Kim Iwol’s unusual personality was obvious after just a few episodes of self-content.
"Did you forget to put on sunscreen? How are you going to atone for this sin?"
"Who didn’t read the notice and tap the confirm emoji? Do this one more time and I’ll paste the notice on the back of your head."
"When you take selfies, shoot two hundred and expect to get one. Don’t trust your face and fiddle with three or four."
Said nicely, Kim Iwol was a thoroughgoing pro idol.
Among fans, Kim Iwol was already recognized as a man who embodied the virtues of a living idol, a man who understood fan hearts too well, a man who held the group’s discipline tight.
At the same time... put strangely, he felt like someone suspiciously on his second life.
Even now was like that.
"Hyung, the comments say you’re handsome!"
"Huh? Uh, uh... th-thank you."
At times like this he was unmistakably a just-debuted idol.
"You want to try making a Goldberg? I do have a practice blueprint I sketched... should I email it to you?"
"I’ll separately ask whether we can open a shared drive at the company. If not, I’ll at least spin up a Dotion page."
He had a knack for immediately making people let down their guard.
To office workers, these remarks from Kim Iwol seemed even stranger.
≫ An idol boy who knows Dotion — that’s really a weird phrase
Feels like "a company that’s good at its job"?
└ That metaphor made me tear up
≫ Spark’s Iwol is kind of a headache, in a different way
When told “say a word to the members,” he goes, “When interest rates rise, each of you should open a savings account" (laughs)
Back when he tied the kids’ neckties he seemed like an adult eldest, but now he’s just a student affairs teacher who nags a lot
└ But I opened a savings account after hearing that too; first-tier bank rate is over 5%
└ Positive influence
└ “Positive influence,” my butt (laughs)
Baek Haewon couldn’t understand all of this, but there was one thing he could tell.
At the moment he was searching Kim Iwol’s name in the SNS search bar and checking reactions to Spark—
He’d just fallen for a fresh, hot rookie group with only a single mini album out.
Spark’s second week after debut.
And about one year and two weeks into the forced contract between Kim Iwol and the system, late at night.
I shook a sad ballpoint with a broken neck and watched Spark’s content one by one.
And I thought:
"...Not bad."
From the reactions so far, it looked like Spark’s debut performance or mention volume would easily surpass the past.
Same with the communities.
There wasn’t a separate board yet, but every day on the idol board there were new posts mentioning Spark.
Roughly speaking, they were being consumed as "Palseong cider idols who add fizz to the flashy idol scene."
"Fizz, huh."
I shifted my gaze to the laptop I had paused just in time. The screen was full of Choi Jeho grinning like a handsome guy.
The day would come when this punk smiled like this.
Among Spark’s past fandom, it was famous that Choi Jeho’s smile was rare.
On stage he would have smiled for the concept, at least.
But because Spark kept doing concepts that weren’t great, his smiling face picked up only honorable titles like "supreme master of the fishy smile" or "definitely the second male lead plotting something."
But now it was different.
On screen, Choi Jeho was smiling so brightly he could have been any team’s center while dancing that brutal choreography with ease.
Is this really the 0.5-frozen-pollack-eyes Choi Jeho I knew?
The scenery at Geumgang Mountain is nothing to envy. I love that he now stands shoulder to shoulder with the top ten sceneries of the idol world personally selected by Kim Iwol.
And it wasn’t only Choi Jeho who’d improved. The other punks had shown remarkable growth too.
Park Juu tracked the rapidly changing camera angles and met eyes well, and Lee Cheonghyeon proved "stock form is the end of tuning" by preserving all his features with not-overdone makeup.
Maybe I was reading too much into it, but since all the members were pulling their weight, even Jeong Seongbin seemed to handle his parts much more comfortably than before.
Most of all, it moved me that Kang Giyeon could show all his dance skill in front of the camera.
It was the moment all the nagging I’d done paid off. See? Isn’t it great when you brats listen?
Unable to suppress the swell in my chest, I replayed the MV and stage videos like I was bewitched.
Since they were talented, their ability was beyond question.
Thanks to pushing them toward balanced meals, their /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ complexion looked good, and they kept smiling as they worked hard until they sweated — pretty commendable...
Hold up.
What exactly am I thinking right now?
Did I already forget what kind of punks these are?
It was Deputy Manager Nam who created the overtime I didn’t need, but these punks were the ones who doubled those overtime hours.
You think a mere year together is going to dissolve my anger?
I shook my head hard, imagining I was brushing out the idle thoughts. Then I focused again on monitoring.
Some departments bring in money for the company, and some departments only spend it.
As a representative example, I’d name the HR team.
True to the "back office" label, our team’s work almost never showed on the surface.
Same for my job. The only deliverable I produced that was remotely visible to the eye was the recruiting-ad image.
Maybe that’s why.
Seeing an idea I proposed, at a location I secured, completed exactly how I intended — it felt odd.
And that wasn’t the only strange phenomenon.
