Idol Survival Episode 1 — Fan Reactions
Seventeen-year-old high school student Hye-rim had been suffering through a miserably tangled school life ever since the move. These days, her sole joy was replaying the same MyTube videos over and over at home from morning till night. The star of those videos was the currently popular busking guy from XX University — Penguin. Having once, by pure chance, glimpsed the face beneath Penguin’s mask, Hye-rim simply could not stop staning him.
He sang like that… with that face…?
Hye-rim couldn’t hide the way her heart pounded. Scraping together every scrap of information on the boy whose real name she didn’t even know — forced to call him by a nickname — she stumbled through an idol community and learned that Penguin had joined Idol Survival. From that moment on she counted down the days until the broadcast.
The long wait finally ended on Friday, April 15th, at seven in the evening.
Her parents clicked their tongues when they saw her glued to the TV, remote clenched tight in both hands. Because she had skipped school so often after the move, they already regarded her as a troublemaker; every time she set foot in the living room she had to endure their sharp stares. Still, missing the live broadcast was not an option.
“It’s starting! It’s starting!”
Contrary to her parents’ suspicions, Hye-rim was nothing like a delinquent. If anything, she had been quietly ostracized in class while trying to avoid the bad crowd. She pretended not to care, but the loneliness had left her a little depressed and withdrawn. Right now, though, anticipation was boiling over. She had no idea when Penguin would appear.
The opening of the show was no different from any other survival program. A major agency’s grand ambition to create the next national idol group, a brief clip of the first audition where more than twenty thousand people had gathered, then the introduction of the judges.
There was Crusoe, KCOM’s signature choreographer and famous dancer; Erina, a first-generation KCOM artist still actively performing; and Huey, leader of Vesta — KCOM’s flagship boy group currently on hiatus.
“Whoa, we have to judge this many people?”
“It won’t take long, Huey. Just invest seven hours a day watching two hundred videos here and we’ll wrap it up for you in no time.”
“Seven hours? PD, are you out of your mind?”
After the brief judge introductions, the screen cut between the bewildered judges locked inside a giant screening room and the PD’s smiling face. Crusoe’s next line was bleeped out.
“Just tough it out for five days. Oh, we’ll give you one day off in the middle, so don’t worry too much. Two days of watching, one day off, two more days — done! And on the last day you only have to watch a hundred. Easy, right? Seven hundred videos will fly by!”
“Uh… we still get bathroom breaks, right?”
“Of course we can’t force anyone to hold it. But that just means our clock-out time gets pushed back.”
“Ah…”
“What kind of concept is this?”
Raw reactions poured out at the sudden lockdown judging. Huey, who had worked with this PD on variety shows many times before, already seemed to have accepted his fate.
“All right! If you need anything, just say the word. Good luck!”
“Wait, hang on!”
“There are so many contestants out there dying for the judges’ evaluation~.”
Before long her parents, now watching beside her, chimed in.
“What kind of judging is that?”
“Can you even evaluate properly with just videos? You have to see them live.”
Hye-rim couldn’t have cared less how the judges evaluated anyone. She just wanted to see him as soon as possible.
“This contestant’s level is incredible.”
“What the— why is he so good? Has he been dancing a long time?”
“This one is an automatic pass for me.”
The light-hearted chatter from earlier vanished the moment real judging began. The judges stared at the screen with serious eyes. Alongside their evaluations, each contestant’s stage was displayed through the massive screen.
The wide display — clearly product placement — boasted high resolution and vivid color, capturing every movement of the contestants in perfect detail.
“Whoa, how does a body even move like that? And he’s using the stage so widely. Crusoe, what do you think of this one?”
“That kid’s joints are insanely flexible. He dances better than most of the idol kids I’ve taught.”
“He dances better than I did as a rookie.”
“That good?”
“Kids these days have so much talent.”
“I don’t know much about it, but if they’re saying that, he must be good. Why do they keep cutting in and out like this, though?”
“Yeah, I wish they’d show more.”
Because the show only edited the parts the judges praised or harshly criticized, no single audition video played from start to finish. Her parents, apparently wanting to see more of the well-received contestants, turned to her.
“Hye-rim, do they never show the full videos?”
“Uh, they’ll probably upload them later on the homepage or MyTube or something.”
