One of Pop’s Hottest Acts Feels on the Verge of Implosion. How Did We Get Here?

Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. It’s only been six months since I updated readers on Katseye, the incredibly popular, yet seemingly incredibly cursed, global pop girl group whose debut was marked by a Netflix documentary. At our last check-in, Eyekons (the name for Katseye’s fanbase) had been shocked by a press release announcing that one of the group’s six members, Manon Bannerman, would go on a “temporary hiatus” to “focus on her health and wellbeing”—a generic statement that was seemingly almost immediately contradicted by Bannerman’s own cryptic message, which claimed, “I’m healthy, I’m okay, and I’m taking care of myself.” The lack of clarity surrounding the entire ordeal cast a weighty skepticism on the group as a whole, as well as its management companies, South Korea’s Hybe and America’s Geffen Records. Since then, the skepticism and scrutiny have only increased. While nothing has changed with Bannerman’s “temporary” hiatus, leaving her fate in the group uncertain, everything else surrounding Katseye has dramatically shifted, potentially for the worse. The group’s recent musical output—led by a trio of divisive singles titled “Pinky Up,” “Animal,” and “Hootie Frutti”—has been heavily criticized, while their go-to choreographer has been widely mocked on the internet. If that weren’t enough, two more members have taken leaves of absence of varying lengths from the group, engendering a host of internet jokes made at the expense of the measly three members who were left to do the promotional work for the group’s third EP, WILD, which was released earlier this month. The situation is, in a word, shambolic. But is this just a temporary setback for Katseye, or is the sextet (at least, what is supposed to be a sextet) looking down the barrel at their early demise as a musical act? And will their listeners—whoever they may be—stick around through all this drama? If you’ve been wondering what’s going on with the most prominent girl group in the Western hemisphere, I’m here to answer your questions. Remind me: Where are we with Manon Bannerman again? Bannerman is still on hiatus, whatever that means in this context. She has not been participating in official Katseye activities, including the recording and release of their new EP, although sightings of her at fashion shows and public events at least confirm that she’s still up and around. Her fans continue to support her, amid as-yet-unsubstantiated theories that some kind of mistreatment or discord took place to push Bannerman—who is Swiss Ghanaian, and the only Black member of Katseye—out of the group. In interviews, her fellow members have also spoken about their support and love for Bannerman with no additional news, in line with the contents of their new documentary, Katseye: Wild Hearts, which showcases the Katseye members reacting to Manon’s hiatus by showering her in praise without sharing actual information about her eventual departure or return. OK … You mentioned that two other members have taken leaves of absence? What’s the deal with that? On Aug. 7, Katseye’s management announced that the group’s leader, Sophia Laforteza, will be “temporarily unable to participate in upcoming promotional activities,” citing the goal of prioritizing her “mental health and wellness.” The announcement—much longer than the one published for Bannerman earlier this year—also mentioned that Laforteza “has been receiving the utmost support” including “consultations with medical professionals” who advised her to take some time off. The company’s statement also includes a soft date for her potential return, pledging that their management will “reassess” Laforteza’s “condition” in September, promising an update for fans at that time. Then, a mere 10 days later, a third group member, Megan Skiendiel, wrote to fans stating that she was “feeling a bit under the weather,” warning that she intended to “take the day to take care” of herself and rest. Her break was essentially the equivalent of Skiendiel taking a few sick days: On Aug. 20, three days later, Skiendiel announced that she would be back and active in promotional activities. The rapid decrease in working members, along with visual proof of physical gaps in dance formations where members ought to be during live performances, resulted in a number of jokes that ran wild on social media. It became something of a meme to announce that you, a regular-degular person, were also “announcing your hiatus from Katseye.” Yikes! Seems like they’re dropping like flies! They both are and aren’t. The news about both Laforteza and Skiendiel’s breaks was vastly different from the vague company statement surrounding Bannerman’s break, which included neither a promise that Bannerman was receiving “support” for her alleged health and well-being, nor a date—soft or otherwise—to reassess her condition or update fans. Where Bannerman’s break was officially dubbed a larger “hiatus,” Laforteza’s was simply framed as, specifically, a temporary inability to join in on the recent promotional activities. Then there’s the wide disparity between the girls’ responses. Where Bannerman seemed to be shadily providing a counternarrative to the official announcement, Laforteza’s longer personal apology to fans seemed to echo everything the official announcement of her hiatus stipulated. So, yes, while the Katseye house definitely seems to need some cleaning up, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the news surrounding Bannerman is anything like the news surrounding Laforteza or Skiendiel. I don’t even think Laforteza’s news should be that alarming. Idols, especially those trained by the K-pop machine or something similar, as