Dreamcatcher Takes A Short Break, Gearing Up For December 2021 Activities
K-Pop — Dreamcatcher Recall
The seven-member K-Pop girl group got a brief respite from public appearances, but kept up a bit of content for fans heading into the last month of 2021.
K-Pop groups tend to go pretty hard all year long, even when they’re not in front of the camera, so it’s no surprise that Dreamcatcher has been in this boat all year long. As such, even if it’s ultimately going to be a bit brief, this past week with Dreamcatcher has been less about being in front of the camera and more about prepping for December behind-the-scenes, as groups tend to do.
But that doesn’t mean there wasn’t any Dreamcatcher-related news, either. As always, the group seems to make it a point to drip out a bit more content for fans and give them a chance to hear from them — and of course the company is always working on the next thing to make the Dreamcatcher experience better. Let’s take a look at what we heard about this past week from the group!
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9cQS01cCZA[/embed]
It’s been a little while since we had Dreamcatcher work on the ground with someone in YouTube-land, so when the South Korean government’s Ministry of Culture came calling to the group to do just that as part of a collaboration with Soth Korea’s Korean Cultural Center in Los Angeles, they were more than willing to do so. BRIS is a popular K-Pop reaction-style YouTuber with decent reach and connection to the industry, and having his 1 million-plus subscriber base get a taste of the usual Dreamcatcher chaos is good publicity, as well as fun.
Dreamcatcher and BRIS ended up playing some (non-alcoholic) beer pong variants, many of which, at least for me, recalled my more carefree college days. It was fun to see BRIS try to handle how energetic and into the games the group seemed to be, and for Dreamcatcher to pick up on playing them despite a bit of a language barrier. And of course there were plenty of fun moments from the video, from JiU celebrating a win with one of the ping pong buckets on her head, to Handong’s careful coordination in winning one of the games, to SuA’s constant screaming no matter what was happening, and Yoohyeon giving in to her stealing tendencies by pocketing some of the ping pong balls. Overall it seemed like everyone had a great time, but more importantly, it’s nice to see that the Ministry of Culture sees Dreamcatcher as worthy representatives of South Korea’s music scene. In a world where the BTS’s and Blackpinks of the world make big splashes across the ocean, it’s nice to see a group like Dreamcatcher get a bit of that spotlight, even if it was in a short video like this one.
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eF5wuNmVrGo[/embed]
Speaking of spotlights, Gahyeon concluded her individual “Stay-At-Home” series with comfy clothes and some equally comfortable food in the form of cup noodle tofu stew and some dalgona. After watching Siyeon murder some potatoes during her birthday vLive in 2020 I admit I was a little bit nervous for Gahyeon, who admitted to burning a few noodles in her time, taking on the challenge of cooking something. Thankfully, with some helpful and whispered staff guidance, Gahyeon managed quite well, though it seemed the tofu stew turned out a bit better than the dalgona, which had a few failures but one determined youngest Dreamcatcher member (off-camera it appears some success was had).
Cooking type vLives for idols are always a bit fun, because unless they typically do the cooking (as SuA is known to do for the members), part of the entertainment is finding out how well they can manage in unfamiliar territory. Gahyeon did just fine here, especially considering that A)the standard for dalgona was SuA’s rather cavalier making of it during their 2020 White Day vLive and B)from someone who’s dealt with dalgona, the timing of not burning your sugar takes a bit of getting used to. Regardless, I’ve enjoyed this little mini-series a lot, just for the fact that it spreads around individual content on Dreamcatcher’s channel a bit, and for Gahyeon being an engaging and fun host. I’ll look forward to future, similar projects.
[embed]https://www.vlive.tv/video/270659[/embed][embed]https://www.vlive.tv/video/270659[/embed]
Gahyeon and Yoohyeon also both dropped in to do a couple of voice-only vLives and chat briefly with fans. Yoohyeon wants to do another gaming live stream at some point and Gahyeon managed to watch League of Legends-based Netflix show Arcane. Both talked just a bit about comeback plans (as in there aren’t any that are solidly formed at the moment, not a surprise given how late in the year it is) and also about what they might be doing for December — Yoohyeon mentioned that we might be getting a Special Clip while Gahyeon said she’ll either be on a Christmas activities schedule with the other members or resting. Either way, these sorts of chill vLives are a nice way to hear from the members and know that they’re still working on things, no matter how hard fans try to get them to let slip any spoilers.
SuA had a substitute fellow guest host this past week on SBS Wendy’s Young Street in the form of rapper Hanhae, formerly of the group Phantom. This week’s topic was about what type of person is most annoying to have a meal together with, with some specific practices with regards to eating Korean dishes as the choices (only eating the ham for budae jjigae, or spicy sausage stew, eating the meat during Korean BBQ more than grilling it and eating tangyusuk, a Korean take on the Chinese sweet-and-sour pork meant to be eaten together). I’ve definitely been there for people to do the 2nd choice to me, so I felt SuA and the other hosts’ pain even if on a small level.
On the fan cafe front, JiU had to open a 3rd “secret mailbox” (where fans who’ve reached an appropriate fan cafe level in the app can send messages to members) for herself. Not surprisingly, JiU is one of the most popular members to talk to among Dreamcatcher fans, and filling up the mailboxes not once, but twice because of the volume she gets is almost not a surprise to me at this point. JiU’s kind and attentive attitude towards fans has always been a part of her charm, not to mention the example she sets doing that as Dreamcatcher’s leader, so seeing her open up another mailbox to get more messages from fans is pretty much in-line with what she usually does. I’ll have to remember to send a brief note to her when I get a chance, as I’ve always respected the additional responsibility that being a leader in a K-Pop group tends to bring.
[embed]https://twitter.com/hf_dreamcatcher/status/1466240914087497729[/embed]
Finally, on a logistical note, it appears that Dreamcatcher Company is terminating their agreement with xofficialshop for distribution of their merchandise. The shop will stop selling items on December 9th with the site closing down on Decmeber 16th. While it’s ultimately unclear if this is xofficial closing up shop as a whole or if Dreamcatcher Company initiated or contributed to that happening, this is in all likelihood a good move for the company and the group. After the distribution of their first official lightstick experienced a number of challenges, including the fact that xofficial’s site was unable to handle the traffic coming to it for purchase, and after other vendors were seen to be carrying it and other Dreamcatcher merchandise, the writing was on the wall for the store, so this comes as no surprise to fans.
The way I read this, and the fact that their first official app platform went through a similar experience (Dreamcatcher is now on Weverse) is that Dreamcatcher Company tends to be conservative with their first forays into partnership for official items, which is expected of a company that is smaller. These learning experiences lead to bigger and better, especially if the platform experiences issues, so with Dreamcatcher growing as it has and with the company thus likely having more leverage to negotiate with other partners for things like merchandise, this isn’t unexpected. We’ll see what the company ultimately decides to go with, but I have a feeling they’ll have learned from their experience with xofficial even if it didn’t ultimately work out for them.
December is shaping up to be a busy month for a lot of people, and certainly Dreamcatcher might be among those who have got some plans brewing to cap off the year. Regardless of what they have in store for fans, you can always count on me to drop in a recap of what’s going on, so be sure to clap, subscribe, and signal boost this article to your fellow Dreamcatcher fans. See you next week!
