How come K-pop fans don't branch out to AKB48 and J-pop in general?

Well it's more then that, it looks like J-pop idols don't take their international fans seriously unlike their Korean/K-pop counterpart. I don't see a J-pop equivalent of the Naver's V:


if the video does not show watch the video here

This is how K-pop fans don't lose their touch or interaction with their international fanbases outside of Asia. I never seen Japan nor the J-pop industry making an app to connect international J-pop fans to their idols. This is why and how K-pop is still popular outside of Asia even to this day. There are other ways K-pop idols keep in touch with their international fanbases beyond Asia like I assume you know Arirang TV's After School Club, and the Mnet/Mwave's Meet & Greet:


if the video does not show watch the video here

So K-pop has a big advantage when it comes to keeping in touch with their fanbases even if they're outside of Asia.

Well I can't speak for all J-pop. But from what I've listened from some select J-pop acts and listening to K-pop. I did see some K-pop acts using J-pop beat in some of their music, and it got accepted amongst K-pop fans that never listened to J-pop. So that makes me question if the J-pop idols were singing in Korean, would that make K-pop fans listen and try J-pop.

There seem to be evidence that K-pop and K-drama fan do branch out to Chinese and Taiwanese stuff when it get a Korean remake (or if China and Taiwan remake a famous Korean stuff). Case in example: Scarlet Heart

When Scarlet Heart got a Korean remake under the name, Scarlet Heart: Ryeo. It got a lot of attention from K-drama fans that never even watch the Chinese original. This led to fans of the Korean remake to watch the Chinese original, as evidenced here. Scarlet Heart isn't the only one. Similar thing happened when You're Beautiful got a Taiwanese remake. The Taiwanese remake attracted a lot of fans of the K-drama original and the Taiwanese remake got a lot of love from the same K-drama fans, it doesn't help that Park Shin Hye's cameo in the Taiwanese remake kinda got attention from fans of the original. Another example is the Chinese drama, My Amazing Boyfriend. Many people mistakenly thought this was a Chinese remake of the hit K-drama, My love from another Star. it's not according to Dramafever, but fans of the K-drama still watch it and loved it regardless if it was a remake or not. So there's a trend of K-pop/K-drama fans branching out to Chinese and Taiwanese stuff if it involved a remake.

So given the hit that was Descendants of the Sun, it's been reported and announced that K-drama will get a Taiwanese remake. So given how popular that K-drama was and the pattern of K-drama fans branching out to Chinese and Taiwanese dramas due to remake, how many fans of the original will end up watching the Taiwanese remake?

Well you're one of the few exceptional. The problem is that many of the K-pop fans I talked to were formerly J-pop fans and they never went back to J-pop after they became K-pop fans.

 

Oh my lord, this thread again.
I'm in no position to talk about early 00s since I barely existed yet, but regardless of whether Jpop was more well known than Kpop at one point, it was clearly nowhere near as relevant internationally as Kpop is now- and Kpop is STILL a totally niche interest.
I get that this is really important to you and maybe in your circles there are many people who were maybe jpop fans once and now they are kpop fans and you wonder why that is the case. Perhaps you are even under the impression that you have provided lots of meaningful and coherent information here, but honestly, what exactly is your point?
The more that people explain to you that the two are not the same at all, the more you posts walls of texts and links and videos that prove you're not capable of basic comprehension at all, sorry. But I'll repeat the gist of it anyways cuz I'm procrastinating from writing my paper.
Currently, jpop and kpop can't be meaningfully compared in the way you are attempting to. At the moment they are marketed towards conpletely different crowds. In the case of AKB and other otaku-marketed products within Jpop, two EXTREMELY different crowds. Kpop is actually quite mainstream in Korea and they also directly try to promote and appeal to international markets. The stuff you are saying about "outweirding" isn't really relevant at all because lots of "weird" concepts are marketable and fashionable nonetheless. AKB and most idols are not even mainstream in Japan at the moment (maybe give or take some exceptional cases) and international appeals aren't even really attempted anymore because they can't make money off physical sales the way they rely on to really make bank in Japan. Foreign fans mostly pirate everything. So why bother?

But anyway, if your point is to make wider meta-type commentary on the state of music industries in Asia and their international appeal and the state of Asian diaspora under a Trump presidency and all these other tangents, carry on, that can be an interesting discussion in its own right I suppose.

 

No, it's not niche, it's getting more well-known in the US. I think you may want to have a look at these:

'K-pop gets closer to US mainstream'

How Korean Boy Band BTS Broke a U.S. K-pop Chart Record – Without Any Songs In English

Speaking of BTS, they seem to be gaining more mainstream prominence in the US giving these evidences:

Skype team revealed as K-pop/BTS fan

BTS getting love from western artists from Charlie Puth to State Champs

Rising American actress Kylie Rogers show her love of BTS

New York Times has interviewed with BTS and K-pop fans, have a look:


if the video does not show watch the video here

If K-pop is niche in the US, why the hell would BTS/Bangtan Boys be getting all these interviews from mainstream media and attention from well-known celebrities, the same can be said about Emma Stone being a fan.

There's another evidence that western artists are probably pandering to K-pop fandom. Do you know Ricky Martin? He collaborated with Red Velvet's Wendy and Taiwanese artist A-Lin:


if the video does not show watch the video here

Why didn't Ricky Martin get a J-pop singer like he did with Wendy and A-Lin. Why did he chose these 2 particular Asian artists to worked with, but no J-pop artists? Here's another question, why did the collaboration with Wendy have over 1 million views on YT while the one with A-Lin has less then 284,000 views? Had Ricky Martin used Tzuyu of Twice instead of A-Lin, would the views have been much higher? Still think K-pop is niche, how do you explain the evidence on what I said? How do you explain the western artists praising not only K-pop idols, but pandering to K-pop fandom?

Well here's the thing, K-pop and other Korean stuff is heavily pirated too. Yet Korean pop culture profit is already making a lot of money from not only China but elsewhere. Have a look:



Source: Korea Times

I hear arguments that anime and manga piracy hurt the industry but here's the problem that made me question Japan, when I saw that Korean pop culture was heavily pirated and their profit was not effected by piracy, I started to become skeptical of whatever the anime/manga industry claim.

I would, I don't mind talking about it via PM. But I do raise concern about it after seeing that several artists that were supposed to perform at SXSW were denied performance visas:

Three More SXSW-Bound Bands Denied Entry Into The U.S.

Customs Officials Offer Travel Clarification After SXSW Artist Is Denied Entry Into U.S.

Was a SXSW Travel Visa Crackdown Inevitable Under President Trump?

K-pop wasn't effected thank goodness. But I'm concerned about next year SXSW, could K-pop and other Korean acts along with Japanese acts be denied visas and entry into the US? Just today I read this news from Wall Street Journal via Twitter about how the current administration may start disclosing passwords to access social media for anyone entering the US and that applies to US allies which include South Korea.

There are other issues that concern me regarding K-pop in America in the Trump administration but I don't want to veer off topic, but if you want to talk about it, we can do it via PM.

 

Yes, it is niche.

Much in the way that indie rock is a niche. It's a long way from the influence of Kanye West or Beyonce in mainstream culture. Nevertheless, it is obviously still successful internationally. And good God, I know BTS lol, it's really funny when people try to educate me on kpop when I've been following it since I was a child. Not everyone here is completely clueless about everything that isn't AKB.

I'm aware. The point is Japan is one of the few places in the world where people actually still really buy CDs and appear to still rely heavily on the profits of those physical sales. Maybe because Japan is really old on average and people who have like a hundred years are still dominating the culture and imposing their backwardness on everyone else (which is seen in business culture as well, using such horrific things as fax machines still). Not that they should pirate of course, but adapting to digital as well as relying on profits from marketing in other entertainment would be more innovative than relying so much on physical sales.

