As Lee Jieun's International reputation rises, her iron grip in Korea gets loosened

Somebody paid for an ad of IU at the TImes square.

Kpop's most reactionary/most anachronistic/most isolationist singer has significantly changed her position, and is now trying to appeal to the world, despite of her Japanese promotion having gone nowhere in 2012-13.

As she changes her song style to be more palatable to the i-fans, Lee Jieun's Korean fans are increasingly turning back on her, which is why Brave Girls' Rollin is still going strong because the domesticists are now supporting BG, which is unlikely to promote outside of Korea.

IU's haters are also flocking to Laboum, IU's arch enemy. While Laboum is not moving as fast as these people hope for, that is another sign that IU's grip in Korea is weakening

Some people say IU is now old, and will be pushed aside by newer crops. Which I have pointed out for years since she had become a Senior Singer in 2014.

I think that because of the fanatic fans of Brave Girls, Rollin will beat Celebrity at the melon yearly #1 ranking. Many of BG's fans, who didn't know or care who were BG until Viditor had put the fancam, were IU's fans but they have moved to BG because their sounds are more 'Korean'.

For many years IU was the bastion of the domesticists, but when she finally decides to contribute something to KPop after many years of failing to do so, the K-O-R-E-A-N-S are angry and are moving to another domestic act.

Quote from nana18

Girl i don't know if you're aware but right know IU is occupying the top 10 on melon charts

Rollin has a good chance of re-taking #1 this week which means the end of IU domination

Quote from itiswhatitisss

Is it the end for IU? :eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:

Very good chance . She won't release anything till late next year and if BG beats IU others will go over that as well

Quote from pchromo4

Highly unlikely - do you understand how ULs and streams work? "Celebrity" has a 1.5 month lead in tracking over "Rollin" and its peak was higher (higher ULs and streams than Rollin's peak). "Rollin" will need more than 6 months to catch up without losing any of its viral steam. It's possible, but again highly unlikely.

You have a fundamental misunderstanding of why Brave Girls is so loved in South Korea right now. Their sound is NOT any more Korean than any other kpop song, it's because people see them as a hardworking rags-to-riches Cinderella story that managed to overcome prejudice by not giving up. Similar to Gfriend's 2016 performance where they repeatedly got up again in the rain after falling.

Brave Brother wrote a lot of Sistar's summer hits, and his songs to BG are also kind of summer songs. When it gets hotter Rollin will get stronger while Celebrity is a winter song so it will get weaker.

GFriend was eventually defeated by Twice because JYP did its best to snuff the group ran by one of his former employees. Nobody is going to launch a campaign to bury BG since it does not touch anyone's interest. I have discussed the ephemerality of cinderella stories in this post

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EXID, GFriend and Brave Girls - the duration for someone from the bottom is 12 months

I have never really supported acts from smaller companies, because they lack the capital to promote overseas.

A lot of people think Brave Girls will lead KPop, but personally I don't think so.

Of course, Brave Brother is probably super hyper now. A guy always shooting from the hip, he will probably be thinking bigger future for BG, but similar thoughts were had by the owners of EXID and GFriend respectively.

EXID had one great year, 2015, following the fancam boom but from 2016 it had to rely on…

WhyKnock

Mar 20th 2021

Quote from amalyas

I honestly don't see IU trying hard to appeal to the rest of the world, especially not the West. Yes, she is popular with kpop fans there, because she is objectively amazing, but I don't see anything proving that her music is now made for a more international audience.

Something did change and she is now using composers she had not used before, and is trying to attract more foreign fans. There is no more to prove before the domestic audience so she is now trying to use movie techniques in her music videos to get more i-fans

Quote from ClementineRuby

What signals that she's trying to appeal to cultures/countries that aren't already within her reach?

The significance of changing up her style for 'Lilac' was that she wanted to remember her 20s as a happy period of time, where she was capable of building up her sense of self, purpose, and audience. This is why it leans more closely to the 'pop' genre than her previous albums; pop and hip-hop trigger feelings of inspiration and relief, which what her songs needed this time around.

Where/when/how are her Korean fans turning on her?

Don't be dramatic. IU does not have an 'arch enemy.' And if she did, it wouldn't be an often overlooked girl group. Further more, if what you're saying about all of these groups threatening IU's career as an artist is true, then why would it only happen with Brave Girls and Laboum? Why not... I don't know, TWICE and Black Pink? The two most popular Korean girl groups?

If IU's age is a contributing factor to your predictions about her eventual decline in popularity, then that should also apply to Brave Girls, considering that half of the members are older than her. It's funny that you try to use that you've been making declarations about her age getting in the way of her success for years because it hasn't affected anything.

It doesn't matter if IU doesn't win #1 on Melon every year. In fact, she hasn't been doing this every year since her career began and it hasn't affected her.

You act as if the majority of Koreans are nationalistic and reject anything that doesn't perpetrate Korean characteristics as ideal/superior, which is simply not true if you consider how South Koreans admire Western celebrities.

I don't now why you're so obsessed with IU's downfall (which, I assure you, isn't coming anytime soon), but I think that it's very unhealthy.

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Acts like Laboum and Brave Girls have nothing to lose. They have much bigger prize if they can topple IU.

Same thing which happened on 2011 when IU, who had nothing to lose, fought SNSD.

Bigger acts have risk. If they fight IU and lose, their reputation is hurt . It might be why there are few collisions now between acts from bigger companies - they pre-arrange the comebacks so there would be no collision from which a winner and a loser will arise and the loser has to pack his bags.

However, there are little downside for Laboum and Brave Girls to provoke IU, so they do that without impunity