The Maknae Has to Be an Idol

The thumbnail released on Siren’s Utube was as follows:

Someone likely to be Park Dong-Jun was pushing his face right into the camera. The reason why it was ‘likely’ was because the photo was so shaky that it was impossible to confirm whether it was Park Dong-Jun or not. Four members were standing behind (possibly) Park Dong-Jun. They were not standing in a neat line but standing in various poses. Since all the members were acting however they wanted, it was hard to tell who was who.

In other words, the video editor had taken one point of moment when the members had fun together and made it into a video thumbnail. However, the real issue with this thumbnail wasn’t this ridiculous composition.

—What hahahahha this...I honestly wanted cosplay from them but this wasn’t what I was expecting

—Isn’t that Cardcaptor Yuri*? [1]

Reply: Yep, that’s right

The biggest surprise was that all the members were cosplaying Cardcaptor Yuri. Woo Yeon-Hoon cosplayed Cardcaptor Yuri’s main character ‘Yuri.’ Park Dong-Jun cosplayed Yuri’s best friend ‘Jiyu,’ and Bong Tae-Yoon cosplayed the male friend between them ‘Shao.’ Lastly, Lee Woon and Kang Do-Seung cosplayed ‘Senior Cheong-Myeong’ and ‘Senior Do-Jin’[2] who were the first love of numerous children.

—Hahahaha what in the world?

—no Dong-Jun lol Jiyu’s character is not crazy like that haha

—it’s too much that Dong-Jun cosplayed as Jiyu and got such a close-up shot like a crazy guy in the thumbnail hahaha :0

The composition of the thumbnail itself was ridiculous, but the members’ cosplay was even more ridiculous so it succeeded in attracting people’s attention. After playing the video afterwards, a calmer intro appeared, and the members were preparing for the choreography in line with the formation of the title song “Blue Summer Night”. Only then did people, who played the video, check the title.

—Ah haha this was a dance video lol

—I seriously only knew now :0

—I thought the members were just doing a cosplay competition amongst themselves

—The thumbnail was so powerful that my mind went blank fr

It was a choreography they had seen before, but the cosplay outfits made it starkly different from any of the dance videos they’ve usually seen.

—Park Dong-Jun interpreted his character wrong haha Jiyu is not a bubbly character like that haha

—What hahaha Dong—Jun...why are you so excited haha

Despite the same choreography, each member danced differently based on their interpretation of their character. In Woo Yeon-Hoon’s case, he danced lively and made bright expressions and gestures to match Yuri’s character, and Lee Woon and Kang Do-Seung added poses and gestures that their characters would make in their dance. However, there was something wrong with Park Dong-Jun. The Jiyu character that Park Dong-Jun played was a daughter of a rich family who albeit a bit eccentric, was a calm character who sincerely cared for Yuri.

—My fav was Jiyu lol no, Dong-Jun...my current fav’s interpretation of my past fav is a bit...Since it’s you, I’ll let it slide, Dong-Jun

Park Dong-Jun interpreted Jiyu’s character to be even more bright and lively than Yuri and was dancing his heart out. He performed the choreography by exaggerating his movements and facial expressions by about 200% more than usual, and he acted as the black hole of the group wherever he moved.

—hahhahaha Tae-Yoon is laughing out loud for real

—It’s my first time Tae-Yoon laugh so loud

—Our Bong...he was someone who could laugh so loudly...

—But look, all the members are dying from Dong-Jun’s eyes lol

—at that level, isn’t he shooting out laser from his eyes? How can he make all the members pass out from eye contact?

—ahahhahahhahahah

Any member who made eye contact with Park Dong-Jun collapsed on the spot with a burst of laughter. Of course, since this was a choreography video, everyone quickly went back to their position and continued with the choreography. However, an action that destroyed all of the members’ control appeared next. When the outro was played after the choreography was over—

—Woowaaaaaaack!

—No...! Dong-Jun...!!

—Someone please stop Dong-Jun...

—Dong-Jun really became a puppy

Park Dong-Jun began to run around and roar like an orangutan in Jiyu’s cosplay. It was a bizarre and completely unexpected behavior that was the opposite of Jiyu’s character. After that, the scene that people saw in the thumbnail appeared. Park Dong-Jun ran haphazardly all over the practice room and screamed. The members fell down one by one and laughed at his ridiculous sight.

Even Bong Tae-Yoon kept his head down with his face towards the wall of the practice room. After the camera captured Park Dong-Jun going crazy for while—

Click.

The video ended without any waning.

—That’s it?

—The video ended so abruptly lol

—What...what is this gift that no one asked for...?

—No one wanted an orangutan Jiyu...lol

—Mr. Park Dong-Jun. Please...do Attack of the Giant Leva[3]...

Reply: Do-Seung, pls do this too

As soon as the video was over, people began posting videos on all kinds of communities and social media.

—Siren’s choreography video is seriously crazy hahaha

—I’m not a Siren fan. I’m really now, but I almost became a fan after watching this

—I never imagined that I would search for these guys after seeing Park Dong-Jun as orangutan Jiyu

—My savior who came to ruin my childhood.