On the other hand though, the fact that they can make so much from otakus buying tons of CDs for handshake tickets means that they can continue to make money despite not being popular enough to get many commercial contracts anymore whereas many kpop groups fade into irrelevancy super fast from failure to do so. And yes I'm aware Kpop has fansign as well, the volume is still nowhere near the amount AKB sells in handshake tickets due to the # of members, gimmicks, etc.

 

How is K-pop niche? It's getting a lot of mainstream exposure and it's getting more attention from Hollywood. If you think K-pop is niche then how do you explain western artists even well-known one is pandering to K-pop fans by doing collaboration. Were you aware the Walking Dead producers are doing a Korean drama:

Walking Dead's ROBERT KIRKMAN AND SKYBOUND ANNOUNCE KOREAN DRAMA, FIVE YEAR (2nd source: Variety)

What do you call that, not pandering to K-pop and K-drama fans?

Well they're going to need to take digital and streaming more seriously given this report from Billboard:


if the video does not show watch the video here

As you can see streaming has surpassed digital downloads and physical CD sales. So unless Japan doesn't want to fall behind they have to keep up with the time.

Regarding the bold part, the same thing applied to J-pop. there's a lot of J-pop girl groups that are less known then AKB48 or smaller-known K-pop girl group (ie: Laboum, Loona, Dalshabet, etc...). Hell, I know some K-pop group that are more well-known outside of Asia then in South Korea, take Astro for example. Astro is not as famous in South Korea like on the same level as BTS, Big Bang, GOT7, etc... But outside of South Korea and Asia, they're more well-known.

 

Everything you are saying is "look! kpop has fans!" Yes, I'm just saying they're still a specific group of people, mostly in a few specific ages and areas. It's not a mainstream product in N America as the examples I listed.

Nice non-sequitur. My point was to show that there is still potential to make bank while relying on strong physical sales, as backward as it is, which couldn't translate over into an advantage from foreign fans.

 

Actually, your definition of niche doesn't really apply to K-pop. It's not specific group of people. When you said specific group of people I assume you mean Asian-American, right? Well here's the problem, K-pop fans has a sizable chunk of non-Asian fans, this has always been like that since 2011. I mean were you aware Latinxs make up a significant chunk of K-pop fandom in the US. There was a report that last year's KCON has not only grown but become more diverse. So K-pop is not a niche thing, sure it's not mainstream which is true and I agree. But it's already gained a significant fanbases outside of Asia. If K-pop was that niche, then how did T-ara beat One Direction? How did Big Bang beat the other mainstream artists in a fan-off? How did Big Bang won at MTV Italy awards against other big name artists like Ariana Grande, One Direction? If K-pop was niche then K-pop idols wouldn't be beating big name artists. The fact that a K-pop idol (which you said is niche) won international awards in US and Europe over big name artists would blow people mind away.

Well, as I said. Because of the recent report from Billboard, I think CDs sales will no longer be significant in the US because of streaming and digital downloads.

 

No. I mean in North America it's more likely teens and young adults from cosmopolitan areas who are familiar with or become fans of kpop. Hope this clears things up.

 

You are aware older fans exist, right? Take this guy for example:


if the video does not show watch the video here

So there maybe a sizable "ajumma/ajinshi" fans that are not even Asian that can be fan of K-pop in US/Canada. K-pop fans can be anyone.

Also I forgot to mention couple more thing about what you said about K-pop being niche? If it's niche, then how did BTS get their own Twitter emoji when they're not even a household name in the US? Epik High became the first Korean and Asian act to perform at Coachella. Dean, a well-known K-pop artists became the first Asian act to perform at Spotify house at SXSW, I hardly called K-pop niche given that these 2 artists who aren't even household name in North America are given these treatment. K-pop is something different from other niche music genre. When you're given a special treatment and you're not a household name in the US, that mean there something special about that genre that appeals to a wider audiences and not to a niche audiences. That's the case for K-pop as Epik High and Dean has demonstrated. Also, there's one more thing that seem to prove to me that K-pop is not niche, Remember the Conan O'Brien and Steven Yeun performance with JYP, Twice, Wonder Girls (before they disband), and 15&'s Jimin:


if the video does not show watch the video here

K-pop can't be a niche because of how much attention Conan O'Brien has given to it. So I hardly called K-pop niche given these evidence I stated above.

