Who’s Your Chronically Online Bias? It’s ILLIT!

Artwork from Apple Music

The “parasocial” sheen that forms a bright, blissful patina over contemporary K-pop has transmuted itself into so many different beasts, and bubbly quintet ILLIT has been BE:LIFT LAB’s latest answer to how the industry might transmogrify this sheen to its nth iteration. ILLIT stylized themselves with moodier yet peppy interpolations of dance-pop on their debut outing, Super Real Me, highlighted on key tracks like “Magnetic” and “Midnight Fiction,” but they’ve taken a liking to more in-your-face material that embellishes their juvenile tendencies with more brash, kitschy electronics supplementing Gen Z-friendly laments on love and emotion. Building off this, their latest mini-album MAMIHLAPINATAPAI further shrinks the already wavering filter ILLIT has worn to cement themselves as the quintessential chronically online girl group.

Get Ready With ILLIT!

No holding back on the first track: “GWRM (Get Ready With Me)” immediately references “GWRM” trends popularized on YouTube, often in relation to makeup. There’s a cheekiness to the track, as it uses cosmetic products as the crutch through which a blossoming relationship solidifies itself (“Lavender powder, a mysterious hue / A feeling of being under a spell / between us”). There’s a vibrant element of proximity here: Cosmetics always stay on a person’s face, and one or the other function for augmentation, thus furthering the effectiveness of the metaphor. (Also, a deserved “haha” for the ironic juxtaposition of many GWRM vloggers using generic “lofi” variants of NewJeans songs and this song utilizing a compositional template that is sure to remind listeners of said “rival” group.)

“Paw, Paw!” is the most outlandishly digital-sounding of ILLIT’s tracks, featuring a host of melodic progressions that run the show like a Charli XCX production. Clearing another path for close proximity (“Promise me, stay by my side, in my arms”), this ups the ante of tracks like “Jellyous” to an overblown scale, leading to a very mature production for a pop track, that functions better musically than as an apparatus for enlightening listeners with the enamoring (vocal) sensibilities of five singers. (These pitch-shifted vocals are not doing anything for you, Minju.) However, it’s also the kind of thing that’ll rile up the wave of Oklou and Underscores listeners dwelling in the Album of the Year basement.

The title track and “Love, Older You” mellow out ILLIT’s persistent, nagging energy, opting for a calmer flavor of infatuation and vulnerability. It’s also in this bookend that retroactively demonstrates how they got away with a concept shift like “Not Cute Anymore” — they, at their core, still remain the same, youthful girl group capitalizing on how naturally their Gen Z ethos is outfitted in a variety of different flavors. (Today’s track boasts a “hot Americano,” maybe the next gets a matcha. Hopefully you’re not on airplane mode or “do not disturb.”) These tracks also highlight the sonic inconsistency of the mini-album (even as effective as they may be in a vacuum), but they instead seem to prioritize softening the insane blow dealt by the mini album’s centerpiece: its title track.

Me, Me!

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In the absence of “It’s Me,” MAMIHLAPINATAPAI’s other four tracks run a gamut of answers to why ILLIT deserve accolades as the most chronically online group. “It’s Me” is the TL;DR. This isn’t ILLIT’s first excursion with house and techno influences, but it’s arguably among their most effective, with pounding and stiff percussion that complements its verses’ pulsing synths, following a progression that not only catches up to the members’ intoxicatingly affectatious vocals, but sounds exactly like it’s soundtracking the high-suspense moment in your life when ILLIT eventually come for you to ensure your bias — regardless of any other variables — is them. This song is that moment. The second verse even throws in a cheeky synth lead that ups the pseudo-haunting ante even further.

Despite the haunt, ILLIT don’t structurally deviate that far from the previous b-sides that arguably triggered the culmination of this piece to begin with: It’s just as high-octane as “Tick-Tack” and timbrally digital akin to “Jellyous” while maintaining the swagger of “Not Me.” It neatly complements any given lyric that stares you in the eye, slyly beckoning… “it’s me.” Clunky as the drop might seem at first, it does its purpose of serving as the song’s focal point, complemented by a hammering dance choreography that is as authoritative as it is endearing. Not quite as easy to mimic as that of “Not Cute Anymore,” but arguably more attention-demanding even if you just pantomime the stomps.

