YMMV / 2NE1

• Alternative Character Interpretation: CL's character in the "Go Away" MV is open to this. We're meant to be viewing her as the protagonist, but after watching her refuse to shake her ex's new girlfriend's hand, get drunk and show up at his house to harass him and scare the new girlfriend, taunt her ex for still wearing clothes she bought him and then kill him in a fiery car crash at the end... Yeah. Mind, the guy does threaten to "kill" her if she doesn't stay away from him and then repeatedly punch her after the aforementioned drunkenly showing up at his house, so he did kinda have it coming.
• Americans Hate Tingle: In contrast to their popularity in Korea, 2NE1 heavily underperformed in Japan and their album sales pretty much flopped (eg. selling about 26,000 copies of one album as compared to Girls' Generation's 858,337+, and KARA's 500,199+/742,689+), though they are not the only ones. It didn't help very much when 2NE1's "Hate You" music video - which was released shortly after the 2011 Tohoku earthquake - led to unfortunate implications, as it depicted an explosion similar to the nuclear power plant meltdown that occurred shortly after. Ironically, 2NE1 got some pretty good press in America (see Germans Love David Hasselhoff).
• Awesome Music:
  • Their song, "Missing You". Full stop. It's pretty much an acoustic track with backing piano, and the girls sound stunning.
  • There's also "It Hurts" from "To Anyone".
  • Their second album, Crush, is absolutely full of them!
• Broken Base:
  • The girls themselves, since their debut. Before 2009, Bom and CL had already appeared in several tracks by their labelmates (the former as a singer, the latter as a rapper), while Dara had been a huge starlet in the Philippines before moving back to her native Korea. Every single one of them was also supposed to debut as a soloist or in other groups. This means that they all had their fans even before 2NE1's debut (except probably Minzy), and to this day, some fans of 2NE1 seem more fans of one of the girls rather than fans of the whole group.
  • Bom's voice in "All I Want For Christmas Is You". She's been described as slurring, incoherent, having horrible pronunciation... Many Blackjacks opined that it should have been a Minzy/Lee Hi duet. On the other side, there are fans saying she sounded gorgeous and husky and absolutely perfect in every way.
    • Bom herself is one. While everyone agrees that she's an absolute sweetheart, there are constant squabbles about her singing ability - some argue that she has the best voice in the group and simply has issues with her lymph nodes, while others say her technique is virtually non-existent, her tragic addiction to plastic surgery has further damaged her vocal abilities and it is in fact Minzy who should have been main vocalist instead, as she is arguably the better singer.
  • Minzy's departure. Either you think she's the glue that held the group together, or she was useless and the group is better off without her (the latter group is much smaller than the former).
  • Who's to blame for the group breaking up? Is it Minzy, who left the group first and proceeded to (allegedly) shade the other members on social media? Is it CL, who became more and more prominent as time went by? Is it Bom, who forced the group into hiatus with her scandal? Or is it perhaps YG, who's been overshadowed with scandals lately and has intentionally misled the fans several times about 2NE1's status (including purposefully obscuring the fact that Bom had left the group a month after Minzy did)?
    • With Yang Hyun-suk and his brother Yang Min-suk stepping down from their roles in YG Entertainment due to years of illegal activity (including allegations of drug use, prostitution, corruption, and bribery) coming to light, most fans have settled on YG for being the true cause of the group's end.
• Cargo Ship:
  • Bom and her corn.
  • CL and her sunglasses.
• Creator's Pet: CL for YG. She had multiple solos, her screen time and amount of lines skyrocketed (starting around the time of "I Am The Best"), and debuted in America.
  • However, it is important to note that CL's 2018 EP "In the Name of Love" paints a very different picture of the her time with YG Entertainment from 2016 to 2019 with the topics of many songs being her frustration with her music going unreleased, her feelings about the disbandment of the group, and going unheard by YG.
• Fandom Rivalry: Usually it's Blackjacks vs. Sones (Girls' Generation's fans) due to the two groups being the top Korean girl groups of their era, or 4Nias (4Minute's fans) due to the groups having similar music.
  • They're having a slight rivalry with BLACKPINK's fans, as some fans see them as "2NE1 2.0", and YG basically confirmed that he'd set the group up to be their successors: "If you ask me to distinguish BlackPink from 2NE1, I want to say I did not try to make them different [...] If you ask me what differentiates them from other girl groups, I will say I did not form them with that in mind. I tried to make the YG version of a girl group like I did with 2NE1. But this time I wanted the girls to look pretty too, with skills." He admitted that BlackPink’s songs were written by Teddy, the main producer for 2NE1, who wrote hit songs for them including "I’m the Best", "Ugly" and "Can’t Nobody", continuing "But it has a different feeling when different persons wear the same clothes [...] Two teams have different voices and different faces."
• Fan Nickname:
  • "Blackjack", like the card game - which is also called... "Twenty-One" (2NE1)!
  • There's also the ones for each individual girl: CLovers, BOMshells, Minjas and Daralings.
  • For CL, you're either a CLover or a GZB (GZB is an abbreviation of the korean word "gizibe", from CL's song "I Am the Baddest Female" also called "Nan Nappeun Gijibe". Gizibe, despite being another word for woman, isn't a nice word for woman though.)
