Little Pink Starfish

I had absolutely no idea what they were talking about.

Of course, I knew what photocards were.

But I was surprised that they were such a crucial product.

Even back when I was active with For The Youth, I didn’t want to sell MD (merchandise).

Fans only have so much money. If they spend on goods, they might not be able to afford albums.

Of course, if we wanted, we could bundle goods with albums.

Release limited edition merchandise as part of album packages.

Some even restrict goods so you can only get them by buying albums, inflating sales numbers.

But those wouldn’t count toward the album sales tracked by the Devil.

“If you try to possess someone’s fleeting moment with a currency that can’t be exchanged for anything else, that’s devotion, worship, and conquest.”

The Devil’s definition of album sales.

By this definition, purchases not made out of genuine desire aren’t counted.

Buying out of obligation or marketing tricks holds no meaning.

You have to want it.

In that sense, fansigns are the same.

I recall that for For The Youth’s fansign events, fans had to buy over 100 albums.

About 130 albums, I think.

I remember these numbers perfectly when it comes to album sales.

But even then, the Devil wouldn’t count all 130 albums.

It depends on the sincerity of the buyer.

Someone might genuinely want 30 copies and buy 100 more just for fansign entry — only 30 would count.

Or someone might only want one album but buy 129 extra purely for the fansign — only one would count.

That’s why I focus above all on making great albums.

Even if someone buys it for a fansign, the quality should be good enough that they can happily gift the extras.

And those who receive them might become fans themselves after listening.

Moreover, it shouldn’t be an album you listen to once and forget.

It should be something that keeps coming to mind — something you want to listen to again and again.

That’s how albums sell steadily.

Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon stayed on the Billboard 200 for 949 weeks.

Not days — weeks. That’s 18 years.

No marketing gimmick can achieve that.

It’s purely the power of music and the organic quality of an album.

Because of this, I always focused on the quality of the music itself and never cared much for goods or fan culture.

Maybe I knew a bit back when I was producing For The Youth, but that was well over a hundred years ago.

I never expected to return to K-pop.

So hearing all this from the members was fascinating.

“And then there’s the support culture—like birthday cafes…”

As I was listening, something just didn’t add up.

“I get that all this exists, but does every fandom actually do this? Not just certain groups?”

“Of course, everyone does.”

“No, I mean even the unpopular groups?”

“Yes. The less popular you are, the more you rely on fan culture. That small fandom is so precious.”

Really?

“Doesn’t it come off as over-the-top?”

“Not at all. Why would it?”

As I kept listening, I realized I had misunderstood something crucial.

I thought you gained popularity first, then built a core fandom.

In other words, I thought you spread the music widely first, and then the artist’s popularity would follow.

That’s how Billboard works.

If you gain popularity in the LA underground, you start getting radio play in LA, then California, then neighboring states, then you aim for Billboard with proper marketing.

At that point, agencies come in to produce music videos, arrange talk show appearances, and star power starts to matter.

Before that, it’s all about the music.

Of course, not all success stories follow this exact formula.

You’ll start to see it soon — after COVID, visual stars will start debuting directly via Instagram and TikTok.

There are also those who succeed with a unique concept: sexy R&B tunes but visually nerdy, for instance.

But still, American agencies traditionally prefer radio airplay-driven success.

Especially for minority artists like me, who have little choice but to rely on radio.

So I had planned to approach success in Korea the same way.

From Under the Streetlamp to Resume, things were proceeding according to plan.

But K-pop idols seem to operate differently.

You don’t build the fandom after becoming popular — you build it alongside your debut.

In many cases, the fandom itself is what makes stardom possible.

So my plan to wait until we were successful before building a fandom was flawed.

There’s no need to be stubborn about it.

Every culture has its own rules, and they should be respected.

“I understand. So what should we do?”

“First, we need to launch the official fan site or community and start recruiting fan club members.”

“Go on. Share all your ideas.”

The members started listing their suggestions.

They mentioned V Live — which I was already familiar with — recruiting first-generation fan club members, offering exclusive goods for members, especially photocards, and setting regular upload schedules for our official SNS.

“But Si-on, will V Live even accept us? Not just anyone can broadcast there. And there’s Lion Entertainment to think about.”

