The love that fans have for idol groups is extraordinary. It starts off lightly, but once you fall in, you can never go back. Even though you want to forget, you always come back looking for them, and the more you look for them, the more you fall in love. It goes as far as finding out not just the birthdays of your favorite members but also the birthday of the agency's CEO, saying "Thank you for training such great idols" and "Please take good care of them."

But this is a very odd situation. If you think about it, the relationship between the CEO and 'my idols' is the relationship between an employer and an employee. In return, the idols are the products that are sold, and even fans know that well. They just don't say it out loud.

The common member change in idol groups usually occur in groups that are in trouble. To idol groups whose image is crucial to them, a clean image is the best condition they could be in. Thus if someone in a group makes a mistake that is big enough to catch the public's attention, that clean image is gone. So the choice that the agency makes is to replace members or simply to take out the trouble-making member. Same goes for idol groups who are not doing as well as desired.

But if the situation where the 'father-like' CEO pushes away 'his idol' so coldly, fans turn their backs on them immediately. It's the same even if the member that was switched was a member that the fan didn't particularly like. One member of the team is the whole team to them, so when the group that they fell in love with changes, they lose trust in the agency. 

Fans' complaints to changing members is great. In 2006, when Kyuhyun was added to group Super Junior, they raised the slogan '12 is 1,' refusing to accept a 13-member Super Junior. In 2010, when leader Jay Park left the group 2PM, there was once again a great flood of complaints from the society.

Knowing this, agencies try to push off 'member change' as the very last resort. They have to carefully consider when to use it if it really has to be used, and to what extent is just enough. 

With that said, group T-ara's member Ahreum leaving is quite interesting. It seems like news that doesn't hold much value. Why? This is because it's T-ARA. T-ARA had already switched their members in 2009 before their debut. Two of the previously announced members were changed and the leader changed numerous times even after their debut. Hwayoung's incident was a huge one, and now Ahreum is leaving and Dani is joining. They have been switching their members around as often as they eat.

Fans' responses also were as remarkable as "Again?" and "I'm sick of this." The agency tried to deliver a great group with great music and performances, but all that was returned to them was the lack of trust towards the agency and the group.

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