Your guide to the Parka Squad, hottest KPop friendship group that gives us major goals & ends fanwars too

You know about the Wooga Squad and the 97 liner squad. It’s now time to talk about another famous group - the Parka Friends Squad. Read on to know who’s in it and their best moments.

By Afreen Khan

Updated on May 18, 2021 | 09:44 PM IST | 3.2M

EXO's Kai and SHINee's Taemin are part of a friendship group called Parka Friends or Parka Squad

EXO's Kai and SHINee's Taemin clicked by the media. (Pic Credits: News1)

When it comes to making friends and having connections, the K-Pop industry is probably the one industry where everyone knows everyone. Teenagers leave their hometown and come to the bigger cities, spend years and years in training under intense routines and extreme circumstances, and yet, not all of them debut. It's extremely common for children as young as 13-14 to join big talent agencies as trainees and make precious friendships.

That’s similar to how one of the iconic friendship squads in K-Pop originated. As the youngsters are away from and train together, they find a sense of solidarity and unity because of the struggles they face and the life they lead. The Parka Squad members started from the same. They have members from the top K-Pop groups of all time and they make sure to encourage each other even while working!

So, who’s in the popular Parka Squad?

The friendship group is home to Wanna One’s Ha Sungwoon, EXO’s Kai, SHINee’s Taemin, HOTSHOT’s Timoteo, BTS’ Jimin, and their non-celebrity friend, Jung Kwon Ho! As fans of Korean culture would already know, SHINee, EXO, BTS and Wanna One are among the most popular groups known worldwide. Even though Wanna One disbanded, its members showed their talent and still continue to grow in their own way. Timoteo was a part of the now-disbanded group HOTSHOT and he even appeared on ‘The Unit’ and reached the finals. Unfortunately, he couldn’t make the final cut.

How did the ‘Parka Friends’ name come across and how did they become so close?

The secrets to this highly curious topic were revealed by Ha Sungwoon in the variety show ‘Weekly Idol’ back in 2019. He shared that fans started calling them ‘Friendship Parkas’ when SHINee’s Taemin gave them all the same self-designed parka. (Parka is a padded jacket if you didn’t know.)

Sungwoon then went on to share that it all started with HOTSHOT’s Timoteo, as he was close friends with Taemin, Kai, and a non-celebrity back when he was a trainee at SM Entertainment. He also added that Timoteo was the one who invited him to the group. After that, Sungwoon said that he brought BTS’ Jimin to the group, although he was friends with J-Hope, and Suga before. He said that Jimin and he bonded really well. And that, my friends, is how they met each other.

There were many times when the Parka friends supported each other without any inhibitions. As the friends come from the top-tier level K-Pop groups, many fans have praised them for always encouraging each other without any jealousy or competitive streak between them.

When Sungwoon was competing in Produce 101’s season 2, Jimin and Kai showcased their support by sending video messages, uploading a photo and even posting a screenshot of voting for him, encouraging their fan bases to do so too.

Timoteo missing the mark by a level in ‘The Unit’ also made them feel disheartened. A fan asked Kai on his VLive about it and his expression turned sad, while he said, “Ah yes. I saw it (the elimination) yesterday. The show that my friend Mingyu, Timoteo, was on. Moongyu, I love you.”

As we said, the group never stops cheering each other on. They might not show much in the public due to various reasons, but behind it all, they always have each other’s backs. They also never forget to thank them for being in their lives either.

Such as when Timoteo shared an Instagram post thanking all the squad members for cheering him on:

And when Jimin expressed his love and gratitude for them in two of his albums’ ‘Thanks To’ segment - WINGS and You Never Walk Alone. He even wrote the friends’ names on a chalkboard at MCountdown.

The Parka friends go on trips together, hug each other when they win at an award show, cry for each other, tease each other, and much more. With the hotshots of the industry in one friendship group, we hope their love and support for each other never fades away! On a side note, can we get some friends like them too?