The Bini backlash

I suppose it's inevitable that Bini's phenomenal success has led to that familiar cycle of fans, haters, and media outlets keen to be relevant playing out again.

What happens when a musical act becomes really popular?

There’s a certain sequence, give or take a few things running out of order, and it happens regardless of what genre that act is mostly in. It begins with the people around you, even those who aren’t really inclined to music, suddenly either mentioning the act in question, or singing the song from out of the blue.

And then radio follows. Twenty years ago radio was ahead of the curve, but clearly not anymore, thanks to social media being the primary hype machine nowadays. It’s our broadcasters who now follow what’s ubiquitous on TikTok—sometimes seemingly begrudgingly, as is the case with Manila’s English-speaking pop stations suddenly acknowledging K-pop because BTS made it irresponsible to do otherwise.

And then the echo chamber kicks in. Your social media algorithm will talk about nothing else but this musical act, even if you don’t really seek it out, giving you the impression that they’re really, really popular. Sure, this isn’t the case with everyone, because algorithms are, funnily, not monolithic, even if they really are. You know how social media decides to tell you one day that everything in your country is going to shit, by populating your feed with badly-informed hot takes and giving it a veneer of authority just because it’s on a screen?

Here’s when it gets really crazy. If you look closely—if you can be bothered to look closely; I can’t really blame you if you don’t—you’ll see groups of people attempting to control the narrative. The boosters, those who seemingly have a personal stake in making sure their chosen ones look good to everyone, will boost any piece of positive news, no matter how inconsequential it is. Either that, or shitposts and memes, lovingly dispatched.

The haters—I don’t like this term, but I somehow still prefer it over what Filipino discourse prefers, “bashers”—will do the same, only it’s with negative news. The hot take of some hitherto unknown “social media influencer” will be treated as breaking news, complete with a graphic of the relevant quote, to highlight that whoever’s popular really doesn’t deserve your love.

This push and pull will go on for a while. News outlets, desperate to get clicks online, will jump on to this “fight”, giving this nothing-burger an even bigger semblance of authority. Who wins, well, it’s really hard to tell.

This is exactly what’s happening to Bini right now.

A lot has happened since “the nation’s girl group” dropped their latest EP, Talaarawan. For one, they really became the nation’s girl group. It’s not like they came out of nowhere—having the backing of ABS-CBN, the country’s biggest broadcaster-turned-content-provider, means there’s always a way to put their name out there. “Pantropiko”, of course, was already a viral hit last year.

But something clicked in the last few months. From my vantage point, it’s not so much people learning about the eight-piece for the first time, but rather, folks who quietly or secretly liked Bini came out of the woodwork. It says something that “Salamin, Salamin”, the EP’s actual lead single, isn’t the ubiquitous song. It’s either “Pantropiko”, now destined to be part of Christmas party set lists for years to come, or “Lagi”, thanks in part to the online popularity of the Filipino remake of What’s Wrong With Secretary Kim?

Then the radio stations followed. In the Philippines, for better or worse, there’s a clear cordon sanitaire between those that broadcast in English, and those that broadcast in Filipino or any of the other local languages. For example, the former would talk more about Hollywood, while the latter, the so-called “masa” stations, would talk more about local showbiz. There would also be barely any musical crossover between the two formats, unless the song is really inescapable. P-pop acts tend to be played more in “masa” stations, but Bini’s success is so irresistible that Magic 89.9, one of the biggest (although since clearly diminished by the pandemic) English-speaking stations in Manila, has designated the group’s songs as “songs of the day”—something I bet they wouldn’t do before. I’ll admit, sure, that it partly should be because that demarcation is blurring—but those English-speaking stations have always traded in snobbishness, and personally I get a little giddy seeing them put in their place.

Then the memes came. There are far too many for me to post. There was always something about Maloi’s long red ribbons, or Stacey being called Staku. (I’m not a Bloom; I don’t know the in-joke.) Somewhere down the line you would see something that’d genuinely make you go “aww”, like when Jhoanna—who aspired to become a broadcast journalist before becoming a pop star—wrote and delivered her own piece (about her, naturally) for TV Patrol.

Then the think pieces came. Again, you know the media. We need the clicks, so we’ll write about what is popular, even if it’s far from what the outfit usually does. This is one of those think pieces.

As all this happens, the sense of inescapability builds. Despite losing its broadcast franchise, ABS-CBN still carries a very strong promotional muscle, and it’s a testament to the organization’s talents that they managed to push out Bini the way they did. Three sold-out concerts, followed by a national tour. A new single, seemingly rushed to capitalize on the group’s bigger fame. (“Cherry On Top” sounds pretty generic, a B-side to a possible single with more potential. But hey, they have sold the fact that foreign producers are involved.) A big fan’s day, and a possibