Global girl group sensation Katseye was built online via a YouTube reality competition.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
But their wild ascent to pop stardom has forced these chronically online stars offline.<\/p>\n
The ongoing discourse about the \u201ctemporary\u201d departure in February of sixth member Manon Bannerman, haters who don\u2019t 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\u2019s five members.<\/p>\n
In Australia for their first promotional tour, Megan Skiendiel said as \u201cGen Z girls, we love the internet\u201d, and in the early days of their career, she found it exciting to see what fans were saying about her.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cBut then as time goes on, whether it\u2019s positive or negative, that amount of opinions about yourself, you\u2019re just not supposed to be seeing at all,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhether you think it does or not, it really does affect you. So I think we all had to learn that we just can\u2019t look at any of it \u2026 even the positive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her bandmate Lara Raj said she deleted both TikTok and Twitter \u201ca while ago\u201d because of what the algorithms were serving up in her feed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the world that we live in, our algorithms are very tuned to what a Katseye fan\u2019s algorithm would be; our fandom is like us, they\u2019re very reflective of who we are,\u201d Raj said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut we had to learn that people can use the internet for good. They can also use it as a weapon.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing the subject of that is essentially something that we did sign up for, but it\u2019s not something that need to consume. It\u2019s something that they can have, and it\u2019s just not for us to see.\u201d<\/p>\n
To the majority of Eyekons \u2013 as the Katseye fanbase call themselves \u2013 the girl group represents something much bigger than the latest hot nail look or dance trend.<\/p>\n
Hype, the entertainment conglomerate behind the rise of K-pop, carefully curated the group to be \u201cglobal\u201d.<\/p>\n
Sophia Laforteza is from the Philippines, Yoonchae was born in Korea, while the three American members have strong ties to their parents\u2019 respective heritages \u2013 Daniela Avanzini is Venezuelan Cuban, Raj is Indian, and Skiendiel is Chinese Singaporean.<\/p>\n
Laforteza says Katseye\u2019s \u201cgirl power\u201d legacy will be to open doors for \u201cyoung women just like us.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were fans before we were artists. We yearned to look up to somebody who looked like us. A lot of us, we didn\u2019t have that representation growing up,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
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 \u201cGolden\u201d with the Huntr\/x singers Rei Ami, EJAE and Audrey Nuna.<\/p>\n
Laforteza said it was tough to keep the surprise collab a secret as it came together just days before the performance last month.<\/p>\n
\u201cI 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,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd working with them was the best. They were so nice to us and they didn\u2019t have to be; they were so sweet.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven after Coachella performance, they were there waiting for us and they were telling us \u2018They were so loud, they love you, your fans are obsessed with you.\u2019 They were just a warm blanket on us and it was just the best, it was peak girlhood.\u201d<\/p>\n
Katseye premiered \u201cPinky Up\u201d at the festival, the first single from the Wild EP to be released in August.<\/p>\n
The song\u2019s performance requires a lot of pinky flexing \u2013 and intense concentration to not flip the wrong finger. <\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of our first performances, I was holding up my pointer finger,\u201d Skiendiel said, before the group\u2019s choreographers corrected her. <\/p>\n
Katseye round off their Australian visit with a 30-minute pop-up performance at Melbourne\u2019s Festival Hall on Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Global girl group sensation Katseye was built online via a YouTube reality competition. In just two years, a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":657437,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[2620,317886,317874,64,63,689,317876,317881,317880,291153,134,317882,317879,317889,317877,317884,259085,317878,249553,317885,50791,136,317873,677,317887,317875,317888,218976,142419,211077,317883,37478],"class_list":["post-657436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-agence-france-presse","tag-american-members","tag-asian-representation","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-australian-visit","tag-chinese-singaporean","tag-dance-trend","tag-daniela-avanzini","tag-entertainment","tag-fanbase-call","tag-forced-offline","tag-girl-power","tag-global-girl","tag-global-superstars","tag-kathy-mccabe","tag-lara-raj","tag-manon-bannerman","tag-marquee-festivals","tag-mental-health-impacts","tag-music","tag-nail-look","tag-oceania","tag-online-hate","tag-online-stars-offline","tag-pointer-finger","tag-reality-competition","tag-rei-ami","tag-sophia-laforteza","tag-venezuelan-cuban","tag-young-women"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=657436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657436\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/657437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=657436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=657436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=657436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}