Chapter 20
Lemon Entertainment’s PR Team.
As the collaboration song Something by Jang So-won and I was00 about to be released, the PR team of Lemon Entertainment was busy moving around.
“Are our kids in the music video?”
“Which one, Something? That’s not the title track, so they’re not.”
“That’s too bad.”
“They would have only shown their own kids anyway.”
“Probably. Seunghee?”
“…Yes?”
A voice came from the corner of the cubicle.
The person who peeked out her head looked like she had pulled an all-nighter for several days, with dark circles under her eyes.
“Did you call me?”
“How’s the video production for the company’s YouTube channel going?”
“Yes.”
She answered.
“Well, I’ve mostly finished editing the video of Jang So-won and me working on the song that I got from Ji-ho, I just need to add the subtitles.”
“Okay. Upload it as soon as you can.”
The PR team leader turned his gaze.
“Did you create the official Twitter and SNS accounts for the group?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Just post some promotional phrases related to the song for now, and if the reaction is good, we’ll also upload some videos of the kids practicing. We might be able to attract some fans who are curious about the song.”
“Yes.”
“We have to catch the wave when it comes.”
That was the philosophy of the PR team of Lemon Entertainment.
“We have everything ready to send to the media.”
“Team leader, do you think we can do it with just us?”
“Why?”
“Well. I heard that there’s no promotion at all from Hwai’s side. They said we’re more passionate than them, promoting a non-title track.”
“Why are they like that?”
“They’re a weird company, really.”
“Right. I heard from some reporters at a drinking party the other day.”
“What did they say?”
“They said Hwai Entertainment is really bad at handling things. Other companies at least pretend to do something when something happens, but they just stay still. They said they come out only after the situation gets worse, no matter what the reporters expose.”
“Didn’t they go bankrupt because of that when Sugarfish happened?”
“Right.”
“But I guess I understand why they’re like that. Their main is Girls on Top, right? I heard Jang So-won’s album investment was reduced, so she’s releasing a single.”
The team leader clapped his hands to calm down the noisy atmosphere.
“Alright, let’s stop the chit-chat for now. Let’s start with the press releases that we’ll send out tomorrow morning…”
“Team leader!”
The PR team member who was monitoring the internet shouted.
“Team leader, I don’t think we can do any promotion tomorrow.”
“What?”
“Look at the internet.”
“Where on the internet?”
“Anywhere.”
Anywhere?
It sounded like nonsense, but his expression was so serious that the team leader turned on his smartphone without a word.
The entertainment news section.
As soon as he saw the main news there, he furrowed his brows.
He could see why Hwai Entertainment was so quiet and not doing anything.
No, they couldn’t do anything.
-Popular boy group ‘Sixty Seconds’ shocking profanity recording
-In the recording, member Juwan and ‘Girls on Top’ Joo hana’s dating revealed
-KM Entertainment silent, “checking the facts”
A huge scandal had erupted.
***
-Sixty Seconds’ ‘profanity’ recording shockwave… agency “checking the facts”
[Popular boy group ‘Sixty Seconds’ was caught up in an unprecedented controversy.
It was because of a profanity recording that was posted on an internet site this morning. The nickname ‘King Night Bread’ who identified himself as an anonymous insider posted a recording of about a minute on the bulletin board.
The recording seemed to have been recorded in a vehicle that Sixty Seconds was moving in for a broadcast shooting. The members were talking behind the backs of their fellow celebrities, or using vulgar and abusive language. The recording spread rapidly through SNS, and is currently heating up various communities.
Netizens reacted with comments such as ‘Wow, Sixty Seconds’ character is crazy’, ‘That’s not something a human would say’, ‘They’re immature’. All the broadcast boards that Sixty Seconds was scheduled to appear on are currently flooded with requests for them to step down.
The agency of Sixty Seconds, KM Entertainment, said, “We are currently verifying the facts and we are not sure if the recording is really from the members of Sixty Seconds.” They also warned, “We may take legal action against malicious comments without evidence.”
The comment section was fierce with nearly 5,000 replies.
-These crazy bastards, I thought my ears were rotting from listening to them.
-What do you mean by verifying the facts? LOL. You can hear them calling each other by their real names. Are you trying to deny it? LOL. Are you crazy?
-The problem is not them leaving the group. These guys should be kicked out of the entertainment industry.
-I was a fan of Sixty for four years, damn it.
-The only one who was quiet, Juha, got screwed the most. LOL. How many people did they hurt with their recording? Seriously.
The summary of the incident was simple.
Sixty Seconds.
A popular boy group.
Sixty Seconds, a group created by KM Entertainment, one of the four major agencies, was known for their unique musicality and hip vibe.
They were a huge sensation from their debut, as they were personally trained by producer Heo Kangmin, who had the nickname of idol maker.
They were enjoying the highest popularity among the boy groups, along with TNT.
Until yesterday.
The problem was that their swearing, vulgar jokes, and backbiting in the car were leaked.
You might think, so what? But the content was more shocking than you could imagine.
We all couldn’t stand it and turned it off from the first line.
Things that were too hard to say out loud.
It made the whole country boil with anger.
Sixty Seconds became the biggest villains in the world, and their fandom was completely shattered.