Katseye’s have been, are often worked to the bone. They’re constantly putting out new music, staging comebacks less than a year out from their previous release, and flying to multiple different countries to perform while also appearing for brand deals in between. It’s incessant, difficult work! More idols should be encouraged to take mental health breaks if they need them—this should be commonplace in the industry, not cause for alarm. I just wish that the hiatuses had unfolded differently. The longer Bannerman’s hiatus has gone unremarked upon, the more the scrutiny on Katseye has intensified. Because fans have no sense of rhyme or reason for Bannerman’s absence, they’ve been overanalyzing the words and behavior of the members, looking for any clue that could point to what’s going on with Bannerman. The remaining girls are overly criticized for their performances, or for seemingly having free time, when so much of the Bannerman speculation assumes that Bannerman was ousted for doing the same. And, though it is the group’s management that holds the keys to Katseye’s future, it’s ultimately the individual members who have to unfairly and publicly answer for and bear the brunt of Eyekons’ feelings of personal affront and indignance. By keeping mum on Bannerman, management might think they’re protecting the members, but the complete opposite has become true, making it unsurprising that Laforteza would need to step back for a bit. It all feels like an utter failure of management. There is a lot of scrutiny—and mockery, too. Isn’t making fun of Katseye all that people do on the internet these days? You’re not wrong about the Katseye ribbing. Ever since the immense success that was “Gnarly,” a song that was initially despised by fans but turned into the group’s biggest hit to date, Katseye has continued to churn out similar-sounding music. Singles like “Internet Girl,” “Pinky Up,” and their most recent single “Hootie Frutti”—a Brazilian Phonk song, despite none of the members being Brazilian or speaking fluent Portuguese—fit into an oeuvre that is often mockingly referred to by smashing together a series of nonsense Gen Z trend names and Katseye lyrics, like “Labubu fried chicken” music, or “Dubai chocolate Labubu slime boba tea” slop, or one of my favorites, “matcha Labubu Socrates Tesla” lyrics—because I, too, am still astonished that they mentioned to work “Socrates” into one of their lyrics. It doesn’t help that Katseye’s music videos are notorious for pretty overt product placement, like a boba tea mention matching the lyrics to “Gnarly,” or, significantly more bafflingly, a Tic Tac and a slime promo placement in “Hootie Frutti.” The difference between these tracks, though, is that “Gnarly” was intentionally ironic, especially considering it was written by Alice Longyu Gao, a Chinese musician and performance artist known for her role as a witty pioneer of hyperpop. But that irony was lost in its translation to a mainstream pop act, and in its aftermath, many listeners feel that the creative powers behind Katseye saw the popularity of “Gnarly” and took the wrong lesson from it by further leaning into less, shall we say, artful music. This is compounded by the apparent gap between Katseye’s output and the members’ talent. As anyone who saw the Pop Star Academy Netflix documentary can attest to, these girls are capable of singing, of dancing, of working hard, and of having creative input. Some of the members write and produce music themselves, but these well-received songs are generally not promoted as Katseye singles, or they’re buried in their discography. It also doesn’t help matters that Katseye’s main choreographer, Grant Gilmore, periodically blows up on X for his extremely over-the-top performances of his own choreography, which adds to a general sense of grotesquerie when it comes to the group’s moves, though general consensus remains that the choreo isn’t as cringe when the girls do it. Still, maybe this is why a particular part of Katseye’s live performance of “Hootie Frutti” has made waves for being out of sync and generally bad. I’ve seen a lot of jokes about only the skibidi-toilet generation listening to Katseye. Is that accurate? Who even is their main fanbase now? The question of Katseye’s audience is a really good one. When Katseye first debuted, they were beloved by young kids, Gen Z, and even younger millennials. This is perhaps best evidenced by the smashing success of their famed Gap ad and the love for their earlier singles like “Touch,” which remains one of their most-streamed songs to date. Now, it seems—if personal and online testimonies are any evidence—that their audience is mainly comprised of preteens and younger kids. Still, that age group doesn’t necessarily match Katseye’s edgier aesthetic and provocative stage outfits, even if it does match one’s idea of who would most likely listen to “Labubu” music. Is all this drama translating to an actual threat to Katseye’s livelihood? Not so far, from what I can tell. As trendy as it’s become to make fun of Katseye, their music videos still rack up tens of millions of views, while WILD is projected to debut at the top spot on the Billboard 200 chart, which would make it the group’s first No. 1 album and the biggest first-week debut by a girl group in almost two decades. Is that a sign of Katseye’s current success? Probably! At the very least, I imagine that the young Eyekons will love the release, and the former fans might at least be curious enough to stream WILD when it’s out. However, this is no guarantee of lasting success. (It’s probably not great that the group has felt on the verge of implosion multiple times in the two years since its debut.) All there’s left to do is watch the charts and see what happens.