Hi! I work professionally as a cultural strategist in both the advertising and music industries.

Recently, I finished my university thesis based on researching cultural technology/SM and got access to professional insight I want to share that might shed light on today’s news.

I also want to add credibility by saying I also briefly studied media at Korea University under reputable scholars and professionals in Korean media as well.

Please keep in mind this thread will be half sharing info and half speculation on the future of NCT

What is Cultural Technology anyway?

Well, Cultural Technology is argued to be coined by Lee Soo Man when he formed SM Entertainment in the 90s.

LSM’s philosophy for Cultural Technology is that in order to reach a global audience, you must achieve “Cultural Hybridity”

Originally, Cultural Technology was actually developed by SM for a Pan-Asian audience. This is due to the ORIGINAL Hallyu Wave.

Many people don’t realize that the Hallyu Wave was originally described as the popularity of Korean dramas across Asia specifically— not the world

Korean Dramas were a hit in China, and when LSM realized this the Cultural Technology strategy was originally developed to bring Korean music to the Chinese market.

To this day, LSM himself still thinks the Chinese Market is the most important market. https://www.nme.com/news/music/sm-entertainment-founder-lee-soo-man-k-pop-china-2872438

(note: this may seem arguable to disgruntled fans of SM’s Chinese artists— I get it, but LSM is not in charge of their marketing)

So Cultural Technology, in essence, is used to create this pan-asian cultural hybrid.

These is some politics to this; Cultural Technology being used across Korean media and products has created a “soft power” for SK across Asia.

So why is SM going for The US now?

Well, that’s where New (or Neo) Cultural Technology comes into play.

For those of you who have paid attention to SM for a long time, you may remember that SM was actually very late to the game when it came to marketing in the US.

While JYP and YG were booking US tours, SM limited their promotion to a short series of fanmeets and concerts.

There was a period of time where kpop was booming in the US while SM still didn’t have a US store or connections, they didn’t even have official group twitter accounts.

It was clear that at this time (maybe 2015, some 2016) they were still focused on the Asian Market.

Something changed in 2016, and that was NCT, which I theorize was SM’s plan for the US all along

Now for NCT:

The original layout of NCT was to create fixed units based on SM’s target markets.

NCT Dream is interesting bc they were originally developed as a platform to create audience familiarity/popularity among members before placing them in a group.

Why did they do this? Well, pre-establishing an audience is not uncommon for both NCT and the Korean audience. This is why shows like Produce 101 have such a heavy participation from companies. I speculate NCT Dream partially worked bc underage idols prob can’t do a lot of work

of course, SM were wrong about their prediction for NCT Dream. Rather than fixation on particular members that would follow them to other groups, their audience demanded that the members remained together in a fixed unit.

I speculate why this is why a full album took so long.

But this brings me to “NCT Hollywood.”

From what I’ve read, the show accommodating the debut of “NCT Hollywood” seems to intend to pick one member, not form the unit.

I assume SM is using this “pre-established audience” method that was popularized by idol competition shows

SM never had to participate in these shows now for a reason.

Remember when I talked about Cultural Technology earlier? Well, one of the methods of Cultural Technology is integrating idols into pop culture, so they can be recognized by the general public. I.e Inkigayo MCing

Methods of integrating idols into pop culture include: MCing, Brand Deals, Radio show hosting, Variety show hosting, acting, attending political events, etc.

This is SM’s primary method, which is why you constantly see SM artists across all their groups everywhere.

SM has no way of fully achieving this in the US directly. No kpop idols really can, that’s why even B*S members as individuals aren’t household names. Unfortunately I’m pretty sure we can guess why LOL

So, now we have the competition show.

The first of its kind at SM AND in the US. It’s perfect timing considering the popularity of Kpop compared to its novelty— while it may be “mainstream” now, there’s still a niche that is intriguing to foreign audiences (Cultural Hybridity)

And I’ll be honest, I don’t think its a coincidence that this news follows the collaboration between another major kpop company and the largest label in the US to create a kpop group. The same label with a subsidiary that supports SM artists.

So, what happens to a group like NCT 127? 127 spent so much time promoting in the US until now.

How could both groups possibly be pushed in the US now?

Please note the following tweets in this thread are PURE SPECULATION

I believe that SM’s INTENTION is to bring 127 back to Korea. We all know the tension 127’s US focus has caused among k-fans. The numbers reflected that up until last year.

However in true NCT fashion, I’m pretty sure popular members from 127 will be in NCT Hollywood

Of course popular members from other NCT units are likely to be included. More specifically though, it’ll likely be the members that are most popular in the US. This can easily be figured out through social media analytics. I predict former super m members + johnny

I say former bc I’m 90% sure superm is done for a while at least. They also didn’t get quite the notoriety I’m sure SM was looking for, so it might not be worth investing after the senior members return from military .

I don’t really think any Korean-born members will join this unit, not because of language but because of the disruption of military service.

This however, doesn’t mean things can’t change. SM changed NCT Dream because of audience demand. The same can easily be done for 127. Press may not be the same, but tours will prob still happen.

My Opinion? I tuned into the NCTHollywood space earlier and heard a lot of people call SM stupid.

Here’s the thing, SM are actually very smart, all of this was definitely planned strategically. Where SM (and a lot of kpop companies I find) lacks is flexibility and observation.

The idea of NCT Hollywood and this show in of itself is pretty smart. If it weren’t NCT branded, it could actually be brilliant for capturing an untapped audience.

It unfortunately lacks the foresight of SM’s capability to to maintain the other units simultaneously

It also (depending on MGM’s role) may not work if this is MGM trying to get Television ratings. If this show becomes a TV exclusive and can’t be streamed it might struggle with their target audience :/

To close:

NCT 127 will be fine. SM knows their value and likely wants this to compensate for the lack of domestic promotion over the years.127 is literally in the name, they were meant to stay in Seoul in the first place.

SM is trying to return to a more organized NCT model.

Focusing on the domestic market can actually be a good thing for 127 members, and will probably allow them to grow as individual figures in pop culture— a natural progression for basically every SM artist.

In fact imo I feel like if SM continued to push 127 in the US rather than Korea, it might effect non-English speaking members careers in the long run. eng speaking members have more of a chance at recognition in the western market than those who don’t speak eng.

Anyways, sorry this was so long WOW but I wanted to share that for a while.

I’ve been studying cultural technology for a long time :’) I actually think it’s really cool and when used properly could do really cool things!

Oh here! I also wrote an article AGAINST the current state of globalization here https://saturnreturn.medium.com/converge-and-conquer-a-globalization-strategy-d09590cb9301

Hi, let’s review! https://twitter.com/aquariancity/status/1390440874262286345