Who Are Monbebe: Fundamentals

Monsta X 2nd World Tour 1st Seoul Show

Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with Monsta X or Starship Entertainment. All thoughts are my own and are based on my observations and the results I received from this survey.

This is probably going to be the most fun of the posts and also the longest as it had the most questions and there are some that I can say quite a bit about. Mostly because it has a lot of fun and interesting questions. There are a fair number in here that may be self-explanatory as well, if they are I’ll say so. So, let’s get started!

Obviously one of the very first questions that I asked was ‘what year did you become a fan?’ as I expected many people became a fan in 2017 (42.3%). I think most people can agree when I say that 2017 was Monsta X’s year. Both Beautiful and Dramarama are two of the best singles that Monsta X have. The Clan pt 2.5: Beautiful ranked #1 on Billboard’s World Albums Charts and was an era that they should’ve had their first win in, but sadly they did not. But with so much hard work and amazing performances Dramarama gave them their first win on The Show in 2017.

The second question I was mostly interested with because I know back when One Direction was still active there was a large portion of fans who did not want to be associated with the term ‘Directioner’. I also think, though, that since Kpop groups themselves/their teams come up with the fandom names fans are more likely to like/identify as them and they all around have a more positive vibe. On the other hand since terms like ‘Directioner’ and ‘Belieber’ were heavily used by mostly the media in negative contexts (like being attached to words like ‘crazy’ etc) the fans of One Direction and Justin Bieber probably had more negative emotions when being called those names/wouldn’t want to identify as those fandom titles. (One day I’m going to write a whole thing on how Kpop has marketed fandom culture and how it’s kind of genius) Now, according to these results only 4.4% of fans don’t like fandom titles so they don’t consider themselves a Monbebe, while 1.5% don’t consider themselves a Monbebe at all. This could simply be because they stan another group more than Monsta X, are multi-fandom or a variety of other reasons etc.

The second most fundamental question has to be: Who is your bias? Now this question a lot of people seemed to be upset in the fact that I didn’t have an ‘All’ option. I do wish I added a who is your bias wrecker question like the 2017 Monbebe Global Survey because I feel that would have allowed people to pick their top 2 favorites instead choosing between members which many could have felt bad about. I would also just like to say not to take these results to heart and that some members could probably have higher percentages because of who the survey reached. For example if a large Kihyun biased fan account retweeted the survey and many people who follow that account bias Kihyun and took the survey then there is going to be a higher chance that those people picked Kihyun as their bias. But then on the other hand if not a lot of people who bias Shownu saw or knew about the survey then obviously those numbers aren’t going to be represented.

In comparison to the 2017 Monbebe Global Survey the top three biases remain consistent:

Who Are Monbebe:

• Wonho 261

• Kihyun 238

• I.M 208

2017 Monbebe Global:

• Wonho 1,014

• I.M 722

• Kihyun 705

At first I was kind of surprised at the results but now that I look at it again I’m not as surprised. The only one that is still shocking to me is Shownu x Kihyun I think mostly because for me I see more Wonho x Kihyun stans than I do Shownu x Kihyun. Again when compared to the 2017 Monbebe Global Survey 4 out of the top 5 remained the same, only changing order.

Who Are Monbebe top 5:

• Jooheon x I.M 70.9%

• Wonho x Hyungwon 45.3%

• Minhyuk x Jooheon 44%

• Minhyuk x Kihyun 43.2%

• Shownu x Kihyun 31.9%

2017 Monbebe Global top 5:

• Wonho x Hyungwon 40.2%

• Jooheon x I.M 38.1%

• Shownu x Kihyun 18%

• Minhyuk x Jooheon 13.3%

• Wonho x Minhyuk 12%

These three questions tie heavily into the question in the Demographics category: Are you employed? Remember how more than half of Monbebe don’t work? Mostly because a majority of them are students, this could be a major connecting factor into why most Monbebe either have no albums (38.7%) or 1-5 albums (34.3%). Also half of Monbebe who live outside of South Korea think the albums aren’t hard to find but are too expensive to buy, and as a fan who lives in the United States I can probably speak for most of international fans when I say that what really kills us with buying albums is the shipping cost. Sometimes the shipping itself costs the same as the album.

