TWS, Pledis’s first boy group since SEVENTEEN, is set to make their debut on January 22, 2024, with a pre-release single scheduled for January 2.
In preparation TWS’s debut, it seems that Pledis and HYBE are asking other groups and artists under the conglomerate to promote for the group, resulting in members of SEVENTEEN and the official account of BOYNEXTDOOR, TXT, and ENHYPEN publishing stories related to TWS.
However, many netizens have spotted that in most of the promotion posts, the words “ALWAY CONNECTED” was included, leading to suspicion that this is the new group’s slogan. This angered fans of ENHYPEN, who claimed that this is a “stolen slogan” due to its similarity to ENHYPEN’s greeting, “1, 2, CONNECT”.
On top of this, it is known that the promotional post for TWS on ENHYPEN’s official account was the only one not including the “ALWAYS CONNECTED” words, suggesting that ENHYPEN staff and even members are aware of the similarity.
According to ENHYPEN fans, “CONNECT” is an extremely important keyword for the group, as it is not only used in the group’s greeting, but also in other official content and events. Even fans often use the work in making taglines and hashtags to trend during important occasions.
In the past, fans of ENHYPEN have also protested to another “stolen slogan” issues, where Japanese HYBE boy group &TEAM started to use “1, 2 WE LINK” as their greetings.
As of the moment, various hashtags related to the new “stolen slogan” issue, such as ##BeliftProtectEnhypensBrand, #PledisFixTheTag, and #HybeRespectENHYPEN are being trended by ENHYPEN fans on SNS platform X (formerly Twitter).
Source: X, K Crush