 

>kpop fans in NA are more likely to be young
>older fans exist
Did you know that these two can be true at the same time?

>they're not even a household name
Wow, this is my exact point, but thanks for demonstrating that you obviously understand this

Literally what? All kinds of randos perform on Conan.

Lol I'm sorry if I don't reply anymore after this, it's been fun, cheers.

 

What's the point of your sentence?

Are you trolling or something? Because that's what it feel like.

Because Conan has never done anything like this, you said K-pop is niche and I'm showing you proof that it's not. Overall, I think your last post looks like a troll post to me. Is there a reason I shouldn't report you for trolling?

 

Oh please, if according those criteria K-Pop is mainstream in US, then Death Metal also mainstream genre.
Lets see..

• Jim Carrey is a huge fan of Cannibal Corpse : http://www.thewolf.ca/2016/02/28/jim-carrey-discusses-his-love-of-metal/
• RIHANNA Reveals Death Metal Logo at #VMAs : http://www.metalinjection.net/metal...signer-finally-revealed-heres-how-it-happened
• Some notable Death Metal bands were involved at several movie soundtrack, Slayer was in Punisher's soundtrack and Napalm Death was in Mortal Kombat Soundtrack for example.

Since Death Metal is more recognized than K-pop, it's mainstream then.

 

WHY IS THIS TRAINWRECK OF A THREAD BACK ALIVE?!

@mdo7 I thought you had understood that nobody shared your opinion on this issue and decided to go on a cruise or something, so why bring it up again?
Just re-read the comments in the previous pages.

Basically.
K-pop needs to go worldwide or else they don't have money for their ridiculously looking PVs.
J-pop only needs Japan to keep doing its thing.
The end.

 

There is a big difference between metal and pop. For K-pop, it's a different species from other niche genre. I don't know how to explain how death metal didn't get the same type of popularity like K-pop has gotten. But what's significant is that a non-English music was able to get popular targeting multiple demographics (I mean beyond Asian Americans, and with Latino/Latina and white/caucasian making up some big significant chunk of K-pop fandom in North America). Death Metal only appeal to some certain demographics. I don't know how to explain why K-pop got more popular and more well-known then any Death metal bands you listed. To be honest, it's complicated for me to explain why one genre become more known then another.

Because I found evidence that J-pop's international fandom used to be bigger then K-pop fandom before K-pop took over. Don't you ever raise or ask question about how K-pop became popular and why J-pop or C-pop never got the same type of global popularity like K-pop has gotten. You never asked question how WJSN/Cosmic Girl and I.O.I was able to get more international fans then AKB48 has gotten.

Hollywood films biggest market is in the US, the US move market is #1. So according to your logic, why is Hollywood pandering to China? Why is Hollywood starting to pander to South Korea when it's not even #2? Why is Hollywood not pandering to Japan like it used to?

 

No matter how you spin your words, we both know Kpop is on declining state. The hype of Korean wave is dead few years ago, bunch of groups got disbanded last year including some notable groups like 2NE1, and now Kpop are forced to find new market because of China blocked all of Korean entertainment.

Your argument about Kpop become mainstream can also be applied into any niche genre, like my previous example, Death metal. Even niche genre like Death Metal achieve more at Western popular culture than your over saturated generic Kpop groups. bunch of death metal bands featured on popular TV shows (Ex: Napalm Death, Morbid Angel, Cannibal Corpse, and Slayer was featured on Beavis and Butt-Head), Their music also featured on Video games ( Ex: Slayer's song was on GTA:Vice City).

