The general public moves on from girl group to girl group like hot potatoes and I find this "trend-chasing" very lamentable. Do you think it'll ever change?

  • If you've been a longtime follower of Kpop, this may be nothing new and something you've heard countless times but forgive me, I need to say it again.

    The rate at which South Korea chases trends (and drops them just as quickly) is alarming. I hate it, but I can absolutely see why these idols work themselves to the bone when they're in their prime. Their moment in the sunshine isn't going to last more than a hot minute.


    This came to mind after seeing Oh My Girl's comeback today. If you didn't know, they just released their new song Summer Comes and it debuted at #98 on Melon's Top 100. An hour later, they're out of the charts. You're telling me a group that had the nation on a chokehold with Nonstop and Dun Dun Dance less than 2 years ago is struggling to even enter the chart (ie: retain the public's interest in checking out their new song)?


    Btw, this isn't disingenuous doomposting in case some people misunderstand. I've corrected people on OMG's behalf many a time, and am well-aware that the members individually are doing plenty fine on their respective paths. But not all groups are in a blessed position to have solid options outside group activities, this late into their career aside from maybe one or two members. Many examples; AOA, EXID, even Brave Girls (tune into BB Girls this summer btw!)

    Also to a lesser extent, Fifty Fifty's situation rn. They're a bit different in that there's a whole lawsuit hanging over them but when you see the way public perception of them has a done a total 180°, phew. When netizens saw the way they were blowing up, people were clamouring to praise them and take pride in their success overseas. Now under every Korean discussion video in YT or the news, it's nothing but criticisms and slander of the group.

    Anyway, back to the point. SK's culture very much revolves around chasing the latest trend—be it products, celebrities, food, everything. It's not exclusive to SK alone, other countries like Japan are that way too. But it feels especially pronounced in SK, and trajectory of girl groups are highly susceptible to this.

    The general feeling is that when girl groups see domestic success, it blows up like a flame, very hot and very fast. But people seem inherently drawn to the idea of liking them because they're popular, less because of their music or qualities unique to them as a group first and foremost. That's what I find regrettable. In other entertainment industries, hit songs and success elevates your name value. And it mostly stays up there, at least for a considerable while. Maybe it's also due to the culture in Western music to be casual fans and listen widely. There's simply greater room for more acts to coexist. One group's rise doesn't have to mean the fall of another's.


    There are many groups who continue to produce quality music, but it doesn't receive the same reception because they aren't the "hot new things" anymore. I can also see why idols focus so much on maintaining their brand rather than the artistry. People lament Blackpink's lack of discography (I'm one of them tbh) but they've actually got things right, strategically. In this oversaturated market, you need to force your way into people's minds for your music to even get a listen. That means shooting ads, media appearances, spending more time in front of cameras than in the studio. It must honestly be exhausting to upkeep and grind through. Fans also can't expect endless cycles of promotion periods like that. It might be a long wait sometimes, but I hardly resent my faves for putting out less content and having sparser comebacks as they matured. They've been through it all already.


    To recapture the public's attention, something has to go viral or some special circumstance (TV show appearance like Teen Top on Hang out with Yoo, KARA getting to appear on MAMA in Japan last year) that thrusts them into the spotlight again. The really rare case I can think of a song that did well organically way past their "heyday" is Wonder Girls' Why So Lonely that was an unexpected hit on charts when they came back with a band concept in 2015. And that was a one-off thing too.


    Last thought: those of us who are enjoying the great heights of the 4th generation girl group boom, just enjoy it. Don't go around comparing to the people who came before, because they were all in the same positions once and this cycle is bound to repeat. Actually, thinking about SK's reception of boy groups is also fascinating, but we can probably have a whole other post to delve into that. Not many boy groups manage to capture the ears of the general public compared to girl groups, but the few that do, seem to have their hearts for a long time. Like Big Bang (no matter all the scandals and hits to their reputation), BTS and now NCT Dream.


    Do you think this phenomenon is ever going to change? I for one, sure hope it does. What circumstances could potentially lead to a shift in this trend?


    source: https://www.reddit.com/r/kpopt…es_on_from_girl_group_to/

  • Well it was always like this, people always go for the new shiny toys


    But in the case of Oh my girl the public didn't give up on them because they just start caring about other GG 😑😑


    If Oh my girl is flopping now is because they took the wrong decision in their career after Dun dun dance


    Real love was bland and boring it completely kills their momentum


    And summer comes is maybe a summer song but it's nowhere near how fun and fresh nonstop and dun dun dance were


    What it just proves is that WM thought that because OMG had two back to back hits their success was secure and could switch of sound but it just prove that it was not the case


    If they would release song like nonstop and not real love or summer comes , OMG would still be able to enter the top 10

  • You act like gp are loyal to bg. They didn't even give them chance now which is worst lol. It's a good thing that gp adore gg and giving them chance to stand out even for a while. That's when company need to fully utilise that attention and pushing their girl groups not mistreated them.

