B THE HOOD
The virtual group B THE HOOD is achieving remarkable performances right from its debut and is establishing itself as a candidate for the title of “second PLAVE”.
According to YouTube‘s chart of last November 2, the debut song “CHOP!” by B THE HOOD (Jace, Kiryu, Eon, Per B, Luan) reached 8th place on the daily popular music video chart as of October 31, thus entering the TOP 10. In addition, this track also climbed to 73rd place on YouTube‘s weekly popular songs chart, proving the keen interest it is arousing.
Examining the detailed indicators, their results are even more impressive. The title song “CHOP!” from the first mini-album “THE REAL DEAL” that B THE HOOD released last October 20 reached approximately 5.95 million views on YouTube in just 12 days after its release, and their official channel has no less than 252,000 subscribers.
The view count of “CHOP!” is the second highest among virtual groups that debuted in 2025 and 2026, just behind OWIS, while their subscriber count ranks overwhelmingly in 1st place.
In addition, the total view count of B THE HOOD‘s channel stands at approximately 38.26 million, surpassing even that of OWIS (approximately 21.29 million), and among all virtual groups that have debuted since 2021, it is difficult to find a group that has gathered more subscribers than them, with the notable exception of PLAVE.
While B THE HOOD is thus recording excellent results right from its debut, public attention is focusing on two questions: how did they manage to arouse such initial craze, and will they be able to establish themselves as new virtual stars?
The answer to the first question is relatively clear. B THE HOOD is a group that adopted a “different approach” and devoted a lot of time and effort to building its universe and characters.
The debut song of B THE HOOD, “CHOP!”, records 5.95 million views on YouTube in 12 days after its publication. This is a remarkable performance among debut songs of virtual groups.
The domestic virtual idol market is larger than one might think, with an estimated 60 virtual and AI groups having debuted in Korea since 2021.
In particular, the success of PLAVE and ISEGYE IDOL has pushed many IT companies to venture into virtual idols, and no less than 22 virtual groups announced their debut in 2025.
However, the problem is that the majority of these groups failed to show any particular difference compared to PLAVE or ISEGYE IDOL and could not escape the judgment of being “simple imitations”.
Faced with this, instead of rushing its debut, B THE HOOD chose an approach consisting of building its universe and characters first, thus succeeding in capturing the public’s attention.
As an example, although their debut album was released on October 20, their first teaser video was unveiled about 5 months earlier, on May 29; in the meantime, they continuously published original content presenting their characters and universe in order to raise expectations.
Furthermore, B THE HOOD also made a name for itself in the fields of fashion and entertainment by collaborating with fashion brands and presenting animation content with the creator BDNS.
In particular, the fact that they distinguished SD characters called “low-consumption fashion” and their real LD character appearances when operating as an idol group, thus presenting different charms and modes of activity, is judged to have been extremely effective.
An official from B THE HOOD‘s side stated to the media outlet The Fact: “B THE HOOD was designed with two types of characters in order to offer fans varied entertainment and charms, and this is receiving a good response,” adding: “In addition, we did not content ourselves with only polishing the characters, we also devoted a lot of effort to the intrinsic quality as singers, such as music and performance, and we strove to apply K-pop fandom culture to B THE HOOD. I think these are the reasons why we were able to attract the public’s attention right from our debut.”
Among the reasons for B THE HOOD‘s good results are long-worked prior content, an understanding of K-pop fandom culture, and high musical quality. The photo shows the performances of the debut song “CHOP!” on the YouTube Music / YouTube Charts weekly chart.
As these remarks point out, B THE HOOD‘s agency, LEVVELS, is a company jointly founded by the digital asset enterprise Dunamu and the entertainment company HYBE, with Dunamu currently ensuring main management.
Although HYBE did not directly participate in B THE HOOD‘s production, being an entity created in partnership with an entertainment company, it is highly likely that it possesses more know-how regarding K-pop fandom culture and the music industry than an ordinary IT company. This is why it is difficult to attribute B THE HOOD‘s popularity to a simple ‘stroke of luck’.
Then remains the second interrogation. Of course, it is impossible to perfectly predict the future, and showing hasty optimism based solely on the craze at the time of debut is a very risky attitude.
However, it is undeniable that B THE HOOD is obtaining significant debut results and is being cited as the virtual group arousing the most attention since PLAVE. This constitutes a solid argument allowing the estimation that their chances of success are relatively high.
An official from B THE HOOD requested: “We believe that the results currently obtained by B THE HOOD are encouraging. In the future as well, we plan to present not only high-quality music and solid performances, but also diverse content capable of well conveying B THE HOOD‘s charms, so we ask for your much interest.”
Journalist: Shawn
Translator: Shawn
Source: SNS B THE HOOD
