Damn Idol Chapter 111
At the moment, it was still only a story drifting beneath the surface.
After all, it had only been two days since we reached number one on the music chart.
But there were signs of it slowly trying to rise above the surface.
Drop Out and NOP’s fandom firepower was nothing to scoff at.
Once they started making noise across every community, it would spread to the general public in an instant.
And then there was no way Choi Daeho would sit still.
He would think, “Perfect,” and scheme something.
That was why I said our flower garden was in danger.
This wasn’t the time to rejoice while enjoying the scenery and the fragrance.
In truth, it was a slightly ridiculous situation.
Everyone used correction, and if anything, I was on the side that barely used it.
There was a clear limit to correcting voices with machines.
If correction alone could produce the best vocals, wouldn’t they just pick out handsome and pretty people and make them studio singers?
And if that were possible, when I was challenging two hundred million copies as a producer, I would have indiscriminately poured out albums.
All I would have needed to do was bring in attractive-looking people and pour every hit song I knew into them.
Because that wasn’t possible, the value of premium vocalists went up.
The Billboard market was more sensitive to lip-syncing than the K-pop market.
Without live skill, it was hard to rise to stardom.
It wasn’t as if you could get invited to the Super Bowl halftime show and ask if it was okay to lip-sync, right?
K-pop was the same.
At first, it was an industry that started by bringing in pretty boys and girls, but now singing mattered.
And in the future, it would matter even more.
The more competition intensified within the industry, the more people would judge that, beyond appearance, the essence was what mattered.
And when it came to a fight over that essence, we were confident.
I gave this song seventy points.
If you took off the label of K-pop and evaluated it coldly, seventy points was incredibly high.
Personally, I thought Drop Out’s Selfish was music slightly above fifty points.
But the problem was…
“There’s no way to prove that.”
Choe Jaeseong, who had understood the topic of today’s meeting, raised his hand.
“We have the footage of our recording session. The one that’s going into episode two of our self-produced content. Can’t we release that first?”
“It’s the most common solution, but it’s not a surefire method.”
The people attacking us didn’t truly want to know the truth.
They just wanted to raise suspicions.
In that sense, all video content could never avoid the suspicion of “post-production correction.”
The same went for turning on a live stream and singing.
In the end, it would be a live performance conducted in a space we prepared, using equipment we set up.
They could claim we had played a track while pretending it was live, or insist that the microphones had some special settings.
There was no way that bullshit would actually work, but what they needed was suspicion.
At that moment, Gu Taehwan opened his mouth.
“In my opinion, with this kind of thing, we shouldn’t explain it with the intention of explaining it. People care less about explanations than you’d think.”
Gu Taehwan said something good.
He was right.
We couldn’t try to solve the problem with an explanation for the sake of explanation.
The public disliked marketers trying to manipulate their thoughts, and it didn’t have much effect.
That was why advertising companies went crazy over symbols.
Just like how a photo of a straw stuck into an orange was more effective than saying, “Our orange juice is fresh,” a hundred times in an ad.
The best option was for the explanation to happen naturally within another piece of content or situation.
In truth, the best method was to appear on a music show.
We could just slam in a completely raw live performance there.
Surely no one would insist that the music broadcasting station had set up the microphones for us.
But music shows were different from music charts.
Music charts were operated by major corporations, and Ryan Entertainment’s influence didn’t reach them.
Even if they were close, there was no way they could make the insane request of asking them to exclude Sedalbaegil’s song from the chart.
To do that, how much of the algorithm would they have to tamper with?
Leaving aside the technical aspects, if they got caught doing that, the company would go under.
As a result, our chart performance had been broadcast without any filtering, but music shows were different.
Music shows coexisted with large agencies.
Large agencies weren’t always the ones holding the power, but if things were pushed to the extreme, they could be.
If Ryan Entertainment declared a boycott of the variety department by all of its celebrities, it would become a big problem.
It probably wouldn’t go that far, but they accommodated each other precisely so it wouldn’t go that far.
As an aside, this was also why people who had fallen out with large agencies appeared in dramas or documentaries.
Large agencies and variety departments were on the same side, but drama departments and variety departments were rivals.
The culture department or news department had no interest in their power struggles…
“Wait.”
I felt like a pretty good idea had just flashed through my mind.
I quickly organized my thoughts.
What we wanted was to prove our skills, but we shouldn’t make a whole production out of explaining ourselves.
Like a music show, we needed to naturally blend into a certain piece of content and prove our skills there.
But the variety department, which was closest to Ryan, had no reason to let us appear…
Right, this was it.
“I thought of a decent idea. One worth trying.”
“What is it?”
“First… let’s do busking.”
Busking, a street performance.
There was no better method for proving skill, but the problem was that its ripple effect was too weak.
Even if we went around Seoul busking, we probably wouldn’t meet even a thousand people.
Among them, would there even be ten passionate community users?
Thinking we could shape public opinion with them was foolish.
