The rise of new-gen K-pop groups has led to a discussion regarding their popularity across international areas.

Read more about the discussion below!

NewJeans, IVE, LE SSERAFIM, & aespa's Overseas Popularity Discussed by K-pop Stans

On March 4, a community post titled, "Seriously, when you look at overseas, isn't it New-ae-I-LE?" was established by netizens.

The author then ranked the hottest fourth-gen K-pop girl groups, mentioning NewJeans, IVE, LE SSERAFIM, and aespa. OP captioned that the international popularity order of these acts was either "NewJeans, aespa, LE SSERAFIM, IVE," or "NewJeans, LE SSERAFIM, aespa, IVE."

"It's either New-ae-LE-I or New-LE-ae-I," OP stated. "NewJeans is indeed No. 1 and No. 2 would be aespa domestically and overseas it's LE SSERAFIM and No. 4 is IVE overseas."

Netizens conveyed how unfair it was to compare girl groups from big companies to smaller companies. However, the majority agreed that NewJeans would always dominate when it comes to overseas popularity, while the three other girl groups were debatable.

Read their comments below:

• "But if you want to look overseas, it's NewJeans > LE SSERAFIM > aespa > IVE."
• "I thought IVE was super popular overseas?"
• "I think it's right."
• "It's kind of low to take big agency idols and compare them with smaller agency idols and say 'we won."
• "The No. 11 is indeed NewJeans so it's meaningless to rank the rest."
• "But if you look at only our country, it's New-I-LE."
• "If you total domestically and internationally, it's New-I-LE."
• "I've heard New-I-LE the most."

Overseas fans joined in the discussion, saying how the essence and impact of each group mentioned differ from one another. 

Fans stated how NewJeans is mostly talked about their music, while aespa and IVE are strong in the idol department with their popular members. LE SSERAFIM, on the other hand, is claimed to gradually increase international and domestic presence with their songs.

• "I feel like people care about NewJeans' music more than any of the members themselves."
• "People just love having NewJeans' music in the background when playing Valorant or something. Whereas for aespa and IVE (Wonyoung), they care about them as idols."
• "That's why aespa and Wonyoung have huge fan bases but not every one of their stans necessarily listens to their music. For NewJeans, there are little who only stan the members alone and not for their music."
• "Wait this is true, I would put LE SSERAFIM songs while playing PC games but I don't know the members' names."
• "LE SSERAFIM is rising domestically, so it's looking like NEW-AE-I."
• "Overseas in my opinion it's Ne-LE-ae-I. But only because 'Perfect Night' was huge and IVE hasn't come back since then."
• "I would say that LE SSERAFIM has been more popular than IVE internationally since just a bit after 'ANTIFRAGILE' dropped."
• Domestically, it's NJ, IVE, (G)I-DLE, aespa, LSF. Internationally NJ, LSF, (not sure how the others stack up, aespa is doing better than before though)."

What are your thoughts on this? Which girl groups from the fourth-gen are your favorites? Let us know in the comments below!

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Written by Riely Miller