The Man Who Assembled Us
The man who greeted us when we arrived at the conference room was an employee I had never seen before. “Hello. I’m Cha Wooseok, the head of the Planning Team.”
To me he was a complete stranger, but the others seemed quite familiar with him. “So you used to be a casting manager?”
“Haha, yes. I worked as a casting manager for a few years. I’m the head of the Planning Team now.”
“Ah, I see…”
So this was the casting manager who had worked at our company. Tasha and Ji Seoeun had both been scouted by him six months before the debut team was formed and ended up joining Cha Entertainment. To think he was the one who brought Ji Seoeun and Tasha into the company. He didn’t look like an ordinary person at all. And his last name was Cha?
“By any chance, are you related to the CEO…”
“Ah, he’s my uncle on my father’s side. Of course, I didn’t get in through the back door. As you probably know, the CEO is extremely…”
“Yes, he’s someone who sticks to his principles.”
“Exactly. That’s why it took me a lot of hard work to rise to the head of the Planning Team.”
In a company like ours that didn’t even have a separate A&R team, the Planning Team handled almost everything except song production. He looked fairly young to already be the team head. If that was the case, it meant this man could become the real power behind the company after CEO Cha. That’s just how Korean companies work, isn’t it? Blood ties are hard to ignore. No matter how much CEO Cha valued principles, he was still Korean. If the person was completely incompetent it would be one thing, but when abilities were similar, family naturally came first.
“Ahem. Shall we begin the meeting now?”
Cha Wooseok cleared his throat to settle the slightly awkward atmosphere and continued. “I’ve been put in charge of a significant portion of the work for the new girl group. That’s why I asked you to come in—so we could introduce ourselves. Of course, the most important reason is to inform you about the upcoming schedule.”
“Has the group concept been decided yet?”
“Unfortunately, that will still take some more time.”
If they hadn’t even settled on a concept, what kind of schedule could there possibly be? Without songs, there wasn’t anything we could do anyway. That question felt completely natural to me, but the company had its own ideas.
“To get straight to the point, we plan to begin individual activities before group activities.”
“Individual activities? You mean we’re debuting as soloists?”
“It’s a debut of sorts, but nothing too serious. We want to slowly build up a fandom through modest activities.”
Big agencies often have a substantial fandom already formed for their trainees before debut. Some people might wonder how trainees could have fans, but it’s actually not that uncommon. If you visit certain entertainment communities right now, you’ll find photos and profiles of specific trainees circulating with comments like “This is the trainee from that company.” It’s like investing in blue-chip stocks. There are quite a few fans who get vicarious satisfaction from watching the trainees they’ve supported from the beginning succeed. The fandom built that way becomes a solid pillar supporting the group after debut.
But Cha Entertainment wasn’t at that level. Purple Swan had basically started from zero, and while we had the advantage of having them as seniors, their fans were Purple Swan fans, not Cha Entertainment fans. Big agencies even had that bizarre thing called “agency fandoms,” so you could easily guess how big the difference was. The phrase “a prestigious label you can trust” didn’t come out of nowhere. Besides, Purple Swan had already been retired for quite a while. If we had debuted right after their retirement, we might have gotten some lingering affection, but by now everyone who was going to switch had already switched.
Of course, Oh Seoa and Kim Ji-yoo, who were still active, probably still had some fans left, but they were limited to vocal and acting fans, so expecting them to become group fans was a bit much. The idea seemed to be that we should gradually show our faces starting now so we could begin group activities from a slightly more advantageous position.
“I don’t know exactly what you’re planning to do, but it sounds pretty risky~”
“It is, to be honest. Revealing individuals before the group is definitely a gamble no matter how you look at it. We’re well aware of that and will be paying close attention to it.”
“Hmm~ I wonder how it’ll turn out~”
Among idol fans, the most annoying ones aren’t anti-fans but malicious solo stans—commonly known as “solo stans.” Anti-fans are simply enemies, so they’re actually easier to deal with. Of course it’s best if they don’t exist at all, but since they always do, it’s enough to handle them appropriately depending on the situation. Anti-fans can even help unite the fandom sometimes. An external enemy naturally brings the inside together, right? People can’t stand it when their favorite gets criticized by outsiders. It’s perfectly fine for me to criticize my own kid, though.
But solo stans are a completely different story. They’re like parasites living inside the fandom. They pretend to be allies while gnawing away at the group from within. They make you realize firsthand that twisted affection can be far more terrifying than hatred. Starting individual activities before group activities creates the perfect environment for solo stans to emerge. Even without individual activities, they somehow crawl out of the woodwork, but openly prioritizing solo work over group work was basically shouting “Come on in, come on in” to every potential solo stan.
