A Shocking Netflix Documentary and Its Butterfly Effect on K-pop Industry
"In the Name of God: A Holy Betrayal" and its impact on physical album distribution
“In the Name of God: A Holy Betrayal” is a Netflix original docuseries about self-proclaimed prophets and their crimes in South Korea. It was released in early March and gained significant attention on Korean community websites. The shocking nature of the documentary aside, it may have an impact on the K-pop industry so I decided to write about it.
The documentary is an eight-part series, with the first three gaining the most attention, and episodes five and six focus on “The Baby Garden.” The Baby Garden is a collective farm village founded by Kim Ki-soon, an alleged cult leader, in 1982. Kim also established a record distribution company called “Synnara Record” in the same year, which became quite successful — allegedly exploiting the labor of her believers — at the peak of physical record sales in Korea. According to an article written in 1996, Synnara’s market share in physical record distribution reached up to 30%, and it operated several retail stores in the country, with its biggest store carrying around 80,000 titles.
In 1996, Kim was charged with various crimes, including the murder of residents, but only got convicted of tax fraud and embezzlement. By the time she was released from prison in 2000, the community had significantly shrunk but the business still thrived.
Although it was not the first time that the tie between Synnara Record and The Baby Garden went public, causing a shock, the business remained lucrative even during the decline of the recorded music industry. One notable group of its customers was K-pop idol fans. The unverified rumor that if they buy CDs online at Synnara, it is reflected on album sales charts without fail drove sales to some extent.
After the release of the Netflix documentary, some K-pop fans are boycotting Synnara, and some record labels are excluding Synnara from their official pre-order channels and fan signing event locations. This could result in a decline in Synnara's market share for online physical album retail. Then, where would K-pop fans who used to buy CDs at Synnara go? I can think of a few categories of retailers that might absorb the demand:
Online book retailers such as Yes24 and Aladin
Official online merchandise shops by each label, such as Weverse Shop, SM Town & Store, YG Select, and JYP Shop
K-pop merchandise retailers such as Ktown4u
Some of these companies have been growing rapidly thanks to the expansion of the global K-pop fan community. Weverse Shop is a part of Weverse Company, which also runs Weverse, a fan community platform with 8.4 million monthly active users (MAU). In 2022, Weverse Company generated 327.4 billion KRW in revenue, which is approximately equivalent to 250 million USD. Ktown4u is an online retailer with a global shipping capacity, that generated 216.5 billion KRW in revenue in 2021, which is approximately equivalent to 160 million USD. Will they also benefit from the aftermath of the Netflix docuseries? At least, it’s not bad news for them.