Damn Idol, Episode 123
* * *
The fan club kit for Three Months, One Hundred Days became an enormous topic of discussion.
And not just within the idol scene.
Even ordinary people were curious.
Common sense said it made no sense.
Only a few days earlier, it had been revealed that Three Months, One Hundred Days had no agency and was an independent label doing everything self-made.
So people enjoyed the twist that Three Months, One Hundred Days hadn’t been an idol group but an indie band, and even gave them the strange nickname “indie-dols.”
-Lmao, their name didn’t even sound like an idol group’s name to begin withㅋㅋㅋ
-Ah, so the name was foreshadowing all along~
-But these guys are damn good. I’ve listened to Seoul Town Funk a ton. If they perform in Hongdae, I’d go watch.
-Huh, true? Then we don’t have to do stuff like ticketing for Gocheok Dome. It’d be cheaper too.
-Wouldn’t they fill about a thousand seats if they performed?
-Maybe that kind of activity wouldn’t be bad either?
Amid all this, the public’s reaction to the start of fan club recruitment was, “They must need money.”
The idol scene’s reaction was far colder.
So the moment Three Months, One Hundred Days’s fan club kit was revealed, question marks started popping up wildly in everyone’s heads.
-No, how is this possible?
-And Three Months, One Hundred Days probably didn’t even make that many, so the unit cost should be high?
It was common for non-mainstream groups to take a loss while trying to put together a proper kit.
But Three Months, One Hundred Days’s fan kit wasn’t on that level.
The case, the design, even the materials of the items.
Not a single thing was lacking.
Even the figurine was high quality, and the process from payment confirmation to shipping was incredibly fast.
Considering they had no agency, it was incomprehensible.
With the situation like this, those who had been mocking Three Months, One Hundred Days’s fan club recruitment quickly changed course.
-Guess their parents are loaded as hellㅋㅋㅋㅋ Must be niceㅋㅋㅋㅋ
-First time I’ve seen spine-breaker idolsㅋㅋ
-No wonder they acted without any business ethics. They had something to rely onㅋ
-Am I the only one who thinks stuff like this muddies idol culture?
-It’s obviously going to pressure other groups. They’re way too short-sighted.
But it was no use.
-Huh? They say the Three Months, One Hundred Days members made the kit with their own money?
-Our official site has this function? Pretty neat, rightㅋㅋㅋ
-(Photo)
-(Link) And this is the streaming linkㅋㅋ
-How about it? Did that answer your question?
Three Months, One Hundred Days’s official website had various functions, and one of them was “Ask Three Months, One Hundred Days.”
According to the feature description, any fan club member could ask a question.
However, not every question would be delivered to Three Months, One Hundred Days.
When a question was posted, fan club members could check one another’s questions, and they could press recommend or oppose on them.
If a question received many recommendations, it was marked as “Best,” and that was the format in which it would be delivered to Three Months, One Hundred Days.
However, if the number of oppositions exceeded the recommendations, the post would be taken down.
Someone had posted a question there about the process of producing Three Months, One Hundred Days’s kit.
Questions about production costs or the source of the funds were showered with oppositions and disappeared, but the production process was something worth asking about.
The members of Three Months, One Hundred Days gathered such questions and held a Q&A through a live stream.
They talked about which member had chosen which goods, what had been candidates for the design, how their official color was indeed deep blue, and so on, until…
Naturally, the topic of production costs came up.
[Ah, the production costs came from the royalties of the songs we released when we were on Coming Up Next.]
[We really scraped together every last bit and poured it in!]
[Jaeseong…… You don’t need to say that much.]
[Oh, yes.]
[To be honest, Sion’s share was absolutely the biggest, but once we receive the settlement later, we’ll divide it evenly.]
[Ion hyung, doesn’t the word settlement sound a bit strange?]
[Ah, you’re right. Then what should I call it?]
[I don’t know. Revenue generation……?]
Lee Ion, who had been possessed by a stern teacher throughout the Q&A, made that one remark, but it was a live stream.
Naturally, the story couldn’t help but spread.
-ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ They haven’t even debuted on a music show yet, but there’s a group with loaded royalty income?
-If Sion’s share was absolute, seems like they poured in all the money they made from the digital releases from Under the Streetlamp to Falling Blossoms?
-Honestly, wouldn’t the two songs they gave Drop Out and NOP be enough on their own?
-Ah, right. They have those too.
-Look at how Sion thinks of the team. Honestly, it’d be understandable if he felt it was a waste!
In truth, what Three Months, One Hundred Days said was a staged half-truth.
It was true that they could produce the fan kit with their royalty income.
After all, they had plenty of songs that had done well, from Seoul Town Funk to Resume.
But that only covered the production itself.
The costs of using their dorm and practice room.
The costs of producing the website and app.
The labor costs for staff to manage the website and fan club sign-ups.
The storage, release, and logistics costs for the fan kits.
Even clothing and makeup costs.
When considering the money required to run the team, it wasn’t nearly enough.
So a great deal of Han Sion’s personal money had gone into this.
Nevertheless, the reason they said it that way was to manage their image.
Beggar-dols weren’t great, but chaebol-dols weren’t great either.
They didn’t give off any sense of desperation at all.
But that didn’t mean Three Months, One Hundred Days had lied.
Because it was true that they had scraped together every last bit for the “production costs.”
That was why it was a staged truth.
Three Months, One Hundred Days’s fandom didn’t know the situation went that far, but for now, they became triumphant.
The logic was perfect.
Because the fandom was small, they wouldn’t start fights first, but if they were attacked, they could retaliate without mercy.
