Chapter 263

Chapter 263

Surprisingly, Cha Eugene’s idea didn’t hinge on an absurd method of promotion.

“Let’s make a challenge!” he said.

“A challenge?”

“A dance challenge!”

It was basically asking people to film themselves dancing to our choreography. It was a kind of short-form content that had been popular for several years now. Frankly, I hadn’t seen any team fail to attempt something like this after their comeback recently.

Goldie #1’s group got quite a bit of attention using this method, too. But that was because their agency had done a good job of putting together a quality challenge, and most teams simply satisfied themselves with having tried. People didn’t dance along to a song just because the song and choreography were good. I wasn’t too sure what the magic formula was myself, but it seemed there was a specific type of enjoyment people who filmed these kinds of challenge videos were searching for.

Eugene, however, was shockingly good at understanding this. “We include a sky filter here… Then it suddenly shifts to a Halloween party, and the song changes, too!” he explained in English.

“Wow.”

“First, there will be the pre-chorus for ‘Wheel,’ and at the end of it…”

Cha Eugene adjusted the music, combining the clean, emotional climax of “Wheel” with the powerful and dark whistling chorus of “Drill.”

“There it goes. And then that bounce, with the drop from ‘Drill.’ There. It’s good, isn’t it?” Eugene continued in English.

That’s not too shabby. It was a bit childish, but the mood, song, and choreography all changed in an instant following a whistle, which was sure to catch people’s attention.

Even Ahyeon, who wasn’t really interested in this sort of thing, nodded along. “Th-that’s great…!”

“I know!” Eugene said, now back to Korean.

It only took a moment’s thought to understand that it had a certain charm to it. Even someone without any context could look at it and tell that it was similar to the sorts of videos that went viral.

If this works as intended, we stand to gain something out of this.

“What do you guys think—” I began, wanting to get a vote right away. Then I realized that some of the members seemed uncertain about whether they’d understood Cha Eugene’s English.

I guess I should relay what he said first.

“We can connect the two title tracks to make a dance challenge. He thinks that it’ll make for a fun contrast.”

“Oh, I get it!”

They finally began offering their opinions, most of which were in favor.

“So both songs will be promoted, then.”

“And the story behind it will be similar to the concept of our promotions—you know, giving it that twist! Eugene, that’s a great idea!”

“Hehe.”

Posting the video wasn’t a dangerous gamble or anything—frankly, it was a tried-and-tested method nowadays. The group approved it quickly, as did the agency.

“They’ll throw in an arrangement through a platform affiliate.”

“Yeah!”

“So we’ll have to film announcement videos for the challenge. One per person.”

Bae Sejin swallowed. “So we… film this video alone?”

“Yes.”

Given the nature of such videos, making a strong impression meant a maximum of two people per video. Bae Sejin suddenly looked deeply worried.

“Me! Me! Me! I’ll go first!”

Eugene filmed his with great excitement, of course. If I had to be honest, I thought his came out the best. He’d probably made the suggestion because he’d already pictured how it would go in his head. The way he tilted his head and added the catchy hand move from the chorus of “Drill” was perfect.

Maybe it’s because he’s so young. Eugene seemed to have an instinctive understanding of these things. But the member who was the same age as him redid his filming about ten times.

“H-how about this?”

“Hahaha! Raebin, you’re terrible at this!”

“It’s just that I’ve never done this before! If I can just figure out how it works, I’ll do even better than you!”

“No, you idiot!”

Raebin managed to succeed only just barely, emerging somewhat scarred from Eugene’s ridicule.

“Th-there…”

Eugene was relishing his victory. “Everyone did good! It’s because of how good Raebin made the songs!”

I can’t believe you have the guts to say that after you poked so much fun at him. But wait. I realized that though Raebin was technically the youngest member in the group, since his birthday came later than Eugene’s, he didn’t really keep up with trends like this.

In any case, the videos we uploaded worked nicely with our promotional strategy and got plenty of attention online. The challenge grew wings and developed on its own, and audiences began to alter it to make their own challenges.

[The TeSTAR twist challenge!]

Bae Sejin watched a collection of videos on WeTube and said with an odd look, “So they wear an animal mask and run around among butterflies… then they throw the mask aside and pretend to be villains?”

“Correct…”

“But that’s so different from what we did!”

