A video recorded by a fan at a live performance (fancam) of Hani dancing to EXID's "Up & Down" brought the group overnight fame, but why have other K-pop groups' viral videos not yielded the same sort of success?
Stellar currently has a fancam of member Minhee performing "Mask" with nearly 17 million views on Facebook while Hani's viral fancam has nearly 19 million views on YouTube.
There are a few explanations for the difference in results between the two groups, despite having close view counts.
First, Facebook views are not worth as much as YouTube views. A view on Facebook is counted after only three seconds of viewing, which means that someone scrolling through their news feed with autoplay on is included in the count. On the other hand, Youtube requires around 30 seconds before a view is counted. Hence, why the same Minhee fancam only has 600,000 views on Youtube.
Secondly, the song itself is most likely the deciding factor on whether or not the fancam will make them successful. Before Hani's fancam went viral, the most viewed video on the uploader's channel was another fancam of Minhee dancing to "Marionette."
However, even though users were watching Stellar fancams, they were not searching more about the song or groups.
With EXID, the song went viral as soon as the fancam hit 1 million views in Nov. 2014.
Stellar did hit some level of success with "Marionette," which became their most succcessful release, reaching over 150,000 digital downloads. But this fails in comparison to EXID's "Up Down," which reached over 1.5 million digital downloads, followed by "Ah Yeah" with over 1 million.
In addition, Stellar already had a slightly negative image due to their overtly sexy image and sensual music videos while, EXID already had a few solid releases under their belt and did not have a negative reputation.
After Hani's fancam went viral, her company successfully followed up by putting her on numerous variety shows, where the viewers found her bubbly and raw personality appealing. With Minhee, there were no extensive post-fancam variety show activities to let viewers know her personality.
To sum up, although the difference in results between the two fancams is readily apparent, it is clear that fancams brought both groups a noticeable amount of popularity and success.
