…Min Sun-ye of the Wonder Girls! After a month of voting, Sun-ye has earned her crown as Miss Seoulbeats.
Sun-ye leads the pack with almost 40% of the votes from the final round. Coming in second is CL with 21%, third is Sohee with 18%, Fei with 14%, and IU at 9%. You have voted gallantly, Wonderfuls.
It’s in agreement that Sunye is talented, has a marketable image, a great personality — all in all, she’s got the whole package for an idol.
Another project is over, and another reflection:
Something I remarked in an earlier round, and something the Seoulbeats staff discussed on a recent podcast is the kind of work that goes into polling. Polls are obviously a great way to gauge what is “in” in the mainstream, and even moreso in the world of K-pop. What’s considered “in” in K-pop varies constantly, and at an alarmingly fast rate at that. Some people have a certain staying power in polls, no matter what polls they take part in, and this speaks to two things: the artist him/herself, and their fans. This goes without saying, but as is thoroughly discussed, K-pop fans are a special species of people on earth, and polls are a good reflection of the particularities of Korean pop fans.
The response to Miss Seoulbeats wasn’t as voluminous as the response was in our Ideal Type Cup, nor was it as far-reaching geographically. What does this mean for female artists versus male artists? There’s no way to tangibly quantify fan passion, but it’s pretty easy to say that male artists in K-pop (and way beyond that, too) have more fans than female artists, and then within K-pop, more fans will work for male artists than they will for female artists. There was less social media spreading, there was less enthusiasm. This is not to say that female K-idols don’t have passionate fans, because they do, but as a whole, it seems that female artists just have less going on for them, which is depressing. I would argue that female artists work to sell an ideal to an extent that male artists don’t, so it seems like the major consumers of female idols are males, yet male fans in fandom are not as active, do not drive sales as much, nor do they spend as much time dedicated to their idols.
Not that our poll can be a completely accurate reflection of K-pop fans as a whole, but after keeping tabs on so many rounds of polling, there are many observations to make about online culture, online fan culture, and online K-pop culture.
Congratulations again to Sun-ye and look forward to a special project to end the year next week!
