What makes a musical group famous? Is it just their songs? Their looks? The marketing?
Of course it is a combination of many factors, but what gets those posters on the little boys' and girls' walls and what makes them buy those concert tickets is a dream of one day being linked to one of the singers.
A Chinese music group called Acrush has the potential become as famous as One Direction — if their devoted fanbase has anything to say about it. That said, the Chinese group is a little different than the X-Factor winners. Because while they might be the latest buzzed-about group, all of Acrush's members were assigned female at birth, but are masculine-presenting — all on top of taking the country by storm.
Quartz reports that the five group members are all in their 20s and have racked up a massive following of around 1 million on social network Weibo. Acrush's agent Zhou Xiaobai told Quartz that their major it factor is that they're "a group advocating freedom, not bounded by frames." And that they're trying to avoid using the terms “boy” or “girl,” opting for "meishaonian" which means "handsome youths." Keeping in line with this, the "A" at the beginning of the group's name stands for the Greek figure Adonis.
The band is comprised by Lu Keran, An Junxi, Peng Xichen, Min Junqian and Lin Fan. They were grouped together by entertainment company Zhejiang Huati Culture Communication Co. Ltd., who hand-picked and trained the five. And according to Zhou, all of the members were sporting androgynous looks even before they joined the group. Fans have already started calling the members of Acrush their "husbands," considered a term of endearment.
Like Western pop groups (à la the Spice Girls), each of the members also has different archetypes. As The Huffington Post explains, Peng is the group leader, An is the rebellious one, Min's the musician, Lu is the group's dancer, and 18-year-old Lin is the young one. – teenvogue.com
Watch these two vloggers try to make their way through describing k-pop and FFC-Acrush.
What do you think?
Is this all about marketing?
Is this wise marketing or using the LGBT community for profit?
Anyone reminded of the '80s, Boy George, little bit of Adam Ant, and … ?
h/t: teenvogue.com
It sounds like they are
It sounds like they are copying Three Lights, the group of androgynous beings found in Sailor Moon. Given the influence of Japanese pop culture around the world and obviously across Asia I'm not surprised.
It also sounds like the producers are trying to profit from gender non-conformism, but I'm sure it will have no success with gay people. It's heterosexual women they are trying to appeal to. Women who fetishise and objectify these acts.