HYBE formed an international girl group in 2024 that took the world by storm. Prior to their debut, the group had several options for their official name. After much deliberation, two names were selected: NEWCRAZY and KATSEYE. This fueled speculation among fans that HYBE was trying to replace NewJeans with the name choice.

The original two options were revealed in KATSEYE’s Pop Star documentary. Previously, most people had ignored the name NEWCRAZY, but a recently revealed section of HYBE’s internal report has sparked a new interest among netizens. The report mentioned the popular social media term New-I-LE, originally used to describe NewJeans, IVE and LE SSERAFIM as the top groups of the fourth generation. However, HYBE later changed IVE to ILLIT to create the term HYBE’s New-ILL-LE. The report also discussed strategies for potentially removing “New” (referring to NewJeans) from this range.

This led to fan discussions about whether HYBE was trying to replace NewJeans with KATSEYE. Ever since the release of HYBE’s internal report, controversies have erupted over its contents, including disparaging discussions about other groups.