SB19 fandom is veryâŚdedicatedâwhich is good! but some people can get too⌠intense. Iâve seen a lot of big accounts on Twitter calling out the fandom for not streaming the music videos enough, especially the recently released Lawless. Apparently, itâs fandom tradition to let the MVsâ view counts reach 1 million in 1 week. Theyâve done it several times before, so they think they can do it again and again.
But thatâs just not how it works. Regardless if youâre a fan or not, some songs, and their corresponding music videos, just donât appeal to everyone. People have different tastes. Iâm an AâTIN, but I actually donât vibe with some of SB19âs earlier songs, although I can still appreciate their vocals. And I think thatâs fine. Iâm not the kind of fan who will blindly like everything my idols release.
Lawless MV has been out for almost two weeks, but as of this moment, itâs still at 980k+ views, so some people are starting to get mad at the YouTube streaming team for being lazy (yeah, there are actual streaming teams in the fandom). But considering how the view count was at 901k at around 1-3am today, that 980k+ views is already very impressive to me. I donât get what theyâre complaining about.
Another complaint I saw was on the day after Toyfriend was released. Being a collab song with Be:First, many BESTYs streamed the video too, so its view count rose more quickly than Lawless. This led some AâTINs to think itâs possible for it to reach 500k views within 24 hours. It didnât, and some fans were upset about that. But the MV still closed the first 24 hours with 400k+ views, and I think thatâs already very good. One also has to keep in mind that the Toyfriend MV was released at late night on a TUESDAY (9pm for the Philippines, and 10pm for Japan). People still had to go to work the next day, and many probably wonât have time to watch it until the weekend. Getting close to half a million on a weekday is amazing.
And perhaps the most recent and most absurd complaint I saw was how Emoji still hasnât reached 5 million views even though itâs been 4 months. SB19 DOESNâT EVEN HAVE 5 MILLION SUBSCRIBERS ON YOUTUBE đđđ
And, like, thatâs only on YouTube. The song is actually quite popular in Taiwan and China because Jolin Cai is in it. But YouTube is blocked in China, so of course the cnetizensâ views wonât count toward the metric; they have to watch on Bilibili.
Numbers arenât everything.
YouTube also only counts engaged views:
YouTube counts a view when a real person intentionally plays a video and watches for at least 30 seconds. Replays are limited to 4â5 views per user per day. Views from embedded videos, playlists, and live streams only count if the viewer engages and watches long enough. Autoplayed or suspicious views may be filtered out. Itâs all about real, intentional engagement, watched for at least half a minute.
But not all fans know about this. Someone may have intentionally streamed the video multiple times in a day, only for YouTube to not count it because they just left it playing in the background.
AâTIN have a very big underdog mindsetâwhich is understandable, considering how SB19 started. I just wish the time comes they can stop looking at metrics for validation and instead just appreciate the songs/MVs in peace.
