Is ZEROBASEONE The Beginning Of Fifth Gen K-Pop? WAKEONE & Mnet Say Yes, But Netizens Disagree

“The way they’re forcing it is so cringe.”

In the last year or so, there has been an increasingly heated debate over when the fifth generation of K-Pop will begin, or if it has begun already. Since the second and third generation each lasted about 5-8 years (if you use the general guide that second gen lasted from around 2003-2011 and third gen from 2012-2017), one would think that the fifth gen might be beginning fairly soon since it has been about five and a half years since the fourth generation is generally considered to have started (late 2017/early 2018).

Of course, there are a lot of different opinions about when K-Pop generations have begun and ended, and there’s really no set rule that defines them. You can make an argument for pretty much every opinion on what determines a change in generations, but the way that WAKEONE and Mnet seem to be heavily pushing for the start of the fifth generation has a lot of netizens criticizing their media play.

With the debut of Boys Planet project group ZEROBASEONE on July 10, there have been numerous articles made about their impressive records broken and how they’re promoting their album Youth in the Shade and title track “In Bloom”. However, there seems to be a common theme among articles, particularly on Korean news websites, that fans and non-fans alike don’t really approve of.

In many of these articles, ZEROBASEONE is being called the “fifth generation boy group” despite a lack of actual agreement among the general public. The topic was recently discussed on an online forum, with several articles shared as examples of this phenomenon.

Article title translations:

• “ZEROBASEONE debuting today (10th)… The 5th generation boy group […] opening K-Pop’s 5th generation’s door with force […]”
• “‘Surpassing expectations’” ZEROBASEONE, K-Pop’s 5th generation […]”
• “Sung Hanbin ‘the leader of the 5th generation of idols’”
• “ZEROBASEONE, the completion of the debut of the 5th generation boy group […]”
• “ZEROBASEONE, the boy group of the 5th generation of K-Pop debuts”
• “ZEROBASEONE ‘opens the 5th generation of boy groups, sunbaes’ […]”
• “ZEROBASEONE Kim Taerae ‘we’ll become the representative of the 5th generation’”
• “‘We want to write KPOP history’ ZEROBASEONE, the 5th generation boy group […] They received attention as to whether they’ll be able to open the 5th generation”
• “ZEROBASEONE, the K-Pop group who opened the 5th generation…”

It seems that Mnet and ZEROBASEONE’s label, WAKEONE, are spending a lot of money to push the agenda that the boy group is the definitive start of the new generation of K-Pop. It’s uncertain why they’re so adamant about this title, but it could have to do with a desire to make the group the “leaders” of a new generation, despite the fact that the records they’re already breaking have already made them a force to be reckoned with in the K-Pop industry in general.

Based on the comments made on the forum post, the general consensus seems to be that this attempted transition from one generation to the next is far too forced and illogical. There doesn’t really seem to be anyone, in fact, that agrees with this “fifth generation” title, at least in the comments section.

Moving forward, it will be interesting to see if there are more signs that we are moving into a new era of K-Pop, or if this attempt at forcing the start of the fifth generation ends up fizzling out. What we can say, though, is that ZEROBASEONE has a promising career ahead of them no matter what!