• Fanon Discontinuity: There are those who believe 2NE1 disbanded after their first mini-album, and those who believe "I Am The Best" was their first release.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
  • Or rather, "Filipinos Love Dara". Due to Sandara's past in the Philippines, as a talent show contestant turned pop singer and actress, she is adored by 2NE1 fans there. And she fully reciprocates: once, she broke into tears when a fan gave her hand-made Filipino dishes as a gift. She's often credited for bringing the K-pop wave to the Philippines.
  • Westerners Love CL too. Leader Chaerin's not very popular in Korea (although she's slowly gaining more fans as she gets closer to her American debut), but she seems by far the most popular member among Western 2NE1 fans.
  • Minzy's one for some Western fans. They believe she's a better rapper than CL, and has a better voice than Bom, but because she has the least amount of Korean fans, she's sadly under-exposed (she's the only member of the group not to have had a solo single, instead having a duet with CL). Indeed, there were comments that Minzy "carried the whole MV" for "Falling In Love" - her facial◊ expressions◊ won a lot of people over. Especially this◊ sultry little move.
    • Her departure from the group was hailed as a victory by many, including her best friend◊, who said that Minzy was now free to move forwards and exercise her creative side.
  • 2NE1 has gotten some good press in America, with will.i.am from the Black Eyed Peas backing up their act and helping with an English album (which was last seen in Development Hell). In 2014, "I Am The Best" was used in a couple of US commercials, appeared on The Bachelor for a cameo performance, and started playing on radio stations, so their popularity in the US has somewhat risen especially since their album "Crush" was made #6 on Rolling Stone's best 20 albums of 2014.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: There's people who dislike the fact that 2NE1 seem to always go for the over-the-top loud and in-your-face style, think it's "stale and recycled" and want them to try something new.
• Never Live It Down: They received an awful lot of criticism for the overuse of autotune in their To Anyone album, with some people going as far as to say that they purposefully used autotune to hide their lack of vocal talent. An autotune-less mini album and countless amazing live performances later - and haters still hate with "lol you sound bad, you need the autotune".
• Song Association: Filipinos' special fondness for 2NE1 turned tragic when Sonya Gregorio, a 52-year-old unarmed woman protecting her son, was gunned down by a policeman right after she sang lyrics to 2NE1's "I Don't Care." No one expected the song to turn into a symbol of police brutality, grief, civil unrest, and defiance, but so that it became.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • This is especially noticeable with the release of their Korean single, I Love You, which failed to win any awards on music shows, and while it made an impression on the digital charts, it failed to do so anywhere else. (For a better understanding - their song "I Am The Best" has over 278 million views. "I Love You" only has about 74 million.) The music video was criticized by some for Minzy and CL's solo dance scenes (seen as too sexy and over-the-top - at one point Minzy looks almost like she's about to masturbate), and the fact that Bom seems to be trying to do her best impression of wallpaper.
  • Another example would be to look at their music video for "Falling In Love" as compared to "Do You Love Me". They were released about a month apart, yet within the first few months "Falling In Love" already had over twice the views "Do You Love Me" did. "Do You Love Me" is their fifth song not to hit number one (the others being "Clap Your Hands", "Can't Nobody", "It Hurts (Slow)" and "Hate You"). Considering that "Do You Love Me" is considered by many netizens and even Blackjacks as one of 2NE1's weakest songs, this isn't really surprising.
• Shipping:
  • Usually, it's CL/Dara and Bom/Minzy.
  • If you ship them with Big Bang, there's Skydragon (CL + G-Dragon), Daragon (Dara + G-Dragon) and the Alien Couple (TOP + Bom). Usually leads to Ship-to-Ship Combat between Skydragon and Daragon fans.
• Tear Jerker:
  • The death of Gong Ok Jin, Minzy's great aunt. A legendary traditional dancer in Korea, she's probably the reason why Minzy is what she's now. When 2NE1 was promoting their latest track I Love You, in 2012, the former dancer passed away. A photo◊ of Minzy at her grandmother's funeral reached the Internet: if you are a 2NE1 fan and didn't feel at least a bit sad seeing the usually ever-smiling and lively Minzy crying her eyes out and looking dangerously close to crossing the Despair Event Horizon, you are made of ice.
  • The fact that Bom is addicted to plastic surgery - it seems like almost every few months◊ she has some sort of procedure done. It's heartbreaking - she used to be so gorgeous and have a wonderful voice, but now her face can barely move and her voice is worsening because of it.
  • Watch the girls singing "If I Were You", and try not to cry. CL wrote the lyrics to this (as well as a few other songs on the album), and it's obvious the topic is very close to her. One viewer remarked "Damn girl, somebody needs to take you out for a drink and let you cry on their shoulder. Who hurt you so bad?"
  • The final single released by the group (mind you, without Minzy), "Goodbye".
• The Woobie: Minzy. From the very beginning, she was Out of Focus, and it only got worse as the years went on and CL began to (arguably) overshadow the other members. She was the only member to not receive a solo song (the closest she ever came was her duet with CL), and was obviously The Un-Favourite. It's important to note, though, that despite all this going on behind the scenes, she and the other girls have never shown any real signs of antagonism towards each other, and they all remain friends even years after the group's disbandment.
  • With the news of the group's disbandment - and YG's statement that indirectly blames Minzy - many angry fans are lashing out at her and calling her "selfish", saying she "destroyed the group" and is a "traitorous snake".
• WTH, Costuming Department?: As a group with eye-catching fashion, some of the clothes they wear look absolutely ridiculous. CL's unicorn dress, anyone? Or that time she was basically Big Bird 2.0◊?