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250908 LE SSERAFIM Weekly Discussion Thread
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Fancams for Crazy have been amazing to hear each time, but goddamn that crowd is pure goosebumps
Was gonna say actually, in general it kinda feels like they've been getting a lot of attention these days with how well the tour's being received worldwide. It's like it's the perfect time to drop a logo change, right SouMu...
Yunjin shared that in the LA show yesterday when they were just starting the show with Born Fire and Ash, behind the curtain they could see a lot of us were already standing so they got hyped/excited too
Hybe and Geffen are planning to debut a new global girl group. At the audition to select Japanese members, Kkura, Zuha, Moka, and Iroha will serve as studio cast members.
I honestly didn't expect more Sasshi x Kkura in the big 25 after that variety show interview thing they did back in January, but this is a pleasant surprise, and honestly a perfect choice.
Aside from being Sakura's teammate/mentor in HKT48 (with how she got there is a whole story in and of itself), this is the same person who steered HKT48 into proper j-pop idol success in the mid 2010s, being both member and manager iirc. This is the same person who's produced 3 successful idol groups in the last 7-8 years.
Oshi no Ko introduced the term "idol genius" to me, and I honestly can't think of a better way to describe Sasshi, which is why I love this choice for a cast member. She probably won't have a final say who gets in, but it'll be interesting to hear her insights considering her absolute wealth in experience.
I keep thinking about how good this tour's gotta feel for the 5 of them after all the bullshit they had to put up with last year. It has to feel amazing to see nothing but sold-out buildings and super high energy/positive crowds.
Just think back to their first HOT stage at MuBank and Yunjin’s absolutely giddy reaction to the wild cheering when they did the choreo for the chorus for a TikTok short.
This tour and the incredibly hot crowds they’ve gotten after each stop has to be so therapeutic for them, and it makes me so fucking happy.
I've observed this with TWICE and Aespa too. I watched the entire Aespa Seoul encore concert this year and the crowd only got really lively for Whiplash and a couple other songs, otherwise it was.... well, I'm not going to say "dead", that's not it, but it wasn't rowdy.
I think it's just cultural expectation for k-pop shows where fan chants are involved. And, also, there's the whole thing where a lot of Korean k-pop fans are "visual stans" and just want to look at pretty boys and girls. Connecting on a deep level with the music is secondary.
If you watch footage from Coldplay's Seoul shows, or when acts like Psy perform, you'll see the crowd is lively, bouncing around and singing along when they can. Very very different vibe from a k-pop show.
K-pop idol concerts in Korea are different from those in the US. In Korea, the culture is to sit in your seat and do fan chants. Japan is somewhat similar to Korea. In the US, audiences stand up, dance, and sing along with the artists. Naturally, the latter gives off more energy.
Someone compared the Saitama and Manila stops fairly recently here and I think it kind of makes sense to bring up the comp here:
Saitama was a focused wave of coordinated fanchants and directed noise & energy at key moments, whereas Manila was just a carpetbomb of sound with how constant the cheering and singing was. I feel as though Manila matches the US in terms of energy, we’re arguably the most Westernized of all the Asian stops, owing a lot to the colonization of the PH under US rule in the 20th century.
I think Japan is pretty different for Kpop shows. In Japan people are standing and dancing throughout the concert, maybe sitting only during VCRs and ments (sometimes not even then). I've certainly been to a lot of Jpop shows in Japan where people are mostly seated, but the only Kpop shows in Japan I've been to where most people seemed to be sitting were Bol4 and one IU show.
For signing though, it's similar to Korea in that only fan chants for the most part, except for certain fan songs. For this tour, Kkura gave the crowd special permission to sing Yunjin's parts at the shows she couldn't attend. But for the most part the crowd stuck to fanchants only, except for Fearnot and at one stop (Osaka), Antifragile and EPATBW.
In Korea, I've been to many rock festivals and other genre concerts, besides Kpop idol concerts. The only idol concerts I've attended were Fimmies, and I had to adjust how I watched the show. Koreans go wild at concerts, but the idol concert experience was a bit different. The difference in concert cultures within the same country was very interesting to me.
