Do you guys think vkei will ever become mainstream?

That’s kinda to the degree of popularity of Death Metal music, it’s in this weird middle area

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I am not saying that tiktok is something good, bad, useful, etc. I have seen it bring on the surface songs lost in time, create new fandoms and connect people over a ton of different things. I dont have tik tok, I dont know who is running it and I am pretty sure mentally ill people are everywhere. All i am saying is that you can never know the next thing that’s gonna become a “trend” because of it, whether that’s good or bad.

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Yeh, I just hope vkei never becomes seen as but a “trend”. I know I sound like a total bitch about it but from my experience, I used to be a great fan of Lil Darkie. I loved him because of his sociopolitical commentary and the fact that his songs had sumn that at the time I found rare. But then he started getting trending online and overtime, I started to notice more and more rude kids come in. Like I would welcome them with open arms and the moment I made a joke in the same vein of the tweets and lyrics that Lil Darkie makes, those same newcomers would absolutely go insane. And overtime, the trap ‘metal’ formula became so overused, I lost interest and went back to regular metal. It’s not that I wanna be an elitist or gatekeep, I don’t want the toxic side of the world getting into a great passion because it’s ‘trendy’, only to freak out once they realize how things really are in the fandoms. The average TikTok user isn’t very tolerant in my experience.

How does this tie into Vkei exactly? Lemme explain. So Vkei is built upon the foundation that gender roles are not an issue that commands the way the fashion works. Sure, you have Nocturnal Bloodlust’s Hiro during his Vkei era when his visual kei style was more masculine, and you have Sena who puts on a more feminine style, but the sense of feminine and masculine in the case of vkei are disconnected from their respective genders completely on purpose. Not to mention themes that can coexist in Menhera culture, Yandere culture, Eroguro culture, etc. Now, I’ve seen TikTok kids absolutely freak out at the idea of BDSM, a woman who dresses like a boy while still identifying as female (Yes I’ve witnessed people gang up on several tomboys and force to them to be trans men because she’s a “trans man in denial”, guess we’re deciding other people’s gender for them now?), men having a dominant role in a relationship, men who perform gay fanservice but explicitly state that they’re straight, yanderes, dark humor, non-con fetishization and lot of fiction they find problematic.

Now think about it. Think about it for a second. How would they fare in the Visual Kei sphere. I know a few friends from Tiktok who are genuinely passionate about vkei, but even they have experienced the wrath of the average teenager online.

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@Ophelia

an average tiktok user does have an inhibited impulse control (which app itself actually promotes by design - the fragmentation and content turnaround rate on tiktok are higher compared to every other video app, it’s designed in a fashion similar to a mobile game, where a lot of visually stimulating shit happens fast with blasting loud music and a bunch of effects adding to the dopamine rush), making it easier to sell or promote something while the impulsive high lasts, but you don’t see organic viral success on there that launched a new music project from nowhere to stardom - that’s bandcamp and youtube and twitter, but not tiktok.

stranger things and other series that catalyst viral fandom content do it because they have social media people on payroll clowning for coin, and because algorithmically, fandom content is favored - it pulls people in on the app. most of tiktok celebrities either have managing agencies, pitching them to brands interested in having a ready-to-go userbase to promote something to - or said celebrities aspire to get picked up by one, it’s by far most commercialized social media platform where everything is tailored to stimulate overconsumption - but, again, most of the said consumer habits fall off somewhere around age of 25, at least, according to game development research on the online purchasing habits I have in mind.

now, compare the number of viral tiktoks that happened when miyavi starred in a netflix drama with zero internet promotion more or less recently to get an idea of what I’m talking about :woozy_face:

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This is the closest the west got to have it’s own original form of what we call visual kei and it was pretty popular. Then around 2010 every subculture died out.

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What? Love Metal is nothing like vk.

A bit late to the party, but I’m throwing my hat in the ring.

There are many analogues between visual kei and punk, especially in reference to the DIY attitude. Punk was a scene that emerged in the 70’s in direct opposition to the excess and opulence of mainstream 70’s rock bands. It specifically rejected affiliation with “the mainstream”, to the point where even musical virtuosity was regarded with suspicion within the scene. John Holmstrom, founding editor of Punk Magazine, once said punk rock was “rock and roll by people who didn’t have very many skills as musicians but still felt the need to express themselves through music”.

Rip up my winning lottery ticket if that quote does not also describe visual kei to a tee! Visual kei also has its ties to a different flavor of anti-establishment and “fuck you I’m gonna do what I want” energy that you only get when you step away from the mainstream. It is a scene cobbled together from the remnants of glam, hard rock, and various flavors of speed and heavy metal, none of which are popular genres at the moment.

Lightning Question Round:

  • How many bands have gone major and dropped the looks?
  • How many bands have gone major and lost their edge?
  • How many bands (other than DIMLIM) have made a ploy for a more “commercial” sound and flubbed the landing?

That’s why I feel comfortable in making the assertion that visual kei is almost exclusively divorced from whatever “mainstream” is defined as at that moment. Visual kei stuck around this long because it’s shown itself to be malleable - every decade legitimately has its own styles, sounds and conventions - and it defines itself by constantly pivoting to be part of a new counterculture. This is in opposition to a “mainstream” sound being defined by what makes the best sales, which usually restricts creative freedom in a way incompatible with the scene.