Bae Sejin’s comment was a little harsh, but it was true.

Our performance of “Drill,” which we’d first done at the awards ceremony, had grown considerably in popularity. That probably had something to do with it.

This is a good thing. Content was being reproduced almost excessively, which meant the challenge was a massive success. The number of videos using our song would only grow.

Youngrin can’t do this sort of thing with her new song. Her track was purely focused on being pleasant to listen to. As we had planned, the playing field had been expanded to include more than just the streaming charts.

The agency seemed excited, asking to partner with companies to make “Drill-exclusive camera filters,” but Eugene was firmly against it.

“There are lots of people who think this sort of challenge is cheesy. Our music videos are amazing, so we can’t make silly filters from them!”

“Uh… right.”

He insisted that we should make the songs approachable by producing viral content, but not take things too far. His opinion matched the one I was about to put forward.

He’s pretty useful. Eugene was smart, though he only seemed to apply his brains when he wanted to.

And so, with Eugene’s idea having a huge impact, our promotional cycle continued as scheduled without any hitches. It was like we’d never had that emergency right before the start of our promotions.

[TeSTAR’s new songs are going strong]

[Drill music video trends (image)]

[Drill choreography video is up]

Posts and videos about our promotions flooded the internet, which meant we had gotten the hype we wanted. As soon as this began to reflect on our group’s performance, we were announced as candidates for first place on a public television music show. And the result was as expected.

“Music Gayo Live! This week’s top group is… Congratulations, TeSTAR!”

We won, of course, though the scores were as I’d expected.

We’re about a thousand points below Youngrin when it comes to streaming platforms. But that was okay. Most people thought we deserved first place, unless they were obsessed with only streams, or haters. Our strategy to make our win seem deserved had worked. I nodded, feeling the thrill of success.

We’d won.

“Thank you!”

“Thank you for not giving up on us… For giving us your love for such a long time… Thank you! Thank you so much, Loviewers!”

It had been a while since we’d gotten first place on a music show. Perhaps for that reason, quite a few members were getting emotional.

“Are you crying, too, Lee Sejin?” Eugene asked.

“Yes, your big bro is crying.”

Even the members I hadn’t expected to react this way were crying, making for quite a funny sight. This probably made them look better, though, rather than reacting as though they’d seen this result coming.

Looks like we’ve established dominance across the country with this. The members were sniffling, and we ended up singing the song about five times together, continuing after the cameras had finished rolling. People now no longer pitied us for releasing music at the same time as Youngrin—instead, it was the other way around.

We spent about two weeks doing promotions on various variety shows.

I should check up on other news as well. I began to look into how we were doing overseas, too, after learning how big our tour had become.

We made “Drill” with a global audience in mind. It wasn’t complicated and exciting but easy to listen to. The video was extremely pretty, what with all the money put into it, and the choreography was amazing... This sort of track had universal appeal.

Is that why this album had so much more demand? The moment I began to search, however, I was taken aback.

“…?”

Wait, why are there so many? The results were far more incredible than I’d expected. The global market was where Cha Eugene’s idea really began to show its true worth.

***

Apparently, the dance challenge with a twist that Eugene had come up with had been deeply inspiring to overseas fans.

So this sort of thing is what draws in the m*ggles! The K-pop fans who were interested in TeSTAR began to flood WeTubers and online personalities they knew with requests to watch the new songs. What they asked for was simple—that they first watch “Wheel,” followed immediately by “Drill.”

“Drill” alone was enough to charm most people. It had been made intentionally in the style of a video game’s cinematic trailer, with elements from blockbuster comic-based films mixed in. People all over the world loved those kinds of nerdy films. But watching “Wheel,” which was the polar opposite, in advance made it very clear how different the same group was capable of making two songs, which shared the same setting. People online reacted well to the contrast.

[“Oh, so both songs are based on the same setting? Is it an ad for this amusement park or whatever? What? They’re the same group?”]

[“My god. This guy on the cycle is so cool!”]

[“Let me say it right now. The only time I think well of any man who dyes their hair is with these amazing K-pop stars. They’re like anime characters!”]

We were able to gather a lot more views in this way, since people were making reaction videos left and right—and not just reaction WeTubers, but literally everyone. Because we’d made the videos and songs with the express intent of pleasing a global audience, they really caught on. The music videos for the new songs were rising in view count rapidly.

