YMMV / FT Island

• Alternative Character Interpretation: The characters in Hongki's "Insensible" MV - did Hongki really cheat on his significant other, Park Shinhye, or was he faithful to her all along? Did he genuinely lose interest in her or was he just a workaholic? Did Shinhye imagine everything due to paranoia (or even mental illness), or was she right about her suspicions? Did she or did she not commit suicide at the end? According to an interview, Hongki himself thinks it was all in her head.
• Awesome Music: Whether it be made by a well-respected producer or the boys themselves, the group certainly gives out a lot of this.
  • Their debut song "Lovesick" was incredibly successful for a reason - it won them many awards, was played non-stop and made the boys one of the most successful rookies in kpop ever.
  • A good chunk of their rock ballads since it is what they're best known for. For example, besides "Lovesick", there's the successful "Severely" and their highly-respected Japanese ballads "Raining" and "Distance".
  • Much of their Japanese music, both indie and post-indie. The general fan (and even non-fan) consensus is that it's better than their Korean music since they have more creative control and a distinct sound here. Besides the Japanese ballads mentioned above, the Japanese songs that are praised the most include "Stars", "Flower Rock", "Paper Plane", "beautiful", "Morning Coffee" and "To the light".
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: In the "Hello Hello" MV, when Hongki is outside looking at the burning building and it gets to Jaejin's lines, it switches to Jaejin on a TV screen while sitting on a firetruck and rapping. When he's done, it switches back to Hongki looking on uncertainly and no reference to Jaejin on the firetruck is made afterward. It makes no sense even as a performance aesthetic (all other performance shots are inside the building), and even less sense since he's actually in the burning building the whole time.
• Broken Base:
  • There are fans who prefer their older rock ballads (up until "Bad Woman" era) and don't like their change of direction, while there are also fans who dig their rockier sound change and couldn't care less for their older music.
  • "I Wish" is either a good, catchy song, or too generic for the band.
  • "Puppy" is either a cool experimentation or just lame.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Everyone that isn't Hongki within the fandom. FNC may have trouble promoting the others but fans love and appreciate all members just about equally.
  • Jaejin's voice; he's the bassist and doesn't sing as much as Hongki but more and more fans, while acknowledging Hongki as the better singer, prefer his voice to the latter.
  • Seunghyun; he's the rhythmic guitarist that sings less than Hongki and Jaejin but many fans also adore his voice - in particular, his musical work has put him in a whole new light for some. And, though his looks aren't particular emphasised, fans and non-fans alike have found him to be extremely good-looking and aging well in later years.
• Fan Nickname: Also see Affectionate Nickname for additional nicknames commonly used by fans (and probably used the most by them) but were also originally made by members or other friends to refer to each other.
  • For the whole group there's Fetus Island which refers to their first 2-3 years.
  • Hongki: Hong, Skullhong^note derived from his Twitter name which eventually also became his fashion brand name, Jeremy ^note for whenever he's blonde like his memorable You Are Beautiful character, Director Hong, MC Hong.
  • Jonghun: Sexy Guitarist, Leader, Gorgeous Jonghun^note derived from one of his characters on Hangul Live.
  • Jaejin: Saico^note derived from his social media name, Roy^note derived from his old twitter display name, James Jin^note his Weibo name.
  • Minhwan: Little Drummer Boy, Minhwannie, Hwannie, Hing Minari^note his infamous aegyo phrase.
  • Seunghyun: Seunghyunnie, Hyunnie, Bob ^note he constantly said "Good morning Bob!" in his and Minhwan's infamous social media series with the same name, Seungyonce^note his female alter-ego, Song Daniel^note stemmed from when he played Daniel in the Jack the Ripper musical.
  • Wonbin: Wonbinnie, Binnie.
• Fanon: A fanmade MV for Colorful Sensibility album track "Don't Love", comprising of various clips from their previous MVs, has been viewed and reuploaded many times and become so popular that there are many fans who think it's an official MV. This is even though it was never announced nor officially released by FNC back then, the song itself was never promoted and it doesn't make to recycle past videos to make a new one.
