Global girl group sensation Katseye was built online via a YouTube reality competition.
In just two years, a succession of hit singles have generated more than three billion plays on Spotify alone, they have two Grammy nominations and performed at marquee festivals including Lollapalooza and Coachella.
But their wild ascent to pop stardom has forced these chronically online stars offline.
The ongoing discourse about the “temporary” departure in February of sixth member Manon Bannerman, haters who don’t get why they deserved to perform on the Grammys stage as Best New Artist nominees, and bullying comments about everything from what they wear to what they say are all best left unseen by the group’s five members.
In Australia for their first promotional tour, Megan Skiendiel said as “Gen Z girls, we love the internet”, and in the early days of their career, she found it exciting to see what fans were saying about her.
“But then as time goes on, whether it’s positive or negative, that amount of opinions about yourself, you’re just not supposed to be seeing at all,” she said.
“Whether you think it does or not, it really does affect you. So I think we all had to learn that we just can’t look at any of it … even the positive.”
Her bandmate Lara Raj said she deleted both TikTok and Twitter “a while ago” because of what the algorithms were serving up in her feed.
“I think the world that we live in, our algorithms are very tuned to what a Katseye fan’s algorithm would be; our fandom is like us, they’re very reflective of who we are,” Raj said.
“But we had to learn that people can use the internet for good. They can also use it as a weapon.
“Being the subject of that is essentially something that we did sign up for, but it’s not something that need to consume. It’s something that they can have, and it’s just not for us to see.”
To the majority of Eyekons – as the Katseye fanbase call themselves – the girl group represents something much bigger than the latest hot nail look or dance trend.
Hype, the entertainment conglomerate behind the rise of K-pop, carefully curated the group to be “global”.
Sophia Laforteza is from the Philippines, Yoonchae was born in Korea, while the three American members have strong ties to their parents’ respective heritages – Daniela Avanzini is Venezuelan Cuban, Raj is Indian, and Skiendiel is Chinese Singaporean.
Laforteza says Katseye’s “girl power” legacy will be to open doors for “young women just like us.”
“We were fans before we were artists. We yearned to look up to somebody who looked like us. A lot of us, we didn’t have that representation growing up,” she said.
“To be the ones to create that in this generation, it feels so timely, but at the same time, it is late. I would have killed for this as a little girl.”
Katseye made their Coachella debut this year and pulled off one of the highlights of the festival with an epic K-pop crossover, performing the global smash hit “Golden” with the Huntr/x singers Rei Ami, EJAE and Audrey Nuna.
Laforteza said it was tough to keep the surprise collab a secret as it came together just days before the performance last month.
“I wanted to tell everybody because I knew so many people who were obsessed with K-pop Demon Hunters and Huntr/x, and the song especially,” she said.
“That song broke records and made so many waves for Asian representation and just hitting the global stage, a lot of the things that we stand for. So it just made so much sense to collaborate with Huntr/x.
“And working with them was the best. They were so nice to us and they didn’t have to be; they were so sweet.
“Even after Coachella performance, they were there waiting for us and they were telling us ‘They were so loud, they love you, your fans are obsessed with you.’ They were just a warm blanket on us and it was just the best, it was peak girlhood.”
Katseye premiered “Pinky Up” at the festival, the first single from the Wild EP to be released in August.
The song’s performance requires a lot of pinky flexing – and intense concentration to not flip the wrong finger.
“A lot of our first performances, I was holding up my pointer finger,” Skiendiel said, before the group’s choreographers corrected her.
Katseye round off their Australian visit with a 30-minute pop-up performance at Melbourne’s Festival Hall on Friday.