It has been more than five years since JYP Entertainment debuted a K-pop idol girl group, but they finally did recently with TWICE. The nine members, between the ages of 16 to 18 — Nayeon, Jeongyeon, Momo, Sana, Jihyo, Mina, Dahyun, Chaeyoung, and Tzuyu — have already made an impact with their debut song, “Like OH-AHH.” Even their music video (attached below) has already earned almost 14 million views since its upload back on October 19, 2015.
It must be stressed how amazing it is that a new K-pop group, one with no other songs in their repertoire, was able to accumulate almost 14 million views in a little over a month. To understand how this is an accomplishment, one simply must compare the music video of “Like OH-AHH” to the music videos of other K-pop groups’ recent popular songs. “ Mamma Mia ” by KARA uploaded back in August of 2014, but has about 11.5 million views. “ Remember ” by Apink has a little over 17 million views, but it’s been available since July of this year. “ Love Shake ” by Minx doesn’t even compare, because it hasn’t even reach half a million views yet.
Even music videos of songs linked to viral news in K-pop don’t seem to compare. “Me Gustas Tu” by GFriend only has almost nine million views since July, even with their sudden popularity boost when a live performance video showing Yuju and SinB falling down multiple times went viral. “ Demonstrate ” by RaNia only has a little more than 500,000 views, even after it was announced they will have an African-American member, a first for any K-pop idol group.
Just by the popularity numbers above, one must wonder if TWICE is gearing up to become the new Girls’ Generation of this time. Actually, is JYP Entertainment using strategy in which they think TWICE will eventually replace Girls’ Generation?
To start, we’ll quickly cover the most obvious reasons in which some in the K-pop group think TWICE is the new Girls’ Generation and that is imitation. There is an old saying that imitation is a the sincerest form of flattery. If that is true, TWICE is surely flattering Girls’ Generation. Both groups debuted with nine members. Both groups had breakthrough songs that featured K-pop’s popular genres at the time. And both groups were huge investments for their respective labels compared to others. And, if people want to be really conspiracy-minded, people have argued certain key members have names that either rhyme or are phonetically similar. This is definitely true between the eldest members (Girls’ Generations’ Taeyeon to TWICE’s Nayeon) and the maknaes (Girls’ Generation’s Seohyun to TWICE’s Tzuyu).
Those similarities are easily seen on the surface, and may account to JYP Entertainment wanting TWICE to become the new Girls’ Generation. However, there have been other K-pop idol girl groups with such similarities, too, that failed to become the new Girls’ Generation. Ace of Angels (AOA), though very popular, comes to mind. So what makes TWICE different?
It comes down to JYP Entertainment’s debuting of TWICE being very strategic. First, TWICE debuted during an excellent time for K-pop. Thanks to the Hallyu Wave, K-pop is more popular than ever. As a matter of fact, there are times when K-pop tops foreign music charts. Because of this fact, JYP Entertainment made sure to make TWICE more diverse. Nayeon, Jeongyeon, Jihyo, Dahyun, and Chaeyoung are from Korea. Momo, Sana, and Mina are from Japan. Finally, Tzuyu is from Taiwan.
Second, prior to their debut, many of the members were already building hype for TWICE through numerous appearances mostly through music videos of other JYP Entertainment acts. The most appearances however happened in two music videos. Dahyun, Chaeyoung, Mina, Momo, and Tzuyu appeared in “ Stop Stop It ” by GOT7. Nayeon, Chaeyoung, Mina, Jihyo, Jungyeon, Momo, and Tzuyu also appeared in “ Only You ” by miss A.
Third, K-pop is finally utilizing social media effectively. K-pop actually started to make a name outside of Korea through conventions and shows. People saw how interesting K-pop was, and eventually, a following was founded. Girls’ Generation had to pave the way for groups like TWICE to make it easy. TWICE, therefore, would not take this opportunity for granted, opening and promoting an Instagram , Facebook , Fan’s Portal , and Twitter . Not only that, TWICE also launched an official website so that K-pop fans could learn more about them easily complete with individual profiles and candids.
The final part of JYP Entertainment’s strategy for TWICE has a lot to do with Girls’ Generation themselves. Back in 2014, numerous K-pop news outlets, such as AllKpop, reported all nine members of Girls’ Generation renewed their contracts with SM Entertainment. Unlike their first contract, one that lasted for seven years as just-debuting artists, their new three-year contract is far more flexible, catering to the members’ needs. In return, they cannot cause problems in promoting Girls’ Generation in that time, too. The fact that said contract is a lot shorter and far more flexible than their last contract probably shows Girls’ Generation is getting close to separating for solo endeavors. Possible proof can be seen in both Jessica and Taeyeon. For the former, Jessica was reportedly forced out of the group back in 2014 because she concentrated more on Blanc & Eclare. For the latter, Taeyeon is pursuing a solo music career whenever Girls’ Generation is on break. She just recently released her first track as a soloist titled “I” (music video attached below) too.
In the end, all of this is simply theory and analysis. Does JYP Entertainment want TWICE to be the new Girls’ Generation of this decade? Most definitely. Is that what they are planning to do? Possibly. The only thing K-pop fans can do, especially those who are either Sone (Girls’ Generation fan club) or Once (TWICE fan club), is wait and see.
Do you think Girls’ Generation will continue to remain the overall best K-pop idol girl group in the industry? If not, do you think TWICE will be the one to take their place or will it be another group?
[Image via TWICE/Official Website]