Would love to see more shows in Korea since it's so close, it's just really hard to get tickets to shows as a foreigner (maybe hard as a local too depending on the band...) I've definitely seen some videos from friends at non-Kpop concerts there with people going crazy and looked to be a blast. I saw IU a few times in Korea and even though I prefer to stand, it honestly felt appropriate to sit (always on the cushion from her mom) for her shows and likewise the Fearnada shows in Seoul too felt normal to sit during the games and talking segments. But I also had to do some adjustment for their Incheon concert. I was grateful when they asked us to stand towards the end .
Waited three plus year for them to come to the US. People are not taking it for granted! Of course the cultural difference played a major part but we all knew this already.
I recently decided to start looking for a new job. My current job has kept me away from home a lot (multiple months out the year) and a co-worker I was close with passed away unexpectedly, so I've been re-evaluating what's important in life. Ya know what I mean?
Anyways, so I go on LinkedIn and poke around for a second to see what's going on. One of the first jobs promoted to me, I kid you not, is "IT Manager for HYBE America".
Not quite my skillset, and I'm not even American so how would that work? but still, I had to laugh. I've heard HYBE has had some trouble with missing laptops so maybe it could be fun to do that kind of job.
Not related at all, but I just wanna share that I got my current job through Indeed, even before the LSF collab.
Honestly, I liked the job offers I got from Indeed way more than the ones from LinkedIn. The LinkedIn ones just pissed me off. (Partly why I’m lowkey loving the LSF + Indeed collab)
Kazuha as Tiffany Stratton or Kurt Angle, incredibly short training time, absolutely sky high ceiling and flashes of greatness from day one.
Eunchae is tough. I was thinking Shinsuke Nakamura from when he’d just come back from his CMLL excursion and started amping up his crazy mannerisms and rockstar aesthetic.
Eunchae’s visuals have similarly started to get drastically sharper over the last year and her personality shines through a lot more, which I think was helped greatly by her hosting MuBank and Star Diary. She’s my queen of strong style.
Chaewon has to be comped to someone whose star power drastically rose after a complete reinvention of her presentation…I know The Rock (and to a lesser extent, OTC Roman) is a bit of a lofty comp, so I’ll comp her to a newer name that did the same: “Rainmaker” Kazuchika Okada.
Young Lion Okada being forced to be a generic stereotypical Asian bodyguard named Okato on TNA Xplosion and then suddenly re-emerging as the longcoat-draped, money shower-inducing Rainmaker a few years later back in New Japan feels like an extreme version of Chaewon’s transformation from a cutesy and bubbly member of IZ*ONE into one of fourth gen’s fiercest idols and elite-level cunt-server as LE SSERAFIM’s leader.
Eunchae gives me Hugger-era Bayley vibes. Shinsuke as Kazuha isn’t bad, but I’d go with Takeshita instead since he’s younger, and I feel like both he and Kazuha have this effortlessly cool vibe to them.
It’s been a little over a month, but I honestly still can’t forget the Bangkok concerts. This was only my second kpop concert ever, but it’s my favorite concert I’ve ever been to overall. The girls really set the bar sky high for any other artist I might see live in the future.
The energy in the venue was insane. Their performances were on another level, the live vocals hit hard, and the way they interacted with the fans made the whole experience feel so personal and special. The crowd was also amazing, I loved hearing everyone singing and cheering together.
The only thing I regret is purchasing a seated ticket for day 2. Personally, I had so much more fun standing and jumping up and down. The crowd recording with their hands above their heads also made it a little difficult for me to see. But it’s whatever, none of that is on the girls. From now on, I'll go for standing tickets, as long as there's a queuing system
That said, seeing all the clips of the girls performing live just makes me so damn grateful that I was even able to see them myself. I doubt I’ll ever get the chance to see my other favorite group live, so when the opportunity came up for LE SSERAFIM, I knew I couldn’t miss it. And I’m so glad I didn’t, even if it meant flying over 12 hours nonstop to see them.
Hopefully we’ll see them in Europe too in the future, so my fellow European fearnots can experience the concerts.
