Episode 176. The viewers of Self Made were surprised—or rather, caught off guard—by two points.
The first was that they had never expected Han Sion to go at it with such a clear sense of purpose.
He scoured the road views around Apple headquarters and found every café, lounge, and restaurant that employees might visit.
Why?
To make the employees listen to his music.
But what was even more surprising was the second point.
He was far more…
-He’s really reckless.
Reckless.
In the eyes of the viewers, Han Sion seemed unafraid of rejection, and he seemed to have confidence in his own music.
As if all he needed was to succeed just once out of a hundred attempts.
The viewers had assumed the process by which Han Sion received Apple’s advertising contract would be more sophisticated.
Or that he had simply emailed Apple directly.
I made music like this, so please take a look.
Of course, that method was possible too.
But in Han Sion’s judgment, this method—though it had happened in the past—seemed more advantageous.
Humans were truly strange creatures, unable to feel attraction toward things they could reach at any time.
So instead of sending an email to Apple’s account, Han Sion chose to reach them through coincidence.
And he worked to turn that coincidence into inevitability.
It was true that the viewers were surprised by Han Sion’s actions.
But was that surprise negative?
Not at all.
-Han Sion is seriously cool.
-I felt this when I started watching their self-produced content because of my girlfriend, but he seems like the kind of person who has challenging himself ingrained in him.
-Yeah, him challenging Color Show was honestly pretty reckless too.
-But then he actually succeeds.
-Isn’t this the kind of habit successful people have? Doing their best, not fearing rejection, and searching for the best method.
-This feels less like a variety show and more like a motivational video.
-It is motivating, though.
The reason people peek into the lives of those who have succeeded and applaud them is because they can feel vicarious satisfaction.
The uplifting feeling of projecting oneself onto someone successful.
That was the point of Self Made episode 4.
After that, Han Sion kept trying.
He called Chris Edward, found errand runners who would meet the café owners, and paid the café owners an appropriate amount.
Since they wouldn’t do it for free, he also offered a success fee.
For example, if they received a business card from an Apple employee and handed over the CD, they would get more money.
A surprising amount of money went into it.
But in the end.
[They contacted us. But there are several songs?]
Han Sion succeeded.
On top of that, the I Branding Team didn’t make an offer for just one song, but for three.
-lolololol no, he really just says he succeeded so casually.
-Is he not happy?
-Wow, but that’s seriously cool. For real. I want to live like Han Sion too.
-I thought he only had talent, but he has brains too. He’s clever.
-Honestly, anyone could come up with something like that. What’s amazing is that he challenged himself without fearing failure, rejection, or investment.
Meanwhile, the members of Sedalbaegil also continued doing their best in their respective fields.
Surprisingly,
GY was short for Good Year, a performance held at the end of the year where indie bands with a certain level of recognition gathered.
It was a fairly historic performance that had already been going on for six years, and Masked Robbers had received an invitation to it.
The reason this was surprising was that GY was a performance that valued musicality more than commercial appeal.
Of course, one could say that since it was a performance for those who wanted to see that musicality, the pursuit of musicality itself could be commercial appeal.
But in any case, being invited to GY meant that they had shown skill worthy of being counted among that year’s notable indie artists.
Moreover, Masked Robbers had been formed less than three months ago, and it had been less than two months since they had started performing in earnest.
And yet they had received an invitation?
That meant they had done extremely well.
Even though they covered their faces and divided up their parts.
This scene brought joy to many idol fans.
-I wish our kids would do a project like this too.
-22222 There are so many idols who could definitely be recognized.
Because of the premise that idols “pursue commercial appeal,” they were often disparaged in terms of skill.
You could tell just by looking at Juyeon of Take Scene.
Putting aside his feelings toward Take Scene or Ryan Entertainment, Han Sion thought Juyeon was an outstanding vocalist.
Even back during Coming Up Next, if you excluded Han Sion, second place was always Juyeon.
Not only that, Juyeon was a vocalist Han Sion remembered from the future.
However, the public did not rate Take Scene’s Juyeon that highly.
At most, he was seen as an idol vocalist who could sing a little.
Because of prejudice.
So the success of Masked Robbers became grounds for idol fans to show that such prejudice was wrong.
Of course, this was Sedalbaegil.
A team that, without even having an agency, collaborated with giants from Billboard and sold close to 1.5 million albums.
A team that reached number one on the charts with a B-side track, not even a title track or a promoted song, and even put their name on Billboard, though it was a minor chart.
But these achievements had not been created by Sedalbaegil’s individual members so much as by the group called Sedalbaegil under Han Sion’s directing.
It was different from Gu Taehwan, who did not sing the intro, and Lee Ion, who had never handled a proper part.
The two of them had not won Snumje like Choe Jaeseong, nor had they graduated with honors from Masked Singer like On Saemiro.
In other words, people thought Gu Taehwan, who did not sing the intro, and Lee Ion, who was famous for his face, were similar to “ordinary idol members.”
