#marketing that lets ppl know 'hey we exist' isn't a bad thing and there are different ways to do that

[palestinenatural]

went to a talk circle about palestine today out of curiosity -the pro-palestine movement in my country is in diapers and I wanted to check out the few groups organizing it- and. jskdk lol lmao. it was announced as a space to talk about palestinian politics and create posters for the protests this week but maybe ten people showed up. and they all wanted to sort out their personal feelings about the news and congratulate each other on how well-informed about the occupation they are and they kept relating it to local "liberal" movements that have nothing to do with SWANA politics. and they wanted to upload this to social media. they couldn't get past recounting the horrifying suffering in gaza,,,,their idea of "coming up with solutions" was to print some catchy slogans on a t shirt and do "geopolitical analysis" which truly did not go deeper than "it sucks that the usamericans keep intervening in other countries it's very sad and unfair."

we were the only three palestinians in attendance so we were like oh we have to guide this discussion it's so embarrassing that this is the best allyship our country can offer bdjfjf so we went hey isn't it outrageous how nearly word for word western powers are reusing lies they made up about Iraq in the 90s and ppl aren't realizing? what can we do to help them discern and remember these things? and they answered that actually ppl aren't falling for it bc social media is so descentralized these days. so we were like ok if you say so! hey in our experience the general public in this country does not even know where palestine is and they only hear about us when the violence of the occupation gets worse, so their only image of us is as terrorists. and some guy was like um no actually I don't see palestinians as terrorists so that can't be true. and we were like our literal lived experience has been that people's 1st question is "your surname is weird where is it from?" and their 2nd question is "oh you must have family in isis right?" you HAVE to believe us (the palestinians) when we say that this country is not ready to hear about support for the resistence -they don't know where any of these places are, they don't know anything about our society or language or art or music or literature or scientific production or history! cultural relations between both countries are non-existent so it would be an excellent first step to promote knowledge of these things. It's difficult to feel empathy for a people you only see as violent, or as perpetual victims, but these kinds of restrictive narratives do make it easier to accept the dehumanization of the population. the occupation has been so successful bc they know how (and have a lot of help and funding) to market themselves to the world, how to share their culture and achievements beyond the violence. that's why it took us until 2023 to begin organizing an allied movement! no one knows anything!

and these fucking people. said to my face that we can't share palestinian culture bc us influence is just too great :( :( even though I had provided firsthand evidence to the contrary. and they went right back to discussing how palestinian resistance movements relate to our local history. shut up shut up shut up!!!!!!!!! why are you here praising indigenous liberation movements if you won't listen to the indigenous participants!!!!!!!!!! and you can bet they didn't let me speak for long enough to suggest some starting points for learning about our culture and history beyond the occupation. since they want to see us as poor little cardboard victims they can whip out whenever they need to shore up support for controversial local politics so bad

[swordcats]

i'm getting increasingly annoyed by all these you are not immune to propaganda posts and i can't quite place why so pardon me whilst i rant in the tags to work it out

[lesbiancarat]

Lol its fine!! Reply whenever you can ^_^

But ahh true, true. Idk why I thought it would be a hint to the music lol but a sort og an evolution of the concept so to speak. Either way, am excited for the comeback because fresh svt is always iconic. Oohhh the concept photos are all pretty and idk which one to pick jfkshfjsjd. Like they are all very on brand for them but also unique and pretty. Very artsy haha.

Ahh yes, rabbitnwas forever iconic and it was what helped other places like discord to do similar things! But ah understandable!! Both seventeen and nct (when I was getting into kpop more) always felt like BIG well known groups due to their fandoms being so big at least to me. Especially when people always recommended their songs i just assumed they have been around for a while like bts when I joined only to realize they are still rookies. Monster rookies indeed!! The fact so many people love them is enough for me to say they are amazing, well respected and loved by many. Those comments annoy me, especially when people downplay their hard work by claiming 'bighit helped them get more famous' like what!? Yes bighit did help with getting more western attention per se but like downplaying as if they haven't achieved anything at all is confusing to me. Claiming how streaming fans aren't doing s good job to which im like one, mass streaming isn't healthy and two, fans who do try their best and we do beat records of our own. Seventeen isn't unpopular, just because they aren't you know who level doesn't mean they aren't big like do people forget what unpopular means?

