Genius Idol’s Strategy to Conquer the Entertainment Industry

Chapter 275

“How many copies?”

Gwak Sang-hyun kindly repeated the news to an employee who couldn’t believe what they heard as soon as they came to work.

“The kids’ initial sales this time are 201,××× copies. Over 200,000!”

Airies, who saw On Raon’s V App broadcast in the early morning, couldn’t contain their excitement and rushed to offline stores, pushing the initial sales past 200,000 copies.

Additionally, the digital chart rankings were quite good.

Whether it was album sales, digital chart rankings, or public reaction, their performance was the best among rookie idols who debuted within the past year.

The office erupted in cheers at the astonishing record that seemed to reward all their hard work and suffering.

It was unprecedented for an artist from a small company like Seed Entertainment to achieve such sales, making it both amazing and pride-worthy.

The cheers reached the ears of CEO Ban Ga-eul, who was dozing off in the representative office after an all-nighter.

“What’s going on… What’s happening?”

Gwak Sang-hyun quickly delivered the good news to Ban Ga-eul, who staggered out, holding a toothbrush set to wake up.

“The kids sold 200,000 copies of their album!”

Ban Ga-eul’s eyes shot open at the news.

“What?! Dinner on the company card tonight! Let’s have beef!”

“Wow, the boss has gone crazy!”

The members at the dorm, upon hearing the initial sales, couldn’t contain their excitement and jumped up and down on the thick carpet.

When the group’s growth was visibly clear, the anxiety about an uncertain future disappeared, and their mood improved.

Fortunately, the apartment was soundproofed well enough that there were no complaints about noise between floors.

After a while, On Raon, exhausted from jumping with the overly excited Kang Ji-woo, sat down and asked,

“Are we really going to be number one this time?”

“It feels like we can actually do it.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. If we get too excited and it doesn’t happen, it’ll be…”

“Still, isn’t it worth hoping for this time? There doesn’t seem to be any particularly strong competitors.”

The ambiguous timing certainly contributed to the lack of strong competition.

The pleasant premonition fluttered through the members who couldn’t completely hide their excited hearts.

* * *

From Wednesday, fan signings were scheduled to take advantage of the music show hiatus, making today, Tuesday, a sort of non-holiday break.

Following the medical certificate incident and the V App live broadcast among other events, it would be my first direct appearance in front of fans tomorrow, excluding Sunday when I was too flustered to prepare.

Appearing before the general public would be on Music Round’s broadcast on Friday.

And I decided to heed Muk Hye-sung’s valuable advice and determine how to present myself to people before the fan signing tomorrow.

To show the public a certain image was something we could choose.

And I had the power to make people believe what I showed them without doubt.

Ultimately, Muk Hye-sung’s words meant that I should change the unfortunate image the public currently had of me to something else.

‘If I want to appear fine, I should act in a way that makes people believe it.’

So, how could I transform my somewhat solidified image of being depressed and tragic, which had been exposed repeatedly to the public since last year’s Pick Heart final broadcast?

It was evident that a common approach wouldn’t completely rid me of the shadow cast over my image, making it a headache.

At the very least, I had to create a stir equivalent to the impact of my depression diagnosis to break the mold of lingering misfortune.

However, I couldn’t add any negative issues to this reversal, so the turnaround had to be positive.

Right now, my most powerful asset aside from my face was…

‘…Oh.’

Upon reflection, I realized I had an unintended secret weapon.

Perhaps this was the moment where its effectiveness would be higher than ever.

But if I revealed it hastily without a plan, it would be hard to get the desired reaction.

The old saying goes, know your enemy and yourself, and you will win every battle.

Since I wanted to live while winning, I decided to put this saying into practice.

I broadly investigated the general perception of me, reactions to the medical certificate incident and the subsequent V App live broadcast, whether various industries that had shown interest in me still valued me highly, the specific reactions to our new song, and whether our group could achieve first place with this activity.

Of course, I reaffirmed the unchanging truth that looking at raw internet reactions myself would bring nothing but bad news.

Instead of personally scouring the internet communities, I asked an employee, who usually handled similar tasks, to summarize and organize the relevant matters for me.

