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Maria

to answer your question regarding whether people knew who the top 2 would be…i watched the finale live and as a zhang hao one pick i have to tell you that i almost died of nerves because it absolutely did not feel like a sure thing. everyone expected hanbin to stay p01 (hao winning was the gag of the century honestly) but if you saw the mental state of zhang hao fans in the weeks leading up to the finale…everyone was doomposting and we were genuinely scared he may only barely make it in…partially because a lot of people underestimated his one pick power and thought he was a filler vote in the previous rounds, and partially because well…idk if you watched girl’s planet but xiaoting was the chinese centre and p01 for most of the show but then in the finale barely made it in to the group as 9th place because people thought she was safe and also when it comes down to it, 50% of the vote comes from korea, and historically while a lot of koreans may have liked certain contestants on these shows, when it comes to finales they’ll usually choose a korean over a non-korean (especially if it’s a chinese one). yujin was a huge favourite in korea and consistently ranked high so when it was down to announcing the contenders for top 2 and yujin still hadn’t been announced, i already started fearing that hao might have to fight for 9th place…

Sea

Goodness, even though I've seen this so many times, I still end up crying watching it. its also interesting watching this now, since as of now, all of the top 18 have debuted or is confirmed to debut. so there's this sense of "it's ok, they will make it soon" watching the results now. tysm for the reactions!! It was a fun ride

Sj Yun

If memory serves, they broke for commercials.

Anna

In my opinion everyone knew who would be the top 2 since their popularity was huge but I honestly expected hao to be first since its rare for a foreign trainee in a survival show to have so much Korean fans I think that’s what pushed him if I remember correctly hao was 1st in global votes and if I’m not wrong quite high in Korean votes as well where as Hanbin was 1st Korean vote I think? But had dropped to the lower of the top 9 in global so I expected it but lots of people didn’t

Prinn

Ahh we’ve made it! The finale always makes me tear up lol. Excited for you to watch ep 13 and get into more zb1 in the future!! Perfect timing too since their comeback isn’t far off now! And as to your question, as a hao fan let me tell you twt was in FLAMES before the finale hahaha, you asked if the top 2 was expected and you’d think the answer would be yes because of their track record on bp but the answer is NO. Nothing is ever guaranteed on these survival shows and on 2 previous seasons there were trainees who held the top spot for multiple consecutive weeks up until the end and everyone thought were complete shoe ins for final group center or even leader only to have them either barely make the cut off at rank 9 or drop out COMPLETELY. Like imagine if hanbin had dropped out of the group and not made it in, it would be complete and utter madness, yet it’s happened before. It all comes down to how the voting system for that season works and people’s voting strategies!

Prinn

Adding on about hao and whether the top 2 ranking was expected, forgot to mention: which countries your strongest fanbases are in matters too in terms of voting! Korean votes have an in built advantage because they’re weighted 50% while all other countries in the entire rest of the world COMBINED makes up the other 50%, and live votes for the finale count double. Like it was 5am for me in the US while the finale was happening, so if you have a strong global fanbase in the western part of the world but not as strong in Korea (jay or Keita for example), they might not be able to do the live vote because they’re sleeping or working or at school etc. The globally preferred line up vs Korean preferred line up have always been different and you need to do well in both to have a chance of making it. Hao always had solid Korean votes considering all the times he came in first during the live audience voting and converted new fans for each stage he performed, but yujin was high overall starting from ep 1 and also came 1st in china in a previous ranking plus that whole stadium was chanting his name so when he hadn’t been called yet… I was nervous to say the least lmaoo. Ricky, Matthew and Hao was gag after gag after gag because no one saw this coming for real and for them to place so high as global trainees?? Unheard of. Especially Ricky and hao as Chinese trainees because unfortunately Sinophobia/xenophobia has historically been a thing that’s affected mnet shows in the past like WE WERE SO SHOOK?? Someone above already explained a bit about what happened with xiaoting last season dropping from p01 the whole time to p09 at the very end but she also had a best friend that she really bonded with from Japan, insanely talented and a consistent top ranker that we thought might keep being p02 but did she end up making it? NOPE. and yeah you bet hanbin and hao did their research and watched that. Like you heard hao say here that he didn’t even have a top 2 candidate speech prepared because even HE didn’t think he’d keep the rank, that’s how high the odds were stacked, let alone come in at p01. Plus the look of pure relief on hanbins face and how tightly he held on to hao after it was announced THEY were the top 2, and how they’re the first p01 and p02 in survival show history to walk up the stairs hand in hand together despite all the staff who were waving frantically off camera to try and get them to separate for their dramatic walk up solo shot… I cried lol. They truly started and ended their bp journey together! Hao will talk about it more later in ep 13 but he’d tentatively hoped for maybe placing rank 3 at the very best, I was scarred by last season and not optimistic lol, like maybe thinking 4-6 so when he hadn’t been called and there was still yujin and so many talented people left who could be 9th I was STRESSED despite loving all of them lmao. And that was even after gunwook, ricky and Matthew happened like miracles were occurring and I was over the moon but it’s never over until it’s over so I still couldn’t be sure! Literally from rank 5 being gunwook and onwards I think everyone’s collective jaws were on the floor haha, it was a wild time!