Anywhoo, a day late but happy late birthday to our tiger King. May he forever rule the tiger land and take over the world with his tiger agenda lol.

yes! one side fits my aesthetic the best but all the concept photos were nice ^^

and yeah it is annoying but at the same time those people are so detached from reality that I'm just sort of like whatever djflgj like 'it's obvious to anyone who knows what they're talking about you're wrong so I'm not going to bother arguing w you' is sort of my mindset when i see those comments dhfkj bc if i don't think of it that way then i get angry easily. the way i see it bh/hybe definitely is helping SVT with western promotions but like. i don't think SVT/pledis would have been incapable of expanding into the western market on their own if they wanted to. but it's a given that it will be easier and faster with hybe bc they have connections and a reputation in the western market already established. honestly I'd guess that was one of pledis's main incentives for agreeing to the acquisition. but at the same time hybe and western media wouldn't give SVT the time of day if they truly were the flops some ppl try to claim they are lol

and yeah agreed, streaming culture can be super unhealthy. it's one thing to do it if you want to but at the same time don't be losing sleep over it or prioritizing it over your real life responsibilities. and definitely don't guilt trip and say a bunch of toxic things to others to get them to stream... i feel like it would be a lot healthier if fanbases just stuck to simply explaining, hey this is what streaming is and why it can be important (for like music shows etc) and here's how to do it properly if you choose to stream, and then just let people decide for themselves. there would still be people more than willing to do it, and without the guilt tripping maybe even more people would just find it enjoyable. but hey, what do i know? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

i also think most kpop stans underestimate how many views from from casual listeners and fans vs hardcore fans/streamers. like streaming does make a difference, but not 100M views difference like some people try to act like it does. tbh there are a lot of groups that have a smaller core fanbase than SVT but get hundreds of millions of views bc they have a lot of casual listeners. you can even see it internally too: don't wanna cry is SVTs most viewed MV by a mile, it's the only one to pass 100M views, let alone 200M. and it has nothing to do w carats streaming dwc extra hard, it's bc it's arguably SVTs most well known song outside of the fandom. i see reactors all the time who react to it and say "oh i know this song! i had no idea it was by seventeen" and you can look at the comments section and see a bunch of people saying the song has a fandom of its own/even if you're not a carat you have to know this song

kpop stans also put too much emphasis on views imo and also equate views to popularity, which on the surface might make sense but isn't always the case. actually in terms of profit, groups/companies make the vast majority of their money off of album, merch, and ticket sales than they do off of views. but those are all things that are a lot harder to "sell" than views, because they actually cost money for the consumer, while you can watch an MV for free. hence why it makes sense that there are a lot of groups with hundreds of millions of views that get relatively low album sales. it's easy to convince casual fans and and listeners to watch an MV than to get them to buy something

and I'm not trying to diss other groups at all or try to say groups that consistently get 200M+ views are flops, they're absolutely not. I'm just trying to point out that kpop stans completely underestimate the amount of casual listeners that exist

but this is why SVT is honestly such a fascinating case. their MV views are nothing to write home about, and yet they're the second highest selling k-act at the moment and are in the top 10 if not top 5 highest selling k-acts of all time, their album sales are literally insane. a lot of people chalk it up to carats being bad streamers but like i said before, streaming isn't going to make a difference of hundreds of millions of views. this indicates to me that seventeen have a bigger core fanbase (ie people who call themselves carats and actually keep track of seventeens activities) but a smaller audience of casual listeners compare to other kpop groups. and i think a lot of people, carats, and non carats alike, pick up on this in some way or another but don't realize that's what's going on and it manifests in kind of weird ways sometimes

and this fact isn't something that bothers me, i actually think it's super important more than anything for SVT to have a strong core fanbase if what they're shooting for is longevity. but i do find it strange bc as i said, groups that do better with digitals than physical sales make total sense from a consumer standpoint!! so how did SVT end up like this!! it's so interesting for me to think about. i think i would have a better idea of why this is if i had been around since debut but alas

the only thing i can come up with is that SVT is better at retaining fans or like... getting fans invested in the group so people who become carats are less likely to be multistans? bc multistans play a huge part in both being and attracting casual listeners. they're the ones making video compilations and edits and content that includes multiple kpop groups, which is how a lot of non-fans get interested in other groups. whereas if someone is just a carat and making content for SVT the people most likely to watch that content is ppl who are already carats. i know im not the only one that's noticed it's kind of rare for SVT to be included in multistan edits and videos. which i don't blame anyone for, i think most of those people genuinely just don't stan SVT and they shouldn't be expected to include a group they don't know we'll or at all. at the end of the day ppl can make what they like. but it's interesting to observe as a general trend. but idk SVT potentially having a lower percentage of multistans still isn't really an explanation for why SVT doesn't have as many casual listeners bc those things kind of just go hand in hand. like either one could be the cause of the other one if that makes sense

ANYWAY sorry for the long reply but as i said the ratio of SVTs core fanbase vs casual listeners is a topic i find endlessly fascinating dhfmfj