[Courtesy of JYP Entertainment YouTube Channel]
As a girl crush icon, rookie girl group TWICE is setting a new milestone in South Korea's saturated and competitive music scene. Helped by enthusiastic support from girl fans, their popularity threatened to overtake that of boy band EXO beloved at home and abroad.
The nine-member group's popularity was reflected in album sales, selling more than 200,000 copies of its latest album "TWICEcoaster: LANE 1" since its release in October. Their dramatic success over such a short period is attributable to a cute and friendly image, combined with their singing and dancing skills.
Music critics saw TWICE's achievement as extraordinary as other idol groups usually sell an average of 30,000 to 40,000 copies. Girls' Generation, a top-class idol group with a strong fan-base that has been built up for many years, sold 145,044 copies of its album last year.
Artists who sell more than 100,000 copies a year are very rare since album sales have gradually fallen over a decade because many music listeners switched to subscribing for unlimited monthly or yearly music streaming services, easily accessible from online or on mobile platforms.
TWICE achieved outstanding milestones in social network services. YouTube view counts for its music video for "Like OOH AHH", released a year ago, exceeded 100 million last week. TWICE had collected 100 million views with "Cheer Up" in just over 40 days of its release.
[Photo by Yoo Dae-gil = dbeorlf123@ajunews.com]
Many fans speculate the driving force of TWICE's stellar performance is emanated from unique characteristics of the members.
"We think Twice's personalities and characteristics are the sources of their popularity," a JYP official said. "They are very lively, just like every other high school girls. Fans feel vitalized just by watching them."
Experts saw TWICE as the center of South Kora's "girl crush" syndrome. "Because of the members' natural behavior seen on TV shows, fans feel very familiar with them," Kim Kyo-suk, a culture critic, told Aju News. "Fans treat TWICE as girls living next door, not idolizing them."
Trends graphs from Google and Naver show TWICE's popularity is at par or higher than that of EXO's.[Google Trend result (above) and Naver Trends result (below)]
TWICE is creating a girl crush syndrome in South Korea's music scene. Previously, female fans were attracted to boy groups and vice versa. But now, gender is meaningless in choosing which idol to follow.
South Korea has seen a sharp rise in female fandoms adoring female idol groups. Trend search results on Google and South Korea's largest portal Naver show that TWICE exceeded or was equal to popular boy band EXO among those searched or mentioned most frequently in the past 12 months.
Aju News Park Sae-jin = swatchsjp@ajunews.com
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
