Chapter 68
In truth, the WMA isn't a particularly familiar awards ceremony to the Korean public.
To begin with, ordinary people who simply listen to music don't pay attention to awards ceremonies, nor do they seek out ceremonies that aren't broadcast on terrestrial television.
They simply hear a brief mention in the news, or see someone accepting an award or performing onstage thanks to YouTube's algorithm.
Even so, the WMA is important to people working in Korean popular music.
In fact, the Korean Music Awards carries slightly more prestige.
The difference isn't enormous, but the Korean Music Awards, being sponsored by a government agency, is naturally more credible and more highly regarded.
Even so, the WMA is important. It might even be much more important than the Korean Music Awards.
That's because it has so many viewers.
Several times as many as the Korean Music Awards—perhaps even dozens of times as many.
The reason was its overseas audience.
Let's take my previous life as an example.
In Korea during the early to mid-2020s, a fairly large J-pop audience emerged.
It became perfectly ordinary for songs by J-pop singers who had never released music in Korea to reach No. 1 on major music sites like YouTube Music.
There were even days when more J-pop songs appeared in the Top 100 than hip-hop songs, despite hip-hop being one of the more mainstream genres among the relatively minor ones… Such things happened all the time.
That doesn't mean their offline presence was weak, either.
Except for top-tier idols, most idols struggled to fill Inspire and KSPO Dome, yet J-pop artists somehow managed to sell out both venues for two consecutive days.
But among Korean J-pop listeners, how many would go out of their way to seek out and watch Kouhaku and the Japan Record Awards?
I guarantee you, almost none. Especially when it comes to an awards ceremony like the Record Awards.
But the WMA was different.
[WMA global viewership reaches 13 million…]
One reason was the fact that it was broadcast in a wide variety of countries.
To watch Japanese events from Korea, you had to go through all kinds of fucking bullshit.
By contrast, the WMA had neatly finished its overseas broadcasting-rights agreements, so watching it abroad was as easy as clicking once.
And the WMA didn't just hold an awards ceremony; it also featured performances.
What's more, nearly every K-pop idol turned up, making it an event that K-pop fans absolutely couldn't afford to miss.
‘That was why the WMA opening stage carried a somewhat special significance.’
The opening stage drew plenty of the spotlight, though not as much as the finale.
Simply standing there was tantamount to becoming an artist who represented that year.
After finishing the performance.
I returned to the waiting room, took a short break, then opened Twitter and started lurking.
By this point, there was no way the domestic online communities could have a bad opinion of Blooming and me. Our live performance hadn't really left anything to criticize in the first place.
What I mainly looked at, as always, was the overseas reaction.
There was something especially fun about seeing the reactions of foreigners posting with the WMA tag.
They probably didn't know much about Blooming or me.
No matter how much we'd practically occupied the charts for six months straight, these people weren't going to go out of their way to look up Korean charts.
They'd probably just listen to the songs by the idols they liked.
-The WMA opening stage was amazing. Are the girls called Blooming idols, or are they a band?
↳They placed third on the audition program Singerstar 5 that aired recently. Singerstar 5 was a huge hit in Korea.
↳Lee Hyojin came from Singerstar 4.
-That opening stage was amazing. I never expected to see a performance like that from a Korean band.
-I was watching the WMA to see Starlight, and I ended up discovering an amazing band.
-A high-school-girl band? How is this level of skill even possible already? Maybe Korea is the true band powerhouse.
↳Korea is musically superior to Japan.
↳I used to pride myself on Japan being the best when it came to bands, but maybe I'll have to change my mind.
-What the hell is up with that big-chested vocalist? How high can she sing?
↳She's not even an adult yet. Please watch what you say.
-How can all of them be so cute? They're the best band I've ever seen.
-Black Canary reborn. Blooming has the potential to grow as much as they did.
As expected, Blooming was the one receiving the most attention. Japan also made up the bulk of K-pop's overseas audience, and bands were a hugely mainstream genre there.
Since more than half the songs on the charts in that country had a band sound, it was only natural for these high school girls, whose skills were far from lacking, to attract attention.