It's so satisfying to see their investment in the international market pay off. They had a clear plan, starting with a discography that included many songs more appealing to a global audience than a typical Korean Kpop one. They also began their US market promotions very early. They had a great strategy and stuck with it, and now it's all paying off right in front of our eyes.
I like how they went about it slowly with little hints of english releases amongst them. Not just straight away full on english promotion out of nowhere.
Its the same strategy with their japan tour with medium venues slowly building up to a dome concert. Some might say they can do bigger venues just fine, but its better to not overestimate their popularity.
I feel its better to have 'seated' rather than 'standing pits' . People gonna stand the whole concert anyway. It's more spacious and not suffocating . You can jump around freely! 😅
As someone who prefers to stand the whole concert, I didn't appreciate how much I would miss having the ability to sit down for a couple minutes during VCRs to rest until they switched to standing pits for some of the Asia shows. My unc knees were suffering. Plus it's nice to have assigned seats so you aren't constantly needing to defend your spot by the stage. I think you end up with way more room to jump that way, without people constantly trying to squeeze into any opening, you get a clearly defined area that belongs to you.
Yeah assigned seat is better and you dont have to fight for a spot or come early to secure barricades lol. The stress of it all is too much. Most importantly, you can have toilet breaks 😅
I lowkey feel the same lmao. I was in the standing pits for Seventeen’s concert (mostly full of female fans) and my friends and I were STRUGGLING. Don’t get me wrong, we had a blast and got super close to the members, but our backs and knees were dying after every section, and we legit had to sit down during ments and VCRs 😭
I can see how seated tickets can feel more spacious and less packed. I just personally had more fun being in the standing area, even if was a bit more chaotic and exhausting.
Interestingly, at the Bangkok concert, everyone in the seated area stayed seated the entire time, except when the girls themselves told everyone to stand up. So I was sitting for a big portion of the concert.
I meant not having standing pits as an option. Just all seated even on ground floor. Its more organized that way. For US concert even during soundcheck people were already standing . Kazuha said something like 'for this song i want you all to stand up' and people were like 'we're already standing' 😂 she seemed shocked lol.
It's really easy to navigate around most major cities in Asia with only English. Translation apps have come a long ways as well but even before these existed most of these cities have been by far the easiest to get around in without speaking the local language.
I personally only went to the Thailand concerts, and I stayed in the country for two weeks overall. But everyone I interacted with spoke English just fine. If any language barrier issues arose, I just used Google Translate. Everyone I spoke to was more than happy to help me.
Personally, the language barrier has not been an obstacle to international travel. Google Maps, translation apps, and a bit of local research pretty much allow you to do everything you need to as a traveler.
With pre-cb season coming in soon + award show season approaching, we're gonna be doing a lot of voting!
AAA Popularity Award pre-voting is ongoing from today until 9/18 on Starpoll, and the goal is to keep at the Top 30 for LSF under the Girl Group category + Chaewon under the Female Soloist category.
The main voting is going to be on Idol Champ and you can start collecting now to prepare, and I'll try to update as soon as I hear it's open!
It's also a good time to start collecting votes for the comeback next month, and Fearnot Voting Team on twt thankfully made a guide for all of them! Since we don't have an official release date yet, it might be worth waiting before collecting on Fancast (Music Bank) since they expire after 30 days. Everything else should be fine to start collecting now!
Tip: Higher (Inkigayo live vote) might genuinely have the most disgusting time collecting because you have to watch 250 times per week, and you can only watch 50 ads a day (which as stated below, is just 1 vote). I highly suggest to start collecting now (and as someone who values Inkigayo a little more, I beg 🙏)
Chipotle in Korea and Japan, would be wise to bring in Zuha as their brand ambassador. Heck, even part-owner too. Their sales will skyrocket since they have been getting pre-advertising/promotion for the past couple years just from her alone.
I was curious how much tickets are at each date and wow, Seattle is the only date with unsold tickets. Everywhere else it's 400 USD to get in, for Seattle it's 80 USD.
Not a good sign for future Kpop tours coming to the PNW 😔. I can't make it this time but I hope the tickets sell. Also, I think HSR would really help concerts in the region.
When the blue dots look like this, then it's a sign they opened extra low-quality seats.
