When it comes to musical groups, it appears that the social media vocabulary that states “It all ends on a random Tuesday” is too uncomfortably applicable. On a “random” March day in 2015, a statement made via the official facebook page of One Direction, one of the most followed boybands in the history of western music, announced that member Zayn Malik would officially part ways from the band and pursue a solo career. ‘Directioners’, the unitary label given to fans of One Direction around the world, did not take it lightly. While fans continued to support Zayn as a soloist, today’s music enthusiasts are no strangers to the fact that some of the most memorable songs by One Direction remain those released before Zayn’s departure from the group. Merely a year after Zayn left the group, One Direction went on an official hiatus, only to be reunited, well, never again.
Heeseung, former member of ENHYPEN
More than a decade has passed since headlines erupted when one of the most popular members of perhaps the second-most popular boy band in Western music history, after The Beatles, left his group.
ENHYPEN
However, the balance between group music and their intense fandom experiences, remains as fragile as it used to be. In May 2021, Joel Deleon, a member of the Latin American boyband CNCO, parted ways with the group. After their collaboration with Little Mix for Reggaeton Lento(remix) in 2017, CNCO made waves among global fandoms, with Asian, American, European and many other ethnicities alike embracing their all-Spanish music. At one point, the group was also compared to One Direction because of their skyrocketing fame in a very short period of time. Ironically, their story matched with their predecessors. In 2023, the group disbanded quietly, without much ado, and the boys continued to produce independent music with fans divided according to the member they feel most drawn to.
Seunghan, former member of RIIZE
It seemed that K-pop would be a genre immune to the fickle winds of disbandment and member-departure. While classic groups like BTS, BLACKPINK and SEVENTEEN continue to operate with all members acting as a unit even though they may pursue solo projects occasionally, the task seems harder for recently emerging groups. K-pop groups are strategically built by the conscious manufacturing of a united group aesthetic and a harmonious collaboration of different kinds of personalities which form a coherent whole for fans with varying personality types to easily relate with. But this becomes both a blessing and a curse for the groups. On one hand, the consistency of the group dynamic creates a united, loyal fandom, and on the other, the slightest adjustment to this dynamic may cause the entire fandom’s loyalty and reception to crumble down. Moreover, because these young men and women are expected to fuel parasocial desire among teenagers and young adults to practically capture them into long-term loyalty, they cannot be projected to have any sort of unique self expression beyond the musical space of their group. Practically, the group that is united, even if it means by curbing the individuality of members, survives, while that which gets divided, falls.
Danielle, former member of NewJeans
In October 2024, Seunghan, a member of the boy group RIIZE was announced to have parted ways with his group, after a year-long controversy that arose after fans discovered his pre-debut content related to his personal life leaked on the internet. It is not surprising that this instantly threatened the highly manufactured sense of homogeneity that young K-pop idols are associated with among fans who are used to considering idols projections of parasocial companionship. Although fans who viewed the situation with intellectual distance advocated for his return, Seunghan was not to be back with RIIZE. A similar shockwave struck fans of NewJeans, a girl group that had been on a long break owing to legal battles with their parent company, when it lost Danielle, one of its members in the process. Danielle’s contract with the parent company was officially terminated in December 2025, with a formal statement that announced “it was difficult for her to continue together as a NewJeans member”. Fans, who had been united in support for the girls even amidst the ongoing controversy and legal disputes, suddenly lost their energy to stay loyal to the group, as the idea of supporting a group where one of the members will not be part of future projects became unimaginable.
CNCO, disbanded in 2023
Within 3 months of Danielle’s departure from NewJeans, ENHYPEN, a group under BELift Lab, represented by HYBE, the same label that also represented NewJeans under ADOR, has a similar story to tell. On March 10, BELift took to Weverse, the official fan communication platform for ENHYPEN, to announce that Heeseung, one of the members of the group, is all set to part ways from his teammates and begin his career as a solo artist. In fact, the news came right after four members of Zerobaseone, a group under WakeOne, another subsidiary of HYBE, were announced to be making plans to part ways with their group. While Zerobaseone was announced as a temporary act at the very outset of its formation, ENHYPEN’s group dynamic-shift comes as a huge shock to K-pop fandoms all over the globe.
Former members of One Direction
The official statements released in the aftermath of the decision by BELift as well as Heeseung state that the reason for his departure arose out of a misalignment between the group’s musical vision and his own, due to which the company has deemed it appropriate for him to debut independently as a solo artist.
But fans were quick to raise important questions about this sudden change, which comes as a surprise for a group that has just celebrated five years since debut—especially after winning a MAMA Fans’ Choice award, considered a milestone for an emerging group.
Why did Heeseung have to part ways with his group to pursue a solo career, when practically all members of BTS and BLACKPINK as well as comparatively younger K-pop idols like Yeonjun could do the same while being a part of their groups?
If the decision came after ‘long deliberation,’ as stated by the company in its official statement, how come emergency announcements regarding Heeseung’s absence from ENHYPEN’s upcoming schedules had to be made by the organizers, and the sale of full-group merchandise had to be postponed on an emergency basis? These are some of the most burning questions that, as of yet, remain unanswered. Beyond that, fans have also started petitioning to bring Heeseung back to the group, with millions of signatures being collected from people around the world in just a couple of days since the announcement of his departure. Protest trucks, slogans and hashtag marathons abound as well, as it now seems that with so many dynamic-shifts in K-pop, a genre that appears to promise the comfort of long-term stability in artistic spaces, in just 2 years, fans have had enough. No one wants to recall what the splitting of One Direction did to the musical community, but it seems that those wounds have not aged a day, even after a decade.
The darker question that haunts fans is whether ENHYPEN will eventually disband, especially as their group’s contract is scheduled to expire in 2027. While other groups under HYBE, including BTS and Tomorrow X Together, have renewed their contracts after the first instalment, given the volatile situation with ENHYPEN’s fans clearly not happy about Heeseung’s departure, it does not seem unlikely that the group would eventually disband, as stated by many fans across social media platforms. The K-pop industry definitely has some questions to address and priorities to sort, for the conflict between artistic independence and the comfort of group coherence and fandom loyalty seems to be currently upsetting the very foundations upon which the genre has built itself.
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