But…
If we mixed in just “one piece of content” here, the situation might change.
I felt like we could strike down the issue wriggling beneath the surface.
However, the members were just blinking their eyes.
“What’s with everyone?”
“It’s the first time I’ve heard of an idol busking. And it’s not even for a variety show…”
“Would it be dangerous?”
“Uh, I’m not sure. How famous are we…?”
To be honest, I didn’t know that part either.
By Billboard standards, I had precise indicators.
I knew that at this level, you had this much fame, and at that level, you had become a superstar.
But I didn’t know Korea very well.
Even if I tried to recall the For Youth days, those memories were far too old.
One thing was certain: gaining the kind of fame that made people gather around you on the street was far harder than people thought.
Even premium supporting actors who filmed two or three movies a year didn’t get people swarming them on the street.
This wasn’t because of their age or appearance.
Those factors weren’t irrelevant, but the bigger reason was unfamiliarity.
Because of the nature of an actor’s job, there was a gap between the character in the movie and the person in reality.
So even if people recognized them from afar, they would just whisper among themselves and pass by.
The same went for idols.
If an idol’s appearance on screen and their appearance in reality were different, people felt unfamiliarity.
Then when was that unfamiliarity resolved?
The moment they were exposed to the public countless times.
Like the so-called faucet that appears whenever you turn it on.
When someone saw a particular idol, one person might recall a scene from an advertisement, and another might recall a scene from a variety show.
Someone might recall a stage performance, and someone else might recall a casual photo cut.
Once the public could look at them with the impressions they each liked, people would start gathering around them on the street.
Wasn’t the meaning of the word idol “an object of worship”?
It meant people idolized them in their own ways.
Of course, fandoms were the exception to this story.
They were grateful people who had long since blown away any unfamiliarity through the process of becoming fans.
In any case, in that sense, we didn’t have that level of popularity.
Even when we went in and out of LB Studio, for instance.
People nearby recognized us, but there weren’t that many who approached us to ask for autographs or photos.
Maybe two or three out of ten?
The ratio was a bit lower for men, and higher for women.
“I think it’ll be fine. Still, just in case, let’s hire one or two plainclothes bodyguards.”
“You’re taking it that seriously? How many days are you planning to do this?”
“At minimum three days, and if it’s long, I think we’ll need about a week.”
“Why? What are you trying to get out of it?”
When I explained the plan I had in mind, the members looked bewildered.
“Leaving aside whether that’s a good plan, is that even possible?”
“We have to try.”
“How are you supposed to know where the place is? You can only do it if you know the location.”
“I can find out. I have an incredible helper, you see.”
“Who? CEO I Hyeonseok? Or that lawyer?”
Neither.
My helper was money.
* * *
Create X wanted to include footage of Sedalbaegil’s busking in our self-produced content, but not yet.
The footage could only be shot after we reached the point I wanted.
So we headed to Hongdae.
The place where we would hold our first busking performance was Hongdae’s busking street, where various buskers came together.
There was an extremely high chance that this was not the point I wanted, but it was a place for groundwork.
To declare that Sedalbaegil was busking.
However, something I hadn’t expected happened there.
“Waaah!”
“It’s Sedalbaegil!”
We were trying to set up while carrying the equipment each of us had been assigned, but people on the street started gathering.
And before we could do anything about it.
“…?”
As I stood there with a puzzled expression, On Saemiro looked at me as if I were an idiot.
“What?”
“You really didn’t know this would happen?”
“Mm…”
I hadn’t known, but for some reason, admitting it hurt my pride.
If quick-witted Gu Taehwan, socially perceptive Choe Jaeseong, or even I Ion, who was at least legally older than me, had asked, I would have nodded.
But On Saemiro was looking at me like that?
When he was Sedalbaegil’s official loser.
“It’s a warmer welcome than I expected, but it’s something I had taken into account.”
At that, the members who had been dealing with the fans all sighed at the same time.
What was this?
They all looked like they knew I was lying.
My question was resolved when we asked the fans for their understanding and set up the speakers together.
“Hyung, your preambles get long when you lie.”
“Mine do?”
“And you always lay the groundwork. Like, ‘It’s a warmer welcome than I expected,’ that kind of thing.”
I felt wronged.
This was because of English grammar.
I still dreamed in English, and when explaining reasons in English, speaking this way was good.
It was true.
But there was no time to add anything more.
The beat speaker, microphone speaker, and portable turntable had been set up.
There were a lot of people surrounding us.
Roughly, it looked like about a hundred and fifty.
Even if this was Hongdae, I never imagined this many people would gather on a weekday.
Of course, that didn’t mean we had truly risen to stardom.
If Drop Out appeared here, the street would be paralyzed.
Still, well…
We were better at music.
“Hello! We’re Sedalbaegil!”
After throwing out that greeting, we abruptly turned on the beat.
Cheers erupted from the crowd.
Because this beat was currently number one on the chart.
Our first song was Resume.