You’re Today’s Star! Idol Culture on Morbios-23
Idols, closely tied to the popular musical genres called Morbop, are a subcultural phenomenon in the Morbios cultural sphere: highly-publicized and celebritized performers, usually masked, often multi-talented, increasingly inorganic.
Despite its “pancultural” positioning, the musical hooks most associated with Morbop (like the bubbly doka-doka-doka and “blooming” synth crescendoes) have roots in the patriotic anthems of a semi-past era of Morbian history, mingling with popular Chibyo instrumentation.
Gen 1
Seeking to fill a market niche, the music producer Titane Oyono developed a concept for a new kind of entertainment product: a large group of semi-interchangeable performers, defined more by their group identity than individuality. Dancing Star Light expected all of its synchronized and choreographed women to sing, dance, and play instruments equally; while the young men of Teen☆Wink were differentiated as “the hot one,” “the cool one,” “the funny one,” until cooler, hotter, funnier replacements could be cast.
The Council was skeptical of individualized celebrity and the potential promotion of vice through pop media; the word “idol” was first used critically by mainstream media. To assuage them, Oyono developed fictional personae for his performers to adopt, discouraging “true” personality worship. He even drew heavily on the most-Council-approved popular music, the “canon” of pre-Scream records Mazin had promoted.
Audiences reacted positively! The bubbly, upbeat music with uncontroversial themes of friendship, chaste affection, and clean living were a hit with families, religious groups, and institutions seeking youth programming for discotheques and social clubs. This squeaky clean image was maintained then and now by strict contractual restrictions on the personal lives of idols: no drinking, no drugs, no parties, no partners. Check with your manager before wearing non-sponsor brands.
Gen 1.5
Expanding beyond Oyono’s signed artists, other acts and labels took the original idol group concept in new directions: the perennial second-place New Moons, mixed-gender Two•Nine•Eight, and artsy Slander to name a few.
Gen 2
By ten years in, idol groups had seen an explosion of popularity. While Oyono’s label maintained market dominance and ensuing creative control over performers, new names and rivals exploded onto the scene weekly. Thieves of Kisses ruffled conservative feathers with their mildly suggestive lyrics and bouncing hips, but audiences were more interested in their elaborate “thief” masks. The idol with an unexpected “secret identity” in their offstage persona became a stock character both in wider media and within idol storylines.
The genre expanded like a gas to fill other media niches. Sonon Glow was the first idol group to host a morning news broadcast; YahYa was the first to host in the evening, omitting the daily musical number. 27 members of ultra-popular Step Up!! 41 were elected to the Morbios Assembly, enough to sway legislation and secure two ambassadorships and the Tourism Ministry. (Iskandar would go on to head the Finance Ministry after retiring from music, and subsequently the idol group Finance Ministry after retiring from politics.)
Chafing against the restrictions of large ensembles, some performers struck out solo, but the most successful acts formed small groups and remained affiliated with wider “constellations” of sister acts for stadium-filling crossover performances and media-friendly storylines for the characters they portrayed. Mint’s bias was the singer and dancer Dark Sun Khadija [DSK], who broke from the corny-spooky (and awful work conditions) Enigma Manor group to pursue her own career and artistic image within a constellation called the Paradise. Her sincere coolness and ‘gentle rebel’ attitude attracted legions of fans looking for a role model; sales of her trademark antigrav roller skates soared.
Titane Oyono revolutionized the genre yet again by expanding the list of approved cuts and samples from Mazin’s official library to newly-discovered albums from his personal collection. This sparked the career of legendary girl group Alilat, who wore elaborate makeup and hairstyles instead of masks, as well as a wider religious debate in the Council about the canonicity of Mazin’s private notes and playlists.
Gen 3
Marked by the expansion of the official idol milieu to include performers of different languages and homeworlds, collaboration with Chibyo artists, and especially the development of VI software to create virtual idols. Frustrated by their stable of idols cracking and bending under pressure, failing to live up to audience standards, or worse - demanding contract renegotiation - labels began promoting virtual idols (like the still-iconic Melody Mode) who were only their characters.
In response to increased competition, artists and labels expanded their repertoire of talents: idols were increasingly expected to also act, paint, write, compose, pursue athletics, or wilder gimmicks. DSK took her art in new directions, releasing theme albums whose storylines intersected with her other projects, especially her growing professional wrestling career with the rest of the Paradise constellation. In a rare move for the industry, she even created and licensed her own VI, Dija Vu.
Public scrutiny increasingly turned to the abuses of the idol industry itself, not just tabloid scandals about performers’ personal lives. Titane Oyono was officially censured by the Council and sentenced to a short prison term, and his rivals stepped in to fill the gap. There was a moment of popularity for “anti-idol” punk group Everyone’s Grudge before they dissolved and rejected further spotlight. Holomallow successfully spun the atmosphere of scandal into promoting their library of VIs as a safe, respectable, values-based alternative to “live idols.” How could a program let you down?
The media-savvy cult around the psionic Lulodi Midimi drew Morbian entertainers into its orbit, prized recruits for their high profile and personal charisma. DSK, depressed and unhappy, became a booster for Midimi (her last album, a collab meant to boost other earmarked stars and be sold exclusively by local chapters, is an object of dark fascination) and saw her co-performers distance themselves from her and her popularity waver. Titane Oyono’s assassination in prison saw her wanted as a person of interest, until she fell off the grid entirely in the wake of Midimi’s failed coup. Fans grieved, left without answers, only the synthesized voice library of Dija Vu. Khadija’s frequent collaborator and tag-team partner Kraken Aisha, in a rare interview with unofficial fanzine Moon’s Room, compared it to “losing my heart.”
Gen 4
The current era has been defined by increasing VI-human symbiosis in sometimes unsettling, sometimes inspiring ways. Live idols increasingly use glitchcore techniques and copy dance moves that were developed for VIs to work within software limitations. Meanwhile, labels and independent artists craft “real lives” for virtual idols, invoking the gap between mask and face they were first developed to erase.
A new development is all-VI constellations (like 108 Stars and Angel Buster) whose members’ abilities are artificially limited. Following them in reality TV-like competitive social fictions, fans praise (and scorn) their idols, enhancing the singing and dancing talent and morale of their bias by voting (suffrage earned by purchasing sponsor products) or literally by uploading their own kinetic/vocal/facial data to improve the software. This has opened the door to new levels of parasocial anxiety and vicious fandom bullying, which the Morbian government has taken only piecemeal steps to regulate.
As the Morbop wave crests, idol fandom abroad is no longer limited to exotic novelty or subcultural half-underground datatape-trading. Mainstream audiences across the sector know the names of all seven of the Ring Generation boys, while domestic charts are topped by commercial-edgy R3D!BLQCK and the 36-member mixed human/VI ensemble Burn My Dread.
Tello Institute industrial mecha pilot Minerva Millennium Module, aka Mint Miller, represented as a doll on her workbench wearing a Dark Sun Khadija crop top.
(art by 🍰 hamhambone.itch.io )