‘Aegyo‘ Among Idols
Idols often acting adorably and going out of their way to be cute has made the term aegyo become very common among K-pop fans. in recent years aegyo has increasingly been done, intentionally or unintentionally, by idols.
Aegyo in Korean, leading to actions that are exciting, cute, and tempting. The action can be in the form of gestures, facial expressions, baby sounds, or cuteness. Here are some of the aegyo forms that have been carried out by Idols.
#1 BtoB’s Ilhoon – Gwiyomi Song
Have you ever seen your idol do ‘Gwiyomi‘ songs to do aegyo? ‘Gwiyomi’ song become really popular because Ilhoon’s BTOB did it on ‘Weekly Idol’ in 2012. The aegyo has become really popular until now, and so many idols do ‘Gwiyomi’ in their own style to show their aegyo.
After his aegyo went viral, he was a guest on Weekly Idol several times to demonstrate to other idols how to do the ‘Gwiyomi’ song. He did it again on several shows. Thanks to BTOB’s Ilhoon inventing ‘Gwiyomi‘, so helped many idols when they didn’t know what they should do when asked for aegyo.
#2 Lovelyz’ Kei – Oppaya
Here is another Aegyo that became viral in recent years, ‘Oppaya‘. ‘Oppaya’ is a Korean endearment a girl might use with her older male boyfriend, or ‘sweetheart’. In this video, Lovelyz’s Kei was on Weekly Idol in 2017 as a guest with Lovelyz. She was asked to do aegyo with this song, and she did it right away. None of the cast or MCs could hold up against the cuteness.
thanks to her performance, aegyo went even more viral and has since been done by many other idols on various TV shows in South Korea.
#3 TWICE’s Momo – Nico Nico nii
In a special episode of Weekly Idol in 2016, which celebrated the 5th Anniversary of the show, they invited many groups at the same time. TWICE, GFRIEND, GOT7, and BTOB. were all guests for the episode, Super Junior’s Heechul and EXID’s Hani came as Temporary MC at ‘Weekly Idol’ because Defconn was sick and had to rest for a while.
They played several games in the episode. In one of them they had to compete to make the MC Heechul’s heartbeat become fast, and the person who made it beat the fastest was the winner. The representative from TWICE was Momo, and her first move was to use the popular line from the Japanese anime Love Live! School Idol Project, and she said “niko niko nii.”. Heechul burst into laughter and got very shy.
After Momo’s Aegyo “Nico nico nii’ went viral, many Idols have done the same thing to do aegyo. Red Velvet’s Irene tried to do the same thing on a number of episodes afterward at the same event to try to captivate Heechul, but his heart was only for TWICE’s Momo, even when Irene was in front of him, he was only imagining Momo.
#4 TWICE’s Sana – Shy Shy Shy
https://youtu.be/UbHZt5lvs7g
In the Cheer Up comeback era, there is one line that is very catchy and viral, namely “Shy, shy, shy.“, because Sana is very good at expressing and singing that part. Even today, if we hear “shy, shy, shy” she will come to people’s minds. Sana and Cheer Up can’t be separated from the line “Shy, Shy, Shy.”
In the episode of MBC’s Radio Star that aired on November 16, 2016, Sana revealed that at first, she thought that people were making fun of her. She said, “That’s right. People kept looking at me and going, ‘Sha sha sha.‘ The original lyrics stated ‘Shy shy shy,’ but I thought, ‘Why are they pronouncing it like that? I’m working so hard.’ I felt like I was being made fun of. Because I couldn’t pronounce it properly. I felt wronged,” making everyone laugh.
#5 SNSD’s Yoona – Confession
On MBC’s Weekly Idol in 2015, SNSD , also known as Girls’ Generation, came as guests to promote their comeback song Party. They played a game to be Queen of Aegyo, but first all the members revealed that Yoona’s aegyo is annoying because she wasn’t cute at all.
When Yoona did aegyo in a kid’s voice, all of the members and MCs seemed annoyed to see it, but after this episode was aired, Yoona’s aegyo actually went viral. After that episode aired, Weekly Idol used the video of Yoona’s aegyo several times as an example for other idols to perform the same aegyo and it became even more widespread.
In their 2017 comeback, all the Girls’ Generation members went on JTBC’s Knowing Brothers, in order to decide who got to sit next to Jang Hoon, Yoona and Sunny did an aegyo battle, with a little improvement on the ending of her last aegyo on Weekly Idol and Sunny admitted defeat right away after Yoona did her aegyo.
