Except when we were doing makeup, all the members stared hard at the chat window, but thankfully no posts went up saying there was anything dangerous.
Instead, SNS filled with reverse-support reviews that fans diligently posted.
≫ Today’s Spark public broadcast reverse support review
I saw just the drinks and madeleines and thought, “Okay, these guys know a thing or two~”
Then I saw the self-defense spray and the letter underneath and your older sis burst into tears.
And it was even a handwritten letter ㅠㅠㅠ
Sorry I was so blinded by the food that I noticed your love late......
└ Hul, a handwritten letter ㅠㅠ I’m so jealous
└ My ultimate bias is Jeho and my second is Giyeon, but Giyeon got a letter ㅠㅠㅠㅠ Our baby bragged it was the stationery he picked himself—I honestly need to plant a hundred kisses on those cheeks
└ Giyeon lives kindly, why are you like this
└ Ah nah [laughs]
≫ Rookie boy group reverse-support class
They handed out self-defense spray around 30,000 won per person because early-morning pre-recordings are risky
└ I don’t think this rises to the level of “class”...... hmm
└ Fandoms that write comments like this: have never received reverse support
└ [laughs] what are you even saying lol if the company paid then that’s company reverse support, not idol reverse support?
└ The kids haven’t even gotten their first settlement—if the company says it covered it, mocking them when they wanted to do it out of pocket is just straight up ignoring their hearts~
└ These kids have never taken tributes or gifts from fans since debut ㅠㅠ They always try to do even a little more for fans! Please look on them kindly ㅎㅎ
≫ I opened the shopping bag and a police-station map popped out, scared me
└ A pretty unique wrapping-paper design
└ [laughs]
≫ No wonder the madeleines tasted so good
They were from an expensive place......
Came for the pre-recording and suddenly found my life-best madeleine
Compared to the time you waited for us, something like this is nothing.
My heart heaved. Guilt and gratitude, that kind of thing all mixed together.
Maybe that’s why the wait for recording felt only long.
And it seemed I wasn’t the only one thinking like this.
“Fans must be having such a hard time, right? We just have to wait in the green room, but.......”
“Yeah. We really have to give it our all on stage today.”
Lee Cheonghyeon and Jeong Seongbin said, still looking up at the dark sky.
Park Juu was already in one corner of the practice room warming up his voice.
I carried each of them a cup of warm water and said,
“You know the most important thing for that is not going off-pitch, right? Warm up hard.”
“Okay!”
Except for the taciturn dance line, the three yelled back at full volume. I have no idea where my nagging to save their voices went.
We didn’t get to see the fans again until 3 a.m.
“Everyone, have you been well?”
“We have!”
“You’re so tired from an early-morning pre-recording, right?”
“Not tired at all!”
Of course it’s only right that we, who put them through hardship waiting, show as bright a face as possible.
But fans aren’t obligated to do that, and yet they welcomed us without a hint of fatigue.
There were even outfits I often saw on people on the morning commuter subway.
I looked at a few people and carefully asked,
“Um, office workers—how are you doing work today.......”
“Morning half-day!”
“Then you’ll head to work after the pre-recording?”
“I don’t want to!”
“I’m going to quit!”
How could such complicated feelings fit into just five syllables and still be so vivid.
My chest ached along with them. How are they supposed to go to the office after this. I didn’t dare think of what to say.
“Thank you so much for spending your golden time off on us. We’ll really give it everything on stage today!”
I chose my words with difficulty. I wanted to express this gratitude even if it was lacking.
When I bowed at the waist, the guys next to me bowed along. Good job, you punks.
Every time we got a short break between shoots, we talked about all sorts of things.
“The dye looks great on you!”
“Really? But isn’t Iwol hyung’s gray a bit too dark? Hyung should’ve done, like, green or something!”
“No way, tone destroyer!”
Sometimes I’d get summoned from over there. Thankfully many fans restrained Lee Cheonghyeon’s bold remarks.
More than that—huh? Do you know how long I agonized before choosing gray? It was my first time bleaching in my life.
For first-stage outfits people often use the music-video costumes, but today Spark wore outfits that made us look like Boy Scouts. We only shifted the palette to a fresh blue range.
“How are our outfits? Do they look okay?”
When Jeong Seongbin asked, we got an explosive response.
Other than when I go exercise, I never wear shorts, so I was a bit shy. Seems the fans liked them.
No wonder—old Spark kids filmed a music video in shorts in the dead of winter.
For this music show run, we decided to wear outfits tied to the wishes the little Spark kids wrote and put into the time capsule in the music video.
Starting with me, Kim Iwol, in an adventurer outfit, then a hero outfit, a vacation outfit, a pajama-party outfit, a PC room regular outfit, and a skateboarder outfit will come out in order.
