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I-Land Opinion 4

I really don’t know what Jake did on the show but I always knew he would be in the final line-up even before the show started. When I look at Nicholas or Hanbin or even JaeHo I know what field their skills lie in. I know that they can dance and Hanbin I heard that he can belt out some really high notes. However, Jake?

Did Jake improve? Yes. He did. He went from ‘I don’t know what I am doing’ to ‘I think I know what I am doing and I get it now’.

He also went from ‘I can’t learn a dance cause I’m slow’ to ‘I’m teaching the choreography to others’ which is great but other than that I didn’t see him really standing out.

Jake is glaringly lacking compared to the others. I know he's one of the trainees with the shortest amount of training time (he trained for a few months I believe). But he's not on their level yet in terms of skills 

He also seemed very passive on the show almost too civilized to be there and fighting for parts. He seemed to look like an introvert who was too scared to say something or be judged when he felt the tension. Unlike, Jay or K or Heesung who seemed to play a role or speak up every now and then. Most of the time I just kept thinking ‘What is his opinion?’ ‘What does Jake think about this?’ 

To not be rude because I know Jake has lots of fans but other than him being good-looking and having a playful side with Sunghoon I felt him very plain. Very similar to how some people refer to Jaehyun from NCT. His character jumps out only when he is with Sunghoon. 

Please keep in mind that I am not against Jake being in the group but I just want to tell you that Jake at least to me didn’t really shine out but I already made peace with knowing that he will be there because somewhere all along I knew in the end he would be in the final line up.

Even Jungwon never really caught my attention in the beginning but after he performed with K and Sunghoon in the I-Land Vs Grounders I recognized him more.

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I-Land opinion 3

The show lacks light-hearted moments. It makes me feel very heavy and strained. It also lives up to that narrative that says ‘K-pop trainee life is hard and if you want to become one, then this is what it takes’ which is not completely true. Yes, trainees do work hard but if you go looking on YouTube there are some fans who have uploaded unseen I-cam clips that are not seen by almost everyone who watches the full episode because when the audience watches a one hour long episode they think that they are filled in with everything and don’t go looking for extra stuff on YouTube. I-Cams reveal that these trainees do so much more than just practice and plot against each other, like how the show wants us to believe. They hang out with each other, while away their time idly, laugh, run around, workout, pretend to workout, take naps, stuff their mouth with food and so much more. This is what it lacks relatability, these trainees, before trainees they are human and do everything and feel everything that normal people do.

The show makes it look like they practice 18 hours a day, which they do but in between they have their own fun. They are not robots, they are young and want to enjoy life.

There are very few jovial, happy moments thrown into the episodes or the official Mnet Kpop YouTube channel that shows us some back stage glimpses. One of the most entertaining was the ghost part and some playful moments in between Jake and Sunghoon and Jay. These happy, stupid moments is what makes them slightly more likable.

However, I want to stress on the point about how biased they are with a few trainees. They seem to be very picky with showing the good sides of only a handful of trainees. Like the other don't matter. Only Jake, Jay, Heesung and Sunghoon [and a few permanent I-Landers] seem to be bathing in the pretty soft pink light of the show [Please, note that I have nothing against them. In fact some of these people are my picks as well] They will put up behind the scenes videos, even go out of the way to edit a video to make a particular trainee look more likable in the eyes of the audience. [Not to mention, they also go an extra mile of editing to make a particular trainee look bad, but I’ll talk about that later] 

You’ll see them showing these moments only with a selected few contestants who seem to be Mnet or BigHits favorites [said it before but want to say it again] They painted trainees in the way they want the audience to perceive them. Irrespective of if they are really like that or not.

They made Ni-Ki look like an arrogant person, a bad unloyal friend, someone who bickers and disagrees with everyone, who back stabs and an inconsiderate person. It was when I came across a fan made video of Ni-Ki that showed him being as normal as everyone else[Yes, he can be hard at times], that's when I saw him from a different angle. For half a second the editing was successful in making me not like Ni-Ki. They made EJ look bad too. Don't you think that Jake, Sunghoon, Jay, Heesung, Jongwon and other I-Landers [ As much as I/we like them] have never spoken about another trainee? Maybe they didn't but maybe they did and if they have then we will never get to see it because the editing won't ever let us. All of us at some point have spoken about another person when the person was not present [I don’t justify them speaking behind each other but it is more normal than we think it is]. 

They showed Sunoo and Sunghoon talking about Jake and Sunghoon calling Jake 'cute' and Sunoo replying with 'but i'm cuter'. Why don't we ever get to hear Sungchul or Jimin or Hanbin saying something like that? A nice conversation? A funny moment? Cause the truth is that even if they have said something nice or playful it's edited out and not shown to us. It probably might hurt those trainees so much when they see how badly they were portrayed by the show.

Coming back to the playful cute videos that Mnet lets us see, we never got any such moments from the underrated trainees like Jimin, Jaeho, Taeyong, Sungchul [we didn’t get to see anything of Sungchul, literally nothing].

I also want to mention that I have nothing against Heesung, Jake, Jay, Jongwon, Sunghoon. I was just trying to put my opinion out there and there was no other way than having to use their names. I whole heartedly support them.

