The Brave Girls were losing courage just weeks ago, on the verge of breaking up and abandoning their dreams of K-pop stardom after years of going nowhere. Then a pseudonymous YouTuber called Viditor uploaded a compilation of them performing on South Korean army bases — and saved their careers.
Rollin’ rollin’ rollin’ rollin’/I am waiting for you/Babe just only you, they chant, as wildly enthusiastic uniformed conscripts dance and wave glow-sticks.
It went viral and struck millions of chords across the country. Less than a month later the song reached number one in South Korea and topped the Billboard K-pop 100 in the US, four years after it was originally released — with their popularity reinforced by their story of struggle against the odds.
Photo: AFP
The fan-led ascent is a reversal of the usual K-pop model, where bands are usually assembled, trained intensively and launched by record companies, whose marketing and promotion is crucial to their success.
“At the start of this year I thought it was time for us to call an end to it,” lead singer Kim Min-young said. “Reaction to our songs had always been cold... It seemed like no one wanted to see us on stage,” she added tearfully.
The Brave Girls started out as a five-piece a decade ago, but fell largely on deaf ears. They were relaunched as a septet in 2016, but the reshuffle did nothing to boost their popularity.
Their five singles and two mini-albums were misses rather than hits, and departures over the next few years whittled them down to four members.
They were reduced to performing on army bases, the South Korean equivalent of a daytime appearance on a side stage at a music festival.
“Our members all felt an emotional burden,” said Kim, 30. “I wasn’t brave enough to give up on my career or start something new. And I thought if I left the team it would be the end of Brave Girls. So I wanted to keep the team together till the end.”
But their tour of duty proved to be the making of them.
‘WE WILL DEFINITELY WIN WARS’
South Korea requires all able-bodied men to serve in uniform to defend it against the nuclear-armed North, a period when they are often dispatched to remote places and deprived of the joys of modern life. As a common experience it is a unifier and a leveler, and Viditor’s compilation — complete with witty captions such as “Play this song during battles and we will definitely win wars” — resonated with those who had seen them in the military.
The clip garnered around 15 million views in little more than a month.
“Viditor, you have rediscovered the Brave Girls,” wrote one poster. “You are nothing short of the commander of South Korea’s 600,000 soldiers.”
The uploader — who said she wanted to remain anonymous to maintain her privacy — said she had been astonished by the reaction.
She has put together hundreds of compilations of other bands’ tracks but never before had similar impact.
“I thought I could make an entertaining video with soldiers’ hilarious reactions and funny comments,” she said by e-mail. “But I never saw this coming. I am still in disbelief over what has happened.”
SOMETHING MIRACULOUS
The K-pop phenomenon — epitomized by the global success of BTS — earns billions of dollars a year for the world’s 12th-largest economy.
Scores of groups largely made up of teenagers are launched every year hoping to follow in their footsteps, but most acts quickly disappear, leaving barely a trace on the score of musical history.
Exposure on major television stations has long been a must-have for aspiring K-pop idols. But cultural commentator Jung Ho-jai said the raunchy moves in the original Rollin’ video were too risque for the networks.
They were left with little choice but to take any booking going, however remote and badly paid, with Jung describing them as “relegated to what was essentially the third tier of the English football league.”
But once Viditor posted her video, he said, “somehow YouTube algorithms saw potential in the clip and began displaying it to a wider audience. It has proved how important YouTube has become as a media platform.”
K-pop firms are increasingly turning to social media sites like YouTube, TikTok and Facebook to develop their bands’ fanbases.
“Well over 50 new groups tap into the market every year but less than half appear on major TV stations,” Kim Jin-hyung, chief executive of Wuzo Entertainment, said. “In order for idols to survive, we have to target online platforms that meet the demands of fans.”
But for the Brave Girls, it was an amateur poster who made the difference.
Member Lee Yu-na said: “Something very miraculous and inexplicable has happened to us.”
As mega K-pop group BTS returns to the stage after a hiatus of more than three years, one major market is conspicuously missing from its 12-month world tour: China. The omission of one of the group’s biggest fan bases comes as no surprise. In fact, just the opposite would have been huge news. China has blocked most South Korean entertainment since 2016 under an unofficial ban that also restricts movies and the country’s popular TV dramas. For some Chinese, that means flying to Seoul to see their favorite groups perform — as many were expected to do for three shows opening
A recent report from the Environmental Management Administration of the Ministry of Environment highlights a perennial problem: illegal dumping of construction waste. In Taoyuan’s Yangmei District (楊梅) and Hsinchu’s Longtan District (龍潭) criminals leased 10,000 square meters of farmland, saying they were going to engage in horticulture. They then accepted between 40,000 and 50,000 cubic meters of construction waste from sites in northern Taiwan, charging less than the going rate for disposal, and dumped the waste concrete, tile, metal and glass onto the leased land. Taoyuan District prosecutors charged 33 individuals from seven companies with numerous violations of the law. This
Taiwan’s semiconductor industry consumes electricity at rates that would strain most national grids. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) alone accounted for more than 9 percent, or 2,590 megawatts (MW), of the nation’s power demand last year. The factories that produce chips for the world’s phones and servers run around the clock. They cannot tolerate blackouts. Yet Taiwan imports 97 percent of its energy, with liquefied natural gas reserves measured in days. Underground, Taiwan has options. Studies from National Taiwan University estimate recoverable geothermal resources at more than 33,000 MW. Current installed capacity stands below 10 MW. OBSTACLES Despite Taiwan’s significant geothermal potential, the
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chair Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) returned from her trip to meet People’s Republic of China (PRC) dictator Xi Jinping (習近平) bearing “a gift” for the people of Taiwan: 10 measures the PRC proposed to “facilitate the peaceful development of cross-strait relations.” “China on Sunday unveiled 10 new incentive measures for Taiwan,” wrote Reuters, wrongly. The PRC’s longstanding habit with Taiwan relations is to repackage already extant or once-existing policies and declare that they are “new.” The list forwarded by Cheng reflects that practice. NEW MEASURES? Note the first item: establishing regular communication mechanisms between the Chinese Communist Party
RSS