Happy Monday, gang. This coming right on the heels of that sayonara Karen’s way is a real mood-setter, ain’t it?
Again, thanks to everybody who added their input to the surprisingly-still-kind-of-going comments on the original feedback ask for Phase II (you can see the overall results and stuff here). I did mention last week that I’d have this up over the weekend, but a podcast and some life stuff intervened and I didn’t get the time to be additionally thoughtful about this like I wanted, so we’ll have it for the early part of this week instead.
So where are we? Basically, now that you’ve had a chance to consider who might have some viability to Western audiences and why, put yourself in the shoes of somebody who’d have to promote them. You obviously want your target audience to be people who are the most likely to respond well to the idols’ sound and stuff, so who do you promote to?
I did this as a pair of forms. The first encompasses the “winners” from the previous exercise, while the second is like an on-deck circle for groups with some-but-less support. Overall, in continuing with the theme, this isn’t meant to be determinate about doing particular things, but as much about gathering your ideas and attitudes as it is about reaching a consensus that yes, of course, the best Facebook fan groups to approach while promoting Fruitpochette are Motorhead fan groups (for example).
You need to hit the submit button on both forms. I’m sorry. It’s dumb. It’s freeware.
Just a couple of quick notes:
- Please limit your input to musical groups. Some other culturally relevant stuff (“I’d want to promote PassCode to raver kids”) is acceptable.
- Surprise surprise, I think that Babymetal is an acceptable answer; they’re kind of the world’s now.
- This list is the topmost vote-getters from earlier, arranged roughly by vote total. To those groups that did get some votes but aren’t listed, it’s okay, we’ll get there.
- Feel free to write in multiples for each field, and for as many or few idols as you like.
- This is going to sound weird, but if your response to this is “X isn’t like anybody else, what would even be the point?” then you, my friend, are missing the point of the exercise.
I’m going to leave this up through about Wednesday or so. In the meantime, feel free to ask questions or levy insults in the comments, and definitely use that space to expound on your thoughts, especially if you’re one of those people who likes to tell me that I’m crazy for even trying to do this and we’re all wrong and stupid. I always tell people, if you can’t coherently defend what you’re thinking/saying/doing from valid criticisms, then you should probably stop. HELP ME HONE MY ARGUING KNIFE!
Per a suggestion from boans, I’m also going to eventually send some of this discussion toward the forums, where it can live neatly and not disappear down a bloggy rabbit hole. But don’t let that stop you now.
This’ll be a tough call. I feel like the west isn’t ready to embrace an idol group that doesn’t have a gimmick, really. (Or if someone’s already into idols, they don’t need any help.) You could court recent Babymetal converts with the likes of Necronomidol/Gusodrop/Passcode and take the angle of “they do heavy pop songs too, but they have an actual screamer!” Then hope that ironic fandom blossoms into legit appreciation 😛
That would really test my unspoken theory that a lot of people who like Babymetal actually like them for the wrong reasons :\
We live in a world where most of the western would-be audience won’t watch subtitled movies, and thinks everything in Japan is Kyary Pamyu Pamyu / “Japanese Gameshow” aesthetic. They want to say “look how WEIRD this is” and then dismiss it out of hand. It sounds like our larger goal here is to end racism, haha.
PS: Fruitpochette’s production is genuinely so tight that it should be easier than it is for them to get open-minded western fans. Western people who like dancing don’t like metal, and people who like metal don’t like dancing. Maybe we need to smash traditional gender roles, too. Shit, Phase II might be Nobel prize material 😛
I want to make out with this comment.
I imagine some of the younger un’s who read your blog are looking at that header photo and wondering “What the heck show is that? Is that “Betty” lady Betty White?” What is that one dude wearing? What’s the long skinny thing the other guy is holding?” “This is like so old and weird….” 😀
I gotta sleep on this, but it’s a fun exercise! I’ll try to put some answers down in the afternoon…………
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