Together We Shine

About

Call me K (or anything TBH)
she/her
EN/ZH, open for translations
18+ but my account is strictly SFW (and strictly for screaming about C-Pop)
I am a private person who doesn't like to share personal information, so this is all I will reveal about myself.
Feel free to DM or @ me if you need to talk for any reason!

Default Mode: Struggletweeting about good boys on bad shows
I'm a big sucker for big vocalists.
Visuals, age and height are overrated.
I seem to love bands on idol survivor shows for some reason (844 Band on Chuang 2020, Fan Yu, Zheng Renyu and Li Zaixi's band on SNZM, Vogue 5 on QCYN even though I haven't watched that show).

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Artistes

A non-comprehensive list of C-Pop soloists and groups I follow. I may have my biases within the groups but I'm a group fan by default.

I scream about S.K.Y 天空少年 and the survival show that formed them, We Are Young/少年之名/SNZM, 99.9% of the time but I love everyone on the list.

S.K.Y 天空少年

A seven-member temporary boy group formed through Youku's 2020 idol survivor show We Are Young/少年之名/SNZM, managed by Cool Young Entertainment.

OT7, but biased towards Lin Mo and Zheng Renyu.

They're seven good boys who love performing, singing and dancing, who are constantly working hard to improve themselves and achieve their dreams and I love them so much. They deserve success, fame and happiness. Please give them your support!

Group Variety Show: blueblue的少年 (on Youku)

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少年之名

Youku | 2020 | Debuting Group: S.K.Y/天空少年

An absolute trainwreck of a flop show filled to the brim with messy scheduling, overworked trainees, heavy favouritism and blatant rigging, but the boys make it worth the watch. If there's one thing Youku did right, it's trainee selection.

I've adopted nearly everyone, but here's my stupidly long pick list. Ranked list of Top 52 trainees here.

* Asterisk indicates they debuted with S.K.Y

My Thoughts about SNZM

This essay is long enough to warrant a table of contents. You have been warned.

This show honestly had so much potential, but so many things went wrong along the way.

The only other idol survivor show I have watched is Produce Camp 2020, and while I loved some of the girls (Curley Gao, Zhong Feifei, Tian Jingfan, 844 Band), I was a casual fan at best. I put the show on as background noise while I did other things. I never voted. I never followed the Bon Bon Girls. It was going to be my first and last idol survivor show. I only knew about SNZM because someone advertised r/snzm (RIP) in the Produce Camp 2020 subreddit. I watched the MV, though "wow they all need haircuts", and never bothered following up after Chuang 2020 ended.

I decided to give SNZM a try after I checked out r/snzm again and saw some comments saying that the boys were good and that we got to know them from the get go. I watched Episode 1, and while the stages were pretty good, I saw how they gave short VCRs to introduce every trainee and their qualifier team dynamics before each initial stage and thought "wow, I actually get to know the boys, even if they never pass qualifiers. This is actually pretty nice. I'll check out the rest of the initial stages."

... and then I got to Episode 2.

So many initials stages were montaged or removed entirely from Episode 2 in favour of hyping up Zuo Linjie and Guo Zhen. Apparently they're not in the VIP cuts and only a few initial stage cuts were released. Will Youku ever release the rest? I sure hope so. But it's unfair to the trainees in those groups. I understand if they cut the stages of the groups where no one passed qualifiers but surely there's a good reason why you passed some trainees in others, and I'd like to see why. Heck, Fan Yu got a solo stage despite withdrawing from the competition before the qualifiers (to be fair, he was brilliant and would've been my first pick for centre if he didn't withdraw). While it was so sweet of them to let him demonstrate his skills and I really like him, it's unfair for him to get more focus and screentime (and a hot search!) than the many trainees who passed qualifiers but never got their stages shown.

And of course, Bad Guy. The bestest stage in the history of stages. The Centre of Centres. The Best Dancer ever. And they're only eighteen! They're so young and they're already the best!!!

Okay but seriously. It's not that I hate the two of them or their performance. Bad Guy was extremely impressive and their solos were brilliant. But here's the thing: Linjie and Guo Zhen didn't sing at all. They only danced. If they go horribly off-key the moment they open their mouths, no way in hell can they debut. Thankfully this isn't actually the case, but it's not fair to look at them and go "they're so good, they're so perfect and godly, they definitely need to debut at high positions" and then look at brilliant vocalists who can compose and write their own songs like Li Chenxu and Huang Junrong and go "yeah, they can hold a note, I guess, but did they dance? No. They suck at dancing. They will always suck at dancing. They will never get better at dancing. Ever. Out they go." Thankfully Hu Yanbin protected Chenxu and Zhang PD saved Junrong, because I feel like Guo Jingming's tastes (young, youthful pure dancers and Xu Zhenxuan) seem to overpower the other judges' and he's the one guy with zero relevant experience and qualifications. I don't know why he's here and how he got to become a mentor. I know many people hate Hu Yanbin and he makes some questionable comments but at least he's been a professional singer-songwriter and record producer since some of the trainees were newborns who is strict, harsh and objective in his criticisms, so I don't mind him in the mentor lineup. All Guo Jingming does is write, direct and play favourites.

