South Korea's top girl group is Twice
K-pop's popularity is rising and Twice is the girl group to lead it for a new generation of fans
Hello everyone! I hope everyone enjoyed their weekend. To start of this week, what is better than your daily daily Humber Views newsletter featuring stories about unique communities and subcultures?
In todays newsletter we will be taking a look into the subculture of South Korean girl group Twice and their fandom.
If you want more unique and interesting stories, please do subscribe so you don’t miss out!
Twice: an introduction to the girls and their fandom
Twice is a South Korean girl group formed under JYP Entertainment. The group has nine members: Nayeon, Jeongyeon, Momo, Sana, Jihyo, Mina, Dahyun, Chaeyoung, and Tzuyu. The group was formed under during a reality show called “Sixteen” where sixteen trainees are put up against each other and judged upon their singing, dancing, and charisma. Twice then formally debuted on October 20, 2015, with their debut EP The Story Begins.
Twice fans were quickly given a name: “ONCE” — a contrast to their group name. Korean Pop music, or “K-pop”, group fandoms in South Korea are different from those in North America.
Most of it comes down to how these K-pop groups are portrayed, especially with female groups.
“Women idols are extremely thin and conventionally attractive, with “doll-like features” and pale skin. When it comes to their behaviour, they have “cute” personalities and are “exceedingly polite, well-mannered, entertaining and responsive to their fans and the public,” noted Blythe Shulan Hunter in a 2019 article about K-pop in Flare magazine.
Based on their personalities the fandoms eventually choose who they “stan”. Stanning is a term used when a person is obsessed with someone, typically a celebrity. ONCEs will choose to stan one of the members or they will stan all of them, which ONCEs call OT9. Twice has their own membership for ONCEs to join which has two membership types: ONCE candy for Korean residents and ONCE jelly for residents outside Korea. Members receive priority tickets for concerts and events (which only really benefit Korean residents), an official fanclub card, and other small goodies
Stan culture is huge in South Korea. ONCEs who stan a certain member will often go out and purchase all the merchandise that correspond to that person.
For example, in South Korea K-pop albums consist of more than just the CD. They also can include photobooks, collectible photocards, posters, and the packaging is often fancier then albums in North America. They will also often release more than one version with different variants of the photobooks and photocards.
Photocards are one of the most-collected items. In addition to getting them with the albums, fans can get them from fan meets, broadcast shows, concerts, pop-up stores, and membership sets. There is an aftermarket for these photocards, with some going for up to $100 USD because of their rarity — especially those that are only obtainable by attending broadcast shows, something only generally available to Korean residents.
In addition to the collectibles, the albums are also essentially raffle tickets that allow you to enter a lottery-based system to get a chance to attend a fan event where you are able to meet with the band.
Then there’s the chants. Fandoms in South Korea attend music shows where their favourite group performs live for broadcast and cheer the band on with fan chants. These fan chants have a very detailed guide of when to chant and what to chant. There is also another common item these fandoms have which is called a lightstick — like a glowstick but electronic and often designed around their group. For ONCEs their lightstick is called Candy Bong and has Bluetooth capability to connect to their phones where they can change the brightness, colours and modes.
The Candy Bong has colours that correspond to each member. In 2019 where Twice had concerts without one of their members — Mina had to take time off due to an anxiety disorder — the concert saw the whole arena being filled with Mina’s mint green colour.
Bandmate Sana was overwhelmed by the gesture from the fans. “When I saw the Candy Bongs were all lighted as Mina’s official color, I felt ONCE were saying they will be waiting for Mina as were waiting in the same way,” she told Time magazine in an interview after the show.
The ONCE fandom grew in popularity in North America when Twice came out with their new title song “Likey” in 2017. The video for the song was filmed in Vancouver, where they have the most K-pop fans out of all the Canadian cities. The music video was shot in popular spots such as downtown’s ‘Alley-Oop’ block, Stanley, Park, Gastown, White Rock pier, and the SkyTrain.
In 2019 Twice embarked on their first ever U.S tour travelling to cities like Los Angeles, Newark, and Chicago. The concert amassed a total of 41,000 attendees across four shows, with the biggest being in Los Angeles and selling out at The Forum.
They have a large Japanese audience too, being the first K-pop girl group able to hold a dome tour in Japan that amassed a total estimate of 210,000 attendees. The group built popularity in Japan by releasing Japanese versions of their songs and their own original Japanese songs.
Twice has more male fans then female fans, with about 59% of their listenership being male, according to K-pop Source. That is higher than other popular K-pop girl groups like Blackpink, who have just 38% male listeners. The age range for listeners of Twice are 30% are between 10-19, 32% between 20-29, 15% between 30-39, 19% between 40-49 and 4% is 50+ according to the same research.
Twice has built a lot of popularity, but with popularity comes the haters. There is a hate group for people who hate Twice who call themselves “Thrice.” These people go around the web on popular websites such as YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and popular South Korea platform Naver spreading hate for the group. These anti-fans downplay the group, mass downvote their music videos, start hate hashtags on Twitter and leave hate comments on their photos, videos, and news articles.
But despite the venom, Twice remains at the top as one of South Korea’s most successful girl groups. They’ve shown versatility in their style, with cute concept songs like the viral hit “TT”, released in 2016 and also more serious edgier songs like “Fancy” from 2019. With that versatility, their personalities and a whole a lot of stans, Twice is a powerhouse that looks to be on top for a very long time.
Related articles
TWICE Look Back on Their Journey to Hitting Top Girl-Group Status, Look Ahead to the Next Year & Beyond — An interview with Twice members from 2019 looking into the future of 2020
Everything to Know About K-Pop Group Twice — A more in-depth look into Twice and their members
Twice - I Can’t Stop Me — Twice’s most recent title track
Twice’s Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube
About the Author
Steven Do is a fourth-year Digital Communications student at Humber College. He has sights focused on ways to innovate digital storytelling. You can follow him on Twitter: @stvndo or Instagram: @stvndo