RESCENE's Dialect Episodes: Woni, Zena and 'Silla Princess'

What happened

On 1 May 2026 — the date on the YouTube watch page; MyDaily and Inside Times both reported the upload as 2 May — Woni’s personal channel ‘안녕하세요원이입니다잘부탁드립니다’ (“Hello, I am Woni, nice to meet you”, shortened to ‘안원잘부’ by Korean press) published ‘하루종일 사투리만 써봤습니다’ (“I spoke only dialect all day”). MyDaily reported it on 4 May as a ‘Gyeongsang dialect battle’ between Woni, who is from Geoje, and Zena, RESCENE’s youngest member, who is from Gyeongju: Woni, who usually tries to speak standard Korean, switched to her Geoje intonation as soon as Zena appeared, and the paper judged the conversation impossible to interpret without subtitles. Inside Times said the same on 13 May: the accents were hard to follow without subtitles.

The sequel, ‘떡상 전 성수나들이 (사투리2편)’ (“An outing to Seongsu before the boom — dialect, part 2”), went up on 29 May and took the pair to Seongsu-dong in Seoul. Harper’s Bazaar Korea printed Woni’s remarks on the district on 10 June: that Seongsu was a place for ‘깔롱’ (Gyeongsang slang for dressing up and showing off), that nobody had built anything special there and yet that was Seongsu, and that these days such a thing gets called a café.

By 9 June, Dong-A Ilbo reported, both Gyeongsang-dialect videos with Woni and Zena had passed four million views; Seoul Shinmun put the first episode at 6.84 million on 4 July. On 26 August 2026 the watch pages showed 9,986,494 views for the first episode and 7,962,861 for the second.

Why is it trending?

The channel’s earlier hits belonged to Minami’s gyaru character: Star News dates the gyaru videos to 6 and 20 March, and the ‘거제 야호’ greeting came from the second of them. The dialect episodes gave the channel a second character. MyDaily wrote that Woni, the first RESCENE member to open a solo channel, was using it to bring out members’ unrevealed sides one at a time, turning their regional roots into variety material where other idols’ channels stay with vlogs and beauty; Inside Times called it a plan that folded personalities and regional colour into the content. Star News described the agency rolling out content that showed each member’s appeal in turn and named the Woni–Zena Seongsu episode and the later Liv–May episode as the ones that followed with big numbers. Dong-A Ilbo noted on 9 June, and Harper’s Bazaar Korea the following day, that Liv and May had not yet appeared on Woni’s channel.

The nickname came out of these videos. Dong-A Ilbo wrote on 9 June that Zena had earned the name ‘신라공주’ (Silla princess) through her Gyeongju dialect; Hanteo News reported on 11 June that the name attached itself once viewers learned through Woni’s channel that she is from Gyeongju; Harper’s Bazaar Korea described the Gyeongju-born maknae as having built a ‘Silla princess’ character on the channel, next to Minami’s ‘갸루 귀신’ (gyaru ghost).

The catchphrases came out of the second episode. On 7 July, ahead of the ‘Pretty Girl’ comeback, the channel announced a live ‘명대사 월드컵’ (best-line bracket) for 5 p.m. on 8 July, in which the members would choose the best line from fan suggestions. Segye Ilbo reported that the post drew more than 17,000 likes and 5,900 comments within a day; that the most-liked suggestion was Woni’s opening greeting, ‘안녕하세요 원이입니다 잘 부탁드립니다’, which is also the channel’s name; and that the second was ‘밥은 줍니까?’ (“Is food provided?”), which Woni said to the producer during the Seongsu outing with Zena. Minami’s lines, ‘거제 야호’ included, were excluded from the bracket as out of category, the paper said. Woni had already told Star News on 3 July that she wanted ‘오이쉬~’ and ‘밥은 줍니까?’ to follow ‘거제 야호’; Zena picked ‘안녕하신교’ (a dialect ‘hello’).

The first episode’s café scene got a sequel of its own. Harper’s Bazaar Korea described the two finding even a blueberry yogurt smoothie hard to order and asking ‘언니 이거 알아듣습니꺼?’ (“Unnie, can you follow this?”). Geumgang Ilbo reported on 17 June that in ‘저희도 리센느입니다…’ (“We are RESCENE too…”), uploaded on 12 June, Liv and May went to the same café where Woni and Zena had filmed the Seoul-speech order and introduced themselves as Woni and Zena, back to film once more; it passed 4.48 million views in three days. SisaIN’s columnist, on 9 July, read the dialect mission with Zena as showing the mixed feelings of young women from the regions toward Seoul. The same column said that even Seoul readers laughed along with Woni’s Seongsu complaint.

What you need to know

• ‘하루종일 사투리만 써봤습니다’ is dated 1 May 2026 on its YouTube watch page (MyDaily and Inside Times reported the upload as 2 May) and showed 9,986,494 views on 26 August 2026.
• ‘떡상 전 성수나들이 (사투리2편)’ is dated 29 May 2026 on its watch page and showed 7,962,861 views on 26 August 2026.
• Woni is from Geoje and Zena from Gyeongju, both in the Gyeongsang region; MyDaily and Inside Times wrote that their first dialect exchange needed subtitles.
• Zena’s nickname ‘신라공주’ (Silla princess) comes from her Gyeongju dialect on Woni’s channel, according to Dong-A Ilbo, Hanteo News and Harper’s Bazaar Korea.
• ‘밥은 줍니까?’, said by Woni to the producer in the Seongsu episode, was the second most-liked line in the channel’s 8 July 2026 best-line bracket, per Segye Ilbo.
• Both dialect videos had passed four million views by 9 June 2026, per Dong-A Ilbo, and the first stood at 6.84 million on 4 July, per Seoul Shinmun.
• Liv and May revisited the first episode’s café in ‘저희도 리센느입니다…’, uploaded 12 June 2026, which passed 4.48 million views in three days, per Geumgang Ilbo.
• Dong-A Ilbo reported the channel at 760,000 subscribers on 9 June 2026, four months after opening, with ‘LOVE ATTACK’ 7th on the Melon TOP100 that day.