If there were a ‘Challenge of the Year’ award, that honor would definitely go to these ‘super newcomers’ Ailitt. TikTok, the ‘holy land’ of SNS challenges, has acknowledged it.

Ailitt, the protagonist of the ‘Magnet Syndrome’, ranked 4th in Korea and 3rd in Japan in the ‘Year On TikTok’ Top Song category announced by the global short-form video platform TikTok. In the ranking, which is based on songs most used in content creation within the platform, their debut and successful song ‘Magnetic’ was the only K-pop song to ‘succeed in simultaneous charts in Korea and Japan’.

In addition, in the Japanese rankings where J-pop songs account for more than 80%, ‘Magnetic’ is the only ‘only woman’ K-pop song to make it into the top 10.

‘Magnetic’ has led the global SNS challenge trend throughout the year by adding the ‘finger dance’, which has now become a K-pop choreography secret, to the ‘super attraction’ chorus, which has become a buzzword. In addition, as proven by its 25th place on the Apple Music annual global chart and 15th place on Billboard Japan‘s annual ranking, it has shown off its ‘Song of the Year’ solo mode.

Following ‘Magnetic’, Ailitt succeeded in achieving a double mega hit with ‘Cherry’ in the latter half of the year, and also advanced to NHK’s ‘Kōhaku Uta Gassen’, which is considered Japan‘s best year-end festival ’, ‘the first year of debut’.


Reporter Heo Min-nyeong mignon@donga.com