Huening Bahiyyih continues to spark controversy among Knetizens: Does her visual suit being a female idol?

Korean netizens have consistently shown mixed reactions to Huening Bahiyyih’s appearance.

The younger sister of TXT’s Huening Kai and 4th generation idol trainee who currently owns a large fandom, Huening Bahiyyih has soon attracted the attention of the public since the moment it was announced that she would appear in Girls Planet 999 as a contestant. Huening Bahiyyih’s charm was soon proven by always ranking 1st place in terms of views. She is also the K-GROUP contestant with the most votes in the pre-vote round.

But since “Girls Planet 999″’s official broadcast, Huening Bahiyyih is no longer the strongest candidate for a debut in the final lineup. In the first elimination round, the number of votes from global fans was not enough to get Huening Bahiyyih a place in the Top 9. Huening Bahiyyih’s Cell only ranked 7th. Within the K-GROUP alone, the trainee born in 2004 ranked 6th.

Korean netizens believe that the reason why Huening Bahiyyih’s ranking is not as high as expected is that based on what has been shown from the beginning of the show until now, neither her visuals, her skills, nor her stage presence is up to expectations although her performances through the rounds weren’t too bad. The little screen time is also said to be another reason why Huening Bahiyyih could not fully showcase her potential.

In fact, many fierce controversies have sparked on online forums in Korea when Korean netizens share their thoughts on Huening Bahiyyih’s visual. A topic related to this was brought up recently when KCON’s official YouTube channel posted the #HI5Challenge video of the “Girls Planet 999” contestants for the KCON:TACT HI 5 event.

In the #HI5Challenge video, Huening Bahiyyih appeared with other contestants of the “Ice Cream” team. Although she only appeared for about 10 seconds to introduce herself, a screenshot of Huening Bahiyyih from this video has caused Korean netizens to have mixed reactions. Some netizens give compliments and call her appearance in the video “legendary”. On the other hand, many netizens insist not to discuss her look because it depends on each person’s taste, but they claim that Huening Bahiyyih’s visual is clearly not suitable for being a female Kpop idol.

Some comment from Knets:

• “Fairly, she does not have the suitable appearance to be an idol. Moreover, she doesn’t have outstanding talent enough to cover up her lack of visuals. It’s unusual for her to surpass the prettier and more talented Korean contestants to climb to such a high rank just because of her brother’s fame ㅋㅋ Also, I don’t like the way she says she’s very liked and expected her ranking to be this high”
• “Regardless of whether she’s pretty or ugly, instead of being an idol… her visuals make her look more like a native English teacher”
• “It’s really too much. Seems like a lot of people still think it’s normal to judge others’ looks ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ If you don’t like Bahiyyih, please don’t care about her anymore”
• “Wow~ I sometimes read about her, but every time I see her, I feel like it’s amazing that visuals like this can also become a female idol;;; If all the votes she got were from her brother’s fandom, I can’t imagine how chaotic it will be if she really debuts ㅋㅋㅋ”
• “Looks exactly like the native English teacher in my school”
• “If she wasn’t Huening Kai’s little sister, she wouldn’t have ranked so high”
• “You guys are really mean.. Aren’t you ashamed to sit here and talk about the face of a minor?”
• “This is the kind of visual that I’ve seen a lot on the road while traveling in Southeast Asia.. wao~~~~”
• “But she also looks “pretty” in the OP’s screenshot. The first time I saw this scene while watching another video I was startled. But when I posted this photo, many people rushed to defend me and cursed that I intentionally took a malicious screenshot…? I just took a picture of what was on the screen.”

In episode 8 of “Girls Planet 999” which will air this Friday night, Huening Bahiyyih and 53 other contestants will enter the 2nd elimination round to select 27 trainees who can move on to the 3rd round. According to rumors that have been spread on social networking sites in the past few days, Huening Bahiyyih will be in the safe group to continue to the next round, some rumors even suggest that she may rise to Top 9.