Here’s a fun anecdote to support what I’m saying: I’ve been around so long I remember when fans were giving Dir en grey shit for sounding “like Western metal” on Withering to death. That term “Western Metal” was like The Scarlet Letter, and any band who adopted any type of metalcore sound at that time was trying for a more accessible sound to go major. There was a huge stink at one time about bands who were metalcore versus bands who were nu-metal versus bands who were hard rock versus bands who missed the message and formed the Last Of The Kotekote Bands…and then at some point everyone got over it and now we have bands like DEVILOOF, JILUKA, DEXCORE, and NAZARE dropping insane bangers that would have made fans a decade ago pause. The definition of “counterculture” changed to get heavier and I couldn’t pinpoint when for you, but it most definitely happened.

But that’s just my opinion and I could be off-base.

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mainstream? overseas? lol

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Overseas? Nope. It had it’s time in 2005-2009 when it got popular despite all odds and it still didn’t achieve commercial success like K-Pop did. I feel like something has to become mainstream within a country first before it would work in overseas countries. Pop is mainstream-friendly so it’s no surprise K-Pop hit all the milestones, but it never felt like Japan was interested in backing visual kei as a cultural export.

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No and that’s probably for the best.

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You make a good argument; I’ve always made that comparison when describing the culture to people who’ve never heard of it but at the same time I wonder how much of that spirit is actually there and how much of it is idealization on our part.

I find it difficult to judge to what degree visual kei was and is controlled by shady label execs using young guys as flamboyant hand puppets to fuel the fantasies of a pubescent and predominantly female audience with the sole intention to empty their pockets. Seems to me that that’s where punk goes to die but I dunno… it’s difficult to draw clear lines with this sort of stuff.

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As a bitch who’s been in a country that is INSANELY conservative, whether it was mainstream overseas or not, that shit would NEVER fly here.

One would assume the riff raff that makes up the scene had a big part in that hesitancy.

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From just a visual appeal point, I think it can be a possibility for VK to get mainstream. Just not the music the majority on here will want to be mainstream (hello GB). If they do certain type of pop or what ever it is the Gen Zs like nowadays then yea. VK would need that one band or even just one member to catch the attention of the vast amount of teenage girls and make them gush. Blow up on twitter or whatever and that can open the way. So many K-POP idols got popular just off a shot such ending shot, wink, glance, pose. I think it is possible in a viral sense.

It is unrealistic to expect metal or anything heavy to blow up. Still niche for a musical standpoint.

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The most mainstream “VK” will get is Golden Bomber who became kind of a meme band on various japanese variety shows.

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I feel like Japanese VK bands will never gain a mainstream status in the west, with maybe a few singles here and there blowing up on Tiktok, but of course dying out again really quick.

But I do feel that western bands that take certain parts of VK (may it be visual and/or musically) can become mainstream, but then we’re not really talking about pure VK anymore, but more of a spinoff. I think elements of VK can and will live on, both outside and inside of mainstream music, but in what way exactly, time will tell.

Come to think of it, neglecting the mainstream part, I do think that newer VK bands that embody a more modern sound (like DEXCORE and Deviloof for example) can become just as or even more populair in the west, depending on how well they incorporate aspects of modern western metal (and probably also if the lyrics are in English and sung in a way so people can understand them, like with Crystal Lake and Crossfaith).

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We’d probably have to narrow it down to a specific scene within visual kei and I guarantee you we’d end up with something approximating the “silky smooth wax figure host boy with pastel anime hair” look that’s so prevalent in K-pop. The visual language has to correspond with what’s generally considered desirable in the realm of pop-culture escapism, ergo a version of youthful sexiness and perfection so exaggerated and radiant that it blurs the vision, filtering anything actually human, true or real. The mainstream loves beautiful lies.

If you look at most subcultures within visual kei, they work in a similar way in that they obviously overdraw aspects of reality and create their own version of larger than life aesthetics and ideals of beauty but at the same time they lean heavily into the “dark arts”. Visually, you have heavy, dark makeup, lots of blacks juxtaposed with loud colors, leather and latex, extravagant hair and outfits, piercings and tattoos, guys not only looking feminine but like fetish sex workers on the job etc. You can find similar patterns in the music with its heavier, more crazed sound and of course all of this is a result of these musicians and creatives channeling the darker aspects of human nature and aestheticizing (often times even fetishizing) them. Their aesthetic language is by nature/necessity a subversion of mainstream standards of beauty and decency and could by definition, never become mainstream.

I guess it’s important to keep in mind that all of our categories and distinctions, where we draw lines and what we make certain things mean is very relative and dynamic, not fixed by definition but by relationships.

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Vk sort of had its time in the limelight during 2006 or so. I bought a Shoxx magazine from Hot Topic around then. Not saying Hot Topic = Walmart levels of mainstream or something, but to me, finding a vk magazine at an American mall was a big deal. Anyway I digress.

Even if the Tiktok kids get ahold of it, it’s still very niche. Unless bands start singing in English and tone down their looks for western audiences, then yes, maybe they might get some attention? Just a bit, possibly. But I still think it’s highly unlikely considering how many other Japanese artists have tried and failed to really become mainstream here.

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I hope not, but I’ve seen enough GAZETTE/DIR EN GREY/CRAZY JAPANESE BAND REACTION!!! OMFG videos on YouTube to think it could, given the blessing of the algorithm.

wow yesyes i agree with you

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