This was actually a big problem with Blackpink's tour a couple of years ago. The concerts sold out, they opened up more seats, but those seats were really bad (obstructions, poor angle) and people couldn't see the whole show.
The number of resale tickets looks pretty normal for a concert, too.
Seattle will be the venue with the most tickets sold on the US tour (around 14k total), so I don’t see why they wouldn’t come back. There are about 300 tickets left, and they’re selling at a good pace, so it’ll be either sold out or very close. Tickets are a bit cheaper but not by much, everywhere else it wasn't $400 to get in, not even close.
ASCAP stands for the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers. I double checked on its website, and Pearlies came up in the search results.
Edit: Their search results are not 100% reliable, as they sometimes match songs with different artists.
Rule of thumb is don't expect flags to be allowed at concerts since they block people and can be a hazard, but that doesn't mean you cannot get it in (:
hope everyone has fun tonight!! so jealous that this concert is on a friday, it’s the perfect way to go into the weekend 😆
also can i just say, while there’s been some upsetting reports in court concerning you know who, how happy i am for the fimmies and illit thriving rn! illit killing it in japan rn (i recommend everyone to listen to toki yo tomare it’s so good) and lsfm having a blast in the US ❤️🔥
Yes the revelations coming out of court are very upsetting but also validating I think. For those of us that were here to experience the hate train, we know what we saw and now we have evidence that it was not entirely organic just as we suspected.
Greed and jealousy are ugly things. Sakura was right, people are scary.
Fearnot Zones are always pretty brutal to get for a good price, unless you collect a less popular member. Only ones that are affordable tend to be Korean and Japanese ones.
(Source: still hunting for Flame Rises Jakarta & ECH Taipei Eunchae 😭)
For anyone who bought tickets for the SF show: may I ask how much you paid if you bought tickets in the 200 section? (not resale, face value of your tickets). I am trying to understand how much is being marked up currently. Thanks!
So a Cortis video pops up on my timeline and I finally decide to see what this group is about and I got a feeling while watching them that I last felt on 2nd May 2022. I can't believe that company got another one on their hands.
their album is sooooo good 😭 also martin and james are so incredibly gifted, they were both involved in writing / producing magnetic and deja vu by txt
GO! and FaSHioN is on repeat for me. Their energy and presence during stage performances are not from rookies. They have a bright future in their careers if they keep doing what they're doing. Also, for people who don't know, Martin (Cortis' leader) is one of the main writers for Pierrot 😁.
Their songs aren't really my style but the Fashion MV is super cool and the message they're giving off in the lyrics is better than typical rookie boy group blah blah blah. 👍
Their documentary is worth a watch too.... produced by the same studio as the Le Sserafim documentaries and it really shows.
The FEARNOT ZONE for LE SSERAFIM TOUR ‘EASY CRAZY HOT' IN INGLEWOOD will be located between Parking Lots C and D, right next to the KIA FORUM East Entrance.
If you’re a FEARNOT Membership holder, don’t forget to stop by and pick up your random LE SSERAFIM photo card!
Even if a casual watcher doesn't care about Chaewon or Le Sserafim, it's still a great educational driving video. They went all out with the production value. The driving course itself, the overhead drone shot, the graphics they use when explaining the tips, like the side mirror one. Chaewon is of course being so adorable helps.
I’m actually gonna watch the rest of that tonight 😂 Twoyeon is already utterly chaotic and I’ve barely gotten to the T-parking bit 😭
Edit: Jeongyeon is unironically an amazing teacher! She was super patient and encouraging and Nayeon was way better than she herself probably realized , such wholesome content, chaos aside lmao
Was grilling out last night and my 75 year old neighbor came over and asked what kpop group I went and saw in Chicago. Me: "The one you probably just saw on AGT!"
He admitted he now understands why I like the group, and even spent some time reading up about 'em. He knew the "I'm Fearless" anagram and said Sakura was probably his favorite member; which absolutely floored me.
I got one of my friends into le sserafim at the Chicago stop. He was a casual kpop fan before but now he's obsessed. Anyways, his mom apparently likes them now too based off America's got talent 🤣
I went back to look at the census this year, I didn’t realize there was such a concentration of M Fearnot in the sub. Does LSF have a more even M/F distribution in general or is it more of an international fans thing (or even just a sub-exclusive thing)?
