sorry in advance because cube lore is my specialest interest and ive been dying to talk about cube woochan for literally years... if youre interested in his cube history, ill direct you to my unabridged cube timeline here: https://princesshakky.dreamwidth.org/860.html

but ill also summarize his story and add my thoughts as someone who was following him for years before he ever stepped foot into hybe. he first enters cube around 2015-2016, when he was 10-11 years old, and he was revealed in a pentagon predebut mv (alongside lightsum juhyeon!) he goes on SMTM in june 2017, being the youngest contestant ever i think but making it quite far. then hes officially revealed in a post on the cube trainee instagram in late 2017 and also often seen at cube post-broduce with seonho and other trainee oscar wang. woochan then participates in a one-off collab group called OGZSCHOOL in 2018 before going quiet. in 2019, he leaves cube in july, citing academic reasons (because he's literally 14) but interestingly lai guanlin also leaves cube in the same month by filing a lawsuit against cube. before this point, i think cube was toying around with a lineup built around seonho and guanlin that may or may not included woochan, but guanlin leaving kinda derailed their plans. in my opinion, cube thought woochan was too young and if he didnt make the 2019 lineup, it would make sense for him to just leave rather than wait it out. cube doesn't do solo artists and they were locked in on perfecting their next boy group lineup, so i dont think there would've been space for woochan. the academic reason does also make a lot of sense considering how young he was, though after he left, he still seemed to be interested in making music.

i kept occasional tabs on him after that (2019-2020) and he had a youtube channel where he posted a song or two but mostly neglected, and sporadically updated his instagram. around this time, i thought he was going down the independent rapper artist path and focusing on his education (at HANLIM omg) until the rumours of him being at hybe surfaced in 2021. i investigated and even though he was a hidden member of trainee A, i did feel confident it was him (he posted hints on his instagram lol, wild times) i was really excited when he was properly revealed as a trainee A member because wow woochan is going places! he has had impressive talent for rap and music since SMTM and seeing him get into hybe felt like he was finally being recognized for it. i didnt follow trainee A super close but then the scandal happened in 2022 and leo left and things fell apart. i still remember woochan releasing sherpa, a really personal song that i recommend all woochan fans check out, and thinking will any cube boy actually be free from suffering?? there was a moment when hybe was teasing boynextdoor and i was hoping woochan stuck around and got reshuffled into it... tbh i think he wouldnt have been a bad fit? but alas...

he occasionally updated his instagram throughout 2023 and i still have some old screenshots of his posts lol. but then he did a big rebrand and archived all his old posts and posted a black and white profile shot in 2024. i was curious what he'd do but he went quiet again until suddenly theres talk about the new the black label co-ed group in 2025... i wasnt even expecting anything but then BOOM woochan is debuting! holy shit! i was excited for him and i did check out adp's debut but you know... tarzzan's existence... i didnt get that into adp for that reason but it was so interesting to see other people perceiving woochan for the first time and to see his current personality.

prefacing my opinion here by saying even though i sound like a heavily invested fan of woochan, i actually didnt watch most of his content. i just kept obsessive tabs on most guys who have trained at cube because im crazy. but i felt like he did change over the years, particularly post-trainee A, and im not sure how much of it is the kpop industry and how much is just puberty and growing up. i was kind of disappointed when i saw that video of him saying "how can you like me" to a male fan on live... its obvious what he means and very honestly, it kinda turned me off him. (literally yesterday i was looking at cute interactions between nowz and male fans) i dont know if he was always like this but TBL definitely has a different environment/company culture from cube or even hybe. maybe its the industry people that he's around (maybe this is an extremely deep cut, idk what the average woochan fan knows about him: he attended choiza's wedding in 2023...) maybe its the cube/trainee A trauma, maybe its how successful adp ended up becoming, maybe its him just growing up, but i feel like he has an ego now. on one hand im glad his talent and his dream to be an artist is being recognized but on the other hand i feel like he's changed between trainee A and now, not a moral judgement here but an observation. again, i dont follow him too closely! id love to hear more of your thoughts as a trainee A follower, i didnt end up getting into them then but it's funny that things are coming full circle and all of them have debuted now. watching leowon on b2p and knowing them makes the photo of leowon at woochan's graduation more sentimental. let me know what you think!