{"id":657603,"date":"2026-05-09T06:06:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T06:06:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/657603\/"},"modified":"2026-05-09T06:06:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T06:06:14","slug":"are-katseye-transforming-k-pop-or-making-skibidi-toilet-music-either-way-fans-will-tearfully-wait-hours-for-a-glimpse-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/657603\/","title":{"rendered":"Are Katseye transforming K-pop or making \u2018skibidi toilet music\u2019? Either way, fans will tearfully wait hours for a glimpse | Music"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ten-year-old Luna and 12-year-old Asha were among the first Eyekons \u2013 the noun for Katseye fans, \u00e0 la Swifties and Beliebers \u2013 to arrive at Sydney\u2019s Luna Park on Wednesday after their parents drove two hours from Wollongong.<\/p>\n

While they hadn\u2019t won tickets to the girl group\u2019s first Australian appearance \u2013 a Q&A for fans at the park\u2019s Big Top on Wednesday night \u2013 they came anyway, hoping to catch a glimpse of their favourite artists.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love Katseye,\u201d Luna says. \u201cThey inspire me, because I actually do singing lessons myself. They make me more confident to go on stage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asha adds: \u201cI can get very insecure and they make me feel more confident. I love them so much.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Eyekon with some of her treasures<\/p>\n

Billed as a global girl group, Katseye is undeniably brash, abrasive and, on paper, poised for world domination. Created in partnership between the K-pop<\/a> giant Hybe (the Korean conglomerate behind BTS) and the US record label Geffen, Katseye pairs American pop sensibilities with the hard-hitting choreography, branding and relentless perfectionism of K-pop. The band\u2019s background is noticeably more diverse than the usual K-pop act: Filipino-American, Cuban-Venezuelan, Indian Tamil-Sri Lankan, Swedish-Chinese-Singaporean, Swiss-Ghanaian and South Korean.<\/p>\n

Take their latest single, Pinky Up<\/a> \u2013 a high-octane techno-pop ode to the haters that namedrops Socrates and samples the techno classic Meet Me at the Love Parade. Or Gnarly, the 2025 single that caught Luna, Asha and the globe by surprise \u2013 a pugnacious hyperpop track with nonsensical wordplay, matched with an equally overstimulating music video.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The effect is exhausting, exhilarating and divisive. While the New York Times praised Gnarly for \u201cdeconstructing\u201d K-pop, one particularly scathing viral X post labelled the song \u201cskibidi toilet music\u201d \u2013 something not all Eyekons necessarily disagree with.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes that\u2019s what I want!\u201d laughs Emily, a 25-year-old who has travelled with her friend Talitha from Brisbane to Sydney to attend the Q&A. \u201cGnarly came out during a period for me where things were just a bit difficult. Katseye brought the fun back into my life \u2026 Whenever life is too much, I just put on Katseye. I don\u2019t have to think about what\u2019s going on.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"GirlGirl group Katseye visits Sydney<\/p>\n

Catharsis aside, it\u2019s also fun to dance to. That\u2019s how Luna and Ash whittle away the day, practising Katseye\u2019s choreography with new friends even as the sun began to set and they started to give up hope of seeing them. \u201cI didn\u2019t think it would happen,\u201d Luna says. \u201cBut I got to meet them! I cried! And we met Evie, and we\u2019re friends now.\u201d<\/p>\n

No matter what you think of the music, Katseye are mega-famous. In August their turbo Lollapalooza set in Chicago broke daytime crowd records, attracting 85,000 people. Then they landed a Grammy nomination for best new artist. A viral Gap commercial that kicked off countless more brand deals. They played Coachella last month.<\/p>\n

They\u2019ve even weathered their first major controversy, after Katseye announced in February that one member, Manon Bannerman, would take a hiatus to \u201cfocus on her health and wellbeing\u201d.<\/p>\n

Before the Q&A, 12-year-old Maisie sums up how many Eyekons feel: \u201cI love Pinky Up\u2019s chaos-y vibe. But I don\u2019t like the part where Manon\u2019s not in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

With her mother hinting this is a sore topic, we don\u2019t go deeper. But it\u2019s all forgotten in a few minutes when the five active members of Katseye materialise a few hundred metres away from the now-hundred or so waiting Eyekons. It\u2019s perfectly timed with the Sydney sunset shifting the harbour\u2019s skies.<\/p>\n

Skiendiel poses for a selfie with competition winner Emily Smith<\/p>\n

At first, the group\u2019s remaining members \u2013 Daniela Avanzini, Lara Raj, Yoonchae Jeung, Sophia Laforteza and Megan Skiendiel, all under 23 \u2013 strut forward slowly in sync, before reassessing the distance and jogging over.<\/p>\n

\u201cLara just ran straight towards us!?\u201d says Talitha, who is 29. \u201cI was so overwhelmed and had no idea what to do, I was shaking.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the next 15 minutes, Katseye keep up the pace with a divide-and-conquer approach to hundreds of selfies, autographs, compliments and chats with the Eyekons \u2013 a steady split of gen Z girls, gays and theys in garish-chic Y2K fits, teens in school uniforms, and pre-teens with their parents.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s complete chaos of screams as Katseye run back and forth penned in a semi-circle of fencing. But there\u2019s a method here that lets every Eyekon get their moment with every member. No matter where fans stand, they do not go without at least one star to fawn over in their immediate vicinity. (Have they drill-trained this? It\u2019s not out of the realm of possibility.)<\/p>\n

Overstimulation is Katseye\u2019s MO and they\u2019ve certainly succeeded even, even if it\u2019s too overwhelming for some. \u201cLet\u2019s fangirl over here,\u201d one mother says, whisking her crying daughter to a quieter spot to talk through their feelings.<\/p>\n

Megan Skiendiel, Yoonchae Jeung, Sophia Laforteza, Lara Raj and Daniela Avanzini in front of the Luna Park entrance at sunset<\/p>\n

As for the Q&A itself? With questions pre-approved and delivered on-stage by the journalist Tait McGregor rather than the fans, little of note is revealed unless you\u2019re a true Eyekon \u2013 and in that case, you\u2019ve already watched the clips.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ten-year-old Luna and 12-year-old Asha were among the first Eyekons \u2013 the noun for Katseye fans, \u00e0 la…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":657604,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[49,48,75,341],"class_list":["post-657603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=657603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657603\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/657604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=657603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=657603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=657603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}