-Just because your idols don’t do it doesn’t mean our boys can’tㅠㅠ
-Rookies who haven’t been paid yet might not be able to… Ah, never mind. I’ll stop here!
-Why is caring for fans considered muddying the culture?
Amid this situation, the number of people signing up for Three Months, One Hundred Days’s fan club began to explode.
Everyone who had been hesitating over whether to do it or not signed up, and quite a few of those who had thought they wouldn’t changed their minds.
There were even people who had thought, “I won’t do it even if I die,” but ended up signing up.
-Ah, I used to hate Three Months, One Hundred Days because of Han Sion, but I’m seeing him differently this time.
-Yeah, yeah, the kid seems like he has no manners, but he also seems to subtly respect the fans.
-Honestly, even though I thought their music was good, I never felt like stanning them… but I think I got hit a little this time.
-There are plenty of idols who sell gifts from fans on Junggonara, so this is decent. I won’t stan, but I’ll support them.
It was because some people had been hooked by the narrative that, despite having no company, they had scraped together all their personal funds to produce the kit.
Around this point, the way show business looked at Three Months, One Hundred Days began to change.
* * *
Show business was a place that made money by touching people’s emotions.
So at first glance, one might think the members of the industry made business decisions based on instinct and intuition.
In reality, it was the opposite.
A drama with a 13% rating that the entire nation cursed as a trashy makjang was better than a masterpiece praised to the skies with a 3% rating.
Even if the goods were criticized as trash quality, if sales were good, it was a good planned product.
Because instinct and intuition couldn’t be quantified, people instead became obsessed with records.
So the show business industry had no interest in what Three Months, One Hundred Days’s fan kit was like, what the goods were like, or what their digital music revenue was like.
What they were interested in was the “number of fan club members.”
A number growing at an unusual speed.
“Should we cast Three Months, One Hundred Days? I think they’d be suitable as guests.”
“Won’t CEO Choe Daeho raise hell?”
“Ah, that’s true. That man holds grudges for a long time too……”
“Let someone else step up and take an arrow first, then we can cast them after.”
“Wouldn’t there be meaning in being the first to cast them?”
“You might end up never being able to cast anyone from Lion’s agency again.”
“Ah, that’s a bit scary.”
But they still couldn’t cross the line yet.
If someone bravely stepped forward and opened the floodgates of casting, it seemed like everyone would follow one after another.
There was no leadoff hitter.
That didn’t mean they wanted to step up first and become the mole struck by Choe Daeho’s squeaky hammer either.
“Let’s keep an eye on them for now.”
So that was as far as their decision went.
On the other hand, however, there were places where competition to cast Three Months, One Hundred Days had begun.
University festivals.
The typical university festival was often held in May, but there were also many autumn university festivals held in September and October.
They had begun casting Three Months, One Hundred Days for those.
From the perspective of student councils planning festivals, Three Months, One Hundred Days was an absolutely perfect guest.
First of all, they were cheap.
It was a time when celebrities’ appearance fees were inflated because it was festival season and demand was concentrated, yet their price was reasonable.
There were many places that had casually reached out, were shocked by “They only charge this much?” and hurriedly booked them.
On top of that, they were famous.
No one knew how long that fame would last, but tied together with recent issues, their favorable fame was rising.
Lastly, they had many hit songs.
Usually, when a performer came to a university festival, they would handle about fifteen to thirty minutes before leaving the stage, and Three Months, One Hundred Days had the ability to fill that entire time with hit songs.
There was no reason not to call them.
There were even universities adding them to lineups that had already been confirmed.
Industry insiders who knew this situation accurately thought of Three Months, One Hundred Days as a lit fuse.
There was a good meaning and a bad meaning to that.
The good meaning was that once the fuse burned all the way down, it would explode.
The bad meaning was that if the fuse was cut midway, it would mean nothing.
For now, Three Months, One Hundred Days had lit the fire.
But there were many external winds trying to extinguish that fire, and many people who wanted to cut it off with a knife.
On top of that, Three Months, One Hundred Days, who had revealed themselves to be independent, would face many temptations in the future.
If only some of the members could be recruited to form a new team, it would be possible to launch a boy group with a low chance of failure.
In this situation, would Three Months, One Hundred Days be able to keep the flame alive?
It had no choice but to be the greatest point of interest in the show business industry at the moment.
But if there was one thing they didn’t know…
It was that Han Sion hadn’t lit only one flame.
* * *
Media content company Colors Media.
Paul, the chief manager of Color Show who worked there, received an absurd email this morning.
No, rather than absurd, it was an unbelievable email.
To summarize the contents, it was simple.
Staff dispatched to an HBO documentary had gotten to know a certain musician.
He was acquainted with Chris Edward, and he was an unknown genius preparing to co-compose with the masters appearing in the documentary.
However, that genius was an artist from a Korean K-pop boy group.
So they had received and forwarded the boy group’s video portfolio.
This boy group hoped to appear on Color Show, and they also thought positively of it.
‘What the hell kind of bullshit is this?’
It was the kind of content that made him wonder if he had mistaken oil for coffee and drunk it.
Even when he read it carefully again, it was strange.
An unknown genius preparing to co-compose with masters was in a K-pop boy group?
If he was unknown, how exactly was he co-composing with masters?
It was a logical structure where he didn’t even know where to begin pointing things out.
No, more than that, it was hard to believe.
With a sigh, Paul shook his head and played the video.
Thinking that after he checked it, he would have a word with the staff.
But.
“……!”
The “trigger button” Han Sion had prepared for Color Show had been pressed.