It didn’t take long for the employee, who had already been monitoring the situation, to hand me the results of their investigation.

“Here.”

I quickly skimmed through the contents summarized on several A4 pages and then sought out the employee again.
“What’s the matter? Do you need anything else?”

Seeing me come back, the employee asked with an awkward smile.

I returned the bundle of papers I had received earlier, smiling brightly.

“Noona, it seems like there’s quite a bit missing from this.”

Particularly, the community reactions related to depression were quite lacking.

Having seen it before, I knew that the online chatter was nowhere near this minimal.

“Really? It probably ended up like that because I filtered out some parts. But it should be enough for you to understand.”

“No matter what, I think it was filtered too much. I’ll just look it up myself.”

The employee responded awkwardly to my words.

“Raon, sometimes it’s better not to know everything.”

It seemed there were indeed many missing details.

“It’s fine. I’ve already seen enough of the really harsh comments. This is material I need for a meeting with the director, and you’ll filter it before telling me anyway, right? So could you just do it as I asked?”

“With the director?”

“Yes. I feel like I need to be fully aware and take action now. I really appreciate your consideration, Noona.”

After contemplating for a moment, the employee nodded.

“Alright. I’ll re-organize it and get it back to you soon.”

“Thank you, Noona. Sorry for the trouble.”

“No worries. I should have given it to you properly from the start.”

After a while, the employee handed me the newly organized results with a reminder not to focus too much on online opinions.

Just at a glance, it was denser than before.

Trusting that the employee had done a thorough job this time, I slowly read through the content.

“……”

My image was in a worse state than I had thought.

Fortunately, fans seemed somewhat pacified through the V App live broadcast that day.

It was reassuring to see that there were significantly more positive than negative reactions among Airies regarding the broadcast.

‘After all, it was a broadcast for the fans.’

However, outsiders who were unfamiliar with the broadcast seemed to capture and post strange comments about certain melancholic and sorrowful shots from the broadcast and the music show appearance the following day.

They posted absurd titles like ‘On Raon seems more serious than expected’ or ‘This underage idol should stop activities before something bad happens.’

Judging from the absence of the post contents, they seemed deemed unnecessary, but the titles alone gave me a good sense of what they were saying.

The comments section was chaotic as well.

Groups trying to label me as mentally unstable and those defending me were sharply divided.

The most puzzling were those claiming to be fans who seemed to enjoy my misfortune.

It was unclear whether they were antis pretending to be fans to stir trouble, or if they genuinely thought that way.

I’d like to believe it’s the former, but the uneasy thought that there might be some of the latter lingered.

Turning to the next page, I found confirmation that my suspicion wasn’t entirely wrong.

It mentioned that a noticeable number of fans with a particular penchant for imperfections had increased recently, preferring to see me as troubled rather than admirable and cheerful.

Why would someone love seeing the person they like in a miserable state?

Or was it that they liked me because I seemed unfortunate?

Either way, it was hard to understand.

Next to it, a neatly handwritten comment in pen from the employee who organized the material caught my eye.

– It looks like there’s a group systematically leaving malicious comments.

Let’s sue them all, Langoo ^____^

I chuckled briefly at the combative comment and continued reading the rest.

The situation from the industry’s perspective wasn’t too bad.

Industry insiders still valued my visual appeal highly, and although it would be ideal for this issue to be resolved positively, they seemed to think it would naturally fade over time.

Moreover, the issue’s occasional resurgence as a topic wasn’t a disadvantage but rather a benefit to a celebrity’s career.

Though it was slightly bittersweet that even personal struggles could be brushed off as topical potential, I decided not to dwell on it negatively.

I skimmed through the rest of the pages, which included favorable public reactions to our song “Again” and the high possibility of us achieving first place on Music Round on Friday.

Just as I finished reading, someone knocked on the wall I was leaning against.

Looking up, I saw Director Joo Yeol-eum, who still looked tired today.

I quickly gathered the documents and stood up.

“Hello, Director.”

“I heard from Yoorim. You wanted to discuss something with me?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have time now?”

That was welcome news.

I nodded immediately.