• Fandom Rivalry:
  • While FTI and CNB get along well and support each other, their fandoms... are very split. This is due to the two being both the most popular idol bands in Korea and under FNC. Thus, their fans have become very nasty to each other and look down on the opposing band's achievements just to make their bias band look better, and are sensitive to any differences in treatment the two groups get from their company.
  • There is also a section of the fandom that seems intent on putting down most younger rock bands, due to perceiving them to have stolen FTI's thunder.
• Friendly Fandoms: Despite the strong fandom rivalry, there are also just as many rational fans who also like/respect the opposing band, sympathising with the troubles both groups have as a band. They understand that the two bands are not to blame for each other's downfalls. The same goes for fans and their relations with the fandoms of other K-rock groups - which are further ameliorated by Hongki's frequent praise of many of them.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: They fare much better in Japan than Korea. Justified as Japan is more open to rock music, and they went indie there before their major debut. It helps their singles are never remakes of their Korean songs, they're more fluent in the language than other Korean idols promoting there and that majority of their self-composed songs are for their Japanese promotions. As a result, they are more active there than in Korea.
• Harsher in Hindsight: You may see in this page many allusions to Jonghun's playboy "character", with the added plus of all the times the members "jokingly" told him to stop seeing women as objects. It was revealed in 2019 that he was a member of a chat room that not only covered up illegal incidents of drunk driving, but also shared non-consensual porn. He's now a registered sex offender, with the charge of aggravated rape after having sexually abused someone incapable of defending themselves in 2016.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: When still a member Wonbin mentioned he had his name changed to Seonghyun because he was teased a lot for sharing the same name as famous actor Wonbin, but he chose to use his original name after joining FNC. The person who would take his place after leaving would be Song Seunghyun.
• Narm:
  • Their drama MVs can be this, playing up the melodrama which makes it hard to take any of them seriously. The older ones typically follow the same formula: "boys meet a girl and both fall in love, girl falls for one of them much to the sadness of the other guy, and somehow the girl gets kidnapped or otherwise endangered and the boys get beaten up." Or stabbed.
  • Some fans would rather not remind themselves nor anyone else what the name FT Island actually stands for. The "five treasures" is acceptable since it's symbolic, the "island" makes... not as much as sense and is not nearly as cool as the members/FNC make it out to be.
• Never Live It Down:
  • Hongki's bad singing moments are never forgotten by members and friends, notably the Gayo Daejun performance in 2008 and his offkey moment in the "All I Want For Christmas Is You" cover.
  • Ever since Hongki said they were CN Blue's labrats, everyone seems to want to take a jab at either bands and compare them or ask them about their rivalry, even though both groups have mostly refrained from talking about it since then.
  • When talking about their success people will never fail to comment, "If only they didn't go to Japan at the peak of their popularity", despite Japan still doing wonders for them in other ways.
• Replacement Scrappy: Seunghyun was looking to be this as he had over 2000 antis when joining and replacing Wonbin. However he soon won the hearts and respect of the fandom.
• Signature Song:
  • Lovesick, moreso for older kpop fans who were around to see its release and success in 2007 as it was practically everywhere.
  • I Hope for later kpop fans. Besides whichever song they're promoting at the time, it's the one song the band always performs at kpop events.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: "Stay With Me" sounds so much like "You're Gonna Go Far, Kid" by The Offspring, that that band's lead singer Dexter Holland was added as a composer.
• Sweetness Aversion: Many other of their Lighter and Softer B-sides, especially their older ones, due to the overly sweet lyrics. The best example is their self-titled song "FT Island", due to the corniness of the lyrics and how cutesy it is. Just hearing the words "chocolate" and "puppy" in Engrish is enough for English-native speakers to cringe. It's endearing for fans though and was a must-have for concert set-lists for the first few years.
• Tough Act to Follow: Colorful Sensibility and "After Love" didn't fare well unlike its very successful predecessor Cheerful Sensibility and "Lovesick". This was partly due to being released after a long absence from the kpop industry, and partly due to the album sounding too similar to the previous one. Jump Up/"Bad Woman" didn't fare much better either.