In This Life, The Greatest Star In The Universe

Thus one more sacrifice to NewBlack was born—striding around proudly shouting, "I am Roni Lucas!"

Right after the Billboard Awards ended, the internet was on fire.

Americans who hadn’t watched the show tilted their heads.

"What now? What happened this time?"

"The New Black," searched at least seven million times on the world’s biggest search engine.

As chatter about them spread across social media, latecomers started catching up to the trend.

First up: the stage video posted to Billboard’s official MiTube account.

[Hayley Blue & The New Black — Blue Moon]

It was already racking up a staggering view count.

— NewBlack deserved way more awards than this

— Was watching the BBMAs live and searched them right away. Would be very grateful if someone tells me the name of the blond one

— Honestly blown away by the passion on stage

— 01:40 we all know this is the part everyone came for

— I didn’t get the hype when they caused a scene at Kids’ Choice. But after last night’s stage I completely get it. If anything, it’s weird they don’t have even more fans yet

— Why do they call their fans Souffle? I don’t get why they’re naming fans after food

— There’s a long story for that. I’ll drop a link to an English explainer

It was a different lane from the stages recently dominated by singer-songwriters.

A five-member boy band hitting razor-sharp choreo under brilliant lights.

Seeing Americans comment in fascination, Souffle got excited and kept recruiting.

"Come on, take one bite of MiTube! One bite and you’re a regular!"

"This is what NewBlack means by ‘No rowing when the Water comes in.’ Row the No extra hard and recruit for your fave!"

"The reaction is scorching. Scorching!"

No surprise.

Kids’ Choice had made them viral as slime ninjas, but there were plenty of people with a quiet aversion to NewBlack.

"Why are they even popular? Ridiculous."

Many went "oh" and came around after watching the stage video or MV, but lots never bothered to search.

When you prove it with skill right in front of those people, that aversion flips to goodwill.

Especially because beyond the stage, NewBlack’s cute reactions helped the recruiting a lot.

[NewBlack reaction to Ailo’s performance]

A clip of NewBlack gaping open-mouthed at the chest-rocket bit blew up on social media.

— My parents watched live and had the exact same reaction LOL

— I hope those boys don’t get the wrong idea about America. Even for us, that’s still a bit much

— Ailo is Australian, definitely not American anyway

— All the scariest stuff in the world was invented by the UK or Australia. America has nothing to do with it

— That’s exactly my face watching Ailo

— When the missile launched out of the chest, silence fell over our living room watching with Grandma and Grandpa

Their humble acceptance speech also won Americans over.

With a fandom that big, they could’ve strutted like they owned the world, but this was a Korean boy band that lifted others up with the humblest expressions.

Great on stage.

Handsome but cute.

Seem like they live straight.

For most ordinary viewers, it was their first time actually seeing the much-talked-about NewBlack.

"Oh, so these are the boys everyone says are big worldwide now?"

"Yeah, Mom."

"They’ve got such nice, clean looks."

Older viewers liked them, too.

NewBlack already monopolized seniors’ affection back in Korea; wherever you go, older generations see similar things.

"I haven’t listened to the song yet, but... I get a good feeling."

Not the hollow eyes of an addict—bright, sparkling eyes.

None of that "after success, cover your whole body in tattoos" stereotype—just clean-cut and very handsome.

Watching them made even conservative elders soften to these teens they found... adorable.

And it wasn’t only the elders.

Reactions in the younger brackets were boiling over more than ever.

"What the...?"

Ordinary Americans logging in to social media went wide-eyed.

Not just real-time trends—their feeds were wall-to-wall waves of "The New Black."

@Einstein_onestone

Saw NewBlack’s set at the BBMAs everyone’s calling hot and it absolutely kills.

@Sarah_Paul

(photo of Wooju center-stage mid-performance)

Honestly I can’t forget that instant when it suddenly shifted into the dance break. The blond with the cap—he’s my favorite.

As Souffle and civilians mixed it up recruiting on SNS and the fire spread—

The Billboard Music Awards organizers were staring wide-eyed.

"Holy—"

"Is this even real?"

"No way..."

What shocked them was the ratings.

Overall viewership wasn’t hugely different from last year—up a hair, under a million.

But the 18–49 rating was something else.

"I haven’t seen numbers like this lately..."

Compared to last year, the 18–49 rating had nearly doubled.

18–49.

In America, the key demo—the metric for how many viewers aged 18 to 49 watched.

It matters because that cohort has the strongest purchasing power.

In simple terms, they’re the likeliest to see an ad and buy something.

So it heavily influences ad prices.

"At this level we could charge almost double next year..."

"Run the math. What does that come out to?"

"...It’s enormous."

The organizers’ brains started whirring.

"Think they’ll appear again next year?"