Lastly a majority of Monbebe (84.4%) who participated in this survey don’t own any of the Japanese albums. That could also probably come down to price because I’m pretty sure Japanese albums are more expensive to begin with so naturally it’d probably be more overall.

While it’s hard for many Monbebe to buy the albums that doesn’t mean they don’t stream the songs! I’m not sure if Youtube counts for album streams on songs other than Official MVs but 93.8% of Monbebe use Youtube to fill their ears with Monsta X’s voices. Over half (56.3%) use Spotify to listen to Monsta X’s music while 16.4% use Melon, 14.7% use Apple Music, 7.6% use Naver, and the 4.4% who answered other wrote in services like Genie and Joox.

I wasn’t surprised that the top 2 most used social media sites were Twitter and Youtube since many probably use Twitter to track updates/communicate with other fans or friends and Youtube to watch videos. If I didn’t so heavily message people on Tumblr to ask them to take and or share the survey then I would’ve been surprised that Tumblr came in third with 34.4%.

Along with not owning many albums or none at all many fans also don’t have MX Channel+ (80.9%) or MX Talk Tok on Fancafe (88.8%). Again this could simply be because half of fans just go to school so they don’t have the means to purchase these things, or because they just don’t want it. I know many people don’t want to purchase CH+ for groups because of how capitalist it is, so there’s also that.

The concert question is actually one of the questions that shocked me the most. Now, while I do realise that Monsta X have really only toured in minimal parts in Asia, South America etc. I didn’t expect just about 75% of people to have not seen Monsta X. But after seeing these results and seeing that Monsta X haven’t been to 3 of the top 4 countries (U.S.A, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Philippines) it makes sense. It also makes sense when you think about how low the number of shows they do are. What I mean by that is in all of Europe they may do 3 shows, and in all of Asia they may do 4 shows etc. They do more shows in the U.S, a country, than they do across entire continents. I don’t know who does their event planning but I think it could be worked out better. While they do tour for a while and I can’t imagine how tiring it must be I think if instead of focusing on two comebacks a year (since that seems to be their pattern) if they did one full album, like The Clan pt 2.5: Beautiful, they could spend more time going to places they haven’t gone to before. Now I know they can’t go to every single place but I think it would be nice for the fans from places where they clearly have a strong following to be able to have the chance to see them in concert.

I expected the outcome to be more ‘No’(87.9%) than ‘Yes’(12.1%) to having met Monsta X or not. For the 12.1% who met Monsta X a majority of them (7.2%) met Monsta X through a Hi-Touch event, or at a Fanmeeting (2.8%). There was a slim 1.3% who met them multiple times, and an even slimer 0.8% who had the luck of meeting Monsta X randomly somewhere.

These three questions are just little misfit ones that came to mind while writing the survey. They’re pretty self-representing but I would like to say thank you to the 58.6% of you who also want another concept like Amen. (This is a little spoiler but it actually turned out to be the second most popular song on Rush). I’m so excited we’re getting a Monsta X-ray season 3 I know it’s gonna be as hilarious and cute as the past seasons. Lastly, the question about the outfits was inspired by one of their stages I can’t remember which one it was but it made not want them to match their outfits. Sometimes I love when they match but others I don’t, and it seems a whole 2.7% agreed with me.

I added these two questions because from my own observations it’s a general vibe within the Monbebe fandom that Hyungwon isn’t appreciated or treated fairly when it comes to being represented in songs. A vast majority (89%) think Hyungwon deserves more parts while 5.9% think it’s fair how it is now, and the other 5.1% prefered not to answer.

Now I think to make up for this overall feeling that many seem to have of Hyungwon not being appreciated they could have more DJ H.ONE content, which I believe they are currently doing since he is performing at Ultra Korea on June 9th. I also believe DJing is something that Hyungwon seems to enjoy so I think it would be fun and interesting to see more of him doing things like that.

