A while back I randomly thought about NCT Dream’s Boom music video and how that was such a weird time to be an NCTzen. It feels weird to explain this now (especially seeing some people shocked to hear there was a period where Mark left the group), but NCT Dream used to be the NCT subunit that was supposed to basically be their “young” unit, and had a whole concept where the members graduated once they reached adulthood and they’d continuously add newer young members. And they actually did do that.
Mark “graduated” after We Go Up, traumatizing the whole fandom, and that made Boom era even more traumatic because we knew that it was Dream’s last planned comeback of the year (even though it was a midsummer comeback). If our math was correct, it was our last comeback with Dream as we knew it since we were about to lose over half the group. That’s right, we were supposed to lose Haechan, Renjun, Jeno, and Jaemin — leaving just Chenle and Jisung in the group after 2019. However that didn’t happen, and SM finally rescinded the graduation concept and added Mark back to Dream in 2020 (but did not communicate that to us until a comeback was announced a couple months into the year).
However, the Boom music video still reflects that they fully intended on graduating the majority of the group whee they made it, and seems to suggest they were setting up Jisung to be like the leader of a “next generation” of NCT Dream. That got me thinking about how — with Dream’s original concept — they were supposed to add more members around 2020, so there’s likely a “lost generation” of trainees that were intended to be NCT (Dream) members. Like if they didn’t have anyone in mind to feed into Dream, they would’ve gone back on NCT Dream’s concept and announced that much sooner right? I’m really curious about what happened to them, especially since there wasn’t an NCT member younger than Jisung introduced until this last year.
Anyways, if you want the full list:
(Jisung debuted August of 2016 with NCT Dream)
Johnny (early 2017) [added to 127] Jungwoo [NCT 2018] Lucas [NCT 2018] Kun [NCT 2018] Xiaojun [WayV] Hendery [WayV] Yangyang [WayV] Shotaro [NCT 2020] Sungchan [NCT 2020]
And then, originally revealed in July 2022 as SMRookies but promoted as NCT-members-to-be (I guess the originals got removed but this video has clips from content that was uploaded directly to NCT’s Youtube channel):
Shohei [MYTRO] Eunseok [Riize] Seunghan [Riize]
Seunghan would’ve taken Jisung’s spot as NCT’s maknae (Seunghan was born October 2nd, 2003 to Jisung’s February 5th, 2002), but in May 2023 it was abruptly announced that NCT’s infinite member concept was ending after the long-awaited Japanese subunit debuts, Shotaro and Sungchan were being removed from NCT to debut in SM’s new boy group with Eunseok and Seunghan, and that Shohei was injured and wouldn’t be debuting with either (I was so happy to see him announced as part of MYTRO’s lineup omg).
Anyways, that announcement teased 2 new NCT members (Sion and Yushi) and the survival show that would form the final subunit. And then when NCT Universe: LASTART aired, we found out that Sion, Yushi, and every single contestant were all younger than Jisung
So finally, after 6 years, on October 7th 2023(/February 21st, 2024 since that was technically a pre-debut single), Jisung’s status as maknae was finally overtaken by NCT Wish as a whole, technically; anyways NCT’s second and final maknae is now:
Sakuya (November 18, 2007)
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