NewJeans Talk “Ditto” Fan Theories, Songwriting, and the Year of the Bunny

At the end of their newest music video, “OMG,” the five members of NewJeans sit around a table in a hospital — a reference to Park Chanwook’s 2006 film I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK — as member Danielle begs them to remember that they’re monster rookies NewJeans. They watch the video proof; snippets of music videos and performances from “Cookie,” “Hype Boy,” “Ditto,” and their debut song “Attention” appear in one blurred montage. It’s overwhelming evidence that not only are NewJeans a K-pop girl group, but one that has ushered in one of the most exciting career starts for a music group in years.

Minji, Hanni, Danielle, Haerin, and Hyein launched as NewJeans in July 2022 as the first group under ADOR, a subsidiary label of HYBE (BTS, Tomorrow X Together); they dropped seven music videos in about a week, a rare surprise release in K-pop that caught everyone’s, well, attention. That first music video felt like watching the 2004 Disney Channel Original Movie Stuck in the Suburbs — soccer uniforms, playful choreo, 2000s fashion, and a fresh way of showing girlhood on screen. The members of NewJeans are all teenagers (Minji, the oldest, is 18, and youngest member Hyein is 14) and their concept has tended to match: first crushes, identity crises, and the vital friendships you’re building during those tumultuous years. But NewJeans music videos often put an interesting spin on growing up (and on ubiquitous '90s and 2000s nostalgia), capturing something at turns lighthearted, beautiful, wrenching, and even a little unnerving.

Related: In 2022, NewJeans Were Looking For Attention. Now, They Have Everyone's

Nowhere was this more apparent than in the music videos for their late December release “Ditto,” a spinning staccato drum track influenced by Baltimore club music. The dueling “side A” and “side B” videos — directed by Shin Wooseok, who also made the “OMG” MV — feature some of the same footage, told through the frame of a camcorder. Holding the camcorder is actress Park Jihu (All of Us Are Dead, Little Women) as a high school student named Ban Heesoo who appears to be in a friend group with the five members of NewJeans. The sextet runs through hallways, hangs out in the library, darts into the pouring rain. All the while, Heesoo films her friends dancing on rooftops and coming of age together.

It’s not all as it seems: Side A ends with disconcerting images of Heesoo filming nothing all along — the girls are gone. Could the whole thing have been a figment of her imagination? Side B ends with archival video of NewJeans, proof they were perhaps there at one point. Fans, meanwhile, have already brainstormed dozens of theories, from ideas that fictional NewJeans passed away in some sort of accident to more symbolic meanings that Heesoo could represent the relationship between fans and artists themselves. All the members have been reading what fans are coming up with, excited by each new interpretation; none is necessarily more right than another. “We’ve been reading them all day,” Danielle tells Teen Vogue over Zoom from Seoul the day after “Ditto” drops. “We were very curious to see how they interpreted the music video, and to see so many responses and theories is really fun for us as well.”

The theories have even split NewJeans. “To be honest, it kind of sounded like a horror movie [at first],” Hanni says. As she learned more about the deeper meanings, however, the storyline seemed “heartfelt and very much sentimental.” Minji is more drawn to the idea of fandom symbolism, specifically with their fanbase, called Bunnies. “The story is also talking about Bunnies and our relationship,” she posits. “Even her name is Ban Heesoo, and you say her name faster and faster, it sounds like ‘Bunnies.’” Hanni is visibly shocked to hear this, and the other members laugh as Minji playfully nudges her onscreen: “I didn’t know!” Hanni exclaims, while Danielle jokes, “So many messages, we can’t keep up.” (Add in their music video for “OMG,” and the hidden references only multiply.)