Speaking of tastes, I feel like the judging criteria is not consistent at all. Aside from GJM's vendetta against vocalists, you have many extremely skilled trainees (Xiao Yien, Jin Fan before the Tygers were saved, half of CTO) who were put into the Pending Zone for some reason. I can't say who I thought shouldn't have passed qualifiers off the top of my head since so many stages were cut, but I remember Zuo Qibo saying he suspected he was eliminated because of his age and Mr Tyger getting roasted for being mature and not having youthfulness. I still don't really know what exactly youthfulness (as defined by SNZM) is and why it's so much more important than being skilled or showing great potential in singing, rapping and dancing. More importantly, I don't understand why being young and youthful is so important to the point that you eliminate multiple trainees solely because they're much older and more mature.

We later find out that the oldest trainee in SNZM passed qualifiers, never got replaced and never needed saving to pass, but it looks like he was about to get replaced multiple times and I think his age was a huge factor in that. In fact, they spent so much time roasting Lin Mo for being old and mature and ancient that when they first revealed Sun Yinghao's age, my first thought wasn't actually "Sun Yinghao is nearly thirty?!" but "Lin Mo ISN'T the oldest?!" It's generally agreed that Sun Yinghao definitely has that sweet sweet youthfulness this show is desperately looking for since many viewers were pretty shocked when they found out he wasn't one of the youngest trainees (I read a post on Douban that went "Youthfulness is when you put this 1991 baby with all the 2002 babies and nothing feels off" which is honestly hilarious), so they've taken to emphasising how ancient he is every time he appears on screen and I'm just... no??!?!?!!!!! He's more than just his age?!?!!!! Also, you want youthfulness? This guy has youthfulness. Lots of it. He probably has one of the highest concentrations of youthfulness amongst the trainees. But apparently having lots of youthfulness isn't enough for this show, because you also need to be extremely young. If y'all hate old and/or mature people so much, why the hell did you even let them onto the show to get roasted for something they can't change?! Just straight up restrict auditions to 2000-2002 greenhorns if you're such a sucker for barely-legal children and hate returnees so much (despite the mentors saying that there's nothing wrong with trying again). We all know you're obsessed with young, youthful dance aces (because you hate vocalists and don't care for rappers), but how do you expect the trainees to be both youthful and skilled if you hate people with experience? Many trainees trained for a long time to be this skilled, but the same maturity (in terms of skill and level of completion) that is normally an asset on stage is somehow a reason they're horrible? Youku has been pushing the "old = bad and cannot improve" narrative and honestly I must disagree-- the two main victims of this (Lin Mo and Sun Yinghao) have proven time and again that they're skilled, that they can improve leaps and bounds and that they're versatile enough to fit many different styles. If that's not what you want in an idol, I don't know what is.

I might be biased though. The four pre-1995 trainees who passed qualifiers are very high on my pick list and I do like the returnees. But even if you don't like them, it's evident that this show has a huge ageism problem. It might be a product of an ageist industry and market which emphasises youth, but I watched Chuang 2020 and aside from a brief mention about Zhang Yifan being a 2000 baby, no one's age was mentioned, much less focused on (for reference, the oldest Chuang 2020 trainee was born in the same year as Lin Mo, but you have to search it up to figure this out) and definitely not used a weapon against them (for the oldest trainees) or a reason to praise them (for the youngest trainees).

Here's Zhan Yu being an anti-ageist king on his post-SNZM livestream.

Okay now that I'm done screaming about the blatant favouritism in this show and its obsession with being young and youthful, I'd like talk about the format of this show.

I'm not going to talk about the initial stages themselves. It wouldn't be fair because so many never saw the light of day.

I was surprised when the show began by eliminating about half the trainees from the get-go, but I suppose it makes sense. The trainees were given two months to train, perfect their initial stage and learn the theme song, and had trainers around to teach and help them. This meant that trainees with no or little foundation in performing could learn to sing, rap and dance, allowing the mentors to take into consideration the trainees' potential for improvement when judging them, allowing trainees with lots of potential to improve to get a chance to continue and shine when they would normally never pass auditions for other survival shows, e.g. Qu Boyu, who didn't even pass the auditions and qualifiers until he asked for a second chance both times.

