Why is Korean popularity downplayed?

  • 2techs

    Selected a post as the best answer.

    agree-star-trek.gif


    As someone who only follows Korean charts, i agree. They're the most fun to track and the most relevant to all our faves.


    Fans that downplay them probably have faves that depend on foreign charts and sales. Nothing wrong with that, i love seeing Kpop groups thriving and growing fanbases in other countries. But i cant with the boring Spotify and BB charts, they literally only come out once a day or once a week. Meanwhile, we got 2303480 different K charts to track that come out hourly. :pepe-loop:

    For the same reason everything else is downplayed. :pepepizza:

    Everything is important till they're not anymore when its convenient lol


    On a more serious note: Korean popularity is "downplayed" because groups can easily make quite a lot of money nowadays even when they're not popular in korea or that popular.

    Downplayed? Korean popularity is outright overestimated, as if being popular in Korea was more meaningful than anywhere else. Just look at how many thread we see about korean chart performance and what is the biggest groups in Korea, brand reputation rankings, national hit and it girl threads


    I get Korea is important for some groups but let's be consistent here, the only popularity that are downplayed are: Popularity in China and popularity in SEA


    Meanwhile popularity in North America, Europe and Korea is overestimated


    Popularity in Japan is "neutral", perceived as positive, but people hardly pay much attention to it (which make me amused, because Japan is by far the most profitable market for kpop), Latin America and western Asia (middle-west) fall in a similar category

    Quote from nevermindmejin

    It’s like this. If your faves are doing great in Korea, and sucks else where, then Korea is the most important metrics


    If your faves are doing great elsewhere, then Korean charts are irrelevant


    Those doing great in Korea and elsewhere, then the bar will change according to trolls and antis.

    and if your favs are neither doing great in Korea or elsewhere


    time to find a more succcessful group????

    I don't think you can equal those, being popular on any other country is pretty much impossible for K-pop groups, at least for like "pretty much everyone has heard of them"/"they can sell stadiums" type of popularity. Korea not only is where your fandom grows, gets loyal, buys merch and you can get CF's from, not only is where probably at the very least the 2nd bigger amount of album sales go for, it's where you can tour... something China hasn't, and something that compared to SEA, brings more revenue on SK.


    SK and Japan are still the most important markets for K-Pop, not only for revenue but for loyalty... groups heavily dependent on western and SEA market can get stagnant or start declining easily if they don't grow a fandom on East Asia. It's true that popularity on China is downplayed, but the fact groups can't tour there and the Chinese government can pretty much do everything they want to block K-pop anytime they want can't be ignored.

    Quote from MakotoNijima

    I don't think you can equal those, being popular on any other country is pretty much impossible for K-pop groups, at least for like "pretty much everyone has heard of them"/"they can sell stadiums" type of popularity. Korea not only is where your fandom grows, gets loyal, buys merch and you can get CF's from, not only is where probably at the very least the 2nd bigger amount of album sales go for, it's where you can tour... something China hasn't, and something that compared to SEA, brings more revenue on SK.


    SK and Japan are still the most important markets for K-Pop, not only for revenue but for loyalty... groups heavily dependent on western and SEA market can get stagnant or start declining easily if they don't grow a fandom on East Asia. It's true that popularity on China is downplayed, but the fact groups can't tour there and the Chinese government can pretty much do everything they want to block K-pop anytime they want can't be ignored.

    I agree if by any country you mean western country, but kpop is already mainstream in most of eastern Asia, it's a shame kpop companies don't take advantage of it already but I guess they're shifting their focus to USA. Korea is a good market to get endorsements and TV opportunities but that's it, it's a very VERY poor market for touring (likewise, the worst market for touring), a bad market for streaming and digital revenue, but indeed a very good market for physical sales (although limited to its small size)


    I think the focus in Korea is more related to establishing a successful path for an eventual solo career as kpop soloists often struggle to make any kind of buzz among kpop international community, but for groups being irrelevant in Korea is like a no-brainer nowadays, Koreans aren't even that into kpop lately

    Quote from Icaro_Ribeiro

    I agree if by any country you mean western country, but kpop is already mainstream in most of eastern Asia, it's a shame kpop companies don't take advantage of it already but I guess they're shifting their focus to USA. Korea is a good market to get endorsements and TV opportunities but that's it, it's a very VERY poor market for touring (likewise, the worst market for touring), a bad market for streaming and digital revenue, but indeed a very good market for physical sales (although limited to its small size)


    I think the focus in Korea is more related to establishing a successful path for an eventual solo career as kpop soloists often struggle to make any kind of buzz among kpop international community, but for groups being irrelevant in Korea is like a no-brainer nowadays, Koreans aren't even that into kpop lately

    If you want longevity overall, I think being someone on Korea or Japan is a lot more important than elsewhere (except maybe China). The thing is that even if the average korean doesn't care about K-Pop, having let's say 10,000 fans there or in Japan is a lot more profitable than having 20,000 on SEA or the west, at least that's how I see it, since the culture of "buying to support your fav" is still a lot bigger on those markets.

    I know Korea isn't that big as a country so their touring isn't top tier or comparable to Japan or the US, but it's still pretty important... it's one of the biggest music industries for a reason, and touring on the west can be a lot more about "trends" than fandom loyalty, so that's how K-Pop groups can be replaced easily, specially with how oversaturated the industry gets.

    Quote from Icaro_Ribeiro

    And the reason is: Physical market


    Touring market in Korea is actually pitiful considering their population and wealth groups never do more than a few concerts in Korea, they rather start touring elsewhere, even big groups in Korea won't tour much there

    I mean, of course big and wealthy groups on Korea won't tour that much there, if they are big enough they can tour on Japan and US instead.

    Quote from Armedryu

    Gidle is the current number 1 in Melon, how is their album sales compared to other top groups?

    I also know that concerts in Korea is not as big as other large music markets unfortunately. They are almost as bad as SEA countries when it comes to concerts for kpop groups

    Another generalisation that SEA countries dont attend concerts / dont spend on kpop. 🙄


    Usually when big names come, tours in SEA are easily sold out. Problem is companies dont hold much dates in SEA, otherwise it is another profitable marmet.

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