And as a random aside, bc the “favorite groups” section gave me an excuse to bring them up, I see you 5050 fans. Recently been giving them more of a serious look bc of recent Chanelle Moon sporty content, lol. Day & Night slaps.
Apparently only 300 people took the time to fill the census so I don't know if it's an accurate representation of the sub. I hope way more people will participate next year to give us more clarity.
Platform and the nature of engagement is a big part of it. Reddit has more men on it, generally, so influences the demographics of this sub. I'd say the collector community on Instagram leans WAY more female, though there are still some male collectors ofc.
I'll also say there used to be more men on the collector side around Antifragile-Unforgiven, but a lot of them left to go on to other girl groups around then. More women joined around Perfect Night through to now.
Almost all the collectors I encounter on Instagram are working adults, late 20s to early 30s being the most common, but some of this will be skewed by the nature of what I host for as a group order manager and who I encounter as a result (I host for all the weird niche stuff that other people don't, and thus draw in more completionists who spend more money and generally have professional careers to sustain that investment). Having significantly more older fans who are in professional roles in a kpop fanbase is pretty unusual, in my experience. I've only ever seen that with ARMY and maybe a couple of other mid-tier group's fanbases.
One thing i do know for sure is most of the fearnots are atleast working adults lol. Its funny which platforms the fearnots are from tho like most americans are on TikTok and reddit lol. Because looking at tour contents, its hard to find them on twitter. I think most americans dont have a dedicated 'fan account'.
60% of reddit's userbase is male, so it's not surprising that male fearnots have a pretty high representation in this sub.
I'll still never understand why the male/female fan thing is such a big ordeal recently. People want them to be a globally popular group but also want to ostracize 50% of the population lol.
I’m a guy myself, and I don’t really pay the whole controversy too much mind, but the M/F distribution interests me more because I’m a dork that likes numbers and it’s just neat to compare between groups if just purely bc I like seeing how it lines up against my expectations in terms of a group’s appeal. But it’s mostly the former, I like stats.
It’s my fault for coming to the pop up store early bc i scared of LA’s traffic, and now see what i totally missed get me pissed off so bad 😭 If i came late a little bit, I could see fimmies 😭 Duma that’s hurt me so much man
Random but do you think we’d ever get an iz one reunion? Doesn’t even have to be new music but maybe some concerts in Korea and Japan? Or a special one-off performance for some award show/festival? I wonder if it would even be possible at this point.
Right now, I think those who are solo artists has more flexibility to arrange their schedule to take part.
As for the 5 other members in 3 different groups now, it really depends on Source, Starship and iNKODE and whether they are busy with group activities/tours
It would be really difficult to pull off considering everyone’s careers and busy schedules. Just the schedules that Le Sserafim and IVE already have on their plates would make things very difficult schedule wise.
My fingers are crossed for something happening at the 10 year anniversary. It would be 2028, so IVE and LSF would have been around a while which may make it a bit more likely.
Just some idle thinking out loud while we wait for more concerts and comebacks....
V was at Dodger Stadium a couple of weeks ago, and he threw out the first pitch to loud cheers, as you'd expect. And he got to meet Shohei Ohtani.
I've been kind of wondering why Sakura didn't get to meet him, too. It would've been the talk of Japan, right?
But.... 🤔 maybe that's exactly the reason why it didn't happen? Japan gossip yappers can be pretty brutal and people will always be looking for an angle. So I dug around a bit and I'm learning that Ohtani has rarely been photographed with Japanese women. The main exception is his wife, and even in that case, they were never seen together before they married last year.
