Posts by the101

  • Official Digital Thread

    Yeah, the Melon one is the same one I've been using. You have to do it song by song (at least on a Mac) and can't get a full list like say, the chartmasters one. I didn't think to use chartmasters, which is at least a slightly faster copy/paste than doing it from Spotify. I was hoping there was an API (and not one I have to install because I'm not smart enough for that) or at least a way to export the data as a csv file instead of having to copy and paste block by block, but it doesn't sound like it. Thanks tho!

  • Official Digital Thread

    Quote from Kreatin

    What charts specifically are you tracking? is it only for certain artists or songs?

    I track streams in Spotify for all of the NCT groups, as well as the members’ work outside the group (solos, features). On Melon, I do the same and also track ULs. Melon, in particular, is a grind since the source I use changed their format and know you have to look by individual song instead of being able to look by the group and see a list with all the songs and their totals. I only update once a month because it’s so time consuming.


    I also track new releases during cbs on the weekly Circle and Melon charts, but that’s a song or two once a week for several weeks so not that big of a deal. Also it’s easy to go back and look if I miss a week.

  • Official Digital Thread

    Chart trackers - do you have a recommendation on gathering the data (ie the streams)? I think I'm doing this in a ridiculously time-consuming and stupid manual way - do you have a recommended solution or method I should use to track the data instead of entering it manually by song and artist in a spreadsheet once a month?

  • SM bringing Lucas back?

    Quote from Ves

    I assume these as Lucas fans?Curious, are most of them also NCTzens or WayV fans too?


    SM certainly seems to like teasing the fans with pictures of him so I think they WANT to bring him back, but yea the question is whether it's a smart moves given the pros and the cons


    Yes, Lucas’ fandom. They often say they are OT 23 and or Wayzennis but the behavior is mostly akgae - when WayV came back after a year and a half hiatus, they swarmed every post asking about him - not a single peep about the group, the song or the cb after all this time (you know the way you’d say “I’m so glad they’re back but I miss my dude.” Nope, no one else in the group existed.)


    There are certainly many akgae strands in the NCT fandom but they were certainly very single focused.


    Actually SM hasn’t posted a thing about him since hiatus and he’s been trimmed from all WayV references, including the introductions of the units in the all-unit show meant to teach people about NCT ahead of the Tokyo unit debut. All of the choreo and backing tracks were reworked and re-recorded to eliminate him. He’s also not mentioned in all-unit content either. They just act like he’s never existed.


    They haven’t been posting pix about him at all.


    But lumis keep him trending quite a bit. He usually pops up with a vague ass post on his IG whenever WayV has a big moment or some other NCT members’ birthday, lumis get it trending that he’s coming back and the cycle replays every so many months. (Lumis have a conspiracy theory that the company is intentionally behind this but naw. 😑 )


    Within the past few months, SM started posting SuperM dance practices (this was ahead of the announcement of the cb) and it’s too hard to completely crop him out but you can see they definitely minimized and tried to crop him out.


    Now it’s possible they were testing the waters there, but that’s the closest SM got to posting about him over the past year and a half.

  • SM bringing Lucas back?

    tetetete  Ves


    Since you tagged me and I was already here to support Junny with some questions for the q&a…


    For starters, I think this has to be taken with a huge grain of salt.


    He will be replaced as CEO in March so not sure if this is a parting shot or laying groundwork for a new company? (The recent SM realignment video seems to indicate he’d still be with the company, potentially in a different role so maybe Lucas is a project he wants to take on?) And there were no announcements about this on any of the official channels or media.


    SM to increase number of outside directors, make subsidiary dealings more transparent
    SM Entertainment will increase the number of outside directors and make its dealings with subsidiaries more transparent, the K-pop company said Sunday. The…
    koreajoongangdaily.joins.com


    The uproar behind the post by Korean and Chinese fans confirms what we already knew: there is no way forward for him in either market.


    WayV has clearly removed him from the group with interviews and photo shoots talking about the new era and WayV 6. On Weibo (which you’ll notice Lucas doesn’t post on when he posts his vaguebook updates at big moments for the group), he is not even listed as a member of the group. In fact, SM has deliberately photoshopped him out of group pix, when 1. They could just crop and 2. They are notoriously lazy af. They are sending a very clear message to the core fanbase. Additionally, the group had its highest selling album to date, so they are not suffering lost sales, which is really all the company cares about, lbh.