Ignoring the sheer number of contestants who got zero screentime, one thing that caught my eye and caused me to start watching the show were the introductory VCRs introducing us to each and every trainee. You don't just see their stages and judge them purely based on their skill level: you get to know each trainee whether they passed qualifiers or were eliminated straight away. You form a connection with the boys and allow you to remember them for more than just their skills and stage presence. You don't get the feeling that that trainee is a good performer and that's all they've got to them and that you can probably replace them with another singer/dancer/rapper and the debuting group wouldn't lose anything.

Additionally, one thing the showrunners excelled at were finding good, lovable trainees with unique talents and interests. In Chuang 2020, with the exception of Curley Gao and Tian Jingfan, the vast majority of vocalists had extremely similar sweet, high-pitched and gentle soprano voices. They're good, but no one stood out because they all had bog-standard idol girl group voices, and I felt like if you didn't tell me who was singing, I wouldn't actually know who was opening their mouth. In SNZM, the vocalists all have unique vocal colours and it'd be impossible for me to pick only one or two vocalists to make it into the final group simply because they're not only good at singing, but also have unique voices and bring something to the group that no one else can. It's not just because I'm heavily biased towards vocalists. I just happen to be most familiar with vocals so I'm using vocalists as an example, but you could say the same for dancers and rappers (RIP Zhong Xin, I really liked her but Chuang 2020 didn't care about rappers).

The limited number of qualifer seats and the replacement mechanism is kind of weird TBH. There were a number of replaced trainees who I really liked (namely 2/3 of AZA, the really impressive acapella trio-- Lan Taoyi/the beatboxer didn't pass and IDK why), though most replaced trainees were either subsequently saved or their stage was completely removed so IDK anything about them. I understand having limited qualifying places, but it's so weird that they just get replaced and that's it--- no battles, no nothing-- just because one judge didn't like you. But this means that you have far less trainees to focus on for the entirety of the show and you can get to know all of them better instead of fighting for scraps of screentime and attention with 100 other trainees-- in theory. I don't just want to see the faces of the few favoured trainees and a few uber-popular kids you don't hate. I want to see the other trainees and get to know them outside of stages, dammit. They're all good boys working hard to chase their dreams, not just backdrop decoration.

I won't talk about the individual stages themselves. That's for another thread.

I like that there were benefits for groups or trainees with high live votes. It gives them motivation to work together and do well as a team instead of competiting for attention with your groupmates like in Chuang 2020. The implementation of benefits was kind of weird in the second performance but otherwise I can't really complain until you talk about possible rigging and vote switching(, especially) in the third and fourth performances. I won't be talking about them in this essay though, since it's just speculation at this point.

Another thing I really love is that the boys had quite a bit of creative freedom and were involved in the planning of stages instead of just soullessly regurgitating whatever the crew gave them! Members rearranged the songs, added raps and harmonies, changed up the choreographies (shoutout to Zhang Tianci for always incorporating breaking into every stage and allowing him to shine without being out of place), had some control over the creative direction of the stage (oh hello Redemption) allowing each and every member to shine on stage. I think a great example of this is the Do You Want To Dance (Defending Team) stage. We didn't get much practice room screentime and whatever little screentime they got was dedicated to showing what a ragtag bunch of misfits they were who disagreed on stuff and were very un-idolesque, but this team was so good and definitely deserved to place first in the first public performance, or at the very least, beat the Attacking Team. Everyone except Wang Ziyun and He Yijun had their own killing part, and every member got to shine without overshadowing everyone else. In contrast, the Attacking Team, while a very good performance, felt like a Kids Bop version of the Defending Team's stage. No one stood out and no one shone, even though that team had some of the strongest trainees in Yazipu.

Well, they get creative freedom most of the time. I have a whole section dedicated to complaining about what happened in the second public performance/position evaluations.

Also, despite the mentors saying that this show promotes each trainee's individual style (and honestly, it does a pretty good job of doing that), let me remind you that Xu Andi did not pass qualifiers because (to quote Cheng Xiao) "(his) personal style did not fit into a boy group".

I really liked each of the eight stages in the second public performance! Everyone did so well! But this is where you can see how much Youku hates vocalists.

