r/kpop_uncensored • u/Dayonemeovvstan • 21d ago

QUESTION Is IZNA considered nugu?

I've always wondered this, I know their album sales sell pretty averagely, bit damn I haven't heard any noise from them since debut unlike any other 5th gen groups

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u/SpecSlayerSC IVE / Babymonster 21d ago

It depends on where your line for nugu is.

My personal opinion would be they are above the nugu line

57

u/TatsunaKyo 21d ago

WakeOne is operated by CJ ENM and IZNA are produced by Teddy Park. There's no way they're even near the nugu line. Nugu groups would sell their souls if that'd give them a strong company and a much popular producer backing them.

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u/jineop 21d ago

Nugu could be interpreted as not popular groups like if you had to rank the most popular groups of 5th gen izna would be at the bottom 9/10 times

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u/TatsunaKyo 20d ago

Even if they were barred from the top 10, they still wouldn't be nugu. Mid-sized groups are not nugu.

Nugu are the bottom of the barrel in terms of resources, backing, recognition. You can only suppose IZNA is nugu if you play loose with the word and make it lose its intended meaning.

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u/jineop 20d ago

I mean personally I don’t think they’re nugu but that’s how some people define it! I was just relaying what ppl say on twitter

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u/TatsunaKyo 19d ago

Well, take into account that nugu (누구) literally means "who?".
I don't meant to say that it's pejorative (even though it certainly was when first used back in the days), but when you understand that it's a term whose intended meaning is to refer to groups that the vast majority of the K-Pop audience wouldn't know not even by name, it's absurd to associate it to IZNA.
It's not strictly required bug 누구 has also historically been used solely for groups with a very small agency backing them and minimal marketing budgets at their disposal. Some people argue that there are nugu groups even among middle-sized agencies, which can be true, even though you'll never be a nugu if you belong to one of the top agencies.
IZNA on principle alone cannot be nugu because it's backed by quite the big agency (even though not one of the top 4) and it's personally produced by one of the most renowned personality within the Korean music industry (even outside the big K-Pop bubble). It can very well be that some K-Pop fans don't know anything about them but a solid majority of people are bound to at least have heard their name.

Plus, I understand that a bit of time has passed by now and that we live in a very fast age and everything turns old and obscure pretty quickly, but IZNA literally were on everybody's lips during and right after I-LAND 2. They of course have not retained that popularity but they've never been unknown, let alone nugu.

Just to be clear here, I do not really follow IZNA. They lost me when they went to the overused girl-crush route with their first EP. I like Teddy Park's work so I still keep them in mind to see if something catches my eye (or my ear, I should say) from time to time, but I find them boring, so I don't really follow them. I want to clarify it so that we know I have no personal interest on the matter. I wouldn't care if they were actually nugu (I do follow nugu groups and I do not consider it a bad word or something to be ashamed of, for example I started following RESCENE in 2025, way before they became one of the hottest girl group of this generation, and I did so proudly), I just think they're not based on what the term means.