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NU’EST’s journey as a group and the mistreatment by pledis from the beginning of their career until now - a thread:
To start off, NU’EST debuted with lots of hype. The hype for their debut was similar to that of EXO and B.A.P. NU’EST debuted in 2012 with FACE, a song about school bullying. FACE was the most watched debut MV until TWICE broke the record in 2016. +
After FACE, NU’EST’s next comeback was Action which did well for a rookie group. Both Face AND Action talked about issues in society from school bullying to self confidence. The fact that both songs did well just shows how pledis screwed them over. +
After Action, NU’EST released Hello which did well digitally but their physical sales began declining. They released Sleep Talking after, which charted much lower and their album sales continued declining. +
The reason for the decline in sales was because of the huge contrast in their concepts (the songs are in the video below). Pledis misjudged what concept the fans wanted to see and as a result fans left, resulting in drops in album sales. +
In addition, during this time period, NU’EST had many activities in foreign countries. Even though NU’EST had not gained a solid fan base in Korea yet, pledis sent them out to foreign countries multiple times which affected music broadcast activities. +
I’m not sure how accurate this list is, but this was a list of their foreign activities from 2012-2015 that was posted on fancafe. +
Then, suddenly NU’EST halted Korean promotions at the end of 2013 and started promoting as NU’EST-M in China with a new member, Jason. Fans had no clue that this was happening until the news reported it. Pledis didn’t say a word about this plan to fans. +
NU’EST-M was poorly managed and their Korean fan base didnt see NU’EST for several months, which led to more fans leaving the fan base. NU’EST-M never cracked into the Chinese industry and disbanded in 2014. Once again, pledis showed that they had no clue what they were doing. +
Groups like super junior-M had only entered the market bc they had two Chinese members and hangeng, who already had a significant following in China. NU’EST-M was basically a failure from the start even w/o poor management. +
After 10 months after their sleep talking comeback, NU’EST came back with a full album (Re: BIRTH) with the title track good bye bye. They were extremely hopeful for their comeback but their long break from Korea promotions had made many fans leave. +
Their album sales declined even though Re:BIRTH was a full album and good bye bye failed to chart digitally. In addition, during their promotions, JR and Ren were sent to Japan for an event and thus they couldn’t catch a music broadcast schedule. +
They didn’t promote much on music shows and they were sent back to Japan. Their times in foreign countries especially japan were just a whole mess. They were given cheap food from convenience stores, had to travel without a manager on a cab or subway for their broadcast +
schedules, fans were extremely touchy with them during fan signs in Japan (staff didn’t stop fans from taking such photos), and NU’EST were treated like mannequins or an animal at a zoo at events. At events, it would be raining and they wouldn’t cancel the event. +
NU’EST would do outdoor events even when it was winter and cold. Most times they weren’t even given enough clothes to keep them warm. During the summer, NU’EST had to do a selfie event and performance for about 12 hours outside. During events, there weren’t any set meal times +
or breaks. The breaks were given randomly. And for some events, the amount of fans would be unlimited so the event could continue for 12 hours. In addition, they were not allowed to speak Korean/English and as a result, NU’EST would subconsciously speak Japanese in Korea. +
When Baekho’s father was in the hospital, they forbid him to speak anything about it because it might ruin the event’s mood. Their Japanese promotions were an absolute mess. During these times, NU’EST had basically 0 Korea promotions and most of their fans had left. +
From the beginning of their career, pledis also poorly managed uploading their schedules. They would upload schedules after the schedule had already started. They would not notify fans about ticketing until much later. Even confirmed schedules changed dates or were canceled. +
Many times the schedules were canceled without a reason why, they were changed abruptly, the start time would be different, and fans would be very confused. Pledis has never responded to basically all these concerns showing they don’t care about NU’EST and their fans. +
During their Japanese promotions for over a year, the only thing that was released for their Korean audience was a digital single, weakening their fan base even more. During a concert in japan, JR said this (credit to the documentary made by @nuestness): +
In addition, NU’EST often wore their own clothes to events and sometimes didn’t even get their makeup done. Here is the full fancafe concerns. I’ve included most of them in this thread. https://twitter.com/limetree_nuest/status/731717954543357953
After a year and a half with basically no Korean promotions, NU’EST had a comeback with Overcome. The members were involved in every single song of this album (Q is). This was the first time they’d been so involved in the production of their album. However, Overcome did not +
chart digitally and their album sales continued declining. During overcome, there was a part where they made minhyun crawl through salt despite him having a salt allergy and thus he got rashes from it. +
