Aespa’s “Unequal” Treatment Among Members Elicits Mixed Responses

Netizens raise suspicions of the aespa members being treated differently.

A fan took a photo of the item boxes from aespa’s Hong Kong fansign where fans can deposit gifts. From left to right, the boxes belong to Giselle, NingNing, Winter, and Karina.

The boxes on the right, belonging to Winter and Karina, are a larger size.

It’s especially notable when comparing them to Giselle and NingNing’s boxes.

Netizens shared their various points of view: Some believed that the members’ boxes were switched out to bigger ones after receiving many gifts and it was necessary. Others say that the issue of having more popular members isn’t a problem, especially because the members have good relationships with each other. Additionally, since aespa has a lot of fans, even less popular members have many fans.

• “If they received a lot, wouldn’t they have to switch to a bigger box…? Why are people saying it’s discrimination?”
• “Rather than preparing different boxes from the beginning, didn’t they just switch Karina and Winter’s boxes to larger ones because they received a lot of fan items? If it’s overflowing, they have to change it, right?”
• “This issue with popular members has been around since previous generations and it’s not something that can be fixed. Even if Ningning is my favorite, the box size wouldn’t make a difference. If they tried to treat everyone equally, some would still act as fake fans. Not only for aespa but for all groups, these things happen. In fact, as aespa gains more experience, the treatment is getting better and even fans of less popular members accept it. The aespa fandom is large, and all four members have good relationships. At this point, raising complaints is just causing trouble.”
• “While it’s true that Winter is popular, isn’t it because she received many bulky fan items? The item on top looks like a blanket. Also, all of aespa is popular.”
• “It wasn’t like they prepared different box sizes for each member from the start; they just switched to a bigger one because they received a lot of stuff. Posts like this aren’t helpful to aespa. Honestly, the number of fans varies, and even the ‘less popular’ members in aespa have a lot of fans.”

As long as the members are happy, the fans are happy!

Source: Nate Pann