Blackpink’s first day on Weverse racks up highest number of daily users: report

Global fandom platform Weverse saw the biggest number of daily visitors this year on Aug. 3, when girl group Blackpink launched its community, according to Weverse’s Fandom Trend report released Thursday.

Weverse, the online fan community operated by K-pop powerhouse Hybe, released the annual report, wrapping up the year’s significant trends inside the mobile fandom platform.

The report also showed that Blackpink’s fandom, known as Blink, grew the fastest, with over 1 million users joining the community on the first day. Fans celebrated the day with hashtag “#BLINK_in_Weverse,” which was the third most-posted hashtag on Weverse this year.

Beating Blackpink on Weverse was K-pop megastar BTS, whose hashtag #BTS racked up 1.96 million counts over the year. Enhypen’s fans -- Engene -- followed in fourth place with “#CARNIVALwithENGENE.” The hashtag for the boy band’s second EP “Border : Carnival” was mentioned 230,000 times in posts. Topping the list was “#to_” used by fans to write direct messages to artists.

According to the report, 36 artist groups are currently connected with fans via Weverse, with 23 new teams joining the community this year. It not only includes big name K-pop acts, such as Blackpink and Treasure, but also global artists, such as British pop trio New Hope Club.

Around 16.8 million new fans signed up for membership this year, pushing the total number of accumulated users on Weverse to 36 million.

As of Dec. 14, around 200 million new posts were made this year, with the number doubling that of last year. The accumulated number of comments by both fans and artists this year reached 400 million.

Meanwhile, Aug. 3 saw an explosive number of daily visitors as it was also when BTS topped Billboard’s Hot 100 chart with their megahit single “Butter” for the ninth consecutive week, becoming the chart’s longest-running No. 1 song of 2021. The second most-visited day was on Dec. 9 when BTS’ Jin surprised his fans amid the group’s official vacation with the release of his new song “Super Tuna.”

According to Weverse, with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the underlying key trend inside the fan community this year was the “online in-person view,” which the company said refers to the virtual communication enabling fans and artists to connect just like in a real-time, in-person environment even when physically apart.

“As virtual communication continued to be a part of our daily lives this year, the online engagements between fans and artists have evolved to show more possibilities in different formats,” Weverse said through a statement released Thursday.

“We expect more services to incorporate both online and offline means in the future, even with the return of in-person activities, and we anticipate to focus on enhancing the fans’ convenience through increasing the synergy of the two means (of offline and online communication).”

By Choi Ji-won (jwc@heraldcorp.com)