Assuming they rode this wave and returned, the ad revenue left a crushing margin.

As they did the math, the organizers sighed in relief.

"Good thing we treated them right this time."

They had only attended as the collab act for Blue Moon; originally, NewBlack weren’t front-row, red-carpet-royalty material.

But after hearing the buzz leaking from Kids’ Choice, they changed course.

Word that "they make money" earned NewBlack the deluxe treatment—and seeing the ratings after, it felt like the right call.

Compared to last year’s awards, the lineup was basically unchanged.

All that changed was adding NewBlack—yet the money demo, 18–49, nearly doubled.

And with that, communication started flowing among the big capital that rules American entertainment and the mainstream media.

The diplomatic language got ornate, but in plain terms the mood was:

— Folks! Folks!

— Yes?

— You see NewBlack this time? The stage, and the buzz—they look like they’ll be a gold mine. Should we push them?

— Nope. I’m against it. Why should we boost songs from another country?

— After Blue Moon, they seem to want to play nice with us.

— Let’s watch. But since they’re making money, let’s extract as much as we can for now.

They looked positive yet weighed whether to truly elevate them—America’s big capital and mainstream media.

"We’ll have to think this over."

America is the land of freedom and opportunity—when the mainstream owns everything.

When they feel you’re invading that mainstream, nobody unites faster to crush you.

Which is, frankly, natural.

Say a Spanish singer works in Korea—they should chomp a bite of kimchi on variety shows, use a Korean phone, that kind of thing.

But if they sing in Spanish shouting "Eat Spanish food!" and hundreds of thousands cheer and flood the streets... from the mainstream culture’s POV, that’s going to feel complicated.

Honestly, even when a Puerto Rican singer hit No. 1 on the Hot 100 in Spanish back in January, the American cultural mainstream’s mood was prickly.

They tolerated it because an American singer featured.

"Did they say every member speaks English?"

Watching their interviews, you could feel they wanted to get along with this industry.

Their record company is one of America’s mega-labels, too.

So big capital and the media it controls took a step back to watch.

"Still, let’s give them a little push for now. We’ll think about later... later."

They decided to pocket the sweet money in front of them first.

The morning after the awards.

"Guys! Look at this!"

While we were resting in the hotel room, Minki and Wonseok burst in and shoved a tablet at us.

We blinked sleepily—then our eyes flew open.

"Huh!"

Every American entertainment site was running us as the top headline.

"Huhhh... Translation! Where’s the translator!"

"Why... My voice is shot."

"Translate for us!"

"Then tell King Jiho to make some honey water."

Jiho hurriedly mixed honey into water and brought it over.

Honed by English-language papers and CNN podcasts, our main vocal’s reading comprehension began to shine.

"At last night’s Billboard Music Awards, NewBlack completely stole the show."

"Stole?"

"As in, took the biggest impact of the show."

The first thing that caught our eye was Billboard’s homepage main feature.

[Behind the 2017 Billboard Music Awards]

The New Black stole the show, definitely.

Ri Hyuk read through the articles.

"Especially Hayley Blue, who rose to Top Artist of the year, was nominated in 13 categories and took home 7 awards. Mandy Spice delivered her signature jaw-dropping performance..."

"Skip to us! Us, hyung!"

"...During the three-hour awards, exactly thirty seconds—the thirty seconds when they unveiled their dance break—could be called the best moment of the night. That’s the gist."

There were lots of pieces with titles like "Is the K-pop invasion starting?"

Knock knock.

A tap at the door—our managers stepped out and room service came in.

The breakfast we’d ordered.

The hotel staffer doing room service spotted us and went "Oh?" and widened his eyes.

"You’re the stars from last night’s awards, right?"

His breezy grin and "We loved your stage" left us a little dazed.

"Our staff gathered at the bar to watch... your dancing was phenomenal."

"Thank you."

"Enjoy your meal."

A deluxe American hotel breakfast, including orange juice, was set out in style.

We sat with our managers and dug into juice, bread, sausages, cracking up.

Minki said:

"Your stage was no joke last night. Afterward the team lead swapped a ton of cards with agents here."

"I ran down for coffee and heard people in the lobby talking about you."

"Korea’s exploding with articles, too. You see?"

"No."

I fished out my phone and opened a Korean portal—our faces plastered everywhere.

— "With NewBlack appearing, the 2017 Billboard Music Awards peaks at 34.1% rating"

— "‘Top Collaboration winners’... Wooju’s comment trending locally: ‘Who is Kim Deoksun?’"

— "NewBlack wins Billboard Music Awards Top Collaboration"

Reading comments saying they were proud of us and we worked hard left me weirdly choked up.

It’d been a while since we did a big, impactful stage—doomscrolling was fun for once.

For today only, the hate comments didn’t really—

"..."

