Broadways Kpop Musical Showed How Hard It Is To Create Internet Fame
Broadways Kpop Musical Showed How Hard It Is To Create Internet Fame
- entertainment
A Broadway musical, BTS and Blackpink, artists are trying to win over fans online. He wasn't very lucky.
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F8 (pronounced "Fate") is an eight-member K-pop group signed to RBY Entertainment. A look at their official Instagram page shows the band performing live, posing for movies, and smiling down the sticks in eclectic yet color-matched outfits. The group announced the upcoming concert and thanked their fans, whom they called "F8 Nation". It's similar to many other K-pop groups' Instagram accounts that scrolling fans might stumble upon.
Exception: F8 is not real. The musical about the KPOP group opened on Broadway on Nov. 27 and closed in just two weeks after mixed reviews and low ticket sales. In the months leading up to the opening and in the weeks following, KPOP promoted its characters through social media using the same tools and techniques that popularized K-Pop's biggest names. Unfortunately, fictional KPOP groups have yet to achieve the same success. Internet fandom is hard to build.
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The KPOP musical about fictional South Korean boy group F8, girl group RTMIS, soloist MwE, and various dramas set in New York was unique and groundbreaking in many ways. It was the first Broadway show featuring an Asian female composer, and 18 API artists made their Broadway debuts. He has taken a particularly interesting approach to social media marketing. The band tried to create fandom not only for the show, but also for the show's characters. He created a social media presence for the bands he covered and promoted them the way a label would promote real artists.
Ahead of the KPOP premiere, the official Instagram profiles of F8, RTMIS, and MwE were revealed. The team behind them used photo collages (where multiple posts form one large image in the account feed), a technique often used by real teams. The photos were remarkably similar to what you'd see on real artists' pages, from the landscape and style to the bilingual captions.
Elsewhere, the teams presented TikTok dance challenges to each other's songs (i.e. the numbers they performed on the show) and encouraged the audience to follow along. They called their fans. F8 was called "F8 Nation" and RTMIS was called "Demis", just like the real bands. "You are always with us and encourage us. You give us strength every time we do it,” F8 wrote in a recent Instagram post. "Thank you for your endless love and support from my special fans," MwE wrote in another book. When the F8 first hit the scene, it was a big event. This performance I saw had an intermission of cheers and applause before and after the dramatic music. Even if the audience has never seen this fictional group, hopefully they will already know them.
As a K-pop fan myself, I admit to being impressed by the authenticity of the social profiles and how clearly their creators understand the current online K-pop scene. While I can only speculate about the mindset of KPOP groups when it comes to tweeting their social media strategy, I think building a fan base for their artist groups seems like a worthy way to get online viewers into the show. And why not? It worked well for dozens of real groups, why not fictional groups?
Today I've got a playlist full of BTS content from the past few weeks, including V's latest concept film, Instagram photos from RM's album release, RM's short performance, J-Hope's new dance video, and some #runbts dance moves competition: tiktok. For many of today's top K-pop artists, social media is a central element of branding. Being a K-pop fan means following a constant stream of content online.
And while this flood of media demands a lot of work from artists, the payoff can be huge. BTS was responsible for the second most retweets and likes of a tweet on Twitter last year, the last being literally a selfie. BTS member V's Instagram, which he created last year, broke records and became the fastest profile to reach 10 million followers. And BTS is hardly the only group following this playbook. Many modern bands are more active on social media, especially TikTok. Sure, there are K-pop fans who get to know their favorite artists through their music, but I know many who connect with them through social media content—TikTok dance contests, backstage interviews, and viral variety shows—and after i discovered the music...
I've been a part of all kinds of fandoms that have used technology to connect with fans (Remember One Direction's Twitcam live streams?). Over the years, as tools like Instagram and TikTok have become bigger and bigger drivers of fame, I've heard a lot about the formulaic nature of the online medium. Kids these days usually think about music or artists , I hear my generation complain, or are their musicians the ones with the best Instagram game?
Using the proven K-pop formula, KPOP inadvertently assigned its fictional artists as the control group for this experiment. Could the K-pop machine known for its growing popularity, or the Broadway musicals that try to emulate this K-pop machine, create a fan base for artists that literally didn't exist?
The answer is no, or not in the short window presented by KPOP . As of this writing, MwE has 284 Instagram followers, RTMIS has 374, and F8 has 661. This is not zero, but has seen many descendants of the actors who played these fictional artists, the incredibly talented Luna, who plays. She is a true K-pop idol with MwE and 1.5 million followers.
On the one hand, these are very new Instagram profiles. On the other hand, they had a larger audience than most new Instagram profiles. KPOP is comprised of Broadway and K-pop veterans with millions of followers on Instagram, Twitter and TikTok who actively promote its content. I have no doubt that these profiles reached Kpop circles and Kpop fans, but they did not find a basis there.
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As a longtime K-pop listener and avid theater lover, I can relate to the target audience of this musical as directly as possible. I previewed KPOP . There were many interesting songs. I was not prepared to see a cast full of Asian and Asian-American actors on Broadway. Contrary to what some people think, you don't need to understand Korean to watch or appreciate the show. I had issues with the pacing and character development of KPOP, but that was in no way the fault of the major artists.
But for me, parts of social media just didn't ring true. Some of it I think could be KPOP as a Broadway production.
On the one hand, it was confusing. It was never clear to me whether the TikTok and Instagram posts were meant to portray the groups or the actors playing them, whether I thought of them as actual fans, or if the characters meant imaginary fans. The fact that many early-career actors are significantly older than their real-life idols, who usually debut as teenagers, may have added to the buzz. (Again, this is not a criticism of the actors who did a good job.) And some of the actors (probably non-native Koreans) mostly used English lines in their songs and performances, which is a creative choice, though completely understandable. kpop group. ... that you don't usually see in real bands.
It's all a very reasonable choice, one the public would hardly believe in a fictional Broadway musical. When a director is trying to turn a fictional story into a true fandom and appeal to die-hard fans who know the rules of the production genre all too well, it can be a tougher sell.
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But I found it, and I can't speak for all K-pop fans here. This was one of my experiences. the element of personality is missing from the social media look of F8, RTMIS and MwE. Dominating posts on TikTok and Instagram is not the only thing that creates fame, although this content is very well produced. Just look at Luna's profile, which is much more popular than her fictional character, with photos with friends, photos with pets, pictures in bed and declarations of love to her partners, as well as filming and commercials for the show. .
I think this is where Instagram and TikTok users can rest easy. Social media seems to have changed the concept of fame since the days of the Jonas Brothers and Twitter. But for me, it was a reminder of how much KPOP stays the same.
K-pop artists don't just dominate the internet with online content streams; It's that content people and the way you connect with other people online. It's something that shines through in the online content of groups like BTS, even in a simple face-kiss selfie. Such quirkiness, humor and vulnerability would be hard to replicate in any fictional character. This may be part of what separates today's most viral social media stars from the rest. After all, technology alone is not enough. Artists still need connections.
We encourage everyone to listen to the next KPOP album and get tickets for projects with its great artists
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