Look I'm sorry to anyone who thought the Saja Boys were a real band, but it was obviously fake from the beginning.
Huntr/x has been doing this gimmick for years where they'll put on a performance and some actors dressed up like demons will "interrupt" it or get into some choreo fights on stage and stuff. If you're a fan you know, the demons usually symbolize things like industry corruption, Mira's struggle with her family, Rumi being in the closet, etc, and there's lots of hints and secret messages to the fans in what they're wearing or how they show up. Check out huntresx5evah on blsky they've got an extensive examination of the "demons" over the years and what the messages to the fans are.
In the concert before Golden was released, the demons were dressed like flight attendants. That was the indication that something new was about to take off. @/queenhuntrixdontmiss and I speculated that it was going to be a new single and low and behold, it was.
But then the live performance got cancelled. It's an open secret that Rumi was having vocal issues, so that was probably not planned. They needed to buy time for her to recover, so, enter the Saja Boys -- a fake band of guys really clearly pretending to be demons, they release ONE single, do a bunch of b-tier variety shows for a week, nearly all of their public appearances have Huntr/x right there, keeping the hype and energy up until Rumi can get her throat polyps removed and furthering the routine where Huntr/x are supposed to be secret demon hunters and the Saja Boys are supposed to be secret demons.
Then the whole thing culminates in the Golden live performance at the idol awards, the big act with Huntr/x fake "break up" and the subsequent theatrics to make it up to fans for failing the first Golden performance. Huntr/x takes their obligation to fans very seriously, I've no doubt that they all felt terrible about having to cancel, so a free show was the obvious recourse to try and make it up to people. And they pulled out all the stops!
But the Saja Boys were never real. I mean they got real guys to pretend to be a boy band and do the dancing and lip syncing obviously, but come on, most of them didn't even have names.
I've seen this post so many times and I can't TAKE IT anymore. Because there are so many new people in the fandom after that Netflix documentary and I donāt want them getting the wrong impression, Iām going to correct everything thatās wrong in this post.
First off, RUMI IS NOT āIN THE CLOSETā, BECAUSE RUMIāS SEXUAL ORIENTATION HAS NEVER BEEN IN ANY WAY DISCLOSED BY HER OR ANYONE WHO KNOWS HER! Nor has any gender identity other than ciswoman, though thatās less of a debate. You canāt accuse a person of hiding something if you donāt even know if thereās a thing to be hidden!
@ new fans, especially Western ones: yes, this is a #gaylor swifties situation. To be fair, itās a little more substantiated: Rumi has sung a several incredible songs over the years alluding to having something to hide, and most recently Huntr/xās new hit āGoldenā has her belting, āIām done hiding, now Iām shining/Like Iām born to be!ā and then revealing what seems to be faint but full-body pearlescent rainbow tattoos? Or maybe body paint?
But even that doesnāt mean anything, because Rumi hasnāt SAID anything, and no one who knows her has SAID anything. Hunter/x is FAMOUS for keeping their private lives actually private, and their studio and staff uniquely go the fuck to BAT for them on thatāwhich is really rare in the idol industry, but actually SHOULD be the standard. Itās up to us as fans to respect that! Iām not saying friendly speculation is wrong, but presenting fan theories as true? No offense op but cut it the hell out.
Also, the Saja Boys were definitely a real new band whose studio ran out of money because that literally happens. Not everything is a conspiracy theory.
Okay, point by point:
First paragraph is mostly all correct, except, again, thereās exactly as much evidence that Rumi is, like, secretly half-demon and thatās a real emotional complication for her demon-hunting side hustle as there is that sheās secretly gay. More evidence, actually, because as OP says the Huntr/x lore HAS always been this demon-hunting bit. It lets the idols show off their mad acrobatic & martial arts skills in videos and concerts, itās cool as hell.
"That was the indication that something new was about to take off. @/queenhuntrixdontmiss and I speculated that it was going to be a new single and low and behold, it was."
I don't know what OP & their friend might've DMed about, but literally everyone interpreted the flight attendant demons and the ass-kicking thereof as a reference to their world tour & a celebration of its end - especially in conjunction with the AWESOME sky-diving onto the stage! (Alright it was obviously special effects, but it still looked awesome.) This made 100% sense and still does.
"It's an open secret that Rumi was having vocal issues"
BULLSHIT. Rumi flubbed ONE note at the San Francisco show, the last tour date before they returned to Seoul. Was she tired? Probably! It was the end of a huge tour! Was the whole band scheduled for some time off after their last, Seoul performance, and then "Golden" dropped instead? Yes! (That is weird, but it's so atypical for Sunlight Studios to push their artists beyond what the artists are comfortable with that I can't believe it was anything but a fakeout.) (Then again, the cancelled concert was bizarre even as a hype-building move - there's playing hard-to-get and then there's disappointing your fans, you know? So, fine, maybe the girls really did need a break, and they'd planned to do a fake-out but actually it became real...)