One of the members managed to avoid the crisis with a low-level remark, but the internet was lumping him together with the rest.
We were scared every time we saw the articles and the harsh comments that poured out every minute.
We all had the same thought as we read the articles in our dorm.
‘You guys don’t know because you haven’t experienced it yet. The entertainment industry is a place where a casual talk in the car can spread to the whole set the next day.’
It was the foresight of Yoon Seok-hwan, who warned us of this situation beforehand.
“So the manager was serious when he scolded us.”
“That was close. We could have been like them later.”
“That’s nonsense.”
Ri-hyuk retorted.
“Do you think we would be so dirty even if we talked nonsense? I get dizzy just reading the text.”
“True.”
I answered.
“We are generally polite among our peers.”
“Hyung, people don’t use the word peers these days.”
Oh.
“Seriously. Woojoo hyung. We would have been in trouble if it wasn’t for us.”
“Yeah. No one would have played with us if we were old, but these young people are so nice to us.”
I ignored the teasing of my younger brothers and read the articles on my smartphone.
They were doomed.
I just laughed bitterly.
Is this another prank from God, after the college entrance exam day?
A huge scandal broke out the day before the album release.
The materials that the promotion team worked hard on must be shredded by now.
There’s no point in promoting the album in this situation.
Well, there’s nothing I can do.
I just thought of it as an honorable death.
I’m doomed anyway, might as well get an excuse.
***
The day of the album release.
The Sixty Seconds incident was still dominating the real-time search terms.
-Sixty Seconds recording
-Juwan Baek Yujin
-Juwan Joo Hana
-Baek Yujin Joo Hana
Somehow, the attention seemed to go to the girl group members who were involved in the dating rumors with Sixty Seconds member Juwan, rather than the content of the recording.
The media and the netizens’ interest turned to the strange side.
-Joo Hana’s past remark that she ‘dates fans’ highlighted
-Baek Yujin’s side ‘dating Juwan? NO. Will take legal action’
-Girls On Top’s comeback in jeopardy
The people’s attention was drawn to Baek Yujin and Joo Hana, who Juwan mentioned as his girlfriends, as they were put on the chopping board.
The media started to gossip about the girl group members’ personal lives.
Various communities started to upload maliciously edited materials, and some deleted their posts after spreading dirty rumors and getting threatened with legal action.
On top of that, there was a rumor that there was more provocative content behind the scenes, and ‘recording full version’ rose to the search terms, creating a mess.
At this point, the netizens started to say ‘isn’t the uploader also a problem?’
Not long after, the identity of the person who caused all this chaos was revealed.
There were stories that it was a manager who harbored resentment, or a stylist, but the culprit was an unexpected person.
It was a car repair technician.
The outline of the incident was like this.
After the schedule was over, the manager noticed something wrong with the car and took it for maintenance.
The repair shop employee who was fixing the SUV that looked like a celebrity car at a glance, took the black box memory out of curiosity and copied it.
And the employee who listened to it was surprised and shared it with his friends.
That was the root of the problem.
Someone posted it on an internet community for fun.
That was the fact that the repair shop employee confessed.
“Wow, I can’t see any articles related to Jang So-won sunbae.”
We muttered as if we were bored, looking at the newspaper that was filled with Sixty Seconds related articles from page one to twelve.
I changed the laptop screen to the music site Mango.
-February 3rd
Jang So-won’s album was scheduled to be released in five minutes, at 12 pm.
One minute before.
We clicked the download button as soon as the song appeared, after refreshing for a long time.
We downloaded all three songs from Jang So-won’s single album Wishful Thinking and clicked them with a nervous feeling.
Something.
The first thing that caught my eye was the album art.
The back view of two men and women sitting at a bus stop.
They shared one earphone each.
The background was a gentle beige pastel tone.
The eyes of the men and women were fixed on the blue sky that looked like it was drawn with colored pencils.
[Jang So-won X New Black – Something]
Composer : Jang So-won, Woojoo
Lyricist : Jang So-won
I smiled faintly when I saw my name attached to the composition.
It’s really our song.
And as soon as the acoustic guitar sound came out, we exclaimed.
It was a big mistake to think that mixing and mastering wouldn’t matter much.
It was a world of difference from the final version that we recorded and listened to.
Just like a slight difference in a person’s face can make or break the overall impression, Something was perfectly refined into a sophisticated song.
It was the moment when I realized the greatness of the engineers.
I closed my eyes and enjoyed the song.
It was really good.
It made me feel ticklish and somehow reminded me of the past.
It was fresh and warm.
That was the impression I got.
I reached for your hand that seemed to slip away every time.
I wanted to close the gap between us.
As I listened to the chorus of Jang So-won's sweet voice, I smiled.
They did a great job with the song quality.
We listened to the song like we were mesmerized until it ended.
I couldn't believe it was our voice.
It was thrilling.
And it also reminded me of all the work we had done.
Yes, this was it.
Our song was out in the world.
In this moment, when Sixty Seconds Issue was sucking everything in like a black hole, we decided to focus only on the fact that New Black's first song was released.
The album release date.
The title track ‘Boy, and Girl' barely made it to the 90th rank, but the other songs failed to enter the chart.
But none of us were disappointed.