The struggle of stanning male groups

I've been struggling to keep up to date with the latest releases in K-pop in the past few months due to other obligations I have. But I recently stumbled across SHINee's new dance performance "Married to the Music" and was reminded of how terrible it is to be someone with some form of fashion sense and stan male groups. It's a real struggle to be excited for new live performances for a group when the concept outfits make them look like utter knobs.

This is something that doesn't particularly come up within girl groups. I mean unless you are 2NE1 or Crayon Pop who tend to come out with weird outfits...

 ...but somehow, girl groups can generally pass with these. Averagely speaking, I'd say at least half of a male group music video outfits make them look terrible. Using the SHINee picture below as an example, these outfits are terrible, except for maybe Jonghyun (in the middle), is kind of all right. Key (the very right), has poodle hair for one, which is just an act against nature. No one can pull off poodle hair. His suit jacket is two vastly different shades of grey and his pants are tucked into his socks. Not to mention his shirt is a bright orange which doesn't even match anything he is wearing, or the other members. Thus I can safely tell you, there is no way this look could be appealing to anyone who isn't a fan of SHINee. Which means me. I empathize with any SHINee stans who have to convince themselves that there bias looks some what attractive when they are wearing clothes like this and have terrible hair styles.

SHINee could also be considered notorious for having a terrible fashion sense, going back to their debut.

With the K-pop business largely revolving around the attractiveness of each member, I'm honestly left wondering why some of these male idols are given such poor stylists. Take Hyunseung for example:

/image from previous article by Fany Pack/

This Beast member is generally solo'd out by his stylist due to his abhorrent styling. And I'm convinced that stylists actually have no say in any look they are forced to give the idol they are paired up with, instead they are given a poorly drawn picture, probably from a 5 year old, and told to make them look exactly like it. Because that is the only explanation I can conjure. Because if stylists did have a say we wouldn't be having this issue right now, everyone would look flawless. But instead, I get to point out terrible terrible crimes of fashion in the male idol world.

You might be wondering who this nugu group is, this is JJCC, also know as Jackie Jackie Chan Chan Jackie Chan Joint Cultures. And the only reason I'm telling you that is because not only does this group have terrible fashion styling, the styling is probably approved by Jackie Chan. And whilst this group ranks fairly high up on my bias list, I can not let Prince Mak's outfit in this video slide. The rest I am willing to look past, but this:

Is just heinous, nauseating and offensive. A plastic red jacket and that curl? Please stop.

This one shouldn't be a surprise as JYP debuted these boys in these abhorrent outfits

and they will probably be stuck in a similar situation to SHINee, where the majority of there outfits suck, which is sad because all of these boys are attractive, but when you put them into outfits like this:

 and:

You make me wonder how I could ever think any member could be attractive. First off, whilst both outfits are coordinated, they are too coordinated and they don't work. The high-waisted pants / overalls are in general an unappealing look, but when all seven members are wearing them, you can really tell how ugly they are. And the trash bag look of the all black is just wrong.

Big Bang is yet another group with an absurd amount of music videos with terrible fashion sense. I could probably put any music video here and tell you how each member isn't attractive just due to their choice of clothes and hair which is a shame because all of these members have the ability to be attractive, and they are when their in normal clothes. It's just their stylists abuse their popularity and just use these music videos as a contest to see who can dress up their idol to look the stupidest and still manage to have fans call them attractive? This one would have to be a tie between Daesung and T.O.P...

Now, I can bag on and on about groups I barely care about. But to truly show you my point, I will go through my personal experience with BTS's last comeback. Now I know I gushed on and on over how attractive several of the members are when I covered the release of this music video, but you'd need to understand the date of the article verse the date of the music video. I wrote the article at least a good 4 days after it was released, which meant I had time to adjust to my biases outfits. Jungkooks generic cop outfit? It's terrible, I hate it, I will never not hate it. It looks cheap and like it was bought from a 99 cent costume store. But I've adjusted, and whilst I think it looks stupid - it kind of looks attractive on Jungkook. It's a confusing struggle. J-hope, on the other hand, is not my bias, and I still don't think he looks the least bit attractive in this music video. He's looked attractive in other videos, but this one? Nope. Why? Because his outfit (+ hair) is terrible.

Why is it universally agreed by companies that  boy groups must have at least half their music videos in atrocious outfits? That there hair must also be equally as bad? Even if the group has a member who isn't conventionally attractive, why is the rest of the group brought down? Play to the members strengths, if they look good with long (too male standards...) hair, then don't cut their hair. If they have good body proportions, give them tighter clothes, if they look like sticks give them baggier clothes. It's not rocket science. If the majority of girl groups can turn even their least attractive member into a very attractive member, then so can boy groups. 

Looking back at these it's no wonder why I made the move to female groups, they are just more aesthetically pleasing with their music videos. It's extremely difficult not to look somewhat hot as a female idol in a music video. Although one can hold personal preference in a group, which leads member x looking like shit compared to the rest of the members. This doesn't lead to 90% of the viewers thinking member x looks like shit in girl groups. With boy groups, it's pretty much undisputed that member x looks like shit within the fandom just due to their clothing... It's a real struggle for those who take hair / fashion sense into consideration when judging the attractiveness of members, and this sadly really only effects those interested with male groups. If someone knows of a male group who hasn't had a comeback with terrible outfits at some point in their career, please let me know.

/also this struggle explains the lack of boy group posts on this site, as why would you interested in male groups when female idols just do it so much better/