And if any of those individual activities actually succeeded, the number of fans who looked unfavorably on group activities would only increase. She does so well on her own, why suffer through group work? Those other members are holding our baby back. We need to get rid of them. That was the typical mindset of a solo stan.
“Of course, if the group blows up right away, even solo stans might become proper group fans, but…”
The birth of solo stans ultimately begins with the belief that the other members are blocking their favorite’s path. But if group activities actually push their favorite forward? Then there’s no reason to act like a solo stan. In that case, even they might become real fans of the group. But that’s easier said than done. There’s no group that succeeds from start to finish without any bumps, so it’s safest to assume solo stans will always be a risk. Of course, there are also the completely insane ones who hate every member no matter what, but we can treat those as exceptions. They’re more accurately described as disguised anti-fans rather than solo stans.
Still, we should judge based on relatively normal people. If you base everything on complete lunatics, you just end up overcomplicating things. Anyway, since the company obviously knew the dangers of solo stans as well as I did, the pre-debut activities they were calling “individual activities” were extremely limited. In fact, they were so minor it felt awkward to even call them individual activities. It seemed like they planned to walk a very careful line—just enough to maintain some level of awareness.
But even that was much better than doing nothing. In my opinion, our team’s greatest strength was our visuals anyway. If we could get our faces out there even a little and let word spread naturally, it would be a huge help in building a fandom after debut. After all, every successful endeavor begins with showing your face.
“For now, we’re planning basic YouTube content and web drama appearances, and we’ll gradually expand from there. Feel free to make any suggestions.”
“YouTube, huh…”
“You won’t be doing it alone. Your seniors will be helping out with this.”
I could see where this was going. The web drama was probably going to Ji Seoeun, who had actually learned acting. It was extremely common for idols to appear in web dramas, so there wasn’t much to think about there. The interesting part was the YouTube content. It looked like the former Purple Swan members would be the ones helping with that.
There were exactly four former Purple Swan members still at the company. Choi Hye-na, who worked as a stylist in the visual team. Dance trainer Ha Yu-ri. Active solo singer Oh Seoa. And actress Kim Ji-yoo. Out of the original seven, three had completely retired from the industry, and the remaining four had all stayed with the company. That alone showed how well CEO Cha treated his artists. Especially Oh Seoa and Kim Ji-yoo—they were still very much in demand when the group disbanded. There were offers coming in from all over, yet they chose to stay without any special conditions.
All four of them were currently communicating with their old fans through YouTube. Even Ha Yu-ri and Choi Hye-na, who weren’t active in the entertainment industry anymore, were still celebrities with hundreds of thousands of subscribers. It seemed the company planned to introduce us first through their channels. Of course, there was no guarantee they would all become fans of our group, but if the goal was simply to get our faces known before debut, this was more than enough.
“Please prepare accordingly without any issues.”
“Yes.”
“It feels good knowing that everyone I cast has ended up in the debut team. Let’s continue working well together in the future.”
Today’s meeting only covered the general outline before they dismissed the group. It seemed they had called us in separately to reassure us while the schedule was being delayed. This kind of considerate handling was very typical of Cha Entertainment.
However, there was one part that bothered me. The way that man had said “everyone I cast is here.” It sounded like he was implying he had cast the others as well, not just Tasha and Ji Seoeun. Feeling a bit strange about it, I casually asked the other members on the way back.
“By the way, Yu Hana, were you cast too?”
“Yep~ It was a long time ago, but yes, I was cast. About three years ago?”
Yu Hana said that three years ago she had coincidentally met a casting manager and was offered a spot based solely on her voice. Since she had never really thought about her future, she joined Cha Entertainment simply because it sounded fun.
To think even Yu Hana had been brought in by that man. It gave me a strange feeling.
“What about Seong Jiyeong?”
“It’s a bit complicated for me. I first learned about Cha Entertainment through casting, that part is correct. After that… well…”
“Hmm… I see.”
“If I hadn’t been cast, I probably wouldn’t have looked into Cha Entertainment separately.”
Even Seong Jiyeong—who had joined after becoming an investor—had first learned about the company through casting. Of course, complicated things like acquiring shares had happened afterward, but the point was that without that man, she wouldn’t have even considered looking into Cha Entertainment.
What the hell? So everyone except me had met him?
In other words… the person who had gathered all four of the other members into this company was… basically the final mastermind, wasn’t he?
Cha Wooseok, head of the Planning Team.
Perhaps the man who had planted the water vein in Cha Entertainment.
It looked like I would need to keep a closer eye on his future moves.