Netizens Discuss The Growing Trend Of K-Pop Groups Being Made Up Of Only “All-Rounders”

In K-Pop generations past, pretty much every group had very distinctive roles for each of their members. Main vocalists, rappers, and dancers, leaders, visuals, centers, and face of the group — these are terms that were used regularly as the “official” positions for K-Pop idols, and often helped fans distinguish one member from another.

BTS, whose members all have distinct positions in the group | BIGHIT MUSIC

Over the last couple of years, though, it has become increasingly common for groups to almost completely remove the labels of official positions. While most groups do still at least have a leadership position (though this isn’t the case for all of them), it’s become a trend for the members of groups to all be called “all-rounders” by their label rather than be recognized for their individual talents. And some fans think that it’s not a trend that should continue.

The term “all-rounder” is usually used to describe an idol who is skilled in the three main areas of being a performer — singing, rapping, and dancing. Some of the idols most commonly described with this label include SHINee‘s Key, Red Velvet‘s Seulgi, BTS‘s Jungkook, TWICE‘s Jihyo, Stray Kids‘ Han, and WOODZ, to name a few.

Seulgi (Red Velvet)

A recent online forum post discussing the increase of groups being made up of so-called “all-rounders” has caught quite a bit of attention. The author of the post shares why they think that this is a problematic trend as well as an unfair one, and a lot of people seem to agree with them.

They argue that these groups made up of “all-rounders” are not, in fact, actual all-rounders, but just are made up of members where no individual actually really stands out. Either that, or the group does actually have one or two all-rounders while the rest are just “fillers”, to put it in harsh terms on their part.

NewJeans, a group without many defined positions | ADOR

By calling so many idols the title of “all-rounder” when they arguably aren’t as skilled in some areas as others can make the term itself become much less impactful than it used to be. It might also be part of the reason why lip syncing has become much more common in live performances, to hide the members who may be not as vocally strong as the rest.

The author also argues that giving all the members of a group an equal status in all positions can lead to more internal fan wars, especially in terms of line distributions. If one member really is vocally stronger than others in the group, but is given less lines due to not actually being called a “main vocalist”, then it could definitely cause tension among fans.

ENHYPEN, another group without many “official” positions | BELIFT Labs

Finally, they claim that having every member be given the same position is just boring, and that they miss the uniqueness that official positions used to give to the individual members of a group.

Here’s what netizens have to say in the comments of the post.

How do you feel about this trend in K-Pop?