That was not a bad thing, but…
‘They really don’t know anything.’
Han Sion thought that while monitoring the reactions.
The power of the Sedalbaegil brand was growing day by day, but evaluations of the individual members were still stuck at Coming Up Next.
Choe Jaeseong and On Saemiro were somewhat better off, but it was especially true for Gu Taehwan and Lee Ion.
That was because Han Sion’s own influence was too strong.
People judged that Han Sion’s share in Sedalbaegil’s success was absolute.
But…
Han Sion did not think so.
During Coming Up Next, he had clearly intended to abandon Sedalbaegil.
That was because he had coldly assessed the members’ potential.
With the exception of Gu Taehwan, the other members clearly had lower-tier talent.
Though the comparison group consisted of people who had sold tens of millions of albums on Billboard, that did not change anything.
But what Han Sion had not anticipated was the Sedalbaegil members’ desire to improve.
They threw themselves into making better music and did not doubt Han Sion’s directing.
They tried to look toward where Han Sion was looking, and they tried to run toward where Han Sion was pointing.
They refused easier success and more money.
To receive seventy points, they shut themselves away in Golden Time for a week to make it, and Lee Ion still spent two hours every day practicing to produce accurate pitch, intervals, and vocal pressure.
That was absolutely not an easy thing.
That was why Han Sion had prepared the second album.
The first album had been for Sedalbaegil.
But the second album was…
‘For my friends.’
That was what it was.
Thinking that, Han Sion watched Self Made episode 4 as it drew to a close.
The planning intention of episode 4 that producer Gang Seoku showed was to make viewers anticipate the NEXT.
Choe Jaeseong received an offer while filming an advertisement for M.O.L.
They were about to launch a new game, and they asked whether he could make another song in a similar style.
They said it would be used in a global YouTube advertisement.
Filming two commercials in the exact same style was not a very good idea, but M.O.L’s Korean advertisement had not been broadcast worldwide.
In other words, it would appear fresh to overseas users.
On Saemiro was contacted by a drama production company.
It was a company making a drama based on a webtoon, and they asked whether he could read their webtoon and turn it into a song.
They did not say it would be used as the drama OST, but that it would be used as in-universe content that appeared within the drama.
Masked Robbers received an invitation from GY, and Han Sion had to take the contract and go to Apple.
They had all achieved something.
But that was not the end.
Their NEXT…
Would be further revealed in Season 2.
And so Season 1 ended, and the content of Season 2 was shown in the preview.
[Wow!]
-I-It’s good.
The members were eating an unidentified dish in what appeared to be a restaurant in America and marveling at it.
[Who are those people?]
[I don’t know. But they’re really amazing.]
[Are they foreign singers?]
People whispered as they watched the Sedalbaegil members busking.
And.
[What kind of magic did you use?]
[Good music is magic.]
There was even the sight of Han Sion shaking hands at Apple headquarters.
It showed the things they had sown as seeds slowly being harvested.
Though it was divided into Season 1 and Season 2, there was no gap in the broadcast.
Next week, a special episode summarizing the content of Season 1 would air, and the week after that, Season 2 would immediately begin airing.
And so Season 1 came to an end.
* * *
Among the viewers who had watched Self Made until now, many had believed that Sedalbaegil had pretended to be unknown and used their fame.
Because cameras had followed them around every time.
But the controversy was completely extinguished along with episode 4.
First of all, GY was quite powerful.
GY, the biggest festival in the indie industry held in December to close out the year, was completely independent from capital.
It had proven that countless times over the past six years.
The members of band Baengmanwon, who had once performed together with Sedalbaegil, even talked about it on a personal broadcast.
[Did we know Masked Robbers were Sedalbaegil?]
[If we had known, would we have recruited them for such a small amount…]
[We really didn’t know. It’s just that videos of Masked Robbers had been circulating a lot among indie bands.]
[They were rookies with a unique concept, and people were saying they sang really well.]
[But well, Sedalbaegil can perform at GY. Those guys’ roots are in indie performances, aren’t they? Performing with us was probably close to their starting point.]
Band Baengmanwon was an old fixture of the indie band scene, and one of the few teams capable of holding a solo concert.
At the same time, they were also a group that consistently rejected love calls from agencies.
There was no reason for them to lie for Self Made’s sake.
But what was even more certain than that was—
-lolololol go on, try saying they used their fame while filming Self Made.
-Anyway, they made money off their fame. Apple also offered the contract after hearing Sedalbaegil’s name.
-Lololololol as expected of Apple.
No matter how you thought about it, the Apple advertisement had been won purely through skill.
Because Apple was a global corporation over which Sedalbaegil or M Show could not exert even a handful of influence.
No one could say to that, “But indie musicians don’t usually make money.”
Because that would make them an idiot.
And so, after episode 4 ended and the broadcast content was passed from countless mouths to countless other mouths, the next day—
[Hello!]
Sedalbaegil, whom everyone had assumed was in America, started a live broadcast.