Trivia / AOA

• Breakthrough Hit: The dance unit's "Miniskirt" and its immense success was what brought them to their feet after struggling since debut, even though "Moya" and "Confused" did get the respective units some good recognition.
• Cowboy BeBop at His Computer:
  • allkpop are one of the many who have at least once referred to the dance unit as AOA White◊. This subunit only refers to the dance-only members (Seolhyun, Hyejeong, Chanmi). Could be justified as the dance unit doesn't have their own official name (instead opting to promote under simply AOA) and AOA White is yet to actually promote which makes it easy to confuse the two of them.
  • Many sources about the group, whether it be their Wikipedia page or a soompi article, called the 7-member dance unit AOA and stated Youkyung was only an AOA Black member. Official footage and sources from as far back as their debut days always called AOA an 8 member group (being a "combination" of AOA Black and White) and never once said Youkyung wasn't in AOA. Even when FNC gave AOA Black their own profile page during "Moya", Youkyung still remained on AOA's profile page. Also a bit of God Never Said That since those who only became fans post-"Confused" era and are used to seeing just the dance unit were also convinced Youkyung wasn't a "proper" member.
• Development Hell: "Angels' Story"/ "Elvis" apparently went through this. Yuna complained that they practised the same song for a year and a half.
• Dye Hard:
  • Choa has been dyeing hard since debut, having orange hair first before moving on to the iconic blonde and brunette. Fans have to do a double-take when looking at predebut footage of her with black hair.
  • Youkyung, even predebut: when with Sponge Band her hair was purple and then blonde, and it was orange when she performed in guitarist Kim Se Hwang's showcase. As for her time with AOA she's had her hair blonde, orange and ashy/light brunette. The first time she was seen with black hair at all was the end of 2014 when she appeared in a Gayo Daejun - that's right, there's yet to be any predebut photos of her non-dyed hair.
  • Hyejeong has never been seen with black hair other than predebut, having had brunette, orange and red hair.
  • Yuna's hair was blonde/light brown "Moya" era to "Miniskirt" era, occasionally sports a reddy-brown colour and is brunette otherwise - she's also rarely seen with black hair other than predebut.
• Dyeing for Your Art:
  • Seolhyun dying her hair black and gaining full bangs during the "Get Out" era was for the drama My Daughter Seoyoung to physically resemble Sungjae's old love interest which was part of her character's storyline.
  • Seolhyun's hair being dyed black again "Short Hair" era was for the movie Gangnam Blues which is set in the older days and which she was filming for at the time.
  • Hyejeong going from orange to brown hair during "Get Out" promo was likely for her minor role as the little sister in Cheongdam-dong Alice - sporting orange hair would obviously would had been weird for the younger sister to wear.
  • The long-haired members of the dance unit looked like they were all going to invoke this trope for "Short Hair", according to the first round of teaser photos of their short haircuts. Turned out to be just wigs for all of them except Yuna, for some reason.
• Fan Community Nicknames: Elvis, named after their debut song.
• Flip-Flop of God: FNC in regards to AOA Black and Youkyung's situation. One minute it's "they're not popular enough", next minute it's "Youkyung's too busy studying", and they switch back and forth in regards to whether Youkyung is an official member or "half-member".
• God Never Said That:
  • Fans insisted it was alright for Youkyung to not be involved in most group activities because she's said doesn't like idol activities. At debut she explicitly said that she doesn't want to dance (so she can improve her drumming instead) and has never once said she doesn't like idol activities like CFs and photoshoots.
  • Not all the info mentioned is untrue but a "Smartasses Top 100 Sexiest Women" article on Hyejeong threw in quite a few unproven facts about her - no she's never mentioned knowing violin nor taekwondo, no she's never confirmed having anorexia, amongst other things. Quite a few fans still take this to heart anyways.
• Money, Dear Boy: The reason why FNC focuses on the dance-unit so much whilst ignoring the band whom fans miss dearly is because the dance unit's more pop-friendly songs have brought in the money needed to repay their debts.
• Non-Singing Voice:
  • A weird case with the dance unit's "Time" live performances. Certain parts of the verse before the chorus were sung by Yuna in the studio recording - however those lines were given to Mina and Chanmi for live performances in the "Like A Cat" era. Chanmi barely averted this by singing live (being slightly overpowered by Yuna's voice on the backing track), but Mina chose to entirely lipsync her lines, resulting in her appearing to "sing" with Yuna's voice.
  • A straight example with Hyejeong in Phantom's "Seoul Lonely" MV where she's the female lead - here she sometimes lipsyncs lines that are actually sung by Brown Eyed Girls' Gain. She did however prerecord her own lines for the live performances.
• Promoted Fanboy: Luckily for fangirl Chanmi, joining FNC allowed her to become the dongsaeng^note junior of her not-so-secret crush FT Island's Hongki.
• Underage Casting: A good chunk of the dance unit members, who were around 20 at the time, in the "Short Hair" MV (police woman, car mechanic, air stewardess), but it's all in good fun.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Predebut, Seolhyun was originally AOA Black's keyboardist until she was replaced by Yuna and sent to AOA White.
  • Choa was originally set to participate in the Zorro musical but it was announced she dropped out "for personal reasons". Fans suspect it was because the shows would had clashed with "Miniskirt" Japanese promotions.
  • Seolhyun was originally cast as the daughter of the vice-president in the drama Hotel King, however she had to drop out due to injuring her knee (which was already recovering from a previous injury at the time) and was replaced by another actress.
• Working Title: "Bobcut" was "Short Hair"'s original English title when announced. Was possibly changed to avoid clashing with rookie group Bob Girls' debut. However, the renamed song clashed with rookie group Wings' "Hair Short".
• Write Who You Know: Juniel's song "Dream & Hope" was written for Jimin to encourage her.