QRIMOLE – October 2026

It’s time for QRIMOLE, the series where readers ask Kpopalypse questions! Let’s take a look at the mailbag for the last month! How much of the success of IVE and Le Sserafim do you think was helped by having members in Iz*one? I’m reading about this girl Han Chowon, from Lightsum and she seems to been screwed over her whole career. She was supposed to be have been part of Iz*one but the Mnet voting manipulation kept her out of the group. (The other girl who got cheated was Gaeun from After School, but that probably made Pledis happy, since they hate women.) All of the girls from Iz*one who remained in Korea seem to have had pretty significant careers. Right now Lightsum seems to have been such a huge flop that Cube minimised their further investment in the group significantly. It’s significant, and that’s 100% of the reason why Iz*one existed. Have a big TV show that makes people fall in love with the idols, start a group up from it and have them release a few songs to solidify that feeling, then disband the group and farm each girl out back to their respective agencies to do other stuff, retaining that history and parasocial connection. When Iz*one disbanded everyone loudly compla...