≫ Trying out UA’s new idol boy group
These days everyone brings strong tracks + their teasers looked kind of like a dark movie? so I figured "oh it’s another similar group" ~
But they came out super refreshing and pure so I was a bit surprised (laughs) kind of unexpected
But I think that’s why they stand out
If they’d come out conceptual they would’ve been buried under Parte
└ If you’re going to seed a viral, at least do it so we can’t see it (laughs)
└ Who gets paid to do viral this sloppily (laughs) get outta here
≫ This level of hair makeup coord for a debut stage — is this for real
Usually when you’ve just debuted the makeup hasn’t settled, so no matter how sleek you try it looks tacky, but they don’t have that
You can tell the staff poured their souls into prep
└ For real... they wore school uniforms, gym clothes, jumpsuits, full school looks, and not a single bad coord
≫ Newbies but the live is insanely stable idol.gif
is Spark
They debuted this time and the live is rock solid every stage!
Just from the little bits of singing in self-content you can tell they all sing well
└ If you lay AR, who can’t do live (laughs)
└ At this level they’re good, no? Even among groups that debuted around now, their live is super inconsistent
Maybe thanks to their still-low recognition, but aside from click-bait hate, there were almost no reviews that were negative about the group called Spark.
Of course, we didn’t get that hair makeup coord for free. We earned it with a costume reference compendium made through blood and tears.
Even so...
"This feels weird."
I’d never not put in effort to make a better result.
At Hanpyeong Industries or at part-time jobs, I worked hard because I figured I should earn my pay since I was getting money.
The reason I worked even harder than the system asked, for Spark, was the same.
To compensate as much as possible for the image loss this team would suffer from my withdrawal.
So all of this was merely the minimum courtesy I owed, to return what I’d received.
"Assistant Manager Kim, if a person has zero flexibility, that’s a problem too. Are you not going to function in society? You want the company to go places without you?"
"Assistant Manager Kim, you think you’re real good at your job, huh? Don’t kid yourself. Where else do you think you could even adapt if not here?"
≫ A company that’s good at its job + the kids are awesome
They just debuted, but even in self-content they matched every subtitle + member intro explainer to the debut album concept
And I like that on every stage they bring out MV props in time order
How to put it — feels like they care about very small parts
The kids’ photocards also look like they were shot sincerely... Seeing stuff like this, there are lots of cases where mid-small companies beat the big ones on quality
└ Even though it’s a mini album, you can tell they mean it just from the packed inclusions beyond photocards — student photos + random draw slips + class schedule, etc. Looks like they thought and prepped a lot
It felt unfamiliar to me that what I’d heard at Hanpyeong Industries and what I was hearing outside Hanpyeong Industries were a little different.
I wanted the system to check my KPI achievement as soon as possible.
So this sense of dissonance wouldn’t last long.
Some schedules, like music shows, are focused on the stage, and others aren’t.
"Viewable radio" was one of the latter.
"Viewable radio," which also livestreams the broadcast site on video, started with channels that brought idols on as guests and quickly went mainstream.
Spark’s scheduled appearance today was also on a viewable radio.
≫ Pulling captures from 2X1023 viewable radio
Photo 1
Photo 2
Photo 3
.
.
.
It’s a shame you can’t see their faces at all because of the ball caps, but I’ll endure it since we get to see the kids for an hour... (laughs)
(Source: SNS)
And I’d had the experience of ripping captures from that viewable radio until my fingers felt broken.
All five punks wore brimmed caps, and I can’t tell you how mad I was the whole time I was transcribing.
If they were going to cover their faces, they could’ve at least dressed differently. As if they planned it, they all stuck to black caps and black clothes.
Ah, I found out only recently why they’d worn shadow looks day in, day out.
"You’re asking if there are too many black clothes in our closet?"
"Since we’re just going back and forth to the practice room anyway, I didn’t really feel the need to care and buy clothes."
Their roommates told me.
That’s right.
For these punks, as long as clothes were comfortable to practice in and didn’t show scuffs from the floor, everything was okay.
Are you guys office workers with a dress code? Only solid colors allowed?
If I’d known this earlier, I would’ve ordered the practice tracksuits in rainbow colors instead of black.
What’s already past is pointless to regret.
Instead, from now on, when they went on viewable radio, I banned anyone from wearing caps. Unless there was a valid reason (like avoiding spoilers for fresh dye).
And so that even first-timers or existing fans could tell members apart at a glance from a short video or capture...
"Do we really have to wear this?"
"If you don’t like it, write your name on your forehead."
"..."
We decided everyone would wear name headbands made in a glitter tone. Handmade in-house by joining forces with the deft-handed Lee Cheonghyeon.
I spoke to Choi Jeho, who was holding the headband with a reluctant face.
"Don’t worry. We already checked together last time that nobody has an allergic reaction."
"Fine..."
Seeing his share — a burgundy headband — Choi Jeho sighed.
Got a problem? If you don’t like it, then succeed to the point people know your name the instant they see your face.
And so the six members of rookie idol Spark, wearing glittering name-tag headbands with solemn expressions, entered the radio booth.