Never mind.

I hastily closed the tab and switched to English-language searches. Those don’t hit as hard.

Korean that lands right is what hurts the most.

"Did you see this? Apparently there’s a tiny controversy about our stage."

"Yeah?"

"They say it’s just a small subset... but this is what they’re saying."

Blinking at the comments on Ri Hyuk’s screen.

"Stealing a culture...?"

Turns out the dances we’d homaged from American artists were from Black artists, and that was the issue.

Why are Koreans copying Black culture’s dances and getting applause for it—some were upset.

Biju tilted his head.

"...Were we not supposed to dance it?"

"I don’t know. They say that, but it didn’t really blow up—because Ailo went full Egypt concept."

Apparently, while some shouted "They stole our culture!", Souffle replied with Ailo clips.

— So, so—then Ailo stole Egyptian culture, yeah?

— Th... that’s...!

— If you’re going to talk nonsense, whisper it into a pillow. You lot. Don’t sprinkle Jae in front of our boys.

That was the vibe.

Ri Hyuk said:

"Honestly, if you’re clocking cultural appropriation, this country is one of the worst. Last time some singer mixed kimono and hanbok and did Chinese traditional dance. Even last night’s Egypt concept blended other North African cultures."

So there were folks who tried to set a fire, but thankfully it got handled.

There were also racist comments, but we never spared a glance for that lane to begin with.

Either way, the fact Americans were bickering at all was good news.

"My dad always said this."

What Jiho-dad proverb would we get today.

"Having pros and cons is best for business. Sell chicken to people who love chicken, and sell shirts that say ‘I hate chicken’ to people who hate chicken."

A little off-topic, but relatable.

Meanwhile—

Korea was pretty rowdy too.

There’s this pop-culture critic literally named Ijasik—famous for hating us—and he apparently went hard on SNS.

"Uncouth Koreans~ what is this if not mass hysteria. I am appalled that this nation-centric ideology still operates, such low civic maturity blah blah..."

So he got into a flame war with netizens.

Refusing to lose to the very end, he finished with, "Yes. Please, be proud of your great singers NewBlack. No matter how loud ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) they get in America, they’re still just Asians," mocking us—and now there’s a whole uproar.

Amusing.

The world is dynamic.

I used to get hot when people like that yelled "NewBlack! Idiots! Mutts!" but these days I get nervous if there isn’t a fuss.

Hate stings, but apathy stings worse—that’s what I’m learning lately. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

As I lurked, some interesting pieces popped up.

"Oh."

Junhyun said:

"There’s a piece that philosophically analyzes our stage."

"Yeah?"

It was a translation of some American netizen’s take—and it was funny.

Cannibals and vampires symbolize modern capitalists and Wall Street.

Probably because Hayley often says "Those damn Wall Street types..." which invited that reading.

"But no one’s noticed yet, huh."

"The makeup was too strong, I guess."

By now I expected someone to go, "Hey! Hey!" and point out—aren’t those the North Provincial Duke’s actors from the trailer?—but.

Maybe because they appeared like extras and the makeup was heavy, no one had recognized them yet.

It’ll be fun when they do.

"Ughhh..."

Thinking about the NewBlack special of From Now On, We airing this weekend already makes my skin crawl.

"Whatever."

"Future us are the ones who’ll crash and burn."

I high-fived the boys as they chorused my line, cackling.

After we wrapped breakfast—

While the managers handled incoming schedules and requests, we headed out with security to sightsee Las Vegas.

A few days to rest and shake off the travel.

"Las Vegas!"

"NewBlack conquers!"

"Waaah!"

First stop: the casino at the MGM Grand hotel.

MGM Grand Hotel Casino.

Tom Worken, the bodyguard guarding the entrance, felt a bit perplexed.

"..."

"..."

Staring.

Five stars staring very intently at the casino entrance.

He was amazed for a second at the sight of the stars who’d been the highlight of last night’s Billboard Music Awards.

More striking: the stars, trailed by security guards twice their size, were just... staring at the entrance.

"..."

Las Vegas casinos have a minimum age of 21.

His job was to stop a few in that group who clearly weren’t of age with a "You can’t enter."

But... instead of entering, they kept staring at the doorway like meerkats.

"Excuse me."

At last, unable to bear the awkwardness, Tom Worken addressed the boy band.

"Are you... not coming in?"

"Ah."

The pale-faced member gave a little laugh.

"For Koreans, the nationality principle applies—under Korean law, even entering an overseas legal casino can be illegal."

"..."

"So. We’re looking with our eyes."

They chuckled and kept peeking around inside from the threshold.

The bodyguard smiled.

"If you’re going to do that... honestly it might be better to just come in..."

Determined to follow the law, they stared holes through the entrance—and he could only laugh.