Firstly, who picked the songs for the vocal stages?! We need to talk. Those songs are very plain. They don't allow the singers to show off their vocal prowess. My Name is a slightly better song choice and I believe that group managed to rearranged that song to show off more trainees' singing skills, but according to Lin Ran in a post-SNZM livestream, the Zi Ran Xing group wasn't allowed to change or rearrange anything except for the addition of Wang Linkai's self-written rap and Zhan Yu's high notes, which honestly screwed them over, especially when you gave them a cute concept. Nothing wrong with being cute and the cutesy sleepover concept fits the song, but Lin Ran said that cute concepts are a huge disadvantage in such idol survivor shows and Wang Linkai's (granted, live audiences hate Linkai in general) and the Suns' live votes prove it. Even Zhan Yu, the centre (I HAD TO SEARCH IT UP TO FIGURE THIS OUT, THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU CUT ALL THE PRACTICE ROOM FOOTAGE AND DON'T SHOW ANY FEEDBACK THE MENTORS GAVE HIM), said in a livestream that he felt like he couldn't show off his vocal skills in this extremely plain song, and he was the only singer in the entire group who got parts more complicated than just hitting notes.

I know Zi Ran Xing was the song no one wanted and it looks like that team was comprised of the leftover trainees no other group wanted, but I know that team has multiple members who can sing well even though Zhan Yu was the only one who shone on that stage. Lin Ran is a vocalist and was voted as a vocal team leader for a reason. Wang Linkai was the one of the main vocalists in The Carnival In Babel and First Love Confession, even though he mostly rapped in Zi Ran Xing. Wang Ziyun had his long high notes in Zi Ran Xing and First Love Confession. Sun Yinghao was the main vocalist in so many stages, many people were convinced he's a vocalist when he's actually a dancer. I know they can sing. Will it kill you to let them show off their skills?!

Secondly, why did the vocal groups have to dance?! They're vocal groups in a position evaluation. The rappers just rapped (except for the three vocalists-- they honestly lucked out). The dancers just danced to a pre-recorded track. The singers should just stand there and move the audience with nothing but their voices. They shouldn't be dancing and doing up their own choreography. That's for the other three public performances. And from what I gathered, it looks like both vocal groups were forced to choreograph and dance. Su Xunlun was freaking out about choreographing during their practice room footage and according to repos, Han Yu criticised the Zi Ran Xing group's dance for being too simple. They're vocal groups! Their job during the position evaluation is to just sing and show off their vocal prowess!!!! Why do they need to dance????!!!!!!!

When The Curtain Falls honestly seemed more like a vocal stage than both vocal stages.

I know Rescue is probably the stage that stands out the least, but they were also the other group that seemed more like a standard stage with singing, dancing and rapping than a true position evaluation. Granted, the Composition groups performed precomposed songs that the producers selected, although Zaixi and Junhao arranged Rescue and wrote additional lyrics (presumably their respective raps). However, none of them initially planned on dancing but were forced to do so, to the point where poor Junhao had a breakdown (granted, there were other factors contributing to it but his struggle with dancing was part of it). Zhang Tianci chose this group instead of fighting for a spot in the extremely popular dance groups because he felt that he would get more creative freedom in a Composition group. Looking back, I wonder if he truly managed to get the creative freedom he wanted, because I feel like this group didn't have much autonomy.

Ironically, the one guy who wanted to dance and choreograph had his solo dance break and self-written rap removed by the staff the day before the second public performance with no prior notice. Guo Jingming had a point when he said that Ma Haowen would lose out by having zero solo parts, but he blamed it all on Renyu even though the entire team was desperately fighting to keep Haowen's solo parts in?! And Episode 4 was edited to make it look like it was actually Haowen's fault for being unable to hold a note when it was really the staff's fault?!?!?!!!!

I can complain about Moonlight's rap and chorus not sounding like they're from the same song because of an unideal song choice, but the autonomy and creative freedom the group got meant that they were able to make everyone's parts cohesive without overshadowing each other. Moonlight was one of the best performances of the night and one of the most hype performances in the show that I keep looping again and again. The boys are skilled. Give them creative freedom and some time and they can make a bad song good (read: My Name) or even great (read: Moonlight). I believe the Zi Ran Xing group could make a good vocal stage (without dancing!!!!!) where everyone got to show off their vocal chops and shine. I believe the My Name group didn't need to dance to impress the audience. I believe Ma Haowen's solo rap and dance break wouldn't be out of place in When The Curtain Falls, and if his teammates (including the original songwriter and composer) wanted his solo parts in, I fully trust that it would've added something to the stage. I believe the Rescue group could've stood out more if they weren't forced to dance.

This is why everyone was fighting for a spot in the dance teams, even if they had a different main position (e.g. Mu Xingyuan, a vocalist who originally picked Don't Start Now but was replaced), aside from the usual attraction dance teams usually get: they had brilliant, attractive choreography and songs that allowed everyone to impress the audience with their dance skills and shine without having to bother about adjusting the choreography. The rap teams were slightly less popular amongst the trainees but frankly they did such an awesome job and were definitely the best teams of the night by a long shot.