“Hmm, what a hassle~.”
Several more contestants came and went while the judging scenes continued.
“Ah, looks like it rained that day.”
“Yeah, only in Seoul? Oof, he slipped.”
“Weather luck just wasn’t on his side.”
“His singing is pretty solid, but his dancing looks lacking.”
“I’ll keep this one. I feel like he can do better.”
“Everyone’s really giving it their all…”
When an edited cut showed a contestant who had slipped once yet still poured everything into the rest of the performance, her father’s eyes grew moist. Hye-rim’s dad had always been a soft touch for this kind of emotional moment.
“Honey, are you crying?”
“Dad, are you crying?”
“Ahem!”
“But everyone’s picking the same song. Our standards are going to get ridiculously high as this goes on.”
“Right? I’ve watched so many I feel like I could dance it myself now.”
Huey suddenly jumped up and started copying the choreography to Sunlight. Even after more than ten years since debut, Vesta’s leader was still regarded as a top-tier idol; the other judges lost it at his antics.
“Huey, sit down! We’re going to clock out late!”
“Oops, sorry.”
“Aw, why? I want to see more.”
The brief laughter faded, and as the judging rolled on, even the family watching at home began evaluating the contestants right alongside the judges.
“This kid’s pitch is all over the place.”
“Still, he seems like he’s trying hard.”
“They’re aiming to go pro. Trying hard isn’t enough.”
“Wow, Dad, you’re so cold.”
By the time even Hye-rim had completely forgotten her original reason for watching — Penguin — the video in question finally appeared.
“…!!!!!!!!”
“No way, wait, what is—”
“Whoa!”
The familiar face filling the entire screen made Hye-rim scream before she could stop herself.
“Ah! Aaaah! Kyaaaaah! He’s insane! Completely insane!”
That pale face captured in high definition, the vivid red lipstick mark smeared from his lower lip all the way across his right cheek — Hye-rim completely lost her mind. She was watching with her parents, but honestly she was past the point of caring about that.
“Hwaaaaah, hwaaang, uuhh.”
She only learned later from her mom that strange moans had been pouring out of her mouth the entire time. She had been in a near-trance.
The first episode of Idol Survival ended on the judges’ backs as exclamation marks filled the screen above that face. Immediately afterward, a subtitle appeared beneath the K-plus commercial.
“I’m actually going crazy, hwaaaaang, uuung.”
Still crying, Hye-rim opened K-plus and hit subscribe. After activating the free one-month trial, she immediately played Idol Survival Plus and scrubbed the progress bar all the way forward. The moment that face appeared, she broke down sobbing.
It was the beginning of a long, long stan journey.
…
Office worker Lee Jeong had been spending her Friday night with a can of beer and the TV remote when a face she encountered by pure chance while channel-surfing sent her straight into the community boards like someone possessed.
I swore I’d never set foot in the idol scene again.
For the past several years Lee Jeong had poured her youth into Minister, the rookie group that had climbed hard on the heels of the long-reigning stars Vesta. As someone who loved underdogs, she had wanted to watch her idols dethrone the kings, so she hadn’t spared her bank account either.
Yet after all that support, what she got in return was one popular member’s real-estate speculation scandal, the leader’s DUI, and the foreign member’s sudden flight from the country.
That triple combo had broken something in her. She had buried those bitter memories and sworn she would never so much as glance at this industry again. That vow was less than half a year old. And yet—
How am I supposed to look away when he smiles at me like that?
In reality it had only been about five seconds, but that moment had felt eternal. Lee Jeong understood. This was something she had no choice but to run for.
Every community she entered looking for information was already flooded with posts from people howling just like her. Even with her practiced search speed, the refresh rate was so overwhelming she couldn’t find a single proper info post.
So what’s his name already?! Who is he?!
With this many people screaming, there was no way the broadcast station would make them sit around sucking their thumbs for a whole week. That simply wasn’t how the game was played.
The official homepage was already buried under posts threatening to march straight to the station if the prepared profiles weren’t released immediately.
And as if answering that storm, the notice that went up on the official site was more than enough to steal Lee Jeong’s heart completely.
The moment she clicked the link in the notice, the names and ages of the twenty-nine people who had appeared on today’s broadcast refreshed, each paired with their first-audition videos.