Prinn

You also asked about why the rankings fluctuated so much in a previous ep (sorry I just caught up) but since it also ties into the above, tldr- there are LOTS of types of voting and the way people vote changes all the time, especially because the number of votes you get decreases as the show progresses while you get MORE attached to the various trainees. To elaborate, some people only vote for their 1 fav or set group of favs throughout the show while others diversify and rotate votes to give more of their favs a chance if they have a lot of them, and that strategy might change or not change as the ballot size decreased from 9 spots to 6-3-1 depending on which sacrifice they’d rather make. Maybe you feel comfortable rotating when you can pick 9 different trainees each day or a combination of favs plus rotators, but when you can only choose 3 you want to lock in those 3. Or maybe by the time you can only choose 3, you’ve already grown so attached to too many trainees and THATS when you decide you want to rotate each day. Some people don’t have absolute favs so they vote based on who they’re empathizing with that week, or according to who they liked/didn’t like or who performed especially well, but tbh a lot of people form opinions and pick their favs pretty early and don’t look back unless something drastic happens, and even then sometimes that doesn’t matter to them regardless of how they’ve behaved/performed. There are also those who don’t vote for their top favs at first, they vote for the people in danger of cutoff but who they want to see perform for even one more week. There’s also something called filler votes where if you only wanted to vote for one certain trainee but are required to choose 3 people on your ballot for example, you could game the system and do that by picking your fav and two others who are already at the very top (like hanbin, hao, yujin, jiwoong etc) because voting for someone in the middle ranks might accidentally push your fav down but voting for hanbin who’s already steady at 1 wouldn’t change anything in the middle so it’s a safe choice that increases the power of your vote for your fav, but that inflation of filler votes for those at the top is a side effect so while hanbin and hao ARE insanely popular and talented, finale results weren’t guaranteed and their true number of dedicated voters was always up in the air despite what it might’ve seemed like throughout the show. There’s also the case where maybe your fav IS consistently in the top 9, but you’re also rooting for someone who isn’t and you’re so secure that those at the top will keep their ranks that you decide they don’t need your extra vote because surely everyone else will keep voting for them, but if enough people have that mindset, no one is infallible. Something else to think about is if your fav has been eliminated, who and how do you vote next? Do you stop voting, one pick vote for your next in line fav, help out a friends fav, start rotating? Are you still dedicated enough to vote everyday or just when you remember/feel like it? And it’s not like star creators know where the trainees are before they vote (with the exception of when mnet did sneaky interim ranking reveals for select trainees to try and get certain results, more on that later) so that’s why there’s always so much shuffling in each elimination round! So yeah, this all basically means you don’t know how many of each trainees votes are true one pick ride or die fans vs casual rotating fans or even filler votes until the finale where you literally only have one vote to cast for the one person you definitely want to see make it in. But then again ofc people can ask their friends/family or even twt/social media following to make an account to vote lol, there were giveaway raffles and things all over the place held by fans if you posted voting proof for various trainees etc. Like literally there are so many external factors and layers to voting, and that’s IF mnet themselves didn’t mess with the vote count to put who THEY want in the group (which is why you saw that disclaimer at the beginning of every single ep this season about them outsourcing to another company for vote counting because they’ve been caught doing that before. Multiple times. Just screwing over EVERYONE and rendering everything meaningless). But even without that this season they still tried to manipulate viewers with panic voting in selectively showing interim rankings at specific times for favored trainees who fell, juxtaposed with less favored trainees who suddenly jumped up high. like they literally tried to use gyuvins interim rank to push out ricky at one point which was just so cruel on a whole other level in hindsight when these two have been besties for 3 years and gyuvin has said that he wouldn’t have made it through trainee life without ricky and Ricky says gyuvin is his soulmate, but no one had any idea they were even actually friends for the longest time because of the dumb k vs g rivalry they tried to sell at the beginning, just from plain editing and what they choose to leave in and out, what dramatic music they play and how they choose to frame and present narratives etc urghh. But that’s tv for you!

