International Fans
I found a new fan site today. It's been up less than a month. Biography, discography, photos, great design. Clay's official site should only be so nice! It's Japanese: The New Clay Aiken.
Awhile ago, maybe a year and a half or two years ago, a few fans in Korea started a fan site after "Shine" was used in a camera commercial starring a famous Korean actor. Today that site has over 10,000 members! Clay's never been to Korea; he has never been promoted in Korea. The interest in him is totally spontaneous, and is nurtured by random American TV appearances rebroadcast in Korea and lots of clack: Korean site.
Here's what one of the first members, Bloomingclay, said when they had reached 5,000 members:
American Idol was shown all over the world this year. Clay's appearance on the AI5 finale yielded approximately 1,000 new members to the Korean site! Message board posts from international members indicate the response was fantastic in many other countries as well. Not bad for two minutes on TV, eh?
Well, it took less than a
minute for a lot of us to fall
for him in the first place.
Clay's never been played much on the radio, hence all this interest has been generated by television. Not the usual way for a pop star to gain fame, but nothing about Clay Aiken happens in the usual way. With this new album, I predict Clay's international popularity will skyrocket.
Analysis of google searches over the last few years shows that the countries in which searches for Clay Aiken are highest (as a percentage of total searches) are Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Phillipines. Oh, and the US (comes in fourth). Also Canada, Sweden, Australia, and the UK. (Thanks to moonhead for the research. Much more detail can be found here: Clackhouse post.)
The Korean and Japanese sites are by no means the first Asian Aiken fansites. Smaller but closely-knit fan clubs have existed a long time for fans in Singapore and Hong Kong. There are many international fans on the Aiken message boards, with the largest number being Canadian. When Clay visited Indonesia last year, he stopped by Malaysia afterwards just to say a few words at a Forces of Nature benefit for tsunami relief, and charmed the audience by speaking in the native vernacular. See Out of Sight, a blog with many photos and a video of the speech, and this live journal entry, Forces of Nature, for a local perspective.
Now a Japanese site has been created. Did TBPB notice how many Anime montages on YouTube use Clay's music? Did they decide to give him Anime hair because they plan to market him in Asia? How long before his Japanese fandom skyrockets?
International fans - please add a comment and tell me where you're from!
ETA: *waves* at the fans from Canada, Argentina, the UK, Singapore, Thailand, the Phillipines, and New Zealand who have already visited since I wrote this blog a few hours ago!! ETAA: And to more visitors from these countries, as well as Germany, Slovenia, Estonia, Austria, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, France, South Africa, Dubai, Kuwait, Brazil, Argentina, Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Japan, and Korea.
I am very excited to have received a comment from the creator of the Japanese "New Clay Aiken" fan site.
Edited again: I learned of two more international fan sites, both from Brazil: Flogao Official Clay Aiken and Clay Aiken: Brazilian Fan Club. (Thanks pax!) I think the latter is the site of Lucia, who has attended a number of concerts and is a member of Clayversity. Here's Lucia's blog: clayaikenbrasil.
Technorati tags: Clay Aiken American Idol Japan Korea Indonesia Malaysia Singapore Phillipines Canada UK Australia Sweden Brazil tsunami Forces of Nature Anime
Awhile ago, maybe a year and a half or two years ago, a few fans in Korea started a fan site after "Shine" was used in a camera commercial starring a famous Korean actor. Today that site has over 10,000 members! Clay's never been to Korea; he has never been promoted in Korea. The interest in him is totally spontaneous, and is nurtured by random American TV appearances rebroadcast in Korea and lots of clack: Korean site.
Here's what one of the first members, Bloomingclay, said when they had reached 5,000 members:
Clay's Internet fan cafe in Korea, now 5,000 people joined!!!! WITHOUT any promotion.
Isn't it really neat people search if there is any fanclub site of him after they just watched his music video (sometimes played on cable channel) or a video clip of his performance on the internet and find here, and then join??
Many of those who joined even didn't know what American Idol is. They just saw the clips of him performing or listen to one or two songs of his album, thought he has great voice or the songs are pretty good and became interested in him. There are pop/rock fans, r&b/soul fans, and those who haven't listen to pop music until they get to hear Clay. For us, there is no 'cool/not cool' standard. If you like the song and the singer can sing, that's "cool".
American Idol was shown all over the world this year. Clay's appearance on the AI5 finale yielded approximately 1,000 new members to the Korean site! Message board posts from international members indicate the response was fantastic in many other countries as well. Not bad for two minutes on TV, eh?
Well, it took less than a
minute for a lot of us to fall
for him in the first place.
Clay's never been played much on the radio, hence all this interest has been generated by television. Not the usual way for a pop star to gain fame, but nothing about Clay Aiken happens in the usual way. With this new album, I predict Clay's international popularity will skyrocket.
Analysis of google searches over the last few years shows that the countries in which searches for Clay Aiken are highest (as a percentage of total searches) are Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Phillipines. Oh, and the US (comes in fourth). Also Canada, Sweden, Australia, and the UK. (Thanks to moonhead for the research. Much more detail can be found here: Clackhouse post.)