It’s easy to track the numbers that have framed NewJeans’ killer six months since debut: their first album had the highest recorded sales in history for a K-pop girl group debut album with over 444,000 sold in just four days. Their single album OMG, out Jan. 2, bested that record in less than a day with over 480,000 copies sold, per Soompi. But the musical and personal journeys of Minji, Hanni, Danielle, Haerin, and Hyein go deeper than quantifiable numbers. When the five appear on Zoom, they’re dressed down, bare-faced, in sweats. They could be any group of friends, catching up and talking about their lives, high schoolers living their own everyday teen dramas. But everything they’ve experienced in life has brought them here, together.

“To me now, we feel more like a family,” Danielle says. “No matter the age, I learn from Hyein and Haerin and obviously Minji and Hanni as well. We all have our own different creative minds, and we all have our own opinions and thoughts, and that helps with the teamwork. It makes something fresh and new each time.”

Eldest member Minji, who was a trainee at other companies before ADOR, grew up in Chuncheon, South Korea. “When I was a little kid, my parents always told me to look on the bright side,” she says. Minji brings a cool, chill energy to the conversation, attentive to the younger members but not overbearing. “Now I’m also a really positive person.” She looks to the other members and says, hopeful, “Right?” They all laugh, and Hanni nods fervently. “Even when I was young, I always smiled at everyone, even strangers.”

Hanni, also 18, appeared alongside Minji in BTS’s “Permission to Dance” music video in 2021. But the Vietnamese Australian performer’s musical origins began to take shape long before that; born in Melbourne, she was a One Direction fan, and she also grew up trying lots of extracurriculars (including ukulele, which she plays now) and traveling all over the place with her parents. “I think because I had those experiences it’s given me the opportunity to use them as a source to express through music and performance now,” she says, reminiscing on what she used to be like with a small smile. “From my memory, I was very much an outgoing and cheeky child. I got told off by my parents a lot.”

Before Danielle can even explain fully what she was like as a little kid, the members are laughing. (Danielle, bright and talkative, seems to have this effect on the group.) “I was a daredevil,” she says in her lilting Aussie accent. She’s Korean Australian, born in Newcastle, and remembers she was “always curious about things and wanted to learn about things. Even in class, when a teacher would ask a question, I wouldn’t know the answer and I’d just put my hand up. I’d be like, ‘pick me!’” Music was in her family already, and when that music came to her, she was ready, wanting to share her gifts with everyone. “That became how everything started.”

Haerin’s response also provokes laughter: “I think I was a very diligent child,” the Seoul-born 16-year-old says through a translator, face serious. “I was a diligent child who did my schoolwork, did what I was supposed to as a student. I was always on good terms with my friends, just a good kid. But one day music came into my life.” It changed everything. Haerin often looks thoughtful during our conversation, perhaps a bit shy. But she’s inquisitive about herself and the world around her: in an early NewJeans introduction video, she’s open about not knowing who she is just yet. “I’m curious about new things… these days the thing I’m most curious about and confused by is probably myself.” Bubbly or serious? Silly or deep? She contains multitudes.

Maknae Hyein, who grew up in Incheon, South Korea, remembers her life a decade ago as “free-spirited, a child who wanted to do whatever I want.” As she’s grown into a teenager, and one who is in the spotlight, she’s shifted somewhat. She first debuted in 2017 as part of the kids group U.SSO Girl before leaving to join another kids group called Play With Me Club, which she then graduated from before joining NewJeans. “Now that I have this dream, I’ve matured a little bit, I’ve grown up a little bit, and I feel proud when I try my best at things I do,” she says in Korean. “Of course I need to do better, of course I need to put in more effort, but I’m always trying to be that person who always tries to grow and try my best at everything.”