Six months later, they came back with the title track Love paint for the album Canvas. Once again, they were heavily involved in the album processs. But, Canvas sold less than 3000 albums in their whole promotion cycle and the songs did not chart digitally. +
It had now been more than 4 years since they debuted. With no choice left, NU’EST halted promotions and joined produce 101. All members participated except Aron who was recovering from a leg injury. +
It was clear from the beginning of the show that NU’EST would’ve disbanded if they had not gone on produce 101. Pledis had given up on them. (Credit: documentary by @nuestness) +
From the beginning of produce 101, NU’EST was very stressed and their performance was heavily affected. In addition, NU’EST was criticized for “poor performances” and people thought it was unfair that already debuted idols with a fanbase were on the show. +
Despite mnet trying to evil edit them, each of them stood out for different reasons and gained fans. Minhyun placed in the top 11 and thus became a member of wanna one. Many produce fans were surprised that JR had not made it in the top 11 as he was extremely popular. +
Although it was supposed to be a happy time for minhyun, he cried as he was worried about his other members. On the June 17th 2017, NU’EST had a reversal. Their songs from years ago charted high on music charts. In addition, they became a trending topic for days. +
Due to the popularity, pledis decided to promote NU’EST as NU’EST W (Wait) with Aron, JR, Ren, and baekho, while minhyun promoted in wanna one. Their first album (w, here) as a unit did extremely well and achieved an real time all kill on music charts and sold over 200k albums +
in their first week. They achieved 1st on music shows twice (video below is first two wins). They won a bonsangs. And their two subsequent albums (who, you and wake, n) did extremely well as well. +
NU’EST W promotions were strong and it seemed like pledis was putting effort into them. However, once NU’EST started promoting as a whole again with minhyun, pledis has continuously showed their poor management. +
Despite NU’EST’s Instagram page having 1.1 million followers (more than their twitter page), NU’EST’s SNS staff failed to post about the comeback on instagram. The hearts are where they should’ve been posting about NU’EST comeback but they did not.
As a result, many fans had no clue that comeback was happening until after the comeback. In addition, Facebook was not update until a month after the comeback. Fans have not gotten subbed vlives since March except for a couple which were subbed by Vlive translators + https://twitter.com/desertfoxhmh/status/1273805872930701318
For their most recent comeback, we only got one variety show appearance with all the members. And the rest of the variety show appearances were only achieved when we trended a hashtag and emailed multiple times. +
NU’EST didn’t even go on weekly idol during their comeback period. The one ot5 appearance that we got was because the MCs of the show said that they wanted NU’EST on the show and asked pledis but they had rejected the offer. +
JR then had to ask the company to allow them to go on the show. NU’EST had almost no promotions for the album and pledis still said that NU’EST is “busy”. +
In addition, we didn’t get any variety shows until after we trended a hashtag. Basically all the variety shows occurred after their promotions had started and they weren’t on any shows before their comeback. +
Ren, Aron, and baekho rarely have activities. Ren’s musical Jamie was achieved through his own efforts. Aron’s two appearances on problematic men and dogs are incredible was achieved through fans emailing and DMing the shows. +
Baekho has had basically no solo activities despite him being the producer and writer for basically all NU’EST songs. The only content of the group that fans get is Nulab every two weeks and lovely (which are uploaded whenever with no sub). We get NU’cket which is about 20 min +
every month and NU’cket isn’t done with all the members. It’s only done with two members. We rarely get group vlives. We basically only get them during comeback time. For NU’EST’s 8th anniversary, pledis combined it with our 3000 days and we only got a vlive. +
We have no comeback schedule uploaded by the company. Their Spotify profile was from 2013 (hello era) and wasn’t changed until a month ago. We had been emailing the company about changing this photo for a really long time. +
NU’EST’s twitter engagement is low bc the staff puts no interesting captions and no pictures most of the time. Staff doesn’t seem to double check the things they post as Aron’s month was missing from the season greetings, Baekho’s eye was messed up in an album photo, etc. +
In addition, they posted this 360 version and then deleted it as it had been a mistake. +
The governor of gangwondo wanted JR to be the ambassador of Gangwondo and asked LOVEs to tell pledis. We tweeted and emailed about it, but in the end, pledis never replied and I believe the position was given to someone else.
Even solo activities aren’t retweeted. Articles, tweets, etc. are often not retweeted by @NUESTNEWS or @STAFF_NUEST. This has happened multiple times and something as simple as retweeting or tweeting an article is too difficult for their staff.
Despite NU’EST almost failing once because of pledis’ poor management, pledis continues to make the same mistakes and fails to promote them properly. +
In addition, their Japanese promotions was just pledis and Ariola (the Japanese management company) disregarding NU’EST’s physical health and mental health.
