#lee sooman

[heavengirlhale]

SHIJIE 李诗洁 - A20 MAY

know that i have u girl / ur love got me ooh / and i li-li-li-like that

[theboytatu]

sunny is working at lee soomans company now lol

she said fuck all of yall i stand with my unc!

[boasource]

The BoA segment in the 'Lee Sooman: King of K-Pop' documentary (1/2)

[outsidereveries]

when lee soo man, if thats what his name is or was was at sme, was he tied deep into freemasonry?

🔥 | 6 of swords, 5 of swords rx, 9 of swords rx

nothing in common. on the other hand, he has acquaintances who are in such communities and from them he knows that he should beware of such lodges.

270125

[blingblingbubbles]

You know i was watching the video of LSM's new girlgroup doing Mirotic and of course thoughts spiralled and i kept thinking about LSM's obsession with Jaejoong. And then I thought about LSM treated Taemin in public at least in the last couple of years and I came to the conclusion that Taemin probably gets the treatment Jaejoong would have gotten if Jaejoong had been more obedient bc it seems like they both tickle the same spot in LSM's brain and in this essay i will-

[wisteria-tarot]

Will Lee Sooman and Yoo Youngjin come back to SM to produce for aespa? Cause I miss vocal production of YYJ and his hard vocal technique in aespa's discography...

Disclaimer: This reading is only for entertainment. Take it with a grain of salt. These are my personal interpretations of the cards with a sprinkle of intuition. Tarot is not set in stone it is not the end all be all of someones life.

Will they come back to produce for aespa?

5 of cups (rx), 9 of pentacles, king of cups, death:

They may be moving past any disappointments or losses associated with their previous work with aespa. This could imply a willingness to revisit the project, focusing on what can be gained rather than what was lost. While they might have the ability to return, their decision could depend on whether they see it as beneficial to their personal growth or career. If they were to return, it would likely be with a sense of understanding and a desire to nurture the group’s development. Even if they don't return in the same capacity as before, there may be a transformation in their relationship with aespa or a different kind of involvement that could emerge in the future.

[beautifulpersonpeach]

What do you think are the chances SM will drop out of the big 4 eventually soon? All I hear about them recently is how the company CEOs are milking it for all they can without care, I know big ships sink longer but it can't last forever, and Kakao doesn't seem to do SM much good too. Both companies are quite a pair to be honest, lawsuits, investigations and all, Bang PD must be happy he left that disaster for Kakao to deal with 😁 I wonder how SM falling apart would influence the entertainment industry.

***

“eventually soon” feels like an oxymoron lol, but I’ll assume you mean anytime in the next 5 years.

So what are the chances SM drops out?

My gut feeling is 0%. (With a caveat in point 3). SM is still going to be a prominent company in this space for the next 5 years for three reasons.

1. K-pop stans. That company has lasted this long because it’s perfected the model of k-pop - gamifying music consumption - on the largest swarth of fans for the longest time, longer than any other k-pop company. In fact I’d say you’ve not really met a company stan until you’ve met an SM stan because those creatures are the blueprint. Like, I see the way they move, decades later, and feel some respect for Lee Sooman because he’s created a formidable army that’s kept his company rolling through cultism scandals, a government subpoena, an Interpol indictment, several lawsuits from idols under his management, and a HYBE takeover… for starters.

SM dominated 1st and 2nd gen k-pop (alongside YG and JYP for 2nd gen) and a lot of k-pop stans who got in back then were pre-teens and teens. K-pop dominated by SM wasn’t just a hobby for those people, it was their childhood. And they cherish it as such, which also means bias on SM generally skews the way you’d expect. Many 1st and 2nd gen k-pop stans are still very active, they’ve grown up now and are no longer the pre-teens lost in the lights learning about Girls Generation. No. Now, those stans are now the ‘tastemakers’ of k-pop spaces. Much of the mythos around the Big 3 is created and actively sustained by this group of k-pop stans. They are the people you’d typically see being k-pop ‘journalists’ today, they run the main podcasts on k-pop, they moderate the main k-pop forums both in Korea and internationally, and so on. They play a significant part in driving ‘consensus k-pop’ opinions (though ARMYs seem to also make sure they have a voice). K-pop stans will be the first people to tell you how much they “hate” SM for being so shitty in treating their idols, but the bias towards SM in k-pop spaces is implicit. And no, it’s not because of the ‘vocals’.

2. SM’s cost base is low: (I rambled a lot in the first point and now jet lag is kicking in so I’ll try to keep this point brief.) SM spends next to nothing on their staff and talent. Part of the reason HYBE and Kakao could acquire them relatively easily last year, was because that company has next to no cost base, compared to other Big 4 companies. Almost every costing ratio has SM at the bottom compared to peers (excluding legal fees and other non-operating costs); on Korean blinds their employees self-report being the lowest paid among the Big4; Black composers SM hires have reported to The Guardian that the company doesn’t pay them… My point being, even if half of SM’s idol roster stopped putting out music for 1 year, the company’s cost base is so low that they’d still be afloat. Aside from all the auxiliary businesses SM is involved in (they also own hotels in Korea and other businesses), the company is more nimble than it seems at first glance and just needs a bit more time to get stable again.

Which brings me to my 3rd point.

3. New Groups. By this time next year I expect at least one of three things to have happened to SM. I’ll list two. (1) There’s M&A with a Western music label, and (2) SM (as a standalone entity) are back at the topline ratios they were at in 2019. Scenario 2 is already feasible with SM’s Moon&Back partnership, the new girl group debuting in 2024/2025, and RIIZE maintaining their current momentum, even as NCT begins enlisting this year. Nothing revives a company like SM better than new blood, and after the last few years of stagnation, SM is likely to see significant growth from those projects.

I agree with you that nothing lasts forever, empires rise and fall and HYBE will too at some point. And so eventually, SM as we know it will cease to exist. But I’m not expecting it to be anytime soon, save the caveats in point 3.

[onewistotoro]

221022 Taemin ♡ cr:deer_ming