K-netizens rank Kep1er’s popularity: Kim Chaehyun leads in Korea, Huening Bahiyyih is not the most popular member internationally?
The popularity rankings of Kep1er’s members have been shown somewhat through the final ranking of ‘Girls Planet 999’, but are there any changes after the group confirmed their debut?
After more than 2 months of competing on Mnet’s survival show “Girls Planet 999“, the 9 members of Kep1er were selected in the final night on October 22. Since then, Kep1er has been working hard to prepare for their upcoming official debut and also actively interacting with fans through various online platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and V Live.
As the members show their changes in concepts, styles, hairdos, and makeup looks compared to when they were contestants on ‘Girls Planet 999‘ ahead of their debut, a question is raised over whether or not the members’ popularity rankings have also changed. Recently, on an online community in Korea, Korean netizens rank the popularity of 9 members of Kep1er through the reactions that each girl receives from the public and fans on different social media platforms.
In Korea, Kim Chaehyun is still considered “invincible” and even somewhat far ahead of the remaining members when it comes to domestic popularity. In fact, Kim Chaehyun earned the most votes from Korean fans during “Girls Planet 999“, allowing her to become the show’s final winner and Kep1er’s official center.
Kim Chaehyun’s outstanding popularity and coverage in Korea is based on the fact that posts about her constantly appear on famous online forums such as Instiz, Nate Pann, Theqoo,…, many of which also entered the top trending, attracting a lot of views and comments from Korean netizens. In particular, Chaehyun has become a hot topic in Korea recently thanks to her visuals when netizens repeatedly pointed out the resemblance in looks between her and several famous female idols, especially Red Velvet’s Irene.
In this year’s November girl group member brand value rankings, Kim Chaehyun ranks 89th place although she has not officially debuted yet. 3 members of Kep1er who made into the Top 100 include Choi Yujin (No. 76), Kim Chaehyun (No. 89) and Huening Bahiyyih (No. 94). However, considering the fact that Choi Yujin entered the list as “CLC’s Choi Yujin“, Kim Chaehyun is the highest ranked Kep1er’s member in this month’s brand reputation rankings.
Recently, after Kep1er started releasing concept photos for their debut album, many fans notice that there is a huge gap between the number of views on Kim Chaehyun‘s individual teaser and that of other members on the group’s official fancafe (Daum). Chaehyun‘s concept photo “Connect 0” has earned more than 210,000 views on the fancafe as of November 30, leading among the 9 members. Meanwhile, her concept photo “Connect –” received more than 140,000 views in less than 24 hours, currently second only to Shen Xiaoting’s concept photo released a day earlier.
While Kim Chaehyun is the most famous member in Korea, Huening Bahiyyih will surely be the name that many international netizens think of first when mentioning the most famous Kep1er member. In the final night of “Girls Planet 999“, Huening Bahiyyih was named as one of the two candidates for the highest position after leading the voting results in 115 countries around the world. Although he could not step up to the first place, Huening Bahiyyih also successfully finished in 2nd place overall.
At the same time of posting, Shen Xiaoting’s selfie recorded 1,800 comments, 26,200 retweets and 113,000 hearts, while Huening Bahiyyih‘s selfie recorded 2,000 comments, 25,300 retweets and 86,700 hearts on Twitter.
However, the claim that Shen Xiaoting has higher international popularity than Huening Bahiyyih is still facing a lot of criticism because many fans claim that many of Huening Bahiyyih’s posts on Instagram have higher interactions than Shen Xiaoting’s. A typical example is a series of photos taken by Kep1er members during the first YouTube livestream, At that time, Huening Bahiyyih had 530,000 likes and 9,100 comments (the highest in the group) while Shen Xiaoting only had 446,000 likes and 5,600 comments.
However, after counting the likes and shares of each member’s posts on Instagram and Twitter, many people believe that the member with the highest international popularity in Kep1er is Shen Xiaoting, not Huening Bahiyyih. In the same series of posts about the “Connect 0” concept photo, Shen Xiaoting’s teaser received 6,900 comments, 95,600 retweets and 191,300 hearts, while Huening Bahiyyih‘s teaser received 6,000 comments, 63,000 retweets, and 150,700 hearts on Twitter. On Instagram, the number is 680,000 likes and 16,200 comments for Shen Xiaoting; 600,000 likes and 15,900 comments for Huening Bahiyyih.
In general, Korean netizens think that the popularity rankings of the 9 current Kep1er members are as follows: Shen Xiaoting > Kim Chaehyun > Mashiro > Huening Bahiyyih > Choi Yujin > Hikaru > Kang Yeseo > Kim Dayeon > Seo Youngeun. This order is still creating a lot of controversy in the Kep1er fan community, especially when Huening Bahiyyih is only ranked 4th after Shen Xiaoting, Kim Chaehyun, and Mashiro.
Korean netizens commented, “Mashiro is really popular in Japan but I think Bahiyyih in 3rd place would be more appropriate”, “In Korea, Kim Chaehyun has absolutely no competition ㅋㅋㅋ”, “It’s quite surprising. Huening Bahiyyih ranking lower than I thought”, “When it comes to popularity in Korea, no one can beat Kim Chaehyun, Kim Dayeon and Kang Yeseo”, “I’m not a Kep1er fan but from what I see… In Korea, Kim Chaehyun is the most popular, in Japan Seo Youngeun and Hikaru are very popular, Bahiyyih has a lot of Southeast Asian fans. Overall, it seems that Shen Tieu Dinh is the most popular”,…
