this is going to be a long discussion
i know it’s been almost 4 years since the trainee a project was scrapped and more than 5 years since they were first introduced, but since people are still talking about them here and there, i can’t help but notice how most people blame the failure of the trainee a project on leo rather than on the company itself ( bighit/hybe )
i understand why people make that assumption. leo was the first member to leave and because of the controversy surrounding him + his departure from the company, people assumed that this was the reason the entire project fell apart. however, i feel like a lot of people failed to look into the context of what actually happened and instead just blindly placed the blame on him.
context: ( cmiiw )
(1) timeline
!! this timeline doesn’t include junil and inhyuk. i’m also referring to bighit as the company here, even though bighit never officially acknowledged trainee a as its trainees.
☆ mar 21
— leo’s first vlog was released, and he was introduced as the first trainee a member.
☆ sep 21
— showdown ep. 1 was released. the backlash/controversy surrounding leo’s lyrics started around late dec 21 after a viral twitter post. leo later apologised, and bighit deleted the video.
— at this point, five trainee a members had been publicly introduced.
☆ jan 22
— woochan was introduced on the 8th, and yorch was introduced on the 20th.
— on the 11th, the first a-road ep was released. trainee a was officially introduced as a seven member debut candidate group that would go through debut evaluations. yorch’s face was hidden in this video. (although it was released in jan, the actual footage was from oct 21)
☆ mar 22
— trainee a went to LA for about a month for US training camp
☆ jun 22
— leo left trainee a during the june monthly evaluation. however, his departure wasn’t publicly announced immediately.
☆ aug 22
— on the 25th, leo’s departure from trainee a/bighit was finally announced. leo also opened his ig account. (leo had already not been seen for months before the announcement, including around his birthday)
— bighit continued releasing trainee a content before his departure was publicly announced
☆ dec 22
— on the 16th, trainee a’s team posted on their yt community tab, announcing that all social media accounts would be closing on dec 23rd.
— on the 23rd, yorch confirmed on instagram that the trainee a project had officially ended.
(2) discussion
!! this discussion mainly focuses on the things people have thrown at leo regarding trainee a’s project being cancelled
— trainee a was cancelled because leo wrote those lyrics
the whole thing about leo’s lyrics controversy went viral in dec 21, while bighit was still releasing trainee a content afterwards, including a-road ep. 1 in jan 22. if leo’s lyrics controversy was the main reason they decided to cancel trainee a’s debut, then why would they release a-road ep. 1 and officially introduce trainee a as a 7-member debut candidate afterwards?
even after the controversy, leo was still part of the lineup. he continued appearing in trainee a content and was still being presented as part of the debut candidate lineup. he even joined trainee a for training in la in march 22 for a month. he remained part of the lineup until he left the company in june.
it also doesn’t make much sense for bighit to have kicked him out over the controversy when the judges themselves gave him first place in the showdown competition and bighit staff edited the entire episode to be released online.
— leo leaving is the reason trainee a got cancelled
as context, leo left in june, but his departure was announced in aug during episode 5 of a-road. there are still many people saying to this day that he left because of the controversy or because bighit kicked him out.
however, there isn’t any confirmed information proving that either of those things happened.
and according to a-road itself, the main reason was his mental health.
[ a-road ep 5 ]
🦁: as time went by, my worries kept growing to a point i couldn’t control them. particularly as i prepared for the debut evaluation, i wondered every day if this was really the path for me.
🦁: i’ve been sorry to you guys and all of the people around me. i couldn’t say it because we were so busy. these days it’s mentally so hard for me and frankly i can’t handle it well. i couldn’t talk about this because all of you guys were going through tough times too. but then i was the only one making it so obvious. i didn’t want to act that way but i couldn’t help it. it’s not your fault, it’s all mine and i’m sorry that i killed the mood like this. i’m just… i’m just sorry to all of you. we talked for a long time. i don’t think i was able to fully express how sorry i was to the members
( staff ): while preparing for the debut evaluation, leo expressed his wish to quit. i think he felt a lot of pressure and had concerns about whether he could do well in front of the public as an artist. we talked for a long time. since it was a difficult decision for the company, we decided to respect leo’s decision.
[ epilogue ]
🦁: during those three and a half years, the worries i had kept getting bigger. i tried to hide them from others, but the worries kept growing with time until i couldn’t even control them. i kept talking with the company about which direction i should take. the conclusion i came to was that, rather than continuing with trainee a, i needed some time to stop. i’ve been thinking about this for a very long time, and i knew this decision would affect a lot of people, so i had trouble expressing myself as much as i would have liked. i’m very sorry to the members because we’ve been together for so long and we were all working towards the same goal. i’m so sorry that i’m quitting.
from his statement, it was clear that leo left because of his mental health and the pressure he was experiencing while preparing for debut. i don’t think it makes sense to stop someone who has been struggling mentally and force them to continue with the debut process. no matter how much people dislike someone, their mental health still matters, and you can’t blame them just because they prioritised their mental health over everything else.. i know some people would say that the reason he struggled mentally was because of the backlash caused by his own actions, and i wouldn’t deny that it played a part in his decision to leave.
but it’s also important not to erase the fact that he was already seen struggling as a trainee before the controversy itself:
[ leolog ]
🦁: before they made the group of debut candidates, those two years personally felt like i was trying to do everything by myself. that pressure was the most overwhelming thing for me. it was a really difficult time. i seriously cried every single day. to that extent, it was really the most difficult time of my life.
after leo left trainee a, they continued as six members and even continued with the debut evaluation as six. on top of that, woochan released a song called sherpa after leo left ( it would take too long to discuss the song in detail, but it is about how they would continue their journey even though one of the members had left )
they also held a youtube live on sept 8 to celebrate reaching 1 million subs as six members. during the live, they gave a spoiler about woochan’s dingo content, but it was never released afterwards (?)
all of this shows that bighit had plans to continue the trainee a project even after leo left, but at some point, it was completely cancelled. no one actually knows the reason why, since the statement from the trainee a team only said that all of their social media services would end on december 23, 2022.
+ this was not the first time bighit cancelled a debut for its debut candidates. their debut lineup could also change over time. the only difference between them and trainee a is that trainee a was a public trainee project, so we were able to see their process of preparing for debut.
for example, in an interview with leo and sangwon, we learned that they had gone through the debut evaluation as debut candidates, just like they did with trainee a.
[ a-road ep 1 ]
staff: do you think you’re feeling dull in a way because you’ve been in a debut candidate group before?
sangwon/🥀: yes..
leo/🦁: i’ve experienced this whole process before. i don’t know if it’s because i’ve been there once before, but there wasn’t much of a shock.
[ leolog ]
🦁: but in this current situation, if our debut gets cancelled, that’s a totally different story. right now, the seven of us are preparing as a team. we’ve come this far together, but if everything gets cancelled, then that’s it for us. so i have to work harder since i know what will happen.
so imo, i don’t get why people mostly put the blame on leo just because he left the company and trainee a. it was not his decision for trainee a to get cancelled in the end, but the company’s itself. blaming one trainee for a really big decision made by a huge corporation just feels like you want someone to take the blame, but not the company itself.
and i get that people are also saying bighit/hybe made the decision because they lost leo, who was one of their central members. but i also don’t think that’s something leo should be blamed or held responsible for because it was ultimately the company’s decision. and honestly, if losing one trainee was enough for the company to completely reconsider or cancel the project, then that says more about the company’s plans and how much pressure they had placed on leo’s shoulders all this time.
i want to continue discussing more about these topics, especially what happened after the project got cancelled, but i think it is best to stop here because it will be too lengthy if i continue
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