So if the dancers and rappers got to shine, maybe let the vocalists and composers stand out as well, Youku? We know you heavily favour dancers and hate people who can hold a note but this is ridiculous. The vocalists and composers deserve so much better.

I've been angrily ranting for too long. Here's some nice words because I love Episode 5. I just wish they released all the performances and didn't montage some of them, because I know there were at least two performances that weren't released anywhere (the conclusion of Li Hao's second VCR and the popping stage with Xue En, Hong Zhenhui, Ma Haowen, Duan Xuyu and Zhan Shiwei).

It's so nice to see the boys just chill and relax for a whole episode, and more importantly, they were the ones in charge of producing the food and content. It's such a welcome change of pace for the boys and the viewers and we got to know more about so many trainees, especially some trainees who had little to no screentime prior to this.

We also got to see that there's more to the boys than just singing, dancing and rapping. You already got to know some of them through their introductory VCRs, but this time, you see more to them and find out more about their skills unrelated to idol work. We find out many of the boys can cook (but please never let Su Xunlun step into a kitchen again). Sun Yinghao can design posters that put the official graphics to shame. Li Hao isn't just a Stephen Chow fanboy who likes his dramatic antics (remember this guy collapsing on stage?) and Cantonese songs. He can film and direct and honestly, his VCRs are so good. I love them so much more than the actual high-budget MVs and it's clear he's a much better director than Guo Jingming. The screentime distribution was equal and every trainee got their own storyline and moment to shine in the first VCR. He had nothing but his phone camera and video editing app, but he packed so many emotions, happiness and friendships into four minutes. Heck, so many trainees got more screentime in his four-minute VCR than they did in five whole episodes. His second VCR had a cohesive storyline which was so hilarious but also made me cry when Xu Jiangbao's father died. I wish Youku released the live conclusion of it, but otherwise the storyline made sense, the boys acted well (Li Hao's directing must've helped since Xu Zhenxuan was scarily good as a villain but his acting was kind of lackluster in the second MV), and I laughed and cried because it was a masterpiece. Guo Jingming's second MV was a high-budget thirty-minute short film that only featured a few favoured trainees (+ some singers and dancers) but I spent the entire time bored out of my wits, trying to figure out what was going on, complaining about how nonsensical and uncohesive the plot was and wondering who the hell selected the songs and did the singers' voices dirty.

And this is without any budget or external help (except for music). Just him, his iPhone and his friends.

If you have not already watched the full version of Li Hao's finale VCR (available on his Weibo in all its 4K glory), do it. Ten Years Later, aka What Happens When You Give Li Hao A Budget, is a masterpiece. It was such a rollercoaster of emotions, from the heartwrenching depths of hopelessness at the start, to the glimmer of hope in the middle, the laughter and memories flooding in when he shows clips of the top 32, to the jubilant nostalgia of living this dreamlike summer. It's so good. Please watch it.

The Incomplete Party was such a nice change of pace, but also allowed the boys to shine on stages they wanted to do but never got to perform in the public performances. We finally get to see the CTO boys back together. We finally get Junrong screentime and we even get a section dedicated to the extremely unpopular boys who danced to Womxnly. Mu Xingyuan finally got a dance stage (and unfortunately it wound up being his last one-- he really should've taken up Su Xunlun's offer in the next episode D:). We even got to jam to the banger that is the XO Crew Cypher (please collab soon).

I don't remember a lot of points but Episode 5 just makes me really happy to see all the boys relax, have a good meal and finally get to do the things they've always wanted to do on this show.

Produce Camp 2021

This is looking like a fever dream and even the trainees are delirious.

Some trainees I'm looking out for (once I'm done crying over SNZM Grandpa):

Playlist

An incomplete list of songs by SNZM alumni that I love (I've basically stopped updating this because Kuwo no longer works and many new NetEase releases are region-locked).

Most songs are published on QQ/Kugou/Kuwo. RIP Kuwo's website, please get back up again.

All linked NetEase songs except YES!CAMP's 嘿,远航吧! i.e. all the Star Master songs were recently region-locked, so you will need a VPN to listen to them.

Click here for S.K.Y's discography. Every song is a masterpiece.

• 远星EP-慕星远
• 风生-杨朝阳
• 我永远记得-郑人予
• 小秘密-秦柱强/余紫妍
• 不猜-靳凡
• 触电-黄俊融
• 嘿,远航吧!-YES!CAMP
• 他-李宸旭
• 心的停靠-郑人予/钟卓融