I shook my head at Lee Ion’s concern.

“Choi Dae-ho has no influence there.”

Just like with streaming services, V Live isn’t run by one of the big entertainment companies.

“But their own internal policies might reject us.”

As far as I know, V Live only allows recognized entertainers. Sedalbaekil is in a gray area.

We don’t have an agency, we’ve never appeared on music shows.

We have high name recognition, but corporations don’t approve based on vague metrics like that.

There must be specific conditions.

But it doesn’t matter.

As I listened, a new idea came to me.

“I have a good idea.”

“What is it?”

“Let’s make our own app.”

“You mean like an app version of the official fan site?”

“No. If we’re going to do it, let’s go big. Let’s develop an app that includes everything we’ve talked about.”

Live streaming, messaging, photo uploads by members, schedule announcements, ticket pre-sales, a space for fans to upload photos — we can throw it all in.

Of course, I don’t want to force all activities onto the app.

From what I’ve heard, fans enjoy doing things themselves — organizing subway billboard ads, charity drives, birthday cafes, and so on.

So we’ll leave those fan-led activities, but build everything else into the app.

“What was that thing you mentioned earlier? Topkoo? We can create a space for that. And for trading photocards…”

Actually, why even make them trade?

I should just let fans buy the photocards they want directly.

I don’t want pricing disparities between members to become an issue.

Having fans angrily spend money until they get the card they want sounds unpleasant.

Some fans may enjoy the gamble, but I don’t.

If they’re buying goods, it should be at reasonable prices and with a good feeling.

Feeling like my head was spinning up with ideas, I pulled out my phone to jot them down.

On Sae-mi-ro asked hesitantly.

“Won’t it take forever to build all that?”

“To develop the app?”

“Yeah. And I don’t know much, but I’ve heard rushing it can cause a ton of bugs.”

That won’t be a problem.

Korean developers are insanely fast and good.

Even back when I worked on Billboard projects, we outsourced these kinds of things to Korea.

If you pay five times the market price, Korean developers will make the impossible happen.

I remember offering one company 10 times the rate if they finished in 10 days, 9 times for 11 days, 8 times for 12 days — they grinned and said “let’s work like slaves!”

They actually finished it in 9 days and cheekily asked if I’d pay them 11 times.

There are many things money can’t buy, but apps aren’t one of them.

As I was searching for companies, I got an international call from Eddie.

It’s been a while.

I had asked him to deliver songs to major artists, but hadn’t been too concerned.

I already know how this will play out anyway.

Still, out of courtesy, I asked:

“Did you deliver the tracks?”

-What am I, your agency manager? That’s the first thing you ask when you pick up the phone?

Oh, right.

But you’re acting like a manager, though.

-I’ve only delivered to four of them so far. Three left.

He’s been busy shooting the documentary while meeting musicians, so things have been a bit slow.

That’s understandable.

“So what’s up?”

-You know Colors Show?

“Colors? You mean the one produced by COLORS Media?”

-Yeah. You do know it!

Of course I do.

COLORS.

The music platform run by Berlin-based COLORS MEDIA.

Even though it’s a music platform, their main selling point is their gorgeous visuals.

Their flagship content is A Colors Show.

It’s a fascinating format.

No stage set, just color aesthetics.

A simple 5-minute live performance.

Pure vocals — no distractions.

As far as I know, no Korean artists had appeared on Colors Show in 2017.

Soon some will appear — but they’re R&B artists, not K-pop idols.

I’m not sure if Colors dislikes K-pop or if it just doesn’t fit the show’s concept.

In any case, Colors remains a highly popular platform.

Their YouTube channel already had over 3 million subscribers, with videos reaching tens of millions of views.

But it wasn’t fully grown yet.

In 3-4 years, subscribers will exceed 10 million, and hit videos will easily surpass 100 million views.

Some artists will even rise to stardom through this show.

“I know it. Why?”

-The documentary crew I’m working with has some staff from COLORS MEDIA.

“Uh-huh.”

-And somehow they got interested in your music. They asked if you’d be interested in appearing, and I said yes.

At first I thought he misspoke in English tense.

“You said yes?”

-Yep.

“Why?”

-It’s a great opportunity.

Didn’t you just say not to treat you like my manager?