“Drill” had even made it into the “trending videos” section in the US.

We’re… making it in the mainstream. It was a massive win for us. I had to admit it. Eugene had done something truly amazing. I decided I’d grill him some meat sometime soon.

“Beef or pork?”

Eugene’s sharp ears didn’t miss the question, though he was on the other side of the room.

“I like beef! Korean beef!”

“All right.”

This wasn’t all there was to it, however. When something proved to be a hit, there was always bound to be some kind of gossip about it. This time, it happened in Japan.

[This is such a great match. It’s amazing (video) (*´ω｀*)]

Fans of some anime or other had combined scenes from the show, including clips from our challenges and music videos. Doing so had generated some quarreling online, which had the net effect of… making us even more famous. The fighting wasn’t even between fans of TeSTAR and anime—it was people who hated Korea who started it.

- Are they using Korean idols because Japanese artists require their portrait rights to be protected? Please stop. Korean idols are far below the level of Japanese artists.

- Korean fans are always so arrogant. They’re so unpleasant to look at (laughter)

- There’s no need to react like this. The so-called K-pop fans are taking things too far

- K-pop copied the US and Japan. I’m not interested. I wish they’d go back to their own country

└ You do realize TeSTAR has never really targeted Japan, right? (´･ω･`)?

- Looks like the Japanese right-wing nationalists of the internet are getting fired up (laughter)

People who simply hated anything to do with Korea were colliding with K-pop fans, leading to a pretty sordid online scuffle. A WeTuber who posted coverage of Japanese reactions cheerfully provided a summary.

[Does this mean, as the ultranationalists claim, that TeSTAR is being boycotted in Japan?]

[My goodness! TeSTAR’s album ranked #1 on the charts this week!]

We’d gone viral in Japan without even trying. The controversy hadn’t been our fault, thus people didn’t feel put off by us. Those who were curious about what was going on were drawn into the situation. Because we focused on being concept-rich and, frankly, handsome, they’d quickly been converted into fans.

We haven’t been to Japan since “Present,” have we? The controversy had exposed us to the general public suddenly, and it seemed a tonne of potential fans had been converted all at once.

- The light purple member with the deer horns is so amazingly handsome. He looks like a prince. That’s the only way to describe it

- Do you think the one with black hair is the center member? He’s dangerously handsome. I’ve replayed this video five times already!

- Pink! Pink! Pink! I’m a fan of the pink puppy now! (screen capture of Park Moondae)

These new fans would fill all the additional seats that we had to sell when the agency chose domes instead of arenas. In the end, Eugene’s dance challenge had spread everywhere, having a remarkable effect.

Wait… Are we really going to get a daesang for this album? It’s definitely possible. Waxing hopeful for a moment, I was about to set aside my phone when a news article on a web portal site caught my eye.

[VTIC’s comeback set for February... The kings of music are coming back]

The bastards… Do they never rest?

They even texted me confirmation of this a while later.

[VTIC Chaeyul: We have a comeback planned next month, Moondae! Hope you’ll give us plenty of love!]

[VTIC Sino: (Finger gun emoji)]

They could have contacted me separately, but they chose to invite me to a group chat. I had no idea why they’d done so. Were they trying to annoy me?

[Yes. Congratulations.]

I gave them the standard polite response. The bastard who was always sending me dog pictures sent a private message.

[VTIC Cheongryeo: You mean that?]

Son of a b*tch.

[Of course. I wish you the best. I’m just sad I won’t be able to see you after you join the military.]

So join already. There was a slight delay before he answered.

[Huh? Why would I do that?]

What? A string of messages followed.

[My mother is a decorated patriot, and I only need to serve six months. Didn’t you know?]

[Oh, I guess they didn’t release that information yet. Sorry about that :)]

[You’ll be serving on active duty, right? Have fun.]

Bastard. I turned my phone screen off and told myself,

From this tour onward… Every schedule is going to be focused on growing our weight class. You’re going to join the military feeling very, very sad next year.

As it happened, an offer from NetFlux came at just the right time.

“They want to film a documentary?”

“Yes! They make lots of them these days.”

They had requested to film a behind-the-scenes tour documentary.