Continuing the highly requested series “Most useless things in Kpop,” in today’s video,
I will cover some more utterly useless things yet often deemed to be normal in the industry.
As the market is becoming more and more saturated, entertainment agencies have been putting tons
of effort into pushing the boundaries and while they have introduced various interesting
concepts, there are also lots of questionably pointless things that are created along the
way under the name of “invention.”
Underaged idols being ambassadors for luxury brands
After BLACKPINK ventured into the flamboyant fashion world and managed to establish unprecedented
successes thanks to their Ambassador contracts with luxury fashion houses, more and more
entertainment companies are incorporating this strategy into their groups’ development
with a view to reaping sounding triumphs like BLACKPINK.
Especially with the power of big companies, bagging home such Ambassador deals for their
rookie group where most members are junior is an easy-peasy matter and while this does
lots of parties good: from the group, the management companies to the development of
Kpop’s influences in the international music industry and even the soft power of South
Korea as a whole, many people, including professional critics, believe that having underaged idols
be the Ambassador for designer clothing lines only casts a pall over everything.
Talking of the perks of companies’ sealing the Ambassador deals for their junior idols,
the first one is obviously the increasing chances of the idols appearing at luxury events,
thus managing to gain reputation faster for the idols and eventually making money off
them more easily.
For example, when aespa had just debuted and was said to be overshadowed by STAYC, a small
group debuting under a small company, the act quickly proved their upper-class position
by being announced to be the very first Kpop artists to take on the Brand Ambassador position
for Givenchy.
After the deal, Givenchy has helped aespa appear on various renowned fashion covers:
VOGUE SINGAPORE, HARPER'S BAZAAR, DAZED, GLASS, POP, and allure, elevating their image as
a group creates breakthroughs not only in the music industry with the AI concept but
also in the luxury fashion world by being the fastest act to ambass a designer clothes
house.
Working with GIVENCHY also granted aespa the chance to attend Paris Fashion Week, the fastest
Kpop group at the time to have such an honor.
Besides helping Kpop groups quickly elevate their position and reputation, which eventually
turns into big money, giving underaged idols Ambassador contracts with luxury brands is
also said to help maintain the group’s relevance in cases of extended hiatus as well as increase
the longevity of the group in the long run.
Besides, the significance of Kpop has also enhanced thanks to the world-class titles
granted to the artists and as time passes, it is also believed that the soft power of
South Korea in the international economic climate.
For example, in 2022, CNBC stated that the total spending of Koreans on personal luxury
items has risen by 24% percent to 16.8 billion USD, a much higher number compared to China
and the US, making the country an attractive investment destination for various luxury
brands.
However, when looking at this scenario, not only adults but even experts said that having
underaged idols ambass luxury brands did more harm than good and the potential consequences
of this strategy were extremely detrimental.
The very first victim to suffer from Ambassador deals set up by entertainment companies is
said to be no one but the idols themself since more often than not, junior idols haven't
clearly shown their unique charm for having just debuted and the fact that the Ambassador
title is still granted to them despite a vague compatibility between the idol’s color and
the brand’s identity created a sense of cheap, fabricated attention bait rather than
image elevations for both the idols.
Besides, such deals could also garner unnecessary criticism toward the idols as netizens believe
they were trying too hard to be something they were not, implicitly promoting a toxic
mindset that one person should always try to be something flashy and flamboyant rather
than growing at their own pace and stay grounded to their own color.
The epitome of this is how NewJeans members have drawn lots of hate when becoming the
Global and Brand Ambassadors only after debuting for a few months as according to netizens,
firstly, it made no sense for literal kids to represent a luxury brand whose customers
are mainly adults and secondly, the fact that NewJeans’ members haven’t established
their signature vibe yet still managed to ambass various luxury fashion house whose
brand identity was strong and unique only created a forced and superficial vibe.
That’s also why most recently, when Danielle didn’t attend BURBERRY’s Fall-Winter 2023
Show, she was fiercely ridiculed by netizens as they believed her Global Ambassador title
was penniless.
They also dug up the facts that BURBERRY didn’t like the announcement post of ADOR and didn’t
even mention her as the latest Global Ambassador on the brand’s official Instagram accounts
to accuse Danniel of being as delusional as her management company, ADOR.
Working with junior idols also downgraded the brand’s value as people said such Ambassador
deals only showed how money-obsessive and superficial a brand was.
Rather than focusing on making gorgeous designs and adding value for customers, blindly sealing
the deal with management companies regardless of the compatibility between the idols and
their brand identity only cheapened the brand and made customers question the real worth
of luxury items brought to the table.
For example, many have questioned the value of GIVENCHY after seeing their clothes worn
by aespa as the act only looked forced and out-of-sync in the brands' designs.
