The ‘group’ easea was promoted in all the ways you’d expect for a new group. Interesting teaser, a video teasing something, a ‘release’ date, hell even an ’album preview’. It was also promoted on the pedigree of the names behind it, in this case ex and current ADOR employees, which is often the secret sauce behind most predebut stannings. It was with these things that kpop stans took and ran with. Predebut fan accounts started popping up everywhere, people were in a frenzy trying to claim ‘stanned for day one’ tag, claiming this group was a ‘sister group‘ to all their faves, already starting fanwars in their name etc…
Yeah so it turns out easea is a skincare brand. It wasn’t even that hard to find this out, everything to do with their website and trademarks is under beauty. The ‘group members’ are models and not like ex models trying to make it in the kpop industry we’re talking commercial models who are still booking gigs right now. The ’album preview’ had *not for sale but wait for surprise* on it. The teaser video had a new song over it but the vocals were not from any of the ’members’ but from indie artist (and fun fact daughter of kpop producer Hitchhiker) Zin Choi a fact that was very not hard to find given that she reposted the video. And easea just opened their mailing list.
To be tricked by this close approximation of a kpop rollout by people who if nothing else know how to market is not a crime. It’s the reaction to the tricking that’s interesting to me. Not just because the predebut stan machine was so effortlessly followed through but because people so refused to believe that they had been tricked once more and more evidence started coming out. They hounded anyone who was saying ‘hey this doesn’t seem like a real group’ and are still coping as of right now as to not have to rebrand again. As of right now they’re ’here for the music’ which I guess is fair as far as we know there is a song coming out next week but also if it was really for the music they could just listen to Zin Choi‘s songs which are similar to the Coco teaser as to make it clear that they wanted the marketing scheme version.
Predebut stans have been around for years now and it’s at best a recipe for a disappointment. These stans are here for pretty colors, the feeling of being a detective by crawling through social media accounts to find baby photos or a clue about the true personalities of these unborn members and as bragging rights. I was first, I was here from day one. And yet despite that they are willing to drop said group if the debut isn’t to their tastes. It’s so easy to. After all despite the feverishness stanning they aren’t actually attached to the group in the way a real established groups makes you.
In many ways predebut stans are stanning what many fans and companies wish idols were, where the music doesn’t matter because it doesn’t exist in the public eye yet and the idols don’t matter because they haven’t been allowed to show any form of personality yet.
I’ll end this with my own tale of predebut standom just so I don’t seem like I’m going ‘ha ha look at these stupid person who predebut stan couldn’t be me’. In February 2021 when I was a baby stan three new groups with interesting concepts were debuting a week apart from each other; (now The) Kingdom, Pixy and Tri.be. I was all in on predebut stanning, preordering their albums creating sns accounts for them telling everyone how excited i was. By March I had dropped Pixy and Tri.be because I really didn’t care for their debuts and I’ve only intermittently gone back to their work since. I lasted one more comeback with Kingdom but a sophomore slump and my bias Chiwoo leaving led me to drop them too. 5 years on I have waited until I’ve heard the music before even beginning to follow a group.
So bravo easea. Whether deliberately a social experiment or just a byproduct of wanting to sell some eye masks you’ve revealed what we’ve all secretly known but never spoken outloud. That predebut stanning is the most degraded form of liking and loving kpop.
submitted by /u/Miserable-Elephant-3
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