Chapter 256: Purely Neutral Discussion
Time entered June, and after the large-scale comeback of the DM Entertainment family in January, the girl group market entered a bustling comeback period.
As is well known, as long as you don't clash with DM Entertainment's girl groups, you can rely on your own abilities.
The collective comeback of DM Entertainment's girl groups in January gave all major companies ample time for their subsequent comebacks, so they all arranged their returns.
Besides this, the boy group market was also fiercely competitive. Because girl groups were so dazzling, the boy group market, which theoretically should overwhelm girl groups, was suppressed. However, the boy group market is still larger than the girl group market, it just doesn't have the same momentum as the current girl groups.
With the girl group market unable to compete with DM Entertainment, the focus of major entertainment companies naturally shifted to boy groups.
DM Entertainment not touching boy groups was a major reason why major entertainment companies stopped being hostile towards DM Entertainment after IVE's downfall.
The tradition of the summer girl group war had not yet begun in this world, and DM Entertainment showed no signs of activity. Aside from Kim Tae-yeon announcing her comeback with her second full album 'Rain', no other artists from DM Entertainment were scheduled to return.
However, under Jiang Shu's arrangement, Lee Ji-eun had already entered the acting industry during her hiatus, starting with supporting roles and re-entering the world of acting.
DM Entertainment had little movement, but online, a recent post caused a fiery war within the entire girl group fandom, with the conflict constantly escalating, threatening to sweep across the entire K-pop world.
A week ago, on May 30th, on Korea's largest K-pop forum, a post titled "Purely Neutral and Rational Discussion: Does the Passionate Girl Group ITZY, Who Once Again Surpassed Themselves, Have the Qualification to Challenge the Great Demon King IZONE?" sparked heated discussion among netizens.
Inside DM Entertainment's chairman's office, Qin Zhen was reporting on the data summary of this post.
"The post initially only had dozens of people discussing it, but as it was continuously reposted, the number of participants gradually increased, from dozens at first, to hundreds, thousands, and even tens of thousands."
In Korea, discussions involving nearly a thousand people are already considered a hot topic online, and events with tens of thousands of participants are considered major events.
"Through our arranged dissemination, this post was forwarded to other countries. Among them, China had the highest discussion rate. Thanks to your and Zhang Yuanying's performance at Lin Junjie's concert in Suzhou, the discussion heat on the domestic internet is very high, far exceeding our expectations."
"What about the support rate?" Jiang Shu asked.
"We summarized the data from the areas with the highest heat. First, in Korea itself, ITZY's support rate reached 41%. This is still the data we obtained with the support of our online trolls; the actual support rate fluctuates around 35%."
"The support ratio is still quite good." Jiang Shu nodded. Although ITZY had a strong presence, they were still quite a bit behind IZONE. To have such a support ratio was actually very high.
"You continue."
"Okay." Qin Zhen nodded. "Next is the domestic market. We summarized the data from the three regions and the mainland. ITZY's support rate is 27%. We didn't inflate the numbers; this is the actual support rate."
"That's normal."
This was not unexpected. IZONE's group variety show and Zhang Yuanying's individual variety show were both filmed in China, so it was very normal for Chinese fans to prefer IZONE.
ITZY, being an all-Korean group, also suffered from not having as diverse a member composition as IZONE.
"Then there's the Japan market. ITZY's support rate is the lowest, only 9%."
Jiang Shu looked at Qin Zhen in surprise.
"That low?"
"We've double-checked, and this data is real." Qin Zhen was also a bit surprised. He knew that ITZY couldn't have very good data in the Japan market, but when the data actually came out, it still startled him.
"According to our investigation, the reason for such low data is due to IZONE's three Japanese members. Since IZONE is the first top-tier girl group to have Japanese members, and these three members themselves have a certain level of popularity in Japan, the Japanese side tends to fully support IZONE."
It's easy to understand. China, without its own people, so the support rate purely depends on who is familiar.
Korea, where both have their own people, then it depends on who is more impressive, so ITZY's support rate is relatively the highest.
And Japan, where only IZONE has Japanese members, all blindly supported IZONE. How much support could ITZY's fans alone garner?
"We summarized the data from other regions besides these three markets. ITZY's support rate reached 49%, which is the closest to IZONE."
Jiang Shu had anticipated this point as well.
ITZY's style itself is very popular in Europe and America. Although not as Westernized as the later LESSERAFIM, it is still a type that K-pop fans in Europe and America prefer. IZONE's style is not as Westernized, primarily targeting the Asian region, and their high support rate is purely due to the 'Great Demon King' title being deeply ingrained in people's hearts.
"Alright, keep an eye on it. Report any developments to me at any time."
"Yes." Qin Zhen nodded in agreement, then exited the office.
Jiang Shu opened his computer and logged into Korea's largest K-pop forum.
As soon as he opened the forum, the pinned post immediately caught his eye.
"Purely Neutral and Rational Discussion: Does the Passionate Girl Group ITZY, Who Once Again Surpassed Themselves, Have the Qualification to Challenge the Great Demon King IZONE?"
Clicking on the post, the number of discussions had already reached over a million.
Jiang Shu estimated that out of those over a million comments, seven or eight hundred thousand were insults.
He scrolled through it and, as expected, it started with discussions, but the further it went, the more it became a uniform stream of insults.
Out of ten comments, five were IZONE fans cursing ITZY, three were ITZY fans cursing IZONE, and the remaining two were trolls fanning the flames.
After watching for a while, he closed it, then opened Weibo and also found related trending topics in the entertainment section. Clicking in showed a similar situation.
Basically, it was all about mutual attacks; purely neutral, rational analysis was nowhere to be found.
These people are purely subjective.
However, occasionally, Jiang Shu could see one or two points of rational analysis, such as analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of both sides from various aspects, and then concluding with a phrase like "cannot be defeated even with full effort."
Excluding those purely subjective fan comments, Jiang Shu roughly summarized the content he saw.
The view supporting IZONE was that ITZY had a chance, but not much, with the reason being, "I have General Jiang Shu, the number one K-pop producer + the number one K-pop girl group. How can we lose?"
Well, Jiang Shu was very pleased with such a reason.
The reason supporting ITZY was that IZONE was indeed difficult to defeat, but before G2 played SKT, and before IU fought Kim Hyun-a, everyone was unoptimistic, but didn't they still win? Just believe!
Okay, such a reason was not unacceptable either.
Both sides of supporters had their own reasons, and ITZY and IZONE, the two parties involved, also had reasons not to lose.
Watching the discussion grow hotter and hotter, DM Entertainment's goal was achieved.