In the evening of September 20, a topic titled, “When I watch ‘Road to Kingdom’, I understand why male idols flop nowadays” was published on the Korean forum Pann Nate, drawing significant attention with over 166,000 views and 250 comments.
Accordingly, the author of the topic pointed out that in “Road to Kingdom”, a show where K-pop boy groups compete with musical stages, most of the stages adopt the concepts of crazy kings, jokers, tyrants, and bad guys, and the idols keep presenting images like gun fights, sword fights, and hourglasses.
“There are 6 teams, but their stages are all the same, you can’t even tell them apart”, the author also wrote, adding that the same concepts were used by other boy groups like ATEEZ, Stray Kids, and The Boyz in previous shows like “Road to Kingdom 1” and “Kingdom”.
“Even as a fan of idols, I can’t bear watching these, so I think the general public can watch for more than 10 seconds at most. It feels a bit like watching anime fans cosplay and get overly immersed at a convention”, the author stated, adding, “It’s as if they can’t compete with vocals and skills, so they’re trying to pack up the stages with weird concepts and metaphors to look impressive.”
Netizens who saw the topic also seem to agree, even adding that the repetition of these non-public-friendly concepts are the reasons why most K-pop boy groups “flop” nowadays.
Below are some comments from netizens:
- If you’re a singer, show your singing skills… You’re not even actors, so why do you all just do facial expressions for 1 minute and then dance for 30 seconds?
- Can’t they tell why groups like BOYNEXTDOOR, RIIZE and TWS are doing well on the charts? The over-the-top concepts of Stray Kids and ATEEZ only appeal to international fans, and other than the groups’ own fans, the general public never enjoy these concepts. These songs are loud, strong, unpleasant to listen to, and no one likes these songs anymore. I want to stop watching male idols do these kinds of stages so badly. None of them have good concepts
- Reactions to the first “Road to Kingdom” were good and but reactions to “Kingdom” reactions were so bad. There’s a reason for that. The former’s concepts were more versatile, while “Kingdom” was all about groups doing the same thing with no difference except for the scale, so it ended up flopping. Just how long are they insisting on doing these over the top concepts…
- Don’t do something crazy like these concepts, just do a concept that people will like… Even a concept like a bodyguard and traditional outfits would work well… It feels like idols from small and medium-sized agencies have lost their direction from the very beginning with their debut concepts
- They need to notice that these days, people don’t like these kinds of stuff and dislike loud music…
Source: Pann Nate
