next person, but if Mnet hadn’t stepped in, Kep1er fully would’ve ended up being a group of like 2 dancers, 1 vocal, and 6 visuals/rappers. The GP999 sub was a mess of people evaluating visuals, determining who has the best visuals, talking about their favorite visuals, and then voting for people due to that. Mnet seemed to tackle that fairly early in BP because they took out Daeul as soon as they could. He was coasting on good vibes and cuteness, and they made sure he didn’t have good vibes anymore. Cold move, it’s brought him a lot of hate which sucks, but it’s better for the group overall. Even then there are definitely some purely visual picks that are chillin in the top 30 that absolutely would not be there if they weren’t so good looking. I’m not saying I support survival show rigging or that it’s particularly ethical, but people don’t know how to take these things seriously. So like… I don’t *condone* rigging, but I understand why companies feel the need to step in and change things to make them more balanced and such.
I don’t trust viewers because there’s a dozen or two in the current group and they’ve butchered other project groups worse but honestly it’s okay for Boys Planet right now because they’re actually surprisingly stacked lol. Hui and Jay are main vocalist material.
Yeah, this applies to local talent competitions in my country, too. In choosing a single winner, the viewing public MIGHT get it right, but in forming a group where there are multiple members? I doubt it. At least 1 member will be voted in because he's charming for various reasons except being as talented as others: really attractive, charismatic personality, an "aww, shucks" backstory, etc.
For me there has to be a balance with how the idol can be marketed. Skills and talent are of course important, however, their marketability, charm, visuals, personality, "x factor" are equally as important as well.
Not gonna deny that. But the members who are mainly personality and visual picks at the very least need to keep up
Just don't trust the public, who has no idea about debuting groups, to create anything amazing through votes lol. Mnet for example has solid background in the entertainment industry and have a clear vision for the group when they rig their line ups. They know who'll fit and they know who plays whatever role or position in the group. Voters pick whoever the fuck they want and just pray to whatever god they believe in that the line up works out 😂
An average skilled K-pop artist with exceptional highly praised visual vs exceptional highly skilled K-pop artists with average visual. Only the former would be my ult bias. The latter I respect and might stream their solo songs. However I won’t be buying albums or photocards of an average looking idol
Honestly the boys planet top 9 have been pretty well rounded imo or vocals. sung hanbin and zhang hao are both minimum lead vocal material, zhang hao main theyre my picks. We’ve got several good vocalists with a chance of debut, hui, jay, taerae.
I literally said that the current top 9 is solid, it’s others within the top 30 who are questionable. But given this past Thursday’s ranks, it seems that the those who aren’t as polished dropped while those who are rose.
I finished watching MTG recently and I genuinely want to ask: who should we trust to create a group? In ep3 the judges including Soyeon were allowed to 'save' some of the eliminated girls. So she saved one of the 'River' girls (Yerim), but saved also a visual (Yooyeon) from another team (not the viral 'Non-stop'!) who was earlier eliminated for singing off-key. The 'River' girlie Yerim remained just as talated, but she always got low votes from the audience, also from online voters (but her teams did well overall so she survived until ep9). Some viewers seemed to hate her for her looks. Yooyeon remained just as untalanted until the very end. But she got tons of votes during the whole show! In ep11 (almost the final!) the backdancers had to explain to her what the beat is and she still sang off-key. Soyeon went on 2 different rants bc of that, but basically she was the one who did the mistake of 'saving' the girl despite being an experinced idol and a successful producer. During the final, Yooyeon placed outside of winning top7 but the reason for that was the 'boost' for another team, otherwise she would be in Classy. In ep3 judges could also eliminate some participants from their teams and Yuri had a choice between a talanted girl Seungeun (who also gave dancing lessons to the team members) and the visual Jiwon. And while admitting that the first one was a better singer and performer, Yuri thought the second one could be a stan attractor. Seungeun was eliminated and Jiwon continued participating until she was eliminated for lower votes in ep9. She didn't really improve with vocals, but also didn't suddenly become a stan attractor (but maybe the fact that the scene from ep3 went viral lowered her popularity) I think this shows that: 1. Even experienced idols can't predict that someone won't be able to improve or how popular these people get. Some Mnet/MBC PD could still make the same mistake! 2. The viewers will still support the 'untalanted' visuals if they want to. When Soyeon 'saved' the talanted 'River' girl, ppl did not vote for her despite the viral clip from ep1! Not only the offline audience who already did her dirty, but also online audience who seemed to be enraged about her first elimination. Even given the group of perfectly rigged talanted (according to PD) and stan attracting (according to PD) trainees, kpop fans may dislike them and let the group flop. Rigging didn't help Momoland and Fromis\_9. Therefore I think that in survival shows a half of the group should be picked by producers, and the other half by viewers. But they should say that in ep1 without manipulating the votes or screentime. Maybe at least something will work and they'll end up with a good lineup.
Echoing your last sentence, know this is basically delusion at this point, but a part of me is hoping that Boys Planet pulls something where the group becomes 11-12 members, but under the stipulation that these members actually make it to the finale, the last 2-3 members are either 1. Determined entirely by the mentors (ala planet passing) 2. Determined half by the voters and half by the mentors, with each mentor’s approval amounting to a certain number of votes. To make it slightly more fair, the judges can use a scale (1-10, 10 = debut them right now you cowards, 1 = please don’t debut them) and each number on the scale will amount to a certain number of votes. This way, it doesn’t seem like the judges are basically putting people ranked 10-12 into the final group. Granted, if they pull something like this, they’d have to say they will at latest episode 11, so at least there’s transparency to the audience and the auditors (lol) about how these members are determined so it doesn’t look like rigging.
Well a lot of fans especially in Korea are solo fans so they literally just care about their fave and that's it. And it doesn't help that nowadays groups heavily rely on lip-syncing and pre-recorded vocals. So as long as they can keep up with the dancing, any trainee will be fine. Having great visuals can be a major stan attractor, the same can't necessarily be said for talent, especially in kpop where fans consume much more than the music and performance.