I guess it's enough about Death Metal, what about Symphonic Black Metal?

if the video does not show watch the video here
This music is soundtrack of Resident Evil 2: Apocalypse.

The question is, how Kpop is qualified as mainstream if other niche genres have more influence on popular culture?

Long story short, Kpop is dying. Bunch of biased articles from Korean netizen doesn't prove anything.

 

BTS, GOT7, Twice, Seventeen, G-friend, and even the newcomer K.A.R.D is still keeping K-pop alive.


if the video does not show watch the video here


if the video does not show watch the video here

See, here's the difference about how K-pop and Death metal, have you ever seen Death metal music being used by NFL:

BTS and Block B being used in a NFL game

Also, K-pop has a lot of song and dance cover done by non-Asians:


if the video does not show watch the video here

I think you heard of the K-pop world festival where fans of K-pop from all over the world show off their K-pop cover dance and song cover. I never seen this in J-pop nor in C-pop. I'm not going to compare it to death Metal.

What evidence do you have it's on the decline, unless you have an article I don't see it that way. I don't see Billboard retiring their K-town column.

So playing with your logic (why I bold and underline that sentence), when Gackt and other critics have acknowledged that South Korea "outcooled" Japan, does that mean they're "fake news":

Rocketnews24-Gackt lashes out at Cool Japan: “Almost no results of Japanese culture exported overseas”

CNBC-Is Japan about to lose it's cool?

Is Japan losing its cool?

So is NBC News reporting on Korean beauty product gaining mainstream popularity in the US now considered "fake news"? What about this, is this "fake news" now to you?

So are you saying The Economist, BBC, and the Wall Street Journal lost their credibility when they report on K-pop and how Japan lost it's cool:

Wall Street Journal-Psy-chology 101: Academics Put Spotlight on Korean Pop Culture

Financial Post-How Korea became the world’s coolest brand

BBC-South Korea: The Silent Cultural Superpower

Korea is Asia’s foremost trendsetter: The Economist



So you're saying all of the above are "fake news"? So should we labeled Hollywood Reporter and Amazon as "fake news" too because of this report I saw today:

Hollywood Reporter's exclusive article: Amazon Sets K-Pop Competition Series

Does Iheartradio now count as "fake news" because of this article about K-pop?

So when it was reported that South Korea could rival Hollywood/US in term of pop culture export, are they now "fake news":

‘Korea Is Only Asian Country to Compete with Hollywood’s Cultural Hegemony’

A Korean Hallyu Threatens American Cultural Dominance

So according to your logic, these are "fake news" to you when they say K-pop is becoming more well-known.

 

I'm only replying to this one because it directly involves my country, couldn't honestly care less about the rest.
The answer can be found right in the comment section of the same article, and I quote: "Tbh anyone from any country (considering their country doesn't block it) could vote for the Italy MTV Awards".
In light of this, if I have to throw an informed guess, what realistically happened there is that the same usual rabid fans from other countries (I can also venture a guess about which ones) powervoted for a certain group through the Internet, by taking advantage of the fact that these "awards" happened in a minor country where nobody ever took the event seriously, or cared enough to. It couldn't be otherwise, actually, considering that I have never seen a single microsecond of Kpop being aired on our local MTV channel anyway, and things didn't change a bit even after that.
In fact, the only memorable Kpop-related thing to have ever happend in Italy that I can think of was when Psy got booed in unison by 50,000 people at a football stadium in Rome. Talk about "vox populi". He tried to pretend nothing happened for the whole time, mumbled a few words in broken Italian before leaving, then some days later he got so butthurt he canceled his entire Italian tour. I'm sure nobody lost sleep over it here, since even Gangnam Style was regarded as an annoying fad that everyone grew tired of pretty fast. How long ago was it, again? 4 years already? Geez...
That should say one thing or two about how these "Internet polls" hardly reflect reality. Nobody is going crazy over Kpop here, if this is what you hoped, sorry.

