TUIDE has not officially debuted yet, but HYBE’s newest girl group has decided that waiting until debut day to introduce itself is apparently far too conventional.
The seven-member group — Seohee, Seoyeon, Elena, Jia, Saki, Seah and Yi Hani — has released “Meet my GRLS, TUIDE,” its first full performance video ahead of the group’s official August 24 debut. The video features “GRLS,” a track from TUIDE’s upcoming debut EP, TUNE & PLAY, and gives us our first proper opportunity to see what this group might actually sound and feel like.
And it is fun. Not “fun” in the increasingly polished, meticulously curated, everybody-stare-meaningfully-into-the-camera sense of K-pop. It is old-school fun.
TUIDE Feels Like Someone Found an Old K-pop VHS Tape
There is something about “GRLS” that immediately sends me backwards in K-pop history.
Musically, there are modern elements in the production, but the overall presentation reminds me much more of the cheerful, uncomplicated girl-group pop associated with K-pop’s earlier generations. There are flashes that make me think of the S.E.S. and Fin.K.L era — not because TUIDE is literally recreating either group’s music, but because the entire thing feels colorful, youthful, communal and refreshingly unserious.
The performance video strengthens that feeling.
The girls are moving through colorful sets, matching and coordinating outfits, playing with props and bouncing between different little environments. There is a deliberate artificiality to it. It looks like a set. It knows it looks like a set. Nobody seems particularly concerned about convincing us that these seven girls have accidentally wandered into an achingly beautiful cinematic universe where every lampshade represents the crushing loneliness of adolescence.
They are girls in colors, dancing fun choreography. Everybody appears to be having a reasonably good Tuesday. The world has missed this.
In fact, the presentation is reminscent of the old Mickey Mouse Club approach to introducing young performers: put everybody together, give them something catchy to perform, let their personalities bounce off each other and gradually teach the audience who everyone is.
That seems especially relevant because ABD is following the group performance with individual member introduction videos. Jia was the first member to get the spotlight, beginning the next stage of a rollout that lets viewers meet TUIDE collectively first and then start separating seven unfamiliar faces into seven personalities.
That is actually a smart pre-debut strategy. Instead of handing us seven profile cards and expecting everyone to immediately memorize birth dates, MBTIs, representative animals and which member once ate a strawberry incorrectly in elementary school, TUIDE is letting the audience meet them through entertainment.
Naturally, the Plagiarism Department Has Already Reported for Duty
Of course, TUIDE is a HYBE girl group debuting in the year of our Lord 2026, so approximately 8,940,628 accusations of NewJeans plagiarism have already been filed by the always calm, measured and completely unbiased internet institution known as TOKKIs.
This started before “GRLS” was even released. Social media users were already comparing TUIDE’s concept and musical snippets to NewJeans, and the accusations became noticeable enough to generate discussion among K-pop fans about whether yet another HYBE girl group was about to spend its debut being accused of copying NewJeans.
The world has carefully examined the evidence, and the similarities are frankly devastating.
TUIDE consists entirely of girls. NewJeans also consists of girls.
Several TUIDE members appear to have hair. You know who else had hair? NewJeans.
And now TUIDE has escalated the situation by releasing footage in which the members sing and dance simultaneously. At some point, coincidence becomes difficult to defend.
Someone alert the courts.
More seriously, there are stylistic ingredients that can remind people of other recent girl groups because contemporary K-pop acts frequently draw from overlapping periods, genres and fashion cycles. But retro influences did not begin with NewJeans, and neither did youthful styling, UK garage influences, naturalistic choreography, 80s fashion or young women hanging out together on camera.
The More Interesting Comparison May Be First-Generation K-pop
TUIDE’s production is obviously contemporary, but its spirit feels surprisingly old-fashioned.
First-generation K-pop girl groups such as S.E.S. and Fin.K.L came from an era when pop concepts could be almost aggressively cheerful. The objective was not always to create a perfectly coherent visual mythology. Sometimes you got bright clothes, ridiculous sets, synchronized dancing, an infectious chorus and enough visual information flying around the screen to temporarily disable your frontal lobe.
And it was wonderful. That era of K-pop could be messy. It could be cheesy. It could be extremely literal. Sometimes a music video looked like somebody gave the art department $400, access to a craft store and six hours.
But there was an energy to it. TUIDE appears to understand at least part of that appeal.
“GRLS” feels less concerned with convincing us that TUIDE has arrived to redefine the metaphysical boundaries of girlhood and more interested in saying: Here are seven girls. Come hang out with us. There is something incredibly refreshing about that.
HYBE May Be Selling Personality Before Perfection
The rollout makes even more sense when you consider how TUIDE was introduced.
Before revealing all of the members and their profiles, ABD announced the TUIDE EXCLUSIVE PREVIEW [PLAYGROUND], where the group performed the songs from its debut album before officially debuting. The idea was essentially to allow people to discover TUIDE through the actual performers and their music rather than through months of mysterious silhouettes and increasingly elaborate lore.
First is the group performance. Next come the individual introductions, beginning with Jia. That creates a very simple progression: meet the group, hear the music, meet the girls. There is something almost old-fashioned about that too.
And considering veteran producer Han Sung-soo is leading production for TUIDE — with a résumé that includes SEVENTEEN, After School, IZ*ONE and TWS — the emphasis on group chemistry and distinctive members should probably not be surprising.
Maybe K-pop Is Ready to Be Fun Again
TUIDE does not currently feel burdened by the requirement to be Important.
K-pop has become enormous, expensive and global. Music videos are cinematic productions. Concepts arrive with lore. Fashion houses are waiting before some idols have accumulated enough songs to fill a 20-minute concert set. Every debut gets dissected for market positioning, global strategy, brand identity and whether somebody’s shoelaces constitute plagiarism.
And “GRLS” scratches a little bit of that itch.
There was a period in K-pop when being bright, weird, cheesy, chaotic and incredibly catchy was enough. You didn’t have to explain the concept with a 14-minute short film and a PDF.
TUIDE is obviously not literally recreating first-generation K-pop. The production is too modern, the rollout is too sophisticated and HYBE certainly knows exactly what market it is targeting.
But there is something about the spirit of this introduction that could remind the world of when K-pop felt a little less self-conscious.
And perhaps most importantly, girls who look like they are being introduced as a group of girls you might actually want to spend time with, rather than seven luxury-brand ambassadors who occasionally meet to record an album.