Aya

as a hao one pick i was constantly in a state of anxiety this entire announcement… historically chinese trainees don’t rank that high bc koreans don’t like to vote for them and their votes weighed the most. at top 2 when YUJIN of all people was still up, i literally was about to break down crying thinking hao won’t make it 😭 i can see why others watching it now would think it’s hao hanbin automatically but no… my god….. when he was announced FIRST PLACE i think i was in shock for the next 5 mns 🥲

feli

In these shows, even if you're consistently in the top two you're never guaranteed to be there in the finale. Several girls planet trainees dropped from the lineup completely in the finale despite consistently ranking in the top three. It really all depends on how the audience votes change when you can only vote for one trainee. And then when Hao and Hanbin were announced as the top two candidates, I'm pretty sure everyone watching live collectively assumed it would be Hanbin who kept his number one spot the whole time so it was crazy shocking for it to be Hao. The first foreign center for any produce/planet series group! Just an amazing achievement. This is the most satisfied I've been for any final lineup, it has the best mix of Korea's favourites, international favourites and the lineup just clicks. It was never a lineup that I considered as I was voting throughout the show, but seeing it put together at the finale, everything just...clicked. Super excited to follow this group through to the end of their contracts <3

S L

TBH the Xiaoting/Hao comparison I'm seeing in these comments does not really stand and was mainly just paranoia (and that paranoia just might have helped Hao snag numero uno). To expand upon what others have mentioned about the different voting systems, Girls Planet had a cell-based voting system that screwed over a lot of fan-favorite trainees, including Korean ones. Basically, girls were grouped early on into 'cells' of three that included one Korean, one Japanese, and one Chinese contestant. Instead of voting for invididuals, you voted for overall cells, meaning that cells that contained a really popular trainee would get through to the next round even if they also contained less popular ones, screwing over the mid-popular trainees in the process. Because of this system, it was much more difficult to gauge trainee's one-pick power, so trainees like Xiaoting who both K- and I-fans wanted in the group ended up nosediving unexpectedly in the final ranking. By the end, I-fans were actually heavily voting their favorite Korean trainees because they had developed a belief that they lacked in one-pick power in comparison to specifically the Chinese trainees who received the most vocal support online on the i-side. I believe Girls Planet also weighted differently in terms of voting power (more power to SK) and was overall not popular in Korea compared to Boys Planet. In short, there was no way Hao wasn't making ZB1, as he had visibly huge support internationally and in Korea, but most people who've run this Produce show gambit before expected P02-05, not P01.

S L

I'll also just mention that compared to Girls Planet and the previous rigged Produce seasons, the final lineup of ZB1 was for the most part very predictable, as there wasn't nearly as much shifting in the rankings (shout out to Miyazaki Miho going from 28th to 2nd to 15th in Product 48 lol). 8 of the 9 who made it were placed in the top 9 during the third elimination, and I think 6 of the 9 never even left the top 9 for the entirety of the show. What was truly unpredictable was the ranking order.