AllKpop Will Eat Itself

Pardon me while I stand up and applaud allkpop.com’s decision to launch ita own girl band.

The idea is so simple, it’s brilliant. 6Theory runs a wildly successful website where people go for the latest news, gossip and selcas [1] about K-pop artists, so they now have a captive audience. Plus, they must feel they know the industry inside out — they know how the audience reacts, and with control of both the medium and the message, the manipulation will be complete. Nothing can go wrong.

Except…

They’re not exactly targeting a gap in the market, are they?

K-pop girl bands are so common these days that if you go to a street in Seoul and throw a stick, you’ll hit at least one member of a girl band. Which makes me wonder if they’re going to bother with the Korean market at all, and instead go abroad. In fact, with allkpop’s wide readership, national borders hardly mean anything at all.

What’s also interesting are some of the comments. Apart from the usual complaints about there being yet another girl band, there’s almost a sense of betrayal from some commentators. Although this isn’t the first time that journalists have decided that they can make music too (Pet Shop Boys) or that a media channel has decided it can do this pop thing (The Monkees, etc), the idea that the number one source of K-pop gossip will be tainted has disturbed some.

As allkpop itself would say: Netizens expressed concerns about the new developments: “Isn’t this a conflict of interest, Allkpop????”, “The fact that allkpop who claim to be a non biased news source is doing it shows bias and will automatically have some people not believing it.” “how can allkpop openly support a group like this and still convince its readers that it is unbiased as all media outlets should be?”

How much damage this does to allkpop’s standing remains to be seen. I wonder if it’s possible that people will resent 6Theory for launching a K-pop band in America before already established acts have a chance? This could get very interesting.

by Ersby

5 Responses

  1. Julyssa says:

    So…. a YAM girlgroup for next year? Y/Y?

  2. amy says:

    I don’t want to judge too much with such a short teaser, but in terms of not being able to report in an unbiased way, I have to agree.

    I even find it hard to talk about my favorites without sounding like I’m being soft on them just because I like them a lot. I can’t even imagine having to gossipy-talk about something I’m backing – let’s be honest, AllKpop has been doing a lot of gossipy stuff and has left all the hard-hitting analysis to Seoulbeats.

    Does that mean AllKpop won’t be reporting on all the bad gossipy stuff that happens with their group?

  3. I don’t really know if Allkpop will change in my eyes because I don’t think that they’ve been especially non biased before either, letting way too much gossip slink through. So about them launching their own group, fine, it’s all business anyway.

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