The korean music show experience

Are you in a Kpop fandom? How do you support your favorite Kpop artistes during their comeback promotion?

Don't know what I'm talking about? No worries.

fandom:  the fans of a sport or famous person.

Kpop fandoms (as with other pop artistes' fandoms I suppose) are very elaborated, with fandom names, fandom colours, fandom wars...

kpop comebacks:  Comeback-when an artist 'comes back' with a new song/single. It's different from a debut because that's when the artist/group is formally introduced to the public with a new song.

Initially, I thought a comeback means an artiste coming back to the stage after retiring or a long hiatus. But in kpop, nope. 

TVXQ! had their comeback with TENSE , their 7th full length Korean album this January. Something was the title song.


The whole TVXQ! thread at the forum was abuzzed with activities. With a comeback followed lots of promotion activities, so the pages at the thread moved extremely fast. Then came the steep learning curve for us newbie fans: Music Shows.

We are talking about the weekly music shows at the major broadcasting stations in South Korea - Music Bank, Music Core, Show Champion, Inkigayo, M Countdown... Pardon me if I get any information wrong. I am NEW! Though I won't blame an experienced fan for making mistakes regarding this very complication promotion system either.

Anyway, a bunch of us amateur fans quickly realised the significance of these music shows. Artistes fight to WIN on these shows. Ok, actually they don't, the FANS do. There are various criterias that the singers have to score in to win.

Broadcast points, digital sales points, physical sales points, viewers' votes, global i-fans' (international fans. K-fans = Korean fans) votes, SNS points (Youtube views, Twitter trends), live votes etc etc.

Different shows have different criterias and point systems. Refer to here for a VERY SIMPLIFIED guide. There were specific instructions on how to trend a hashtag for it to be counted, how to watch the official MV on YT for it to be counted, how to stream on various music sites for it to be counted, how to vote, how to make passwords to vote more...

It was mind-boggling to say the least. Scratch that. It was one of the most complicating thing I've ever done. Even after the whole thing was over, I still had absolutely no idea if my hastags, YT views, streamings etc were counted.

 

Why bother, you may ask? Erm, I am not entirely sure. But it's their 10th anniversary album so we all wanted them to have a glorious comeback. Especially when some fans from other fandoms were calling our boys has-beens. HAS-BEENS???????

SAY. THAT. AGAIN.

 

Anyway, we dilligently played Something on YT day and night. Many left their PCs on overnight just to stream. Stream the whole song, they said. Volume has to be at least 80%, they said. Do not use a playlist, they said. Only playlists work, others said. Do not use auto refresh, some said. Stream on incognito mode, some said. Stream with a different ID after every 10 plays.  Oh. My. Gawd.

We watched the YT views like watching a stock market. Realtime updates were swift at the forum thread. We all rallied together to stream and vent our frustrations that the views were going up too slowly. We also gathered information from all over to help in our cause. Some scoured the net for more reliable instructions, some asked the K-fans for helped. A bunch of us formed the Streaming Team where we made multiple passwords to buy streaming tickets with the help of a K-fan, so we could stream from the Korean music sites too.

There were translators, information providers, mood uplifters, tech help and a lot of confused fans. Day after day, we exhaust our energies trying to boost up Something's points so they could win. Once, I streamed outside and busted my Data plan limit. Oops. 

Then SM dropped the bomb and gave us missions. Reach 3 million YT views by this deadline and they would release a mystery video. Many times, the view count would hang and only go up by like 5 to 100 in 2-3 hours. It was darn frustrating. I remember posting this gif to express my disbelief and anger at YT.

 

By the way, I wasn't really angry with YT. And I didn't really feel like shooting the other fans when they scorned Yunho and Changmin. All these bitching in the Kpop fandoms are in good harmless fun. Well, there is a small minority of fans who take things too seriously but not me. Generally, being a TVXQ! fan has garnered me friends, online or physical; I now have a community to 'hang out' with; it has made me feel young and fun again. And since the boys are such role models, they have positively influenced my life. Serious.

Anyway, we streamed like crazy and DID IT!

It's hard to describe the feeling. Although all of us were  streaming alone, but as the deadline drew near, I could feel the collective anxiety. We were all high on adrenaline and anxiety. So when we finally hit 3 million views a few hours ahead of the stipulated midnight, everybody cheered online like crazy!!! There were fireworks, popping of champagnes and lots and lots of cyber group hugs.

I never imagined I would say this but, it was fun. Really really fun. 

Of course, it did not stop at that. We had another mission to hit 5 million in a week's time. That we failed. :( The boys did go on to win, I don't know, 7 or 8 times for the comeback though.

Oh I need to mention that the Caasiopeias, ie the K-fans of TVXQ! are pretty siao-on. They bulk bought the albums to boost TVXQ!'s physical sales ranking. I'm not talking about 10 or 20 copies. These fans bought in boxes. Hundreds of copies. That's just madness to me.

Sometimes, I would turn on the live streaming of the music shows to watch the boys. Then wait with bated breathe for the results. When they won, we congratulated one another online and on whatsapp (for my local fan friends).

There were 2 shows where live votes were counted. We gathered information on how i-fans could contribute to the SMS votes. There were 3 numbers that we could send our votes to. Information was posted on the thread and someone who had connection would announce when it's time for us to vote.

I remember I was down at the playground with the kids, totally oblivious that it was already voting time. I casually checked my Whatsapp and there was Bobi urgently telling us it's to VOTE NOW. I fumbled through the korean characters 동방신기 and tried out all the numbers. After a frantic 10 minutes, my sms finally got through.

Fancy that! I just sent a live sms vote to South Korea! Bobi and Bliss's votes got through too. So exciting!

We saw the boys win again and again...




There was a week where they swept all 4 trophies. Proud. Anyway, I'd have been proud even if they did not win. Their live performance is top-notched. They are still at the top of their game.

They did not win for Spellbound which was to be expected. I didn't work hard for it frankly. Because I knew there wasn't a chance. Erm, hello SNSD and 2NE1? Nevertheless, the boys still gave us some pretty awesome Spellbound performances, here and here.

Right now, I just want Yunho's leg to heal completely before he starts rehearsing for their TREE Japanese tour.