How does any of your posts even begin to address the question in the thread's title, anyway?
What part of it explains why Kpop fans don't branch out to AKB48?
We get it that Arirang and Yonhap are speaking highly of Kpop, everyone knows it's a half-nationalized government-funded industry, so it's their country's policy to make it look victorious by reporting half truths. It's like looking on Russia Today for criticisms on Putin and finding nothing but praises.

 

Didn't EXO appreared on a famous Italian magazine? Also didn't Rolling Stone Italia talked about Block B performance in Milan? How do you explain that?

Also K-pop beating a household western artists is nothing new. Girls Generation did this in 2013, and Big Bang did it in 2011. All of these had household name western artists going up against them and yet K-pop came out victorious, if K-pop is that niche they wouldn't have won against top name western artists/singers.

I'm going to say this, if you put Super Junior against EXILE in a popularity contest, Super Junior would win no matter what. If you put let say a very famous Italian pop singers against BTS (or Twice), BTS (or Twice) would beat them in a popularity contest, no matter what. I can't explain how and why K-pop idols always win against household western artists in a popularity contest. One Direction is very famous around the world, but they couldn't beat T-ara in a Billboard fan-off.

To answer your question, I've been trying to find the mystery why the J-pop fandom internationally just mysteriosly decline when K-pop got popular, and the fact that many of K-pop fans were former J-pop fans that never went back to J-pop. I met some frustrated J-pop fans online that are wondering why J-pop just couldn't get that same success like we're seeing for K-pop. Also even though K-pop and J-pop are different (and to some extent, similar), the problem is when K-pop does something that look similar to J-pop, it get accepted by a global audiences. But when J-pop is shown to a global audiences, they don't get the same reception like their Korean counterpart. I mean when Cosmic Girls and IOI debuted, they amassed a big fanbases beyond South Korea and Asia, while AKB48 couldn't get a bigger international fans like their K-pop counterpart are getting.

Regarding the bold part, if that was the case then the Korean media would've cover up and not report on Park Guen Hye's corruption scandal. You see I not only watch and read from Arirang TV, KBS World, Yonhap. I also read multiple sources from outside of South Korea to see how K-pop is getting reception from international viewpoint. So far it looks like Billboard, Hollywood Reporter, and other mainstream sources in the west seem to report on K-pop so that's how I know if the report is true and not "fake".

 

@mdo7 your long absence since May 2016 was because you saw you were getting on people's nerves with your rethoric and every point you brought up was brought down (you've been quite active in Twitter retweeting every Billboard kpop news and IG with your cruises, so don't say you've been busy with Trump).

The point of this thread is not to ask why Jpop doesn't branch out (in short: IT DOESN'T NEED TO), but you just want to preach the Gospel that Kpop is superior and is winning (random) awards in whatever countries.

You know what? Nobody gives a flying duck but the BTS/EXO/TWICE/whatever stans.

You have participated in TWO threads in this wiiiiiiiiide forum.
One about AKB going into South Korea and this very one.
Why on Earth would you get into a community that you don't care about and try to educate the people in it about something they don't even care?
Just go to OneHallyu, they might care there.

 

I'm not making this up. I apologize for the long absence but a lot of thing has happened to me and I lost track. Also, I needed to do more research on what caused the decline of J-pop. So far, I couldn't find any evidence or whatever some J-pop fans told me online is the same: "I don't know, that is strange", "I have no idea, that is odd", "I can't explain why K-pop fans aren't branching out to J-pop". That's all I'm getting, when I decided to check back. I thought I give my thought. I'm not violating the rule, but it looks like you're bordering to trolling.

There are people that cared and want to know why J-pop's international fandom just mysteriously decline. There are people that want to know why K-pop fans aren't branching out to J-pop. There are J-pop fans that are jealous

I find that ironic, you never question over this thread. Give me a reason what you're doing is not trolling?

I already did, a lot of people can't even give a definitive answer why J-pop decline.

Do you have anything else then just complaining?