    No matter how much Kpop fans think they’re not successful, NCT is the company’s cash cow rn and has been for several years, providing the company with several record breaking sales years. The group represents over 53% of SM’s album sales (which are the bulk of their revenue from stock reports) as well as dominating merch (the next big area of revenue) and tour dollars. No other group at SM comes close to matching the brand’s overall sales power right now, not even the up and comers like aespa.


    Knowing that the brand is so critical to their business, I think it’s highly unlikely they’d bring him back to NCT, knowing how k-Czennies feel and with the destructive Superhuman boycott fresh in their minds - and back then, 127 and Dream were not even as successful as they are now. A boycott would be especially risky for highly lucrative NCT Dream, which is still a predominantly Korean-driven fandom (it’s growing but you can compare the Billboard sales and worldwide chart positions to 127 and see they’re not quite there yet.)


    As an international fan, I see how much SM constantly seeks to reassure KCzennies when we get things so I just can’t see a realistic possibility when it might impact the brand, esp as they build messaging around the group to support the new unit launches and movie and documentary deals.


    That leaves the international market, which is split. Now you could argue that SuperM is a group specifically made to target the Western market so perhaps the strongest possibility here but you have that same brand risk: how are kczennies and c-Czennies going to feel seeing Mark or Taeyong or Ten laughing it up with someone they feel so strongly against?


    Additionally, not sure SuperM can support a split in the fandom that supported the group the most (EXOLs noped out and still would, I think, shawols were okay with it but are a smaller number.) SM is being cagey about whether he’s back by hiding the seventh light in the teaser (there are seven lights for seven members in their fandom colors. The seventh line is red - so either a new member, masking Lucas or a CYA after they do a pulse check so they can go either direction.)


    Leaving him out will create some risk to the brand too, in terms of lost sales and disgruntled fans, but the long-term risks seem less (many of those fans were not purchasing in the interim and sales have been just fine without them for other NCT and WayV releases..)


    So I think the only viable option if they are determined to eke some extra coins out of his remaining contract would be to launch him as a soloist internationally. He’s not a very good rapper but it could be smoothed out with glossy production or they could add a singer with him to make a duo. So then perhaps the post is to show there is still interest in him based on the social buzz? He is the third seller in WayV, something like 10th in overall NCT (for Resonance) and one of the bottom sellers in SuperM, but he is also one of the most followed members on IG so if lumis can organize and put their $$ into play, possibly?


    Tbf, this too is risky because Czennies will be in an uproar if he is getting solos ahead of the most popular 127 and Dream members.


    I hope this answers some of your questions. Tl, dr: Certainly SM does some crazy shit without rhyme or reason but I can’t see this as him coming back to WayV or NCT. Maybe SuperM, but more likely launched as a soloist. Or they will just keep him in the basement until the contract runs out.

  • [COMPLETE] JUNNY Red Carpet Q&A!

    Hi Junny! I love your music - both the songs you write for other people and your own - and look forward to seeing you in San Diego this month! I have lots of questions!


    - what is your approach to combining your own r&b style into kpop work? Do you feel there are adjustments you have to make to suit groups?


    - I notice you do a lot of work with minGtion and your songs together are some of my favorites, like From Home. Can you talk a little bit about your partnership and how you approach songwriting?


    - what is something you would like to accomplish as an artist that you haven't done yet?


    - Do you change your songwriting and producing approach when working with different NCT sub-units, like moving from NCT Dream to NCT 127?


    - What artists inspired you?


    - Blanc was such a fantastic album - did you achieve what you wanted to on it or is there something you'd do differently?


    - Blanc has songs in Korean and English on it. Do you have to change your approach to a song dependent on what language you're working in?


    I could keep going but just wanted to say, I do really love your music!

  • Where did the NCT guild go?

    Quote from chounim

    Did I miss something? I haven't been here in a while and now I came back only to find Neo City gone :?:


    Quote from Aeicy

    I have no idea I wonder about it too

    But I left the guild long before this happened

    hey all -


    There’s truth to both of the answers in this thread. Neo and City set out to create a comfortable space where people could share their love of NCT, supported by our other original founder Quarkie and little ol me, originally from afar and later as one of the mods.


    I think we did that for a time - a place where people could argue about Touch or Fire Truck or Hello Future or duck in to dodge the vitriol during the Sticker release or share hopes and fears about what’s happening with WayV.


    We shared tamale recipes and maps of Canada and learned about new groups. We watched concerts and series together (with random telenovela intervals).