Lastly, according to critics and South Korean parents, underaged ambassadors of luxury brands
are imposing detrimental impacts on their children's spending habits.
According to a fashion industry insider, while there were many positive outcomes of having
lots of Kpop idols selected as luxury ambassadors, this also made the price of luxury goods rocket
to an unreasonable point.
The consequences are amplified when teenage idols start to work closely with luxury brands
and this causes extremely young fans, who always have these junior artists as wannabees.
Sports Seoul has reported a case where a small daughter of a forty-four-year-old father has
non-stop asked him to buy a Louis Vuitton wallet after seeing Hyein become the brand’s
ambassador and how many of her friends already own the item.
In the long run, such luxury goods consumption by extremely young consumers would take a
toll on their lifestyle, spending habits and even the environment as a whole.
Virtual girl group MAVE
Being the very first standalone virtual girl group of Kpop, MAVE has recently garnered
tons of attention for their one-of-a-kind concept in an overly saturated industry.
Their debut song PANDORA is also said to be a total smash with the earworm melody and
after releasing two performances at MusicCore!, the hype around MAVE grows bigger as everyone
is impressed by the production of the group.
However, besides such positive reactions compliment that MAVE is blowing a refreshing breeze into
the Kpop industry, many said they only found the group uncanny valley and the more they
tried to understand the group, the more useless and ridiculous it turns out for them.
Right at the moment MAVE debuted, the act had already stumbled upon extreme reactions
from netizens as people believed it made no sense to be part of a fandom supporting a
literal animated character and because a big part of the Kpop culture was to do fansign
and authentic interactions with fans, MAVE only came across as trite and hollow.
The creation of MAVE also irked people off as it showed the ever-unsatisfying greed of
big companies as when debuting such idols, they wouldn’t have to pay a penny for the
artists and could avoid all human-related concerns when debuting literal animated characters.
Of course the production cost of MAVE is way more expensive than a normal Kpop group considering
the extensive involvement of cutting-edge technologies like motion capture, motion suits
and the virtual studio built from scratch, but considering how companies wouldn’t have
to care about basic contractual concerns and healthcare insurances in doing regular business
was something quite devious.
That was not to mention the facts that MAVE is stealing the pie of many real-life idols
who have devoted all of their youth in the practice room just to end up being outshined
by a programmed entity and that they were also taking away the money that could have
been better spent on real talents who could bring real values to the society in the long
run.
Some also called MAVE another version of aespa but without real, hard-working members involved
and also rip-off versions of various iconic visuals of the industry.
In particular, the girl with buns looks like a melting visual pot of Irene, Taeyeon, Jisoo
and Sakura.
Then, the girl in the ponytail looks like a combined version of Joy and Rosé with a
slim face; the one in pigtails reminds netizens of Jennie, young Irene with Rosé’s signature
lips and the girl in platinum hair is a mixture of IU and probably CL’s visuals.
However, as the act made more appearances and released various content to interact with
fans, netizens found them even more useless because the members’ appearance fluctuated
and sometimes even looked the same.
For example in this video where MAVE introduced their debut tracks to Soompi’s audiences,
many said they felt as if looking at four Karina in the same frame and if they had the
same hairstyle, they would literally become identical.
In one long thread on Reddit, MAVE was also criticized and called one of the most useless
inventions of Kpop because the OP didn’t feel right that actual artists had to compete
with idols that weren’t even real.
It's funny considering that groups such as IVE, BLACKPINK, and aespa were called "untalented"
as their live singing wasn’t stable or there were mistakes in their dancing, but the same
people who were saying those things also thought MAVE, who would never sing live, dance live
or do anything live for their entire career as they aren't real, cool.
Dating rumors between virtual idols
Ironically enough, right when some praised MAVE for never being involved in dating scandals,
Metaverse Entertainment immediately took the chance to create probably the most brainless,
useless and retarded gimmicks ever seen: releasing the rumor that MAVE’s ZENA was dating SUPERKIND’s
Seung.
Things all started after Seung answered some of fans’ questions and in the video titled
“Seung replies to the scandal rumors,” he was seen to express apparent interest in
MAVE.
As a rookie isn’t supposed to date, Seung tried to calm fans down, saying that they
would never have to worry about his looking at other girls and the fascination for MAVE
was simply AI being supportive of AI.
However, when Seung suddenly became shy after reading the comment saying MAVE’s Zena would
treat him to dinner, some speculated that he was probably having a crush on Zena.
As you can see, because the CGI concept of MAVE and SUPERKIND was already deemed brainless,
this dating rumor only came across as even more retarded and instead of being positive
or negative about the rumor, netizens were only speechless this time.
But for the most part, people couldn’t understand what was going on and looking at how companies
are using such cheap attention baits just for money, everyone was questioning if the
industry was that desperate already.
So, do you think these things are really useless and if yes, why do companies still do such
things?