"enter the Saja Boys -- a fake band of guys really clearly pretending to be demons"
Play Games With Us is a top-rated variety show, a touchstone of Korean music culture since 2012.
"nearly all of their public appearances have Huntr/x right there"
Even in the build-up to the Idol Awards, there are only so many pop music events - and, in the build-up to the Idol Awards, EVERYONE is doing ALL of them. Tons of other bands were also overlapping with both Saja Boys and Huntr/x, but those two were focused on because they were winning the annual unofficial "boost your Idol chances by dropping a new single right before the Awards" contest. Which is why "Golden" and "Soda Pop" came out back to back like that btw; Thrice also released "Sunbeam", YOUVE released "Heart of a Rebel", and STB dropped a whole music video for "TNT".
I will concede that there was clearly some collaboration between their studios - Huntr/x is known for boosting new bands (Mira literally learns other bands' choreography and does tiktoks all the time!). So, with the need to hype "Golden", the Play Games With Us appearance in their iconic "Demonslayer" outfits wasn't beyond normal - but the joint signing was. Like, it was normal energy for Huntr/x helping to promote another, newer band, but it was beyond anything they've done before.
WHAT HAPPENED AT THE IDOL AWARDS & AFTER:
Saja Boys was actually supposed to perform before Huntr/x and then Huntr/x went first instead, and I have seen 0 explanation of that. I want explanation of that.
Huntr/x finally performance-debuted "Golden", and it was INCREDIBLE, albeit struck as always by the Huntr/x Video Curse. Rumi fucking nailed it. She looked so happy that I literally teared up.
They transitioned into "Takedown", a new song that there'd been scant rumors of at the time (source 1, 2), and which we can safely assume is part of the "new music" that Huntr/x's official statement (source), released on Wednesday after the Awards, said they have been & are continuing to work on, with "more details coming soon."
During "Takedown", the band definitely had some sort of real fight onstage. I fully agree with the people who say that Rumi did not look like she was just acting that shocked and hurt. But! She also clearly knew the choreography; this song was a planned inclusion. Zoe admitted in an interview last week that they'd been having some conflicts in the group, "Mostly with our own selves, but it spilled out on each other. But we're all good now - I mean, we're all working on being better, and that makes us better!" (Source.) The fight was probably part of that.
(Are these "conflicts" the reason the song, and at least 1 more song discussed in this post, are being released in ?? time rather than the night of the Idol Awards as it seems Huntr/x had planned? Maybe! But this is all speculation! Sunlight Studios is as famously tight against plan leaks as it is against paparazzi bothering their singers.)
Power surge! People heard lights explode! The stadium had to be evacuated.
The Idol Awards chair officially announces that the rest of the show is cancelled, Huntr/x has broken up (he has NO authority or known insider knowledge on that, to be clear), and the Saja Boys have won all the top awards - "Best Song", "Best Group", "Best New Group", "Best Dance Performance", etc. Nobody really pays that much attention, because the Idol Awards are as notoriously rigged as the MAMA Awards - which are so rigged that G-Dragon once performed a rap about how rigged they are at the MAMA Awards.
The Saja Boys, presumably in exchange for all the help Huntr/x gave them, decided to help our girls: they scheduled one of their "classic" flash mob performances (lol, they've only been a band for like 2 weeks; but their studio has 110% gone in on this strategy the whole time and it is so effective at building hype). At that midnight show, Saja Boys debuted their surprise new song, "Your Idol" - which, again re: HuntrBoys theories: yeah, this was totally a planned collab. Huntr/x isn't the only kpop group with a supernatural gimmick, and Saja Boys' riff on the Jeoseung Saja, aka the Korean Grim Reaper, is a different part of Korean mythology than the "demons" that Huntr/x usually hunts. But with the way they've been working together? I smell a shared kpop cinematic universe in the works...
Or, I would, if I thought there was still fire under that epic stage-smoke. Unfortunately, the flash mob public concert strategy finally backfired on Saja Boys. Not because of the marketing & sales flaws (hard to advertise in advance, literally cannot sell tickets), but because the "mob" part came real: the fans RUSHED the stage. People were shoving each other and grabbing at the singers' ankles!
Huntr/x, however, are crowd management pros. They literally disrupted the chaos of "Your Idol", by walking in with a song that fans are collectively naming "What It Sounds Like", even though no information has been officially released, nor leaked, beyond the above-linked official statement + interview. And they. were. incredible.
(Btw to people saying that wasn't planned: Huntr/x was obviously already on set, and they would never butt in on someone else's show without that group's agreement! That's so bonkers levels of rude. It just wouldn't happen. No one would do that. American pop groups wouldn't do that.)
