People are pretty unimpressed that a bunch of American guys formed a K-pop group
There's a new K-pop group in town, but this time, none of its members are Korean.
EXP Edition, whose tagline is "born in NY, made in Seoul", is comprised of four guys from the U.S.
None of the four speak Korean, but the members have moved to South Korea to study the language and record their debut album, the band's site says.
The band's members are Koki Tomlinson, 22, half-Japanese and German; Frankie DaPonte, 24, Portuguese; Hunter Kohl, 26, a New York native; Šime Košta, 24, from Croatia.
On Monday, the band dropped its debut music video, "Feel Like This" -- however, it hasn't exactly been well-received.
TLDR: This guy doesn't like them
Some were supportive.
One main gripe cited is the lack of training the four have had, compared with the average K-pop performer. Many in South Korea enter rigorous K-pop training at dedicated schools from a young age, and train for over a decade before their official debut on stage.
But is EXP Edition an elaborate art project or a real boyband?
The band's genesis was as a 2014 thesis project for Bora Kim, who was pursuing an MFA at Columbia. Her idea to start a K-pop group organically and document it, was aimed at "exploring what K-pop and what K-pop fandom is."
Kim titled her project "I'm Making a Boy Band" (IMMABB), and even raised $30,000 on Kickstarter to form the group.
"I wanted to see what would happen if I made American boys into K-pop performers, by teaching them how to sing in Korean and act like Korean boys, and complicate this flow/appropriation even more, since I’m in New York, where so many talents are just one online recruitment ad away," Kim said back in 2015.
Kim successfully exhibited her MFA project in 2015, but noted then that the boyband would be an "ongoing" pursuit. Since then, the group and her have moved to South Korea, where she's set up IMMABB Entertainment proper.
So while EXP Edition is perhaps part of a larger commentary on the K-pop entertainment scene, there is one thing it isn't above -- the laser scrutiny of a voracious K-pop audience.
Yvette is a Viral Content Reporter at Mashable Asia. She was previously reporting for BBC's Singapore bureau and Channel NewsAsia.
