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Is any of this much different from pop boy bands of the 00's? You make generic, catchy songs that are hard to resist. Then have a group of four or five attracti
by ziml77 4y ago
Is any of this much different from pop boy bands of the 00's? You make generic, catchy songs that are hard to resist. Then have a group of four or five attractive teens perform the song. And then Highlight each individual so people form a parasocial relationship with the band members. The fanaticism follows quite easily from there.
- Timpy 4y agoAs I was reading the article I was thinking the same thing. This is just the most recently evolved version, now including things like social media and online communities. It was still an interesting analysis to read. I wonder how the numbers compare for the biggest boybands of 2002, 2012, and 2022.
- kevin_thibedeau 4y agoThe key with East Asian group bands is a revolving lineup of members so you always have a fresh product to sell to each years target demographic.
- googlryas 4y agoMenudo did it first!
- UmbertoNoEco 4y ago
- threeseed 4y agoThe biggest K-pop bands are Blackpink, BTS, Twice etc. All are well-established and have no revolving lineup.
- bobthepanda 4y agoKpop is a bit different. Kpop has “generations” in the sense that mandatory Korean military service for men puts an expiration date on them all being present, and they fade away in popularity if only some of the members are present. Also, the contracts are long, but idols don’t necessarily stay around if they think they can get a better deal elsewhere, or if they want to move onto another chapter of their life which idol employment doesn’t allow (like dating). It’s Blackpink, BTS, and Twice now. Before them, it was 2NE1, 2PM, Miss A/the Wonder Girls, SNSD, etc.
- rippercushions 4y agoThis was the old Japanese supergroup model with AKB48 etc, but it never worked outside Japan and is starting to fail there as well.
- jrockway 4y agoI was a Morning Musume fan in high school but the members of the group kept getting younger as they were replaced, and I kept getting older. After a while, it stopped making sense to be a fan. (They never did a song "I'm sad about only being able to contribute $20,500 per year to my 401(k)".) I never got into AKB48; is that they problem they are having, or is it something else?
- YurgenJurgensen 4y agoI'm not familiar with the post-COVID situation, but I suspect VTubers may have eaten their lunch by operating a similar business model but without the risk of showing your face in public and becoming an IRL retelling of Perfect Blue.
- jrockway 4y agoOh yeah, people really like the vtubers don't they. I see it all the time on r/all, but never really made the association with the AKB48 type fans.
- jenny91 4y agoIt seems the K-pop industry has come up with a somewhat repeatable machine for churning out these bands: they manage everything from scouting young talent and training them, writing the songs, merch, events, etc?
- googlryas 4y agoThat's pretty much what every boy band creator does since nkotb in 1984. The truth is 16 year old boys don't get together with 4 friends and make music like this. So you need someone in the industry to bring talent together, write their songs, etc. Compare that with rock, rap, punk, emo, etc which happens more organically usually.
- bee_rider 4y agoI'm beginning to suspect The Monkees might not have been a completely spontaneous and organic situation, either.
- siva7 4y agoThat’s not true. Stop lying
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- TEP_Kim_Il_Sung 4y agoThe Monkees are just the predecessors of vocaloids.
- threeseed 4y agoIt's no different to what has been happening in the music industry for decades. Many of the most popular pop songs are written by third parties and the recording companies will often pair artists with experienced producers and tour managers. The popularity of K-pop is more an artefact of the US mainstream favouring individual rap/hip-hop over dance-centric boy/girl bands and leaving a large opening in the market.
- jorgesborges 4y agoIt’s wildly different. Not a sports guy but it’s like NFL vs CFL. Sure they’re both football but the industries built around them are millions of miles apart. Kpop has the support and resources of a nation state with an explicit objective to become the world’s leading exporter of culture. The behaviours of the K-pop fans in my life don’t resemble anything like the fans of boy bands growing up. Do you remember vast swathes of wealthy, intelligent 30-40yr olds listening to Backstreet Boys, selling and trading merch, building shrines, etc
- rTX5CMRXIfFG 4y agoIf the behavior of 30-40 year olds are the only difference, and if they had social media back then, it’s highly likely that they might have.
- jorgesborges 4y agoI think there was an enormous amount of innovation and ingenuity required to broaden a market so narrow that it only included preteens to the entire globe across all sex, age, and cultures. I understand your point but there’s more interesting analysis here than “this is the same it’s been done before.”
- bobthepanda 4y agoThe parasocial intensity is something else. Stans (who take their name from Eminem’s song “Stan”, where it wasn’t a positive association) get quite intense, to the point of breaking and entering private property, stalking and causing road accidents, writing messages in their blood, even poisoning them, and that’s just the “selected incidents” on Wikipedia. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sasaeng_fan https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sasaeng_fan
- monkey_monkey 4y agoNo, stans don't get that intense, it's literally a tiny crazed subset - ie the Saesangs. Every fandom of any type of a certain size has insane fans (looking at you sports teams and fans).
- P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y agomany (most?) kpop members are contractually required to adhere to the image built for them. There have been cases of a kpop member's storyline being around their love of someone and when the actor/actress is found to be cheating they lose the contract. I know of one kpop member who attempted to keep their marriage a secret as a result.
- 77pt77 4y agoThis goes back at least to the Beatles.
- treme 4y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TH3A6zMMfc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TH3A6zMMfc These days, the members get involved more in every facet, including doing their own choreography & writing / producing their own songs. Seventeen in particular pushed their choreography to the point where it feels like they made it a new sub-genre. Kinda feels like a concentrated Broadway show.
- jojok 4y agoAs someone who enjoys both kpop and western pop I feel there's definitely something that about kpop that creates a more intense fandom, but it's not easy to put one's finger on why exactly. One reason might be that in the western music industry there's more of an assumption that the product is the music whereas in kpop the artist is the product. Kpop artists put out a lot of material that makes you feel close to them and makes them relatable. I'd say that the culture of Korean media is more intimate in general. Kpop stars appear on a lot of tv shows where they just play games, share stories, spend time with at their home, work, coffee shop, restaurant. If you have a favorite western pop star you might see them on a talk show or read their Twitter feed, but it doesn't really feel like you're spending personal time with them week after week.
- moviewatcher333 4y agoAnime and games target a similar crowd as K-pop. Although anime mostly targets single (lonely) males with obsessive characteristics, K-pop goes mostly after the female parallel.
- YurgenJurgensen 4y agoLooking at the 2021 sales figures, this seems false. While one might argue that Uma Musume, Tensura and Love Live count, the other top-10 grossing franchises of last year are Haikyuu, My Hero Academia, Shingeki no Kyojin, One Piece, Tokyo Revengers, Jujutsu Kaisen and Kimetsu no Yaeba. From this, what anime mostly targets is pretty obvious: School aged boys who read Shounen Jump.
- arkh 4y agoAnd when you decide to check the offer and not just what some people buy, you have content for a lot of people. Shojo targets young women, Yaoi is not really aimed at a young heterosexual male audience either. You want diversity in picture books? Mangas have been doing it for more than 40 years. Some of their more successful authors are women.
- moviewatcher333 4y ago