There is no surprise that the most anticipated soloist among the vocalists is Kihyun (41.3%). I for one already know when he drops a solo album it’s all I’m going to listen to for the rest of my life. On the other hand I was actually pretty surprised that Wonho came in as the second most anticipated with 17.3%. I thought for sure that Hyungwon would be higher because of the same point I mentioned above of there being an overall vibe that Hyungwon isn’t appreciated vocally compared to the other members.

When it came to picking who’s mixtape you liked the most I.M came out on top with 44.1%. A total of 21% preferred not to answer and 9.3% hadn’t listened. I was actually super surprised that the difference between Jooheon and I.M was as high as it was (18.5%), I thought they’d be relatively equally or maybe with a difference of between 8-10%.

Just like with everyone’s favorite friendship the Who Are Monbebe survey and 2017 Monbebe Global Survey have very similar results with one major difference as seen below:

Who Are Monbebe:

• Jooheon and Changkyun 42.3%

• Kihyun and Jooheon 31.8%

• Wonho and Hyungwon 31.1%

• Hyungwon, Jooheon, and Changkyun 23.7%

2017 Monbebe Global Survey:

• Kihyun and Jooheon 20.8%

• Wonho and Hyungwon 20.8%

• Hyungwon, Jooheon, and Changkyun 18.9%

• Jooheon and Changkyun 18.%

This last question is my favorite one that I came up with and the one that I was most excited to see the results for. First off before I go into the results of this question I want to give some background and also some of my own thoughts on how I perceive their writing styles. Note when I went through to gather what songs they’ve written I only counted songs on which they wrote lyrics and music for, and also helped with arrangement. I classified it this way because most rappers in groups write their own raps so Jooheon is credited under lyrics for basically every song anyways.

Among Monsta X’s released albums Jooheon has written a total of 6 songs:

1. Gone Bad (lyrics & music) - Rush

2. Sweetheart (lyrics & music) - The Clan pt. 1: LOST

3. White Love (lyrics & music) - The Clan pt. 2: GUILTY

4. Miss You (lyrics, music & arrangement) - The Clan pt 2.5: Beautiful

5. In Time (lyrics, music, and arrangement) - The Code

6. Special (lyrics, music, and arrangement) - The Connect

Among Monsta X’s released albums Wonho has written a total of 4 songs:

1. Oi (lyrics & music) - The Clan pt 2.5: Beautiful

2. I’ll Be There (lyrics, music & arrangement) - The Clan pt 2.5: Beautiful

3. From Zero (lyrics, music & arrangement) - The Code

4. If Only (lyrics, music & arrangement) - The Connect

Personally, I feel that Wonho’s songs have a distinct feel to them. They sound very dream like, and remind me of some of the English artists I listen to, like LAUV and Astronomyy. I think among his songs Oi is probably his outlier, it’s less dream like and more of a song that I’d play to motivate myself to do something. Jooheon, on the other hand, has a gentler vibe with his songs, more like a bumblebee who could sting but probably won’t. His songs Gone Bad and Special are his exceptions having a more “hip-hop” vibe that most Monsta X songs have. Now I’m unsure of when any of these songs were written but I know Monsta X themselves have mentioned that Jooheon wrote Special either before their debut or when they first debuted so that could be why these two are more similar in style compared to the other four.

As I predicted more fans prefer Wonho’s (32.2%) style of composing than Jooheon’s (23.7%). The difference wasn’t too drastic a whole 8.5%, so not too bad. When looking at the song rankings for their individual songs Jooheon’s songs ranked either right in the middle on that respective album (Sweetheart 3/6, White Love 3/6, Miss You 5/10) or closer to last last (Gone Bad 6/6, In Time 5/7, Special 7/7). Wonho on the other hand either has songs in the top 3 of that respective album (Oi 3/10, From Zero 2/10) or one below the middle (I’ll Be There 6/10, If Only 5/7). I think this question is really the most interesting and if I knew more about how songs were actually created and the whole process I’d probably be able to say more but sadly I do not know much about it.

And that’s the fundamentals of the survey!!! I really hope these responses and my little comments about them helped you make your own connections and thoughts about the results so far! I’m going to be separating the 3 open-ended questions I had in this section into their own separate post (which will be the last post) but next is music rankings! Probably the category most have been anticipating.

Check out the Twitter thread of the results here!