Clubhouse app becomes playground for K-pop artists, fans, and Korean music industry workers

Got7 member Mark Tuan shared his new song with Sanjoy in a ‘room’ on the audio app, while rapper Simon Dominic has been all over Clubhouse

It remains to be seen whether the biggest K-pop stars, whose social media activity is closely managed by their labels, will join the conversations

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Song Mino from K-pop group Winner drew hundreds of K-pop fans to a Clubhouse room recently. The audio app for iPhone users has become a forum for K-pop artists and fans.

Published: 6:15pm, 21 Feb 2021Updated: 6:15pm, 21 Feb 2021

It was just a general conversation about K-pop, with fans chatting about their love for the music. Then the room’s numbers started to climb, with tens, then hundreds of individuals rushing in. The reason? Song Mino, a member of K-pop group Winner and a popular rapper and television personality in South Korea, had entered the fandom space on Clubhouse.

The audio app, which allows iPhone users to engage in conversations in dedicated “rooms” and “clubs”, has swiftly become a space where industry insiders and the general public engage in discourse, and for the Korean music scene it has turned into a place where artists, industry folks, and fans connect.

The advantage of Clubhouse is that only people speaking “onstage” at any given moment can talk with one another, with moderators facilitating, so celebrities and influencers in a wide range of industries are sharing their thoughts and holding conversations in spaces moderated by peers.

This has created a fly-on-the-wall culture where dialogue can take place in a public forum in real time without direct feedback from anyone in the audience unless they are passed the mic – a change from many social media platforms where audience feedback can derail conversations – and many in the Korean music world are taking advantage.

As Clubhouse grows, Korean artists are holding conversations with one another. Several Korean R&B and hip-hop artists host a room for listening to and talking about music at least once a week.

Clubhouse app becomes playground for K-pop artists, fans, and Korean music industry workers

Got7 member Mark Tuan shared his new song with Sanjoy in a ‘room’ on the audio app, while rapper Simon Dominic has been all over Clubhouse It remains to be seen whether the biggest K-pop stars, whose social media activity is closely managed by their labels, will join the conversations

Got7 member Mark Tuan shared his new song with Sanjoy in a ‘room’ on the audio app, while rapper Simon Dominic has been all over Clubhouse

It remains to be seen whether the biggest K-pop stars, whose social media activity is closely managed by their labels, will join the conversations