“Insane… completely insane…”
Scanning the faces in the thumbnails with a hawk’s eyes, Lee Jeong couldn’t suppress the strangled sound that rose from deep in her chest. Holy shit. This was it. These faces simply could not fail even if they tried.
“They absolutely cooked.”
She tried to read the full notice from the top, but she couldn’t hold out. Only after replaying the first-audition video of her one-pick, Lee Han-hee — sitting at the very bottom of the list — about five times did she finally force herself to finish reading the announcement.
Until the day we create the nation’s idols!
Greetings to all our precious Sunshine — the sunlight that will help new idol stars bloom.
Through the official homepage, we are first releasing the profiles and first-audition video materials of the Seeds who ultimately passed the second audition among the contestants introduced in the April 15, 20XX broadcast.
(Link)
(…)
For Sunshine who wish to know more of the Seeds’ stories, K-plus has additionally programmed Idol Survival Plus alongside the regular Idol Survival broadcast to assist your viewing.
K-plus will always provide Idol Survival replays, and a variety of content that could not fit into the regular broadcast due to time constraints will be introduced through Idol Survival Plus. We ask for your continued interest and support.
“Damn merchant bastards…!”
Even while cursing K-plus’s commercial tactics, Lee Jeong’s fingers furiously spam-clicked the lagging page as she re-subscribed. She ended up restoring the account she had deleted when she left the fandom.
“I lose…!”
Her mouth admitted defeat, but the corners of her lips were stretched wide. All she could think about was enjoying this feast of content all weekend long. She didn’t even need to wait for the weekend. It was Friday night — the feast started now.
Lee Jeong locked herself away and watched videos without rest until the dark window outside finally brightened with dawn.
She started with the second-stage compilation that had gone up on Idol Survival Plus — a seamless one-hour video that cut out every eliminated contestant and contained only the stages of the twenty-nine who had passed Episode 1.
After watching it straight through, she still couldn’t calm the swelling emotion, so she rewatched the entire thing. Then she captured her one-pick’s face without restraint and made it her wallpaper. She even clipped moments to watch every time she went to the bathroom at work.
Before she knew it three hours had vanished, but she was nowhere near done. Next she ran through the first-audition videos uploaded for numbers 1 through 29. After one full lap she rewatched ten of them, then looped three more, and finally settled into endless replays of Lee Han-hee’s first and second stages. She savored the afterglow. This was pure paradise.
The first-audition clip, which generously displayed the boyish charm only visible at nineteen, was the ultimate entry video. The clean, crisp lines of his dance combined with an expression that carried both languor and ease were more than enough to make Lee Jeong’s heart race. And beyond the dancing itself, the moment at the beginning when he removed the mask and his face was revealed — she could rewatch that part forever and never get tired of it.
This is one hundred percent Shorts material.
If she cut just that section and posted it as a Short, she was certain it would hit hundreds of thousands of views with ease.
If the first stage was the entry video, the second was the one that made escape impossible.
The resonance of a voice that was pure youthful beauty, plus the solid, soaring high notes in the highlight that maxed out the song-skill high to a lethal dose — and then he finished by staring straight into the camera with that seductive face, lips painted red. Her heart wasn’t just pounding anymore; it felt ready to explode.
Isn’t this over-immersion bait way too strong?
He had already looked damp and soft from the rain, but the red lipstick mark scrawled across that pale face was so overwhelmingly atmospheric that it left her speechless. The sheer visual impact was staggering.
Rain-soaked hair and clothes + white skin with roughly smeared red lipstick + a face blessed by the gods. That three-part harmony was enough to drive anyone insane. Lee Jeong was absolutely certain this would become a legendary video in the idol world.
Three million? Four million? No — this is easily five million minimum.
She had no idea when the video would be released on MyTube, but once it dropped she was confident it would hit five million within a month. The ripple effect was that enormous.
Watching the first and second stages — each with completely different charms — back and forth, she couldn’t help but realize that this was the kind of person who simply had to be an idol. At this point it was obvious his life as an idol had been destined from birth. There was no other explanation.
This… this is what an idol is.
Could there be a more perfect first impression? After five hours of solitary stanning, Lee Jeong entered the community with bloodshot eyes. Thanks to people who had run all night just like her, the grill was already on its several-th flip.
…(+999).