Blackpink Photo: IC

After months of preparation, Laofeng (pseudonym) and her teammates are eager to see their plans to celebrate the third anniversary of South Korean girl band Blackpink come to fruition on Thursday.

Laofeng and her friends are administrators for the Blackpink Bar, a fan club and fan account on China's Twitter-like Sina Weibo.

According to Laofeng, they have been acknowledged by YG Entertainment, the talent agency that handles Blackpink, and the company has agreed with their plan to send an anniversary cake to Blackpink on Thursday afternoon. To promote their idols to more potential fans, the club has arranged to have Blackpink videos broadcast in major Chinese cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou as well as Times Square in New York during the anniversary. Members of the club will also put up a poster at the entrance of a key subway station in Seoul for a month.

"Many Chinese fans were attracted to Blackpink after they released their first single Square One in 2016, but there are also a lot of fans who were paying attention to YG's new girl idol group long before their debut, back when they were still trainees," Laofeng said.

Build up to success 

Consisting of four members Jisoo, Jennie, Rose and Lisa, Blackpink debuted as an YG Entertainment girl idol group in 2016, seven years after the company's previous legendary band 2NE1. 2NE1 were also made up of four girls and won the Song of the Year Award at the 2009 Mnet Asian Music Awards with their single "I Don't Care" right after their debut. 

Blackpink has been a long time coming in that the members went through four to six years of training at YG Entertainment before they officially debuted. While training at YG, they also had the chance to cooperate with some of South Korea's most popular stars.

Before the official name of Blackpink was revealed, it was rumored that the new girl group would be called TCL-F or Pink Punk. 

According to Allkpop, an English-language K-pop news site, one representative of YG Entertainment explained the meaning of the band's name this way, "Pink is commonly used to portray prettiness, but Blackpink actually means to say that 'Pretty isn't everything.' It also symbolizes that they are a team that encompasses not only beauty, but also great talent."  

Although Blackpink has only been active for three years, they have achieved immense success, with their music videos on YouTube receiving millions of views and enjoying high popularity around the world. 

Their latest single "Kill this love" reached sales of 100,000 within two days on South Korea's Hanteo chart.

Distinctive personalities

"We like them not only because they have a sweet air about them, a delicate countenance and perfect figures, but also due to their incredible talent on stage. They seem so cool and confident," Laofeng explained.

On US radio program the Zach Sang Show, Jennie noted that the reason Blinks (the nickname for Blackpink fans) all over the world feel connected to the band is due to the differences in their personalities as well as their music. 

Many Chinese fans have said they like Jisoo because she seems especially gentle and mild and looks like she was born to be a beautiful actress. 

"We call Jennie 'Dumpling' because of her plump baby face. She is very tender usually, but when she pretends to be furious, she is just adorable," Laofeng said. 

Rose has gradually developed into a cool girl. 

"She is like a little rose when she is acting cute, but when she is confident on big stages like Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, she becomes our wild rose," Laofeng explained. 

Lisa is an extraordinary dancer and is praised as the dancing queen of K-pop. Chinese fans like to refer to her as a living Barbie doll.  

Complex operations

Starting as a Sina Weibo account focusing on trainees at YG Entertainment, Blackpink Bar has gradually turned into a complex fan base with more than 1 million followers who all share an interest in Blackpink. The account has now become a major Blackpink information hub that provides videos and photos of the girl idol group and updates on their latest movements.

This has not been an easy task to accomplish. The account needs devoted fans willing to volunteer their time to keep the hub running. Different posts are in demand, such as Sina Weibo resource administrators, translators, video subtitle makers and frontier fans. 

The resource administrators must be familiar with overseas social media platforms and know the major fan clubs in other countries. They need to post the newest videos or photos online as quickly as possible. 

Since the group is popular around the world, multilingual translators are especially welcome. The fan club prefers translators who have scored at least a seven on the International English Language Testing System (IELTS).

Based in different cities, frontier fans are those that can provide videos or high quality photos when the group tours there.

Talking about the motivation behind their devoted commitment, Laofeng said, "Blackpink brightens our lives. No matter how unpleasant the day is to me, my blues disappear when I see they are fine."
Newspaper headline: Network of support