In the last year or so, there has been an increasingly heated debate over when the fifth generation of K-Pop will begin, or if it has begun already. Since the second and third generation each lasted about 5-8 years (if you use the general guide that second gen lasted from around 2003-2011 and third gen from 2012-2017), one would think that the fifth gen might be beginning fairly soon since it has been about five and a half years since the fourth generation is generally considered to have started (late 2017/early 2018).
Of course, there are a lot of different opinions about when K-Pop generations have begun and ended, and there’s really no set rule that defines them. You can make an argument for pretty much every opinion on what determines a change in generations, but the way that WAKEONE and Mnet seem to be heavily pushing for the start of the fifth generation has a lot of netizens criticizing their media play.
With the debut of Boys Planet project group ZEROBASEONE on July 10, there have been numerous articles made about their impressive records broken and how they’re promoting their…
