Story/Lore in KPOP mvs (and how they engage us as viewers and fans)
Disclaimer: This is all from my personal opinions and observations. Nothing here is done in a professional lens; just something I enjoy when I consume media.
If you aren’t chronically online or had someone in your life who had mild fandom obsession here and there, you would not have any idea what kpop is or what it's about. To put it simply, it is Korean pop music. That’s basically it. There’s nothing deep about the genre or wrong with enjoying the genre. It’s all music.
What makes it different compared to other genres of music?
Visuals and performance is what makes Kpop different from others. If you think about Kpop, you would think of performance, good-looking people, and an upbeat track that is very trendy online. When it comes to their music videos, the content shown is mostly the dance performances of the idols and showing their visuals off in short seconds. Kpop music videos are dependent on visuals and concept. There’s nothing deeper to explore in the music videos as no storyline or plot is ever explored. However, some Kpop music videos that explore the idea of storytelling allows fans and possible bystanders to engage with the video more intently.
Storytelling in Kpop music videos hasn’t been widely used and has only started to appear more often due to the rising popularity of Kpop and its fan communities that engage with the music videos more deeply than before. There have been standalone storylines in these music videos such as BAP’s “One Shot” that tells a story of a gang who needs to save their friend who is being held hostage. The ending of the BAP’s music video is clear yet ambiguous as there are two endings: one ending involves everyone killing one another, the other ending is the hostage was an undercover cop the whole time and the hostage situation allowed him to arrest the gang altogether. Another popular music video that people still talk about to this day is K.will’s “Please don’t” that shows the jealousy of a man because his friends become engaged and get married. The reason it’s still talked about to this day is because of the plot twist ending of the man not being jealous of the guy, but he was jealous of the girl since he was in love with the guy. For a conservative country, the ending was unexpected and theories have been created since the release of the music video.
Being able to explore storylines and expand the universe of the music videos has allowed companies and Kpop groups to engage with fans in a new way. One notable group, BTS rose to popularity during the HYYH era, translated to “The Most Beautiful Moment in Life”, in 2015 not only because of their music but the ongoing saga of the story throughout all of their music videos during this era. Many fans have created theories and analysis not only from their music videos, but from their lyrics. Another group, Loona became more widely known in 2019 from their XX era for their song, “Butterfly”, that allowed people to learn about the LOONAverse and the ongoing lore of their music videos that started in 2016. There’s a long playlist that goes into depth into the lore of the LOONAverse that I’ve provided the link at the end of this post if you’re interested. By having this ongoing story in the Loona mvs, this has allowed fans to create theories and explore ideas of what the universe of Loona is really about. Also, there’s ongoing memes and jokes related to the LOONAverse that fans play around with.
Now, why does this matter? Having an engaging story for music videos to not only allow fans to enjoy new music that their favs have released, but also engage with the group and their concept in a new way. Music videos containing lore appeared more often during the 4th generation of Kpop with groups like Tomorrow x Together and Billlie. Entering the 5th generation of Kpop, lore and story isn’t as prevalent as it was before as the focus is on trendy songs and dances for social media. The downfall of an ongoing storyline for Kpop was due to the fact companies, such as HYPE, started to monetizes lore and preventing fans to engage with theories unless you’re willing to pay for one book that goes into detail about one event from the music videos; or creating a whole separate universe that is different from what the music videos have presented with in different forms of media but using the same characters/idols. There hasn’t been any love or creativity done in a while that has allowed fans to engage with this visual media of storytelling.
Although music videos do cost time and lots of money, I believe that having a story within the videos not only allows fans to engage with our fav artists in a different manner; but I believe it creates a new way of connecting with others as we enjoy our favorite artist in a common ground. That’s all I have to say.
this is still a wip but this playlist can pretty much help any new orbits or anyone who just wants to know more about the loonaverse in gene