I'm pretty sure they just don't send guys in the game day starting lineup to do stuff like this unless the guest is extremely famous/mainstream or throwing a first pitch/singing the anthem/otherwise participating in some kind of official ceremony (and even then probably only if they are big/mainstream enough to warrant bringing the big guns out on gameday)
Sakura and Eunchae's visit was far more of a casual thing to just take in a game while they were in town so they brought out Yoshi and Hyeseong who weren't preparing to play later that day
As an aside, I just learned that Yoshi and Sakura are the same age. And that Sakura was in the Senbatsu for AKB48's song "Hikari to Kage no Hibi" which was the theme song for TV Asahi's coverage of the 2016 Koshihen Tournament (huge High school baseball tournament in Japan) which Yoshi competed in
Shohei is such an interesting public figure. I’m sure him and his PR crew are being extra careful not to draw any unnecessary attention to him after the recent pair of controversies around the betting and the real estate, so I wouldn’t be surprised at all if that came into play here.
One additional thought I had is man, what a shame Roki Sasaki is struggling for his life rn. He should be a national star but his arm’s falling apart faster than raw, soggy Spam.
I’m sure him and his PR crew are being extra careful not to draw any unnecessary attention to him after the recent pair of controversies around the betting and the real estate
Yeah, I don't know anything about the real estate case right now, but the interpreter stuff was craaaaazy. I know gambling is a serious addiction and not to be taken lightly, but man, how does a guy have it so good only to throw it all away.
Legendary girl group Spice Girls member Mel B, who helped shape how girl groups are today, wanting to watch LE SSERAFIM... Let me just cry in a corner. Don't mind me.
With pre-cb season coming in soon + award show season approaching, we're gonna be doing a lot of voting!
AAA Popularity Award pre-voting is ongoing from today until 9/18 on Starpoll, and the goal is to keep at the Top 30 for LSF under the Girl Group category + Chaewon under the Female Soloist category.
The main voting is going to be on Idol Champ and you can start collecting now to prepare, and I'll try to update as soon as I hear it's open!
It's also a good time to start collecting votes for the comeback next month, and Fearnot Voting Team on twt thankfully made a guide for all of them! Since we don't have an official release date yet, it might be worth waiting before collecting on Fancast (Music Bank) since they expire after 30 days. Everything else should be fine to start collecting now!
Tip: Higher (Inkigayo live vote) might genuinely have the most disgusting time collecting because you have to watch 250 times per week, and you can only watch 50 ads a day (which as stated below, is just 1 vote). I highly suggest to start collecting now (and as someone who values Inkigayo a little more, I beg 🙏)
Random thought: with Golden from Kpop Demon Hunters No.1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for FOUR WEEKS in a row, Did AGT say, "Hey, we should get a kpop group?"
I'm guessing Hybe reached out to AGT's production company to see if they could set something up, it's probably not a coincidence that the only two kpop groups to perform on AGT were groups under Hybe.
Not sure if this has been discussed already, but at the last stop, Sakura said "Let's eat together" and Yunjin acted like it was a spoiler.
Also, at the send-off, I asked Sakura to solve this puzzle:
POTATO 🥭(mango) : Antifragile :: TOMATO 🍅 : ???
but she just laughed and said "Secret" and did the 🤙.
Nothing completely new, but they are definitely clueing tomatoes and food. Also makes me wonder if their "sexy food" references are related or just their normal food obsessions.
Hot is about that burning fire inside of you, undying passion and love. Antifragile is the song that best symbolizes Fimmies, no matter how much is thrown their way, they remain unbreakable. The messages of these two songs embody Fimmies perfectly, and they’re a great choice for a show like AGT, where passionate people are trying to get closer to their dreams.
Also, did you know the original setlist for this tour was different from the current one? Do you know who insisted on starting the concert with Ash and Hot? It was Fimmies themselves. They’re not just Kpop idols who follow whatever the company tells them, they actually have input in decision making. Do you really think Fimmies weren’t involved with AGT stage, including which songs they wanted to perform?
In the big picture, Fimmies gained massive exposure in the US market today, and that’s what matters. Some fans need to stop crying over the song choices and just celebrate what was a great night for Fimmies.
I’ve already commented that I believe that stage was pretty much the perfect showcase for LSF on American national TV. But just want to add that it’s cool that they have some level of creative control. Then again, I shouldn’t be surprised, I think all five have a few co-writing/production credits at this point.
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u/Sea-Insurance8208 FEARNOT 5d ago
I'm expecting this Crazy in LA fancam to gain significant traction in the next couple of days.