There are times when I do suspect that SM doesn't give a shit about Hyo but I don't think I'd count that birthday photo as evidence.
I'd look more at:
- her complete lack of lines in their songs (I Got A Boy is a ~40min long album,
her lines total less than 1 minute; her longest and best line, in Baby Maybe, was writted by Yuri and Sooyoung. Throughout their discography, most of her so-called "solo lines" are shared with another member or someone sings over her, with some exceptions, eg. Run Devil Run where she has great lines.);
- SM and Universal Japan not bothering to promote her (
this ad for Gee (JP) is the very definition of "blink and you'll miss it");
- having the shittiest styling for years while the other girls looked flawless or at least cute eg. Oh!, Hoot, Kissing You, Visual Dreams (thank god for The Boys era fixing that);
- being billed as "the main dancer" while not getting to show that off. At least in some of their older songs she was given a 5-second long dance break to compensate for having one line, but now SM don't even bother with that while still not giving her any decent vocal parts. During live performances on tour, they use those dance breaks to walk back to the main stage or to give Tiffany a chance to "rap".
- some of these criticisms could apply to Yoona but at least she's always in the centre and receives massive amounts of promo. You can count on one hand the number of times Hyo has been in the centre for anything (I was pleasantly surprised to see her there during the middle part of Galaxy Supernova.) Instead she's shoved to the back, right off to one side, where you can barely see her.
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