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What is K-pop's ending fairy? DIA fans flex Chaeyeon for starting the trend

While past music shows occasionally focused on a single member after a performance, ending fairy became a trend after Chaeyeon went viral

While ending fairy is a pose that most K-pop fans took for granted, it became a hot topic when SHINee’s Key came back from his military enlistment, and for his first comeback, he made fun of it. For his comeback in 2021, he was selected as the first ending fairy for SHINee’s ‘Don’t Call Me’. While promoting on music shows, after a K-pop act finishes performing, the camera rests on one or two members before ending the segment. These members are called ending fairies as they simply stare at the camera or make a light-hearted pose like a wink or finger heart. But it seems like the whole trend was popularized by DIA’s Chaeyeon.

While it wasn’t a topic of discussion among fans, ending fairies would be breathing heavily as K-pop idols have to sing and dance to intricate choreographies at the same time which makes them out of breath. Veteran Key of SHINee made fun of this by pointing out that even those who were not tired would do heavy breathing as it had become the trend. Since then, we have had idols breaking the fourth wall like walking off stage or claiming that they are too old to be an ending fairy. But it doesn’t look like it was the norm until Chaeyeon of DIA went viral for it.

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Chaeyeon’s viral ending fairy moment

While third-gen girl group DIA debuted in 2015, some of its members participated in the K-pop survival show ‘Produce 101’ organized by Mnet in 2016 that went on to form the project group I.O.I. Idol actor Chaeyeon came in seventh and debuted with I.O.I. Well, in the second mission of ‘Produce 101’, Chaeyeon’s team had to perform Girls’ Generation’s ‘Into the New World’. We got ‘eyecontact’ versions of all of the members but Chaeyeon’s went viral. After the performance ended, for her version, the camera rested on Chaeyeon whose hair was dishevelled while she looked down to catch her breath before she stared at the camera and smiled. 

It was one of the most iconic moments of 2016. While most music shows would end the performances with a group shot with a rare occurrence of focusing on one member, following Chaeyeon’s solo ending, Mnet started doing it for all of their music show stages. More music shows caught up and started assigning certain members as the ones to end the performance. And fans started labelling the solo member as the ending fairy. DIA fans were proud as K-pop Twitter once again revived Chaeyeon’s ending fairy clip on Twitter that had amassed 1.2 million views back then.

‘She is the ending fairy’

Fans made tweets like, “Some people acting as if the term “ending fairy” wasn’t given to chaeyeon, without her there would be no ending fairies.” Another fan commented, “Things are getting serious CHAEYEON YOU WILL ALWAYS BE FAMOUS.” One added, “She’s so gorgeous i want her.” Another fan was proud, “U can definitely tell who got into kpop past 2016 cause kpop twt wasn’t big then so chaeyeon was solely viral on korean sites and forums and the performance garnered millions of views in just a few days during a time where kpop had just starting kicking off globally successfully.” One said, “Jung Chaeyeon of DIA isn't just some person who did an ending fairy pose. She is THE ending fairy!”