HOW PYTHON SOCIETY SABOTAGED ITS FIRST EVER GROUP ─── AND WE LET THEM GET AWAY WITH IT.
the smallest child can crush a python egg. but let the snake hatch and grow and the python will squeeze and devour the child ─── do you remember monster rookies virago? don’t worry if not, not a lot of people do, they were covered very meticulously by the company that was supposed to manage and protect them but instead failed them.
python society opened their doors to trainees on a tuesday. it was raining, several trainees left the floor at the entrance wet due to their umbrellas or lack there of. there were twenty trainees there that day, kyungsoo would only choose two that day to continue training. many people believe in luck coming with the rain, but was joining python society luck? or was it a cruel twist of fate to those who fell into the python’s jaw?
it was raining when hong kyungsoo decided to make python society. he was always a man who wanted to be rich but never wanted to work for it himself. finding himself working a 9 to 5, five days a week was enough to push him over the edge and become impulsive. he and his sister were drunk at a bar and he was desperate for anyway to quit his job and still get rich. he drew the name and a rough logo onto the napkin he’d just used to wipe the ketchup from his fingers after finishing his fries. the company was sloppy and unprofessional from the start.
python society thankfully found success almost immediately. debuting the four girls was risky, though members like eunju had been training under the company for about a year, yiru had just gotten to south korea about a month prior. the possibilities of failure fell upon kyungsoo’s deaf ears. he couldn’t stand not earning much money anymore, he needed a group to bring in the money. and that’s what virago did, at least at first. debuting in 2016, the company’s only girl group (or group period), virago stole the title of monster rookies days after their debut. their debut was random and rushed, kind out of nowhere. barely any kpop enjoyers even knew that python society existed, and with no teasers or any build up, virago just . . . appeared. but the music was good, if nothing else, python society has always had good music. something that’s protected them for very long. virago also happened to be handpicked with visuals kyungsoo knew would succeed, knew would get them money, knew would be suited for sexier concepts.
virago kept up their “girl crush” concept for one comeback before switching to become more sexy, to appeal to male audiences. it was subtle at first, the sound changing a bit, the girls’ skirts getting shorter, small stuff that can now be seen as concerning, but back then, were too small to bring negative attention. after all, the men, virago’s new intended audience, liked it. isn’t that what matters?
push came to shove with virago’s third release “miniskirt”. released on december 9th, 2016, at the time of the release, yiru was only recently 16, with the oldest member cori turning 21 a week later. the reaction was mixed of course. a lot of the male fans, and even some female fans were overjoyed, excited to have gotten the sexy concept they wanted without having to wait until everyone was legal, but everyone else was rightfully disgusted and upset. not only that kyungsoo would even think this was okay, but because on every single fancam of yiru’s (and some other members occasionally, but they were trained to “suck it up”) the girl looked extremely distressed and uncomfortable.
hong kyungsoo has never really solved a problem or faced controversy in his entire life, so instead of apologizing, changing the concept, pretty much anything, he decided to create another group to try and cover up the scandal, unfortunately succeeding. serenade took up all the attention from virago the second they were revealed and the build your boy virago, kyungsoo disbanded them quietly in november 2017, no vlive, no concert or tour, all of the social media just deleted, and their name erased off of the company’s website.
yiru and dahyun left the company sometime between 2018 and 2020, and the remaining two members, cori and eunju allegedly still under the company and netizens are hopefully awaiting their redebut in the company’s new girl group. do you feel like you failed virago? could we have done more? or were they to damaged to be saved?