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I-Land Opinion 2

Groupism in I-land.

Hate to say this but there was evident grouping up of contestants in I-land that is not much seen in the ground. Even the most famous trainees who are everyone's pick showed at least some type of groupism. I won’t take names because those trainees are liked by everyone. There were like a set of ‘permanent’ I-landers who never even got to see the face of the ground. Now I’m not saying they should go to the ground because some trainees have proved them selves. However, I can name a few trainees that could replace the ‘permanent’ I-Landers.

It also looked like every time a ground trainee would come to I-land they again would be voted out and go back to the ground. There is some type of mentality that he is a ‘Grounder’. You can see this happening with Sunoo and Daniel. I also want to specifically mention Taeyong, who everyone stepped on for one of the performances and had body aches but was sent to the ground right after being stepped on, like no one really cared that he worked hard and had to take on so much weight. I felt very bad.

I also want to highlight the ‘He is a grounder’ mentality in episode 3 when some grounders [Sunoo, Ta-Ki, EJ and Jaebeom] had been voted up to I-land. They were shown the Fire performance and had to distribute parts and at once they began distributing parts just sitting there and every time someone would get a part they would ask ‘Is everyone okay with me taking this part or does someone else want it?’ no one would say anything even though it was evident that the ones who came from the ground wanted to try out for a better part and were hesitant. So the approach they used was kind of not right? An audition type approach like they did for the previous performance [where Jay kept trying and everyone kept voting for who they thought did it better] is slightly better so everyone gets to try out what they want. 

Most of the important parts in ‘Fire’ were given out to the main I-Landers. Don’t even try to tell me that trainees from The Ground were not given parts in between 1 to 5 because they were ‘not ready’ because along with the I-Landers the trainees from the ground too were practicing hard and have been able to show a really good performance for ‘Fire’. So if anything, they are good enough. But while the distribution was taking place for part 4, Jeabeom said he wanted it but was reluctant, and that is why I say again that the audition approach should’ve been taken up even though Geonu might have ended up getting it but at least Jaeboem would feel better that he tried and overall it would not look like a biased decision.

I also want to talk about Seon and his dominance? Leadership? he shows but I’ll do that some other time because it will get too long.

I want to conclude by saying that some grounders even though good enough were not given a proper chance. Hanbin can do way better but he seems to not be confident also he comes off as a person who will not fight or compete for a position. Cause when Ni-Ki asked him to take up the dance position the first thing that i understood was that he didn’t want to snatch the position away, so he very quickly shook his head, no. It seems as though he is scared of pissing people off.

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I-land Opinion - 1

I absolutely hated the voting system through out the show but especially hated it in Episode 1 where they would perform and then contestants themselves would decide if the person would go in or not. All participants should be allowed to perform before any decisions are made. In the beginning everyone were voting generously but later they started to vote cautiously cause they were scared they might not get to go in. Truth is if the contestants who went early [Like Seon] would go later or last probably would not get in. Let’s be honest there were better performers than Seon and a few others. I am not targeting Seon I just remember him going first and his performance was okay. Like if Ni-Ki, HanBin and Nicholas went first or earlier I’m more than sure all of them would be selected into I-Land.

It was evident that, as the spots were taken, the people left to perform were less likely to vote for someone. This upset me because it is completely unfair and inefficient. It's very likely that there were people who were voted into I-Land toward the beginning might not have been voted in toward the end. 

Also through out the show they kept voting for each other to go out this created a toxic environment. The decisions were all in their hands depending on who should stay and who should leave. Meaning, trainees would be good to each other only cause they were scared that someone would vote them out. I am more than sure that some trainees would not vote some people out only because they thought of them as friends and would vote someone else out because they were not close to that person. To put it simply, they were probably being biased. Like in the first episode Daniel told EJ that he wants to be with EJ so I’m pretty sure Daniel didn’t vote for EJ to go to the ground [even though EJ did end up going to the ground] . Meaning Daniel didn’t not vote for him because he thought EJ was talented but because he liked EJ and wanted to be with EJ. This could hold true for others as well. Like K might’ve not voted out Ta-ki not because he thought Ta-Ki was skilled but because he really liked Ta-Ki. Is it Daniels’ or K’s fault? I don’t think so because if we were to be in their place, we would do the same. 

But this is an inefficiency and the system is wrong. They should be fairly judged on their talent and skills alone. There were so many panelists other than Rain, Zico and PD. There were choreographers who literally choreographed for BTS and experienced producers. [I will talk about them later since this will become too long to read]

They didn’t show us who is voting who out. Except for Ni-Ki voting Ta-Ki out and EJ voting Daniel out because they knew very well that it would stir up controversy and emotions. 

They never showed us who SungHoon was voting out, they never showed us who Jake or Heesung were voting out because they wanted their image to be clean. They wanted no one to think bad of them. Please keep in mind I am not against them in any way.  Every now and then they would show us who is voting who out but not very important ones.Makes me think if even before the show starting they already had a set mind on who they are going to debut.

While watching the show I could make a rough list of people who I knew were definitely going to debut and that was not because I am an expert or not because those people stood out but because the editing of the show was such. Trainees were made to stand out. However, there were real outstanding trainees that caught my eye.