Some people labeled Cardcaptor Yuri cosplay as a demand less supply, but once it was supplied, people began to consume it in a frenzy. Park Dong-Jun’s performance stood out especially, and Park Dong-Jun had been standing out as Siren’s entertainment character for a while. In the previous reality show, Park Dong-Jun had a particularly large amount of cuts, and Park Dong-Jun had the best entertainment sense in the various contents that came out later on. It was to the point that fans called him ‘born with a comedy-spoon.’

Furthermore, today’s choreography video firmly imprinted on everyone’s minds that Dong-Jun had strong strengths as an entertainment character. Siren’s music video had passed 10 million views now, and the choreography video began to frequently appear on people’s feeds by Utube’s algorithm.

—What’s this?? Haha

—Wow, I just saw something hilarious on Utube hahah

—Shit this is ridiculously funny lol

The impact of this video was so great that it even went up on the feed of men in their 20s and 30s. Since there were surprisingly many men in their 20s and 30s who watched Cardcaptor Yuri, they clicked on Siren’s cosplay video without feeling a sense of resistance. Then they had no choice but to laugh at orangutan Jiyu.

—Oh hahhahhah these guys are hella funny lol

—Are these guys famous?

Reply: Seems so?

—I heard they won an audition program

Reply: But can idols do this?

Reply: Idk hahahhahahah

The number of views for the choreography skyrocketed because it was a video that appealed to multiple target audiences. After the reveal, the views that hovered only around tens of thousands of views rose to 100,000 in an instant. In the end, the video even reached a state where it was almost 1 million views in just one day after its release.

***

My members and I watched the number of views on the choreography video rise up like crazy.

“Wow...the number of views is crazy right now.”

“It’s getting a lot of traffic in Bluebird too?”

“There are so many posts about Dong-Jun right now.”

“Really? Wow, I made it~”

We were on our way back to the dorm after finishing all our schedule for the day. Now, if we just performed one more day tomorrow, the first week of activities would be over, but that was not the important part. The important part was that the number of views of our choreography video shot up like crazy. The reason why I set the condition of the choreography video mission as 1 million views was because the number of views of the choreography video increased slower than that of the music video.

Even for groups with tens of millions of views on music videos, there were many groups whose choreography videos barely surpassed a million or less views because those who watched choreography videos were only fans or dance teams trying to copy the choreography. Since they needed to really million views only from these people, it was inevitable that the views would be much less than the music video.

Thus, my plan had been to increase the target audience itself. I thought that by cosplaying, I would be able to draw the attention of not our fans but a wide range of fandoms. Furthermore, thanks to Dong-Jun’s orangutan Jiyu character, the target audiences expanded beyond my prediction.

‘I didn’t expect even men in their 20s and 30s to watch it either.’ I think this was possible because the audience of Cardcaptor Yuri surprisingly included quite a few men.

“But Dong-Jun was so funny that I thought this video would honestly go viral.”

“I really thought Dong-Jun was crazy that day.”

“Yeah. Dong-Jun was totally the star that day.”

“That’s right. I was the main character that day.” Dong-Jun smiled brightly while saying this.

Honestly, there was a reason why Dong-Jun went crazy like that. We had filmed the choreography video that day at dawn after all our schedules were over. It was a video that we had to take by extremely shortening our sleeping time while having to do a pre-recording early in the morning later on. It was a rather cruel sleeping schedule for Dong-Jun, who slept the most out of us.

He dozed off while receiving cosplay makeup and hair, and he kept making mistakes in repeated choreography video filming. In the end, he got so angry at himself that he ran around like a madman and danced 200% of his usual energy on the last take. In other words, due to lack of sleep and self-anger, he was really out of his mind, and that last take was decided as the final video to upload. And as a result...

—<Blue Summer Night> Choreography video

—View count: 950,686

‘I think we can hit a million by today...?’ As expected, we were close to one million views than my initial prediction. I watched the car move to the dorm.

‘I should sleep late today.’ If we achieve a million views, it would be mission success, and then I would soon receive a reward—meeting with the 27th and 15th regressor. Judging by the current time, I thought I would meet them around night or dawn.

‘Should I buy coffee?’ I had to prepare in advance.

***

That day at 1 am. While all the members were deep asleep, I was sitting alone on the living room sofa.

—<Blue Summer Night> Choreography video

—View count: 998,677

I was outside since the moment the number of views exceeded 990,000 thinking that I might be surprised if I suddenly heard a mission success notification while sleeping. I place a frying pan next to me just in case as if a regressor jumped on me like before, I had a weapon to protect myself. At that moment...

—<Blue Summer Night> Choreography video

—View count: 1,000,007

The number of views exceeded one million.

—Mission Success

—10 million views on Siren’s music video and 1 million views on Siren’s choreography video has been achieved

—Your reward will be given

At the same time, a mission success notification and reward notification sound rang out.

—The world line collapses.

Now, it was time for me to meet my members from other worlds.

1. Reference to anime Cardcaptor Sakura. ☜

2. Korean names for Yukito Tsukishiro and Toya Kinomoto respectively in Cardcaptor Sakura. ☜

3. Attack of the Titan’s Levi Ackerman. ☜