...At least, I've heard Huntr/x was incredible. (I mean, they're always incredible, but.) The Huntr/x Video Curse was in effect like NEVER before: between the the city-wide-ish blackout, the ambitious special effects, the last-minute (attempt at a) livestream, the logistical chaos of the crashed Idol Awards, the emotional chaos of the crashed Idol Awards - both of those for performers, managers, kpop media, and fans - and, lbr, probably just that it was like 1am by the time anything actually happened, so everyone was that special combo of really tired AND really wired - there is NO footage that isn't either completely blurry, too dark or full or flashing lights or both, audio-distorted, or all of the above. Everyone who was present just agrees that it was the Coolest Shit Ever.
WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
Saja Boys: new to the kpop scene + terrifying crowd experience + risky low-sales, high-SFX expenses, high-hype strategy probably making a brand new studio run deeply in the red = disappeared overnight. It sucks, but it makes sense. I expect a goodbye statement any day now, hopefully a video from the band themselves but honestly I'd get it if there's just a press release or something.
Huntr/x: had some "conflicts" but they're now "tighter than ever" and working on new music that "explores the challenges we face and fight to overcome. We look forward to connecting with our fans more than ever!" (Source: same statement as above.)
Good breakdown above, but I have one disagreement (and then some pure speculative theory based on that disagreement):
"During "Takedown", the band definitely had some sort of real fight onstage."
Yes, Rumi didn't look like she was acting - because she's a really good actor! As previous said, she knew the choreography. Choreography which included...ripping off her jacket and (quickly and discreetly) wiping off her makeup so that her new tattoos/bodypaint was then visible. Which neatly match the lyrics of Takedown ("when your patterns start to show..etc.") This was a clearly planned "fight."
Ok, now onto the speculation:
But who did look like they were acting? Mira and Zoe! In fact, they were acting almost entirely unlike their usual selves! Like a nightmare version of themselves!
Which leads to - okay, so everyone knows that Huntr/x's songs are super inspiring. They make you feel powerful and loved and part of something bigger! (Which is part of why the "fight" - even as short as it was! - felt so devastating!) Golden was a bit of a departure for them - still about being powerful, but much more vulnerable than they usually are. I think this was always intended to be a transition to What it Sounds Like, and in general, a more open sound - not just feeling loved and part of something bigger because you are powerful, but feeling powerful because you are loved and part of your community.
Think about Golden's emphasis on being "like I'm born to be" - yes, it's presented as powerful, but only being powerful in one kind of way. There is an unspoken fear of not being "golden" if you aren't who you're "born to be."
So: Takedown! It's a nightmare sequence, specifically giving form to Rumi's nightmare - "Zoe" and "Mira" uncover her secrets, the parts of her that are "ugly as sin," and they hate her for it.
So, Huntr/x has broken up, Saja Boys are given the crown. And I agree that Huntr/x was always set up to appear at their flash mob...but I don't think it was just them helping out our girls. I think this was planned from the beginning - they debut their first new song, Your Idol, where they sing "I'm the only one who'll love your sins".
So my theory is, that before the fans rushed the stage, the plan was to expand on the "fight" - the Saja boys would "seduce" each of our girls by playing on their fears and insecurities. And we would get a whole song for each of them, just like Takedown. Under this plan, the "fight" would have lasted much longer and they could have wrung a ton more publicity and story out of it.
And this explains why Huntr/x were giving the Saja boys special treatment! Because then instead of having each girl try to go solo for the "fight," they would have an entire other band backing them up. And it would explain why they were all still singing together despite being "broken up" - they weren't singing with each other, but with the Saja Boys.
But then the fans rushed the stage and the Saja boys needed a rescue. So Huntr/x ditched the plan and instead debuted What it Sounds Like way early. (Because that song is the end of the narrative arc of Golden and Takedown - the girls reveal their flaws to the world and each other - and encourage us to reveal our own flaws - because individually we are flawed but together our flaws make a beautiful harmony and guys I just love them so much....!!!!)
Anyway.
Again, aside from the fact that the "fight" was clearly all a choreographed act, this is just my speculation. (But it is what makes the most sense to me.)
And I'll be honest, if I am right, I'm kind of glad it worked out like this (except for the part where it seems like the Saja boys had a really scary experience, that sucks for them). A long-running "break up" would have stressed me out way to much, a few hours was bad enough as it is.
The fact that im getting raw dogged by life everyday. Donāt have any medication to take the edge off. Nor any addiction, I donāt even got a religion or spirituality to fall back on. Im facing this life stone cold sober every goddamn day??? Why???
But Texans arenāt just āsnowed in.ā There is a very specific thing happening with our state specific energy grid.
Basically, Texas has its own grid to avoid dealing with ā you guessed it ā the feds. But grid independence has been violated a few times ove
Millions of people have been without ANY ELECTRICITY OR HEAT for 40 hours in places that have been -5 to 20 degrees. Water pipes and main are breaking everywhere so that many people donāt water either.
This didnāt just āhappenā
We are suffering under corrupt and inept leadership who MADE this happen.
The widespread power failures in Texas in the face of a winter cold snap shine a light on what some see as the derelict state of Americaās e
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