Playing in traffic

Having put up a traffic chart for most of 2015 pretty much on a whim (or a frantic need for reassurance!), I thought I’d talk about it and how it compares to 2014.

So, here’s the chart for most of 2014:

As I said in the post that accompanied it, February 2014 and January 2015 are just fragments, so there are unreliably low numbers for both months.

But you can see that there were three peaks, which were caused by three events: The announcement of the U.S. tour in March 2015, the release of H.E.R in July of 2015, and Block B’s appearances on year-end shows in December 2015.

Now we’ll see the (mostly) 2015 chart–this is from today:

What’s interesting to me is that pretty much the same rule applies: more activity = more traffic (and presumably more popularity). There’s a dip in June 2015, because Block B had just done a big push in Japan and didn’t have much booked, and then what they had booked was canceled thanks to the MERS outbreak. There’s also a slight slump in March because they were finishing up their European tour and getting ready for Bastarz, so they weren’t that active.

The year 2015 trends so differently from 2014 because overall it was simply much busier. There was:

• The Japanese debut in January
• Unpretty Rapstar and the release of “Well Done” in February
• The European tour in February and March
• Bastarz in April
• A Japanese release and seven-venue tour in May
• Show Me the Money from late June until early September
• KCON-LA in August
• The release of “Ordinary Love” in September
• The release of “Say Yes or No” and the announcement of a U.S. tour in October

So, that’s a lot of peaks there, and you can see the whole thing start to build–the big, dramatic peak in March 2014 took BlockB.com to 3,000 unique visitors a month; meanwhile July, August, and September of 2015 all got about that number of visitors, and October 2015 will probably break the 4,000 mark tomorrow. (ETA: Actually, it broke 4,500–not too shabby!)

That’s all good, and I think it demonstrates the viability of “unpacking” Block B and pushing solos and sub-units–it’s not hurting the group, because they are still in demand as a unit, but it gives them (at times much-needed!) flexibility and keeps them in the public eye.

I do agree that Block B will need to do a full comeback at some point, if only because people will tire of hearing all the same songs. But they’re well-positioned for it–they haven’t been forgotten by any means. And it’s certainly nice that they don’t have to make these decisions from a position of desperation and can do things like prioritize members’ health when they need to.

And if you’re wondering if the hate over Zico’s appearance on “Traveler” is significant (it is allegedly coming from f(x) fans, but I’m suspicious, because I’m not seeing it on Tumblr, which would mean that it’s actually coming from the same people it always comes from), here’s traffic from the last few days:

And, you know:

https://twitter.com/ROUGH_VER/status/658686956956610560

OK. I think this one has it right.