Growth in their craft is important to NewJeans, who are each working on songwriting in addition to performing and existing as idols in the public eye. Danielle, who wrote lyrics for “Attention,” says songwriting was always a goal for her. “Before I had a passion towards songwriting, I was so inspired by other artists who wrote their own lyrics and were able to tell their story to the world. Songwriting came very naturally to me, but it was like a hobby [before NewJeans]. With our album, [Min Heejin] gave us such a great opportunity to be able to write our own lyrics. It’s such an honor.” Minji calls writing on “Ditto” a special experience, and a challenge to rhyme things with “ditto,” she laughs. Haerin and Hyein, while not credited as songwriters just yet, have each been doing their own drafting. “I’ve been practicing writing lyrics since our debut album, so I’m going to continue to try … I’m learning,” Haerin says, which Hyein echoes. Look forward to all five members having songwriting credits in the hopefully near future.

Hanni, who wrote on “Hype Boy,” also wrote lyrics for “OMG” and explains some of her thought process going into their new song. “The first thing that came to mind is, you know in high school teen dramas where the girls are at their lockers and they’re talking about a guy they like?” She mimes giggling and talking with Danielle, leaning close as if to whisper a secret. “That’s what popped up in my mind, kind of conversational.” She speaks of the specific kind of fun challenge of discovering just the right word, in English or Korean, and how to say it: “Find the pronunciation that sticks to the melody.”

And speaking of high school dramas, NewJeans has their favorites: “My favorite high school movie is Clueless,” Hyein says in English. “Mean Girls. Original high school movies.” They all nod in agreement. Minji chimes in to say “Princess Diaries,” putting a hand over her heart as she reiterates, “I love it.”

Perhaps they’re in a teen movie of their own, an ascension to fame and dreams come true that at its base is about coming of age in your own time. But they’re living in the moment, and they speak like young people who love what they do and are also just happy to be here. “It’s been really cool, and I’m also grateful to receive a ton of love and attention since our debut,” Haerin says. So far, any pressure has been overshadowed by sheer gratitude. As Hanni puts it, “We’re experiencing everything for the first time.” 

One of those recent new experiences? Performing TWICE’s hit “Cheer Up” with fellow fourth-generation K-pop girl groups LE SSERAFIM, Kep1er, NMIXX, and IVE at the 2022 MAMA Awards. The members of NewJeans gasp in delight at the memory. “First of all, it was such an honor to cover Twice sunbaenim’s song,” Minji says. “It was really… I don’t know…” Danielle finishes her sentence: “The best.” Danielle also admits to her own fan moments. “Watching them, because we’re sometimes able to sit in front and watch their stages as well, backstage meeting them it’s like ‘Whoa,’” she says. “But then on stage it’s even more unbelievable because we learn so much from watching their performances, like wow, that’s so amazing, we should try something like that. We’re always learning from our seniors.”

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“Being able to meet other girls in the same situation, with the same job, it was very warming to see them in person,” Hanni adds. She thinks about how NewJeans is a big part of this exciting new class of girl groups. “It’s something we still can’t believe. It feels like a dream. To be part of such a big generational girl group movement is just a great honor to us.”

Surely there are nerves, surely there are expectations, but NewJeans are determined to stay present. That requires its own sort of work, Hyein says. “Results are always the best when we enjoy the process and have fun in the process, and we find people have good reactions to those as well,” she says through a translator. “I’m just enjoying the ride and enjoying the journey, but it does require effort to enjoy the ride and enjoy the journey, I think.” For Danielle, it’s about the long game: “I always try to think like, it’s a long journey, it’s a long distance that we’re taking with our members. Eventually that journey will help us grow and learn, as we’re doing right now. It’s exciting to think about what lies ahead.”

It will likely be an auspicious year for NewJeans. Headed into 2023, the five members reflect on everything they’ve done so far in their career and everything they might do next. They all hope to grow individually and as team members. “There are many sides of us that we haven’t shown yet that we want to show in the new year,” Haerin says. “And there are things that we all know that we can do, and it’s my plan to show those — and grow not just onstage but offstage as well.”

Plus, as Hyein notes, “the year 2023 is the year of the bunny,” according to the Chinese zodiac. “I’m sure it’ll be all the more meaningful for Bunnies and for NewJeans.”