    We shared many laughs (and a few tears) here and at the time, it was just where we needed it to be.


    We started humbly as a NCT chat thread and became the first guild to buy their own subforum on AKP, which is pretty neat! (And thanks to kendie - gone but not forgotten, who helped pay for that final push.)


    The guild got slower, as things do, and some have moved on from the site during its more tumultuous moments. There also seemed to be a lot of concern voiced about guilds pulling away from main forum traffic and the concern about us posting member updates in our guild (ie double posts and “spamming”.)


    So the Neo City mods had already been discussing closing the guild. I’m trying to trod the line of the new rules here, but you can check out the thread about changes to the site to see that one of our founders was banned for a negative comment and another was insulted for a negative comment. I hope that’s not perceived as a criticism of the site or staff or whatever - I’m just saying this is what happened. :pepe-shrug:


    We informed all of our members in December and, as noted, Ves was kind enough to wait a few weeks to allow members to log in and see the news.


    If you are looking for a new home on AKP, you’ll find many great people in the Michelins and Exotics who also share a love of NCT. Get cookin' like a 5-star Michelin chef with our sister guild, the Michelins, and tell kidsgonestray, sweet-spice and minazuki we recommended it. Or say hi to Kireta, Novemberain or Szenalica in Exotics and tell 'em we sent you.


    (Chounim, I know you’re already familiar with all of these folks but for other Czennies who may be looking for NCT-friendly spaces, I wanted to elevate our besties!)


    As we offered to our current members, if you have donated to the guild bank and would like to get your akorns back, I’m pretty sure I can skim through the donations to find your donation amounts and return them.


    If any of you reading are inspired to start a new NCT guild, I certainly encourage you to do so and would be happy to give you a starter donation.


    Czennies hwaiting!


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  • Visualising the Effects of K-pop Happenings on Forum Activtiy (or: Let's Take a Look at a Year of AKP User Traffic)

    Quote from wsoet

    To be quite frank, I wasn't even sure what Winter Wonderland entailed, as I didn't take part in it at all. But all those special events you mentioned could certainly have resulted in the rise in activity we saw at the end of 2022.

    This is a great point. I typically don't get involved in forum "drama", so unfortunately I don't have much insight into fan wars or problematic threads. I also never participated in the anon section, where I imagine at least some of this controversy must have taken place. And actually, now that I think of it, I wonder how much the removal of anons impacted forum activity.

    I'm glad you brought this up as well. Perhaps Internet forum activity in general is decreasing as users migrate to other platforms. I guess such macro factors would affect long-term AKP usage trends, but I'm still curious about the acute decrease in traffic this site saw in September.

    Winter Wonderland was a series of events happening over a specific period of time but bundled together as one theme to connect them (essentially many things the site did as one-off events, like Hunger Games or seasonal badges and aesthetic competitions but under one constant theme.) Many sites and communities, from Discord to forums, host events on their sites to engage their community and that was the goal, especially when there are no major album drops happening to talk about but there is a busy awards season that keeps people buzzing.


    The controversies happened on main but that was earlier in the year and anons weren't removed until December, so neither of those would have bearing on the Sept drop. It's a good and interesting question you raise.

  • Visualising the Effects of K-pop Happenings on Forum Activtiy (or: Let's Take a Look at a Year of AKP User Traffic)

    This is interesting. I wonder if some of the Winter Wonderland activities helped somewhat stabilize in that November/December time period? Hunger Games, aesthetic competitions, secret Santa, Black Friday sales and watch parties were all popular threads and active events esp when there were no cbs to talk about.


    I also think your chart is thinking about Kpop (external factors) but not site factors either. Obviously on a site with such a large Army presence, the slowdown in BTS activities would also have a corresponding slowdown, but it also isn’t taking into account what activity may have happened on the site. People come and go for Kpop comebacks but I also remember a spell last year where there were a sequence of highly controversial threads that resulted in banned users, while others fled the site. I don’t remember when it was tho, but it would be interesting to overlay that too and see if that impacts user stats. Or major fan wars that either drove traffic up or down?


    (I wonder what the long-term patterns on forum usage in general on the internet as communities use other spaces like Discord. I suppose this is a long term consideration for the site’s management - like if forum traffic across all Internet forums is down 10% and AKP is down 15%, let’s say, that’s also reflective of a general trend across the industry - where did those users go to get info now? Maybe the issue isn’t even AKP but the format of a forum in general?)