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For as conceptually hollow as “It’s Me” is, it machinates its narrative functions very strategically to ensure retention. Firstly, they’re in the know about what stans do: You and your observant “fan account,” waiting to post them on your “[Insta]gram” just like the “loyal fan” you are. (Obviously, “bias” is a recurring theme here.) Aren’t you gonna heed to Yunah’s call to just admit “[she’s] your fave”? Secondly, they fuel that excitement by exhibiting self-awareness about it: Just by the mere existence of this song, aren’t you thrilled that your favorite idols are just like you? They know what you do! Lastly, they will let you know these things again and again… and again… and again…

Who’s your bias? I’m your bias. Who’s your bias? I’m your bias. Who’s your bias? I’m your bias. (Who? Who?) Who’s your bias? I’m your bias. Who’s your bias? I’m your bias. Who’s your bias? I’m your bias. It’s me.

(“Who’s your bias? I’m your bias.” is repeated five more times than Rage Against the Machine’s venerable “Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me!” — the latter song being more than double the length of the former.)

It also reframes the “interest”(s) of their previous songs — one that is more detached from the abstract romantic interest that underpinned their preceding tracks and more in line with the focal point of “It’s Me”: the (unacquainted) listener. “Bias”-er and “bias”-ee. Under the facade of youthful love and emotion, ILLIT are out to get you, and it was only through “It’s Me” that this master plan was finally, to put it in Gen Z terms, “hard launched.” (Is “Jellyous,” then, about competing girl groups?) [I jest.] Given how meticulously crafted and carefully curated the images of these groups are, this could either be an industry-leading master plan for K-pop to truly subsume their own corner of the attention economy, or a reading as inundated with cynicism as ILLIT are with their vibrant juvenilities.

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Just Say I’m Your Fave…

When thinking of how parasocialism fits into the K-pop ethos, ILLIT are taking pretty convincing strides in blurring the lines of where that might appear: No longer is it confined to reality content or mid-set banter/“ments” during concerts, and while they’re by no means the first to implement in their actual music, they have cemented themselves as the best current example in the mainstream of a successful enmeshment. ILLIT’s prior catalogue and personas up until this point have strategically built them up to be the exact perfect group for this kind of thing, so it’s only natural that a group with an incredibly youthful and vivacious aura takes the angle of parasocialism directly through the language and sounds most acquainted with their target audience.

(Imagery: If K-pop groups were “people” in a room, ILLIT is the one with a smartphone with 6+ hours of screen time a day. Actually, maybe many of the “people” in that room do have 6+ hours of screen time a day, so we can narrow down that imagery: Everyone else is reading self-help write-ups on Substack or god forbid, Facebook, while ILLIT are confined to Twitter. You couldn’t really imagine their contemporaries like LE SSERAFIM or Katseye doing that, having established themselves in the more abstract and “self-loving” extreme of empowerment.)

Aside from MAMIHLAPINATAPAI’s own very online self-referential currency being an instant draw to K-pop fans — among the most up to speed groups of people in, well, anything, really — it capitalizes on styles that are fast-paced, incredibly energetic, and among the furthest away from falling into the realm of vibes-heavy Spotify algorithm bait (i.e., “perfect-fit content”) by virtue of trying the hardest with its heavy, pouncing beats and in-your-face vocals that, given a more optimistic reading, trying their damn hardest to (and succeed in) wake listeners from their laid-back listening slump. Thus, they eventually fall into the trap of investment, submitting to a perpetual tenure in the ILLIT panopticon, feeding the BE:LIFT machine in exchange for even more of your bias.

It’s me!

RECOMMENDED TRACKS: GRWM (Get Ready With Me); It’s Me; Paw, Paw!

26/06/19

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Originally published at anthamic.tumblr.com on June 19, 2026.