There was a reason the lineup ended up like this.
“Who wrote ‘hero’?”
“Me.”
“Choi Jeho, you’re more opinionated than I thought.”
One kid only had magical warrior girl toys at home, so he wanted to wear a hero mask at least once.
“Juu, what’s a pajama party?”
“You wear pajamas and order a bunch of yummy stuff and hang out......!”
Another kid wanted to have a pajama party he heard his cousin noona and her friends enjoyed every quarter.
“PC room regular? Do grade-schoolers go to PC rooms that much?”
“Hyung, you’ve never been to a PC room during the day? It’s basically after-school there.”
“Lee Cheonghyeon, you’re really savvy about that ecosystem, huh?”
“Ah, Giyeon taught me all this.”
“Why am I coming up here?”
There was even a kid who wanted to stay at a PC room until he’d spent all his allowance. Kids sure had a lot they wanted to do for Children’s Day.
So since we put the ideas into the MV anyway, we matched the outfits too.
Now I’m worried the next music show will make us wear skintight suits. I’m going to start praying hard to dodge that from today.
When Lee Cheonghyeon asked how the song was, a cheer went up.
It’s not a song that’s easy to dislike, but seeing the good reaction with his own eyes, Lee Cheonghyeon looked that much happier.
“We’ll begin Spark’s recording.”
And with the sound that ended our short break, recording started again.
After several rounds, the recording ended without incident.
Kang Giyeon, who went off-pitch, almost fell into a panic, but thanks to the mind-control method we’ve been practicing, he made up for every mistake in the next take.
I patted his back with a couple of taps, even as cold sweat poured down me and I kept it from showing.
With full promotions starting in earnest, every day from today on would be a blur. We didn’t have time to breathe just because one music show ended.
“Shall we film the meeting for ‘Challenge! Life Experience’ here too?”
Our first variety shoot for this era was starting this very morning. At least we could save travel time since it was the same station.
Up to now, there hadn’t been many variety programs Spark could go on.
There are already too many idol groups, and as chefs, athletes, and people from all kinds of fields shine on TV, the trend of broadcasters specifically calling idol guests has been fading.
But Spark needed TV program appearances.
No matter how diverse the platforms have become, along with music shows, terrestrial/national-network variety is still a promotional tool we can’t give up.
Up to now, we’ve replaced the lack of variety slots with a flood of self-content.
During promotion periods we uploaded self-content weekly, and even at the worst, we did group live streams at least twice a week; whether we were promoting or not, once a month every member uploaded an individual content video.
Add in personal live streams or extra uploads of members’ individual content and the number was considerable. Among groups promoting in the same window, Spark’s video upload cadence would be overwhelmingly short.
But doing everything with self-content brought side effects too. The inflow from external channels was low.
And no matter how high you push the quality of self-content, it’s hard to compare it to existing variety in quality. The camera image alone made that clear.
Even just looking at per-member cams, equipment tech, usable budgets—the gaps were obvious.
I had to fight so hard to drag in a self-content budget from cash-strapped UA as it was. We should also lean on a broadcast program at least once.
With that in mind, one program caught my eye as I was looking into this variety and that one.
It was a show called “Challenge! Life Experience.”
A variety where celebrities try out different jobs—“Challenge! Life Experience.”
There was a reason such a simple variety show survived even in the era of the content flood.
≫ Next week’s CLX (“Challenge! Life Experience”) preview is up
Selling tanghulu in Hongdae [laughs]
└ Wow that’s already brutal
└ You can feel the chaos from the preview alone......
The celebrity experiences a job you can very easily see around you.
For a full eight hours, the recommended daily working time.
In other words, you suffer as much as you suffer, but the “effect” isn’t all that great—a kind of extreme-job experience gig.
Celebrities trying out the same kind of work as the viewers and showing real empathy for the high labor intensity came across as sincere to many.
Since the show’s very purpose is to ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) experience various worksites, it’s been brought up socially many times.
≫ What do you personally think is the legendary CLX episode?
Sanitation-worker ep VS diving ep
└ That’s hard......
└ Personally I pick diving
└ I think the sanitation-worker ep is the truly legendary one that nailed both labor intensity and social perception! I heard schools used it a ton as visual material after it aired!
Buzz? Pass.
Chances of securing a booking? High.
Program soundness? Say no more.
So I immediately knocked on the Planning Team’s door until it practically broke. And I strongly appealed about how much I wanted to experience a rough life.
The result:
“Guys, we’ve got about two hours of wiggle room right now, right? Let’s sleep one hour, then de-puff right away, then move to the meeting room to shoot CLX!”
From the very start, Spark ended up writing a first variety-shoot diary with a hard schedule.