All of this would pile up and help with their future push into Japan.
And naturally, there was also mention of the little one caught up in the middle of it all.
1. Trending in Japan
The Violin Girl
2.Trending in Japan
Seo Siyeon
3.Trending in Japan
#WMA
There were quite a lot of them—no, an unimaginable number.
* * *
In truth, the name Seo Siyeon itself was already fairly well known, here and there, among Japanese K-pop fandoms.
For starters, simply having dominated the Korean charts for nearly half a year was enough to make her somewhat famous.
However, Japanese people knew the name Seo Siyeon, but they didn't know her face, her songs, or even how old she was.
That stood in stark contrast to the fact that every Korean knew about Korea's genius girl. Japanese fans simply didn't go out of their way to look up anyone besides the idol they liked.
At least, the Starlight fandom knew a fair amount about Seo Siyeon.
That was because Haruka kept feeding them Seo Siyeon through her Instagram Stories.
However, most of them didn't even know that the girl was Seo Siyeon. They simply thought of her as a cute little kid.
So, at the beginning of the stage, when the camera captured Seo Siyeon brilliantly playing the violin in a solo shot…
-That girl! I saw her on Haruka's Instagram!
That was about the extent of the reaction.
-Amazing skill for someone so young.
-Is that kid a promising classical musician from Korea?
-The return of little Han Juil.
For reference, Han Juil is Park Heesu's mother. My face instantly flared up when they compared me to someone who had won a Grammy for playing the violin.
“…This is a little embarrassing.”
I might win one as a composer, but as a Korean solo singer, I wouldn't be able to win a Grammy anyway.
What would even be the point of winning an award from a local American awards ceremony in the first place?
Even so, Grammy winners were objects of admiration to me.
It meant they had enough talent to win despite the penalty of being East Asian.
I sorted posts mentioning my name by popularity.
So, right at the top, I found a post with an enormous number of retweets and likes.
“……”
“Oh… cute.”
There I was, doing all sorts of cute and adorable choreography and making adorable expressions during the Jellypop stage.
A full ten GIFs, followed at the end by today's me holding the violin with a chilly expression.
I was satisfied with everything I'd shown today—my skill, the expressions caught by the camera, and the overall mood.
-The contrast between that girl's cool expression and her acting cute is always great.
[Comments:523][Retweets:12.5k][Likes:52.8k][Views:421.6k]
“No, you had plenty of other things to use besides this… Why did it have to be the Jellypop stage!”
“Because that's the cutest.”
“Heesu unni. Please be quiet.”
My face turned red as a beet from embarrassment.
I just wanted to die.
* * *
“The artist who showed the most noteworthy performance over the past year…”
“Female Rookie of the Year! Seo Siyeon! Congratulations!”
First, one.
“Next up is the dance music that set this past year ablaze! Which nominees will…”
“Congratulations! Seo Siyeon's Jellypop for Female Dance Music of the Year!”
And two.
“Music that gets me excited along with its thrilling sound! The band…”
“Band Music of the Year is…! Blooming and Seo Siyeon's glassy sky!”
I accepted it with Blooming, but it was still an individual award, so that made three.
“These are the songs that touched our hearts throughout the year, right? Let's see which ballads were nominated…”
“The song that made our hearts ache the most this year? Seo Siyeon's Starry Night! Congratulations!”
Adding another one made four.
“Next up are the composers who wrote wonderful songs throughout the year and made the artists shine from behind the scenes…”
“Composer of the Year, Seo Siyeon! Congratulations!”
Having taken the Composer award too, that made five.
“Top Ten of the Year. Starlight, Blooming, RPS, FYG, Bad Monster, Lee Hyojin, Na-eun, Lee Seunghyun, TXT, and Seo Siyeon. Congratulations, everyone!”
As expected, I took Top Ten as well, bringing the total to six.
By then, the reaction in Japan naturally began to change a little.
-…Exactly how many awards is Siyeon-chan going to receive?
They'd never seen anyone sweep up almost every award like this before.