Can Dream Academy succeed without the story?

I think a main benefit is the girls that don’t make the group don’t have to worry about a reality show image following them. There’s no drama filled train following them that some trainees have when survival shows evil edit them. They can leave behind nice videos of their talent, take the fans they made with them especially figuring they are allowed to be active on social media. Now they have a good foot to get a future music career. I feel it’s kinda nice

I think because these are the top 20 out of 120,000 the skill difference isn’t going to be that big. If they all can sing and/or dance well, then the only other thing to distinguish them is their story, looks, nationality, and personality. It’s impossible to be objective even if they tried because humans are subjective by nature and will vote however they please even if they’re supposed to vote based on talent.

I think the only thing that is difficult about the show is that it’s hard to feel connected. You don’t see much of the girls’ personalities outside of the vlogs we get and their social medias. I like that the girls get to be so open and active online, but that is the only way of seeing their personalities outside of the vlogs. It’s challenging because some girls aren’t active as the others and not everyone is going to see these posts unless they’re extremely dedicated

A lot of people complained about fans voting based on country and not talent, but I don’t think the argument works. The girls are all extremely talented. You can take any combination of these girls and make them a group and they’d still be well rounded.

I think the general public's interest really showed in the numbers. I criticized A2K early on for looking "cheap" compared to DA, but I was really surprised by the fact that most A2K episodes have over 2 million views! Those are crazy numbers, it shows that JYP knows when to throw money at something and when they can rely almost entirely on their reality show formula. I do think talent is important when it comes to people in the music industry, but K-pop and mainstream pop music in general relies so much on personality, it's hard to deny talent can sometimes take a backseat compared to other attributes.

One thing i love is that they just upload the performances as they are without manipulative editing. Mnet and korean editing general repeat some parts in perfomances. Lets say, a trainee winks at the camera while performing, and so mnet repeats that wink like 3 times and then edits bits of the judges gasping in awe (and sometimes they are out context) and they persuade you into thinking "wow this is the best performance i have ever seen!" But when you watch the entire performance with no fancy editing, a lot of the time you see it was actually nothing remarkable at all. This style of show lets you decide on your own which one is worth voting for.

Im not gonna lie with this ACADEMY kinda theme they could've made this show SO much more interesting... and them not making it like a normal survival show doesnt let us make a deeper conncection with them. CUZ at the end of the day- its not the talent that matters in the industry, its the special quality and the personality that can make them stand out.

Notice, all the remaining contestants are pretty and have slim/fit bodies. Despite people saying “talent should matter over visuals”, people still care a lot about visuals.

Maybe the show is not famous rn but trust me they will be big after debut because hybe willl gonna do everything for them succes and the company is good at making music so they are in good hands.

Ultimately, the group will succeed or fail based on how well the songs are, how viral the choreo is, and how well they are marketed by Hybe. The story won't mean that much in the end.

No there was definitely evil editing. They knew Manon was sick but continuously ran a story that she was basically not committed to the show or bringing down her team.

I much prefer the survival show model over the trainee/exclusive contract model of group formation for the reasons you state. The girls get exposure and experience and can build a fan base, win or lose, and fans can get invested in their stories. Dream Academy touches the basic formula, but is more about the long game. This is going to be H7be's girl group beachhead in America. It's no accident LSF are prominent here. LSF is a group that could thrive in America with their athletic professionalism and more mature outlook/concept. Jennifer really seems to love speaking English for a change. Everyone's story is the competition now. They'll build out the group story with the doc and the music. Under promise then over perform.

Update! Which proves your point of how important a story is for a contestant: I subscribe to Gina's (cut from A2K at the very end) channel and just received two community posts on October 4. One is to say that the fan name, which was voted on, is DeWolves! The second was a message from Gina expressing overwhelming gratitude for 900,000 views on her MV "Freedom!" And the comments are full of love and support, because all of us who followed A2K know how talented Gina is, and how deserving of success she is! Her channel name is her actual name, Gina DeBosschere. Congratulations, Popsori, on your very accurate video! 🙏😍🌺🏆

I like the structure, no bias based on personality and hopefully just skill. Sadly there's still bias (ie nationality, ethnicity) so HYBE is rather disappointed in the turn out of the votes.

I think it’s fine to just showcase talent only. The biggest problem for me is that there’s so many clips to keep track of and watch instead of watching all the performances in one go, and so many different ways and platforms and rules you have to go to in order to vote. But I know like others said it’s different to feel connected to the trainees without knowing them as a person since is the whole concept of of being a kpop idol. Fans fall in love with their personalities and charisma

personally i like the new direction they are going with. with survival shows there was always so much drama and evil editing. you would see a trainee start crying during practice and another getting stressed and being “controlling” and all of sudden they have new fans and haters. i understand people are biasing their countries but i don’t see much of a problem in that. they are all obviously talented and its better than having a bias based on manipulated editing. and let’s not pretend like hybe doesn’t have a final say in the lineup. it’s shouldn’t even really be a problem to them about why people are voting. better than people voting on visuals. and i like that the contestants are showing their personalities on social media. i understand that some don’t post a lot but that’s their choice. better than being filmed 24/7 and having your privacy violated for drama and views.

One drawback, when voting purely on talent, you could get a group of only main vocals/dancers. The vocals and sub-vocals are important too (and they usually are more than adequate dancers).

I think the biggest problem now is people voting. It is a huge disadvantage for girls from small countries, like Adela, who placed last. They could cover this gap by providing better story for each contestant. Another problem is that the line distribution is horrific, I could barely see or hear some of the contestants. How am I supposed to vote for them if they didn’t have the opportunity to fully show themselves…. Also, personally I felt evil editing even in those short videos of content. That’s pretty sad that higher-ups try to manipulate votes like this. Either show a proper storyline, or don’t show it at all…

Honestly, as someone who watches these survivals shows quite often and sometimes hate the drama, at the beginning I liked the idea of being without drama. But now I hate, I honestly can't remember anyone's name, except Samara that is the one from my country. I don't feel the connection, I don't have anything to associate the girls with other than their looks, country and talent (but all of them are talented). For me, It feels like a bunch of NPC, not in a mean way, but they don't make me want to cheer for anyone or to get to know them better. And seeing from a voting point of view, I don't think it works, people are mostly voting based on country, since it's the only thing they can relate to. Like you can go these girls sings better but for most people talent is not enough, since on the long run, the fan will be staning the group because of the people on it, not only talent.

Honestly i love this and i cant wait for the Netflix series. I watched all of the A2K episodes and yes it was fun to see their personalities and everything, but a negative was the backlash and hate the contestants had. For example Kendall got hated all because of JYP’s favouritism towards her and people started blaming her. Building a group off of seeing how talented they are is what i want.