The Korean and Japanese sites are by no means the first Asian Aiken fansites. Smaller but closely-knit fan clubs have existed a long time for fans in Singapore and Hong Kong. There are many international fans on the Aiken message boards, with the largest number being Canadian. When Clay visited Indonesia last year, he stopped by Malaysia afterwards just to say a few words at a Forces of Nature benefit for tsunami relief, and charmed the audience by speaking in the native vernacular. See Out of Sight, a blog with many photos and a video of the speech, and this live journal entry, Forces of Nature, for a local perspective.
Now a Japanese site has been created. Did TBPB notice how many Anime montages on YouTube use Clay's music? Did they decide to give him Anime hair because they plan to market him in Asia? How long before his Japanese fandom skyrockets?
International fans - please add a comment and tell me where you're from!
ETA: *waves* at the fans from Canada, Argentina, the UK, Singapore, Thailand, the Phillipines, and New Zealand who have already visited since I wrote this blog a few hours ago!! ETAA: And to more visitors from these countries, as well as Germany, Slovenia, Estonia, Austria, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, France, South Africa, Dubai, Kuwait, Brazil, Argentina, Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Japan, and Korea.
I am very excited to have received a comment from the creator of the Japanese "New Clay Aiken" fan site.
Edited again: I learned of two more international fan sites, both from Brazil: Flogao Official Clay Aiken and Clay Aiken: Brazilian Fan Club. (Thanks pax!) I think the latter is the site of Lucia, who has attended a number of concerts and is a member of Clayversity. Here's Lucia's blog: clayaikenbrasil.
Technorati tags: Clay Aiken American Idol Japan Korea Indonesia Malaysia Singapore Phillipines Canada UK Australia Sweden Brazil tsunami Forces of Nature Anime
posted by Idle-wandering | 6/25/2006 02:00:00 AM
8 Comments:
Hi, I found your blog while browsing through Technorati. Thanks for the link to that Clay Aiken site in Japanese. I have several friends who are just going to go crazy when I pass it on to them!!
I am the newclayaiken from the Japanese fansite. Thank you for introducing my site! Clay is not so famouse as he is in your country, but he's got lots of Japanese fans from the AI5 finale.
But I don't think he has anime hair!:) He looks so hot!
I am so excited to hear from you!!! Your site is so elegantly designed, and the bio and discography are wonderful. I wanted to leave a comment, but I can't write much Japanese (I can read a little).
I love his new hair style too!
How exciting to hear that he has many new Japanese fans. I hope he'll be going there on tour very soon.
Thanks so much for your comment!!
I always thought Clay would be huge in East Asia if he's ever given the chance to promote himself over there. I've lived in Taiwan for bits and pieces of my life and there are many variety shows in Asia where music stars show up to play games and do comic bits, and then sing their songs and I think it would be such an amazing showcase for Clay's talent and personality. *Prays to the international promotion gods to give Clay wide international exposure because he WILL be a worldwide star if he gets the chance!*
I love your blog about the International Clay fans. I'm a fan from Australia. I agree that Clay's international popularity will skyrocket in the future. I can't wait for him to release his cd here in Australia.
Hi there, I'm a fan from Indonesia, but I live in NYC now as a student. I agree that Clay Aiken (especially with the new hairdo) could be huge in East Asia. I hope he goes international this time around. It would be great to see him tour that part of the world.
hey jen2!!! saw your reply to my post about Delon in the other blog and have been wondering how did you know about him. lucky you to be able to live in NYC as no doubt you'll get Clay news more often than me. i started watching AI from season 4 and so I missed AI2 completely, only heard about Clay from my colleagues, but never knew what i missed until i watched AI5 finale. my jaw just fell to the floor when he started singing. it wasn't his best performance but it was enough to make me wanted to know him more! and here i am right now :)
*raises hand*
Claymate from the Philippines over here!
WOW -- I knew that lots of people where I'm from were floored with Clay (the voice, the stage presence, the HOTNESS) after that AI5 performance. I mean, based on the FANTASTIC feedback I got (and believe it or not, continue to receive, even 6 weeks after!) from practically EVERYONE that I know! (Mostly people from my demograhpic -- the teenage demographic.)
But I NEVER KNEW that the interest for him was as intense as Google trends indicated!
GOSH.
That's just AMAZING.
AI2 was NOT shown here in the Philippines. (We, unfortunately, started with AI3!) And yet a 2-minute cameo appearance (ironic, if you think about it, considering he stole the show!) on the Season 5 Finale (which we were able to watch live!) was all he needed to create quite a big of a stir.
Just IMAGINE the tidal waves that are going to occur if he is further promoted in the US, Canada and officially promoted in Asia, Europe and beyond -- we're talking about Backstreet Boys (remember them?)-type of hysteria here.
Possibly even more intense.
And I'm dead sure that Claymania is going to ensue throughout the whole world if Clay is marketed internationally.
Dead sure.
Post a Comment
<< HOME