A survey was conducted among 50 reporters from the Korean showbiz by SBS E!TV’s staff to find out the top 10 hot issues among idols in the first half of the year.
Out of these top 10 hot issues, five of the issues were related to SNSD, once again proving their popularity and attention in the country.
The ninth issue was on the topic ‘Separate and Together’ and the reason for SNSD not having sub-units was explained. The nine girls have been praised to have special and unique characteristics and many suggested that they should have sub-units. However, SM Entertainment wants to show SNSD as a whole, as a complete nine-membered group, perhaps due to sad memories from TVXQ’s separation.
Amazingly, Sooyoung’s talented and precise imitating skills, which attracted a lot of attention, came in 8th of the top 10 hot issues. Sooyoung’s well-loved, amazing imitating skills also became part of her charms and special characteristics.
Coming in third is the topic of ‘Bold Idols’ and Hyoyeon became the example of how idols boldly declare that they are in love. In the variety talkshow ‘Strong Heart’, SNSD’s dancing queen confessed that she had a crush on a male idol and she started to like him more and more, to the extend of having dreams of him. She hinted that the male idol does not have double eye-lid, is smart and dances well. To this, the media found five possible male idols, namely 2PM’s Wooyoung, BEAST’s Doojoon, Big Bang’s Daesung, MBLAQ’s Lee Joon and SS501′s Kim KyuJong.
The second topic was ‘Controversies on Suggestiveness’ and SNSD was an example of how K-pop idols’ performances and costumes are often considered suggestive. The focus of this topic is YoonA’s pole dance, which was performed in their recent concerts. The reporter commented that fans love YoonA’s pure and innocent image so when they saw her pole dance and does it perfectly, fans were shocked. However, they went on to comment that SNSD members, who are no longer in their teenage years, have grown up in confidence and the girls would now like to show a more mature image to others.
The top topic of the hot issue survey was ‘New Hallyu Wave’, in which the reporters named SNSD as the representative of the new Hallyu wave. They went on to comment that the Hallyu wave and influence have spread beyond Korea that even foreign fans held demonstrations and flash mobs to show their love for their idols. For this topic, the SMTown Live in Paris concert was the focus and it was said that the stars, especially SNSD, managed to grab European fans’ hearts.
Within one year of their debut in Japan, SNSD managed to capture a lot of attention, in addition to grabbing the top spot on the Oricon charts to create Hallyu history. During interviews with Japanese fans, they answered, “They are so cute that I was about to cry”, “I want to be like SNSD”, etc.
It was also mentioned that during the earlier stages of the Hallyu wave, actors like Bae YongJun and Lee ByungHun won the hearts of middle age women in Japan but there was a gap in the Hallyu wave in the country.
As K-pop advances into Japan, the music was accepted by the Japanese and K-pop was successful in Japan as a whole. With SNSD’s success in the country, many Japanese groups debuted with an image similar to SNSD and recently, a controversy arose when a Japanese young girl group with nine members debuted.
As of now, SNSD’s influence has spread beyond Korea and Japan, beyond Asia, all the way into Europe and possibly other corners of the world.
Girls’ Generation, who resumed activities in mid-October, ranked first a whopping 11 times as of the end of November on music programs on both major television networks and cable channels, living up to its status as one of the top girl groups in Korea. 