  • Limited Event - Newjeans - Attention + Hype Boy

    Quote from Whi

    Um in the hanni badge there’s a minji scene included probably bc the maker confused them.. :sweatr: can already-uploaded badges be edited or is this the final? :-(



    Quote from ripia

    they can be changed but it will take a couple days for the system to switch it over at least thatss what i remember


    Quote from Ves

    12 hours after re-upload. Please point out where it is to the101


    Whi - thanks for the catch! There is a series of frames that are definitely an error, and a series of frames that are not but a specific choice. It's worth noting our badges convert letterbox size MVs into square boxes - so a lot of things that are beautiful on the wide screen are not so great in a square. There's some definite nipping and tucking that has to happen.


    This one is a definite oops on my part and I apologize for the miss here!

    AE8255-AB-D5-E1-460-D-8-DEC-E675-E2393-C5-B.jpg


    Here's a good example of what I'm talking about with the square. This lovely series of scenes where Hanni is laying on her hands and falling asleep...


    CooperativeCommonAbyssiniancat-max-1mb.gif


    ..looks like this as a badge - you can slide it left to right and still not be able to get enough to get the context..

    Image



    With that in mind, this sequence is not an accident. These frames are here because I think it's important to show Hanni's dynamic movements in this choreo sequence. Part of being able to show the movement means the slight crop also includes other members (square life, yo)


    E6-FF3-E75-834-E-4-ED3-A4-DD-7-C011-DF5390-B.jpg


    I've updated to replace the incorrect sequence and cropped in a little tighter on the sequence where she's walking and looking at her phone. I think it's still important to show the other girls in the frame so you get that she's distracted walking with her friends and gets left behind. I don't want to crop tighter on Hanni's dance sequence because that ruins the flow.


    Your third recommendation of scenes works the best in this shape and suits the pacing IMO (the sleeping doesn't work and the hallway scene is a bit awkward with the crop, particularly with the small amount of frames). If you - or anyone else - are still unhappy with the badge with these edits, I completely understand and am happy to refund your akorns out of my own.


    Thanks for the feedback and the correction!


    Ibby when you're online next, can you replace the Hanni badge with this revised one?


    NJHanni2.gif






  • Post Your Random Thoughts

    Quote from screamingbanshee

    Thank you so much can you copy the source code and send it to my DMs so I can find it easier <3

    I sent all this stuff to your dms.


    oh! It occurred to me this morning that a really great into to NCT is the group’s performance at 2020 Mama. This is a 23 minute segment but it shows NCT as a group, as well as showcasing each of the sub-units. This really shows off the differences in dance and sound between the units, as well as showing how the rotational unit works as it bounces between different members to suit different songs. Each segment is introduced with the unit, but here iS a list of songs in this performance, plus members for your reference in the order they appear as you get to know NCT.


    I’m on my phone so can’t timestamp, but the performance segment begins at 12:20


    You can enjoy this video first, then go back and reference my comments here to figure out who’s who - it’s just meant as a reference and not needed to enjoy. 😬


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    - From Home - NCT U (from NCT 2020 Resonance, this is a vocal unit, almost every main vocalist is on this song - this version is a vocal show!)

    - some NCT more narrated by Mark (127/Dream)

    - Turn Back Time - WayV (from Awaken the World)


    - NCT Dream - Ridin (from Reload)


    - NCT 127 - Kick It (from Neo Zone)

    - More lore going through all the members, who are speaking their native languages

    - NCT 2020 - Resonance (this is a mash-up of multiple songs off the Resonance albums and is its own single on Spotify and MV)

    - - these wide ensemble shots show all of NCT!

    Songs in Resonance:

    - - NCT U - Make A Wish (performance-driven with vocal emphasis, on both Resonance albums)


    - -NCT U - Raise the Roof (fewer members are on this song on the album so not worth going into here, from Resonance Pt. 2)

    - - NCT U - 90s Love (performance-driven with rap emphasis, from Resonance Pt. 2)

    - - NCT U - work it (performance-based, from Resonance Pt 2)

    - when it comes out of this section, this is all the members - this is NCT

    - - when they are laying on the floor this is another segment from Make A Wish (Xiaojun is the beautiful vocalist, before leading into Doyoung and Jaehyun)

    - - back to raise the roof


    I sent this to your dms too but wanted to share here too since a few people were reading the other posts too.