  • Everyone's going to sound like a broken record in this thread, because we will all have the same points; GP is fickle, onto the new less the old, GP is fickle, too many groups, and finally; GP is unmerciful.

    ------


    The only way a group will succeed is either 1) big company or 2) luck+skills. Whatever BP is doing only works because they got YGE money and connections. It wouldn't work if you are from a smaller agency and have zero networking. No brand deals, no headlining events, no collabs and you released 5 songs per year for 7 years? Are you insane?


    Being an idol is mentally exhausting, bravo for those that wanted to chase this dream. :comfort-bunny:

    ---======--

  • The song is growing a lot on me. I think it's almost a 9 out of 10 now. Shit is addictive and should easily be topping charts right now instead of you know who X( .


    But i had already sounded the alarm last year after Real Love. After watching how GP literally abandons older GGs with almost no notice at all (Twice, Gfriend, Mamamoo), i put OMG in the danger zone and predicted that if their next comeback flopped, that they would be finished with respect to digital relevance.


    Not all hope is lost yet. I'm seeing Flo in the 50s for this song which still allows for a sliver of hope. Not sure why there is such a huge discrepancy between Flo and Melon, usually they're a lot closer together.

  • its always been this way

    which is why Twice and BP are outliers in a way


    Twice had 9 fricking #1s straight

    hasnt been done before and since


    BP can still get #1 in their 7th year which is really freaking shocking

    i wonder how they do it

    some of it has to be YG marketing for sure cause their groups in general have the best longevity


  • Actually Sistar did it too.


    Screenshot 2023-07-28 211703.png

  • K pop fans are just fickle.

    Honestly this. Kpop fans in general are fickle. Not just Koreans. It is just more visible with Koreans because it is just one country. Non Koreans follow the same trend but since it's a combination of multiple countries, they don't get called out for it.

    The point is it is just rare to find people who have "stanned" a particular group for over 7 years (average term of kpop contracts) without hopping onto the new, trendy, younger group.

  • nahhhhhhh it was much morecommon during 2nd gen lets not lie to ourselves

    uhh this couldn’t be further from the truth lol what? Literally what sistar did was unprecedented back then. Even snsd at their peak relevance as “the national girl group” never reached this level of digital dominance, and their chief competitor 2ne1 who was touted to have the upper hand when it comes to charting also didn’t have an unbroken streak of number-1 hits after hits like sistar did. Everyone else was not even close. Don’t know how you came to the conclusion that what sistar achieved was common during 2nd gen lol

  • uhh this couldn’t be further from the truth lol what? Literally what sistar did was unprecedented back then. Even snsd at their peak relevance as “the national girl group” never reached this level of digital dominance, and their chief competitor 2ne1 who was touted to have the upper hand when it comes to charting also didn’t have an unbroken streak of number-1 hits after hits like sistar did. Everyone else was not even close. Don’t know how you came to the conclusion that what sistar achieved was common during 2nd gen lol

    2ne1 bigbang and to a lesser extent, SNSD could think of getting #1s 7 years into their debut


    today it seems near impossible

    u r m o m g a y

    1e1282e4806e9f6f1080ccc53055ea21c0a98974.gifv6cc52730ebd88d19753cac6a9c1436f129e99705.gifv

  • 2ne1 bigbang and to a lesser extent, SNSD could think of getting #1s 7 years into their debut


    today it seems near impossible

    but that wasn’t the point you made that i was addressing? This was your post that sparked that user replying to you:

    should have mentioned twice did it in 3 years

    a lot more impressive if you ask me

    which logically looks like you were arguing that achieving straight number 1 hits in 3 years is a more impressive feat than in 7 years. Now you can bring up that we need to account for the competitive nature of the industry now compared to the past, which can tilt the scale towards twice, and i’m not interested in that discussion, but that still doesn’t mean it was “more common” like you said to achieve what sistar did in 2nd gen. The point wasn’t just about the group’s status in their 7th year alone, it was their consistency throughout the entire 7 years and how they didn’t slip a single time. That is not common in any gen lol

  • but that wasn’t the point you made that i was addressing? This was your post that sparked that user replying to you:

    which logically looks like you were arguing that achieving straight number 1 hits in 3 years is a more impressive feat than in 7 years. Now you can bring up that we need to account for the competitive nature of the industry now compared to the past, which can tilt the scale towards twice, and i’m not interested in that discussion, but that still doesn’t mean it was “more common” like you said to achieve what sistar did in 2nd gen. The point wasn’t just about the group’s status in their 7th year alone, it was their consistency throughout the entire 7 years and how they didn’t slip a single time. That is not common in any gen lol

    i could argue bigbang didnt slip in 10 years which is way more impressive and wouldnt be possible today


    secondly, while longevity is important, it is EXTREMELY hard to release 9 #1s in a period of 3 years because of the sheer likelihood of the public getting tired and fed up

    even marvel only has one true megahit piece every year or two despite their attempts at pumping out content relentlessly

    u r m o m g a y

    1e1282e4806e9f6f1080ccc53055ea21c0a98974.gifv6cc52730ebd88d19753cac6a9c1436f129e99705.gifv

  • i could argue bigbang didnt slip in 10 years which is way more impressive and wouldnt be possible today


    secondly, while longevity is important, it is EXTREMELY hard to release 9 #1s in a period of 3 years because of the sheer likelihood of the public getting tired and fed up

    even marvel only has one true megahit piece every year or two despite their attempts at pumping out content relentlessly

    tbf i was only referring to ggs bc that’s the topic in this thread title, but even if you include big bang in this discussion too that makes 2 groups who never slipped in their entire career out of the hundreds that debuted in 2nd gen lol that’s not “common” in any sense of the word.


    I actually disagree with your argument that twice’s frequent releasing schedule hindered their ability to nab straight number 1 hits in a relatively condensed period while they were at their peak, and idt the “mega hit” in your definition equals the “number 1 hit” in mine. In fact, out of all of twice’s number 1 hits, only cheer up and maybe tt can be considered mega hits, same with sistar whose definitive hit songs are only alone and touch my body imo. That’s not to take away from their other songs’ success, it just means there are different levels to “number 1 hits”, which makes this not different from your marvel comparison at all.

  • EXTREMELY hard to release 9 #1s in a period of 3 years because of the sheer likelihood of the public getting tired and fed up

    Is that so? Looking at the groups who issues #1 is almost certain they will issue the bulk of them in those 3 years when thr FOMO still strong


    If you don't get your 1s in those 3 years is likely you will never get them again. Proof? Twice itself



    What is impressive is not they get their #1 fast, because this is the norm for idols. What is impressive however is they released 9 songs and all them were #1. Generally a group will release one or two misses down the road (by misses I mean songs that reached #2 or #3 without taking the spot)


    Guess the FOMO was just way too strong for Twice

  • I dunno why people are treating this like some uniquely korean or Girl Group thing.


    Some artists are just hot for a season.


    Is the American Public Listening to LMFAO today?


    How about Fetty Wap?


    Black Eyed Peas certainly aren't doing what they used to do.



    When's the last time Katy Perry has had a hit?


    Or Skrillex?


    People aint exactly Bumping Calvin Harris like they used to.


    Music trends ebb and flow. It's really weird to act like this is some oddity of the industry... when it's just how music is.

  • i dont think its FOMO that made twice big


    usually whenever interviewed about why people listen to twice, the answers would be along hte lines of "they make me happy" "they give me energy"

    to me, two things could have happened

    1 ) twice's concept change

    very obvious imo

    its not about the quality of their songs but WHAT they were needed for vanishing


    2 ) imo the world in general has adopted the western "rich powerful daddy's princess" trend in media a LOT in recent years and Twice were the polar opposite of that so it was bound to happen


    people are more insecure than ever rn and want to listen to empowering songs rather than soothing ones

    hell people are looking up to tragic but powerful villains rather than good moral heroes right now more than ever in history

    u r m o m g a y

    1e1282e4806e9f6f1080ccc53055ea21c0a98974.gifv6cc52730ebd88d19753cac6a9c1436f129e99705.gifv

  • Time to stop putting GP on a pedestal then. Being GP's pick is nice for a hot miniute but building a big fandom is the ultimate goal. That's who feed the idols and make them last longer, not GP.

  • I'd say you're making a great deal of a problem from nothing, like any industry and life in general some succeed, some not, some succeed better than others, and success itself can't be defined, for some succeeding is doing what they want and being secure, for others it's making a lot of money or getting a university degree... we as kpop fans have no power to make kpop idols succeed, a lot of factors come into play, and you'd be just miserable if you think you have any say in the matter.

  • But aren't we like them at some point?


    GP doesn't mean fans, they are casual listeners that will listen to whatever is trending or the next song from the a big group they know or is sounding at the TV, tik tok, etc. They will listen to the song if they like it or because it's trendy, it's this simple, and if the group or artist starts releasing songs they don't like it's normal for them to drop them, they don't have any bound with them.


    But I'm pretty sure we are like this with a lot of artists, with western pop I don't think everyone here listens to everything every big artist drops and streams it just for the sake of it, we listen to it and we decide if we want to keep listening to the artist or not, depending if we like what they are releasing.

  • There are many groups releasing the same songs as Twice from 2016 to 2018. We could argue there are far way too much actually. Most people listen to the top group because it's what's trending. That's basically FOMO. That's why GGs have strong peaks issuing many hits and then just flop terrible after the trend dies. Currently Ive and NJ are the groups that will provoke FOMO on Koreans. Everything they release will be a hit.

  • There are many groups releasing the same songs as Twice from 2016 to 2018. We could argue there are far way too much actually. Most people listen to the top group because it's what's trending. That's basically FOMO. That's why GGs have strong peaks issuing many hits and then just flop terrible after the trend dies. Currently Ive and NJ are the groups that will provoke FOMO on Koreans. Everything they release will be a hit.

    i totally agree with that


    also helps that behind the scenes a lot of money is spent on making the media always keep the group in the public eye because while the real winners are the artists who can be the best at their niche, general population will only check out names/faces they have already seen/heard

    u r m o m g a y

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  • I thought that entire post was ridiculous. The general public have no obligation to devoutly follow a group or artist and stream their entire discography, just because they were hooked on a song that trended or went viral.


    This isn't a phenomenon unique to K-Pop, and it's even sillier to reduce it to just a K-Pop girl group issue on top of that.


    Like others have said, building up a core fanbase is way more important than chasing the capricious interest of the general public.


    Fans stay with you through the peaks and lulls of your career, while general public interest comes and goes, sometimes unexpectedly.


    The acts that are able to maintain both over a long time are the acts that become legends in their industry.

  • uhh this couldn’t be further from the truth lol what? Literally what sistar did was unprecedented back then. Even snsd at their peak relevance as “the national girl group” never reached this level of digital dominance, and their chief competitor 2ne1 who was touted to have the upper hand when it comes to charting also didn’t have an unbroken streak of number-1 hits after hits like sistar did. Everyone else was not even close. Don’t know how you came to the conclusion that what sistar achieved was common during 2nd gen lol

    SNSD had 10 in a row (Gee and Genie are before Gaon but still got 1s on all music charts).

    2ne1 had around 9 or 10 as well but not in row (Fire and I don’t Care before Gaon).

    Multiple other ggs had a string of huge hits in a row or spread out a bit like T-ara, WG, Girls Day, Apink, Secret etc

    uhh this couldn’t be further from the truth lol what? Literally what sistar did was unprecedented back then. Even snsd at their peak relevance as “the national girl group” never reached this level of digital dominance, and their chief competitor 2ne1 who was touted to have the upper hand when it comes to charting also didn’t have an unbroken streak of number-1 hits after hits like sistar did. Everyone else was not even close. Don’t know how you came to the conclusion that what sistar achieved was common during 2nd gen lol

    Twice and BP aren’t exactly outliers if it was done years before and more than a few ggs. If we’re talking 3G sure as there weren’t that many successful ggs outside big 3 and Mamamoo, GFriend but overall 2G had a lot more ggs successful at same/similar time. Even from 3G it’s only really BP that had a long digital career as other ggs were inconsistent like RV and mamamoo or fell of a cliff into the abyss like Twice and Gfriend.

  • That's incorrect.


    Mamamoo didn't fall off digitally until they essentially went on a mini-hiatus with group activities in 2020.


    Before that, they were very consistent digitally from the time they rose to top girl group status in 2016 until that period in 2020, as a group and with their solos (for the most part).


    Just giving a slight correction :-)

  • Fair enough. Yeah they were pretty consistent for most of their career but still they did have a big knockdown seemingly out of the blue without a big issue/scandal (due to long hiatus?) which is why I mentioned them.

  • Fair enough. Yeah they were pretty consistent for most of their career but still they did have a big knockdown seemingly out of the blue without a big issue/scandal which is why I mentioned them.

    Yeah, I just wanted to add some important context to their digital decline. It aligned with a huge dropoff in group activity, Wheein leaving the company (which made some people incorrectly think she left the group), COVID-19 destroying their plans to go on a world tour and the subsequent rise of the 4th Gen from 2021 on.


    Kind of the perfect (imperfect) storm for Mamamoo to lose their grasp on the general public.


    But their fandom is still very strong at least :holding-back-tears:

  • This.

    narcissistic, my god i love it

    JCsIq3Q.gif

  • I don't think it'll ever change but I find it really interesting. I enjoyed OMG, BG and MMLND sudden blow up eras a lot. I love it when a nugu group blows up but when a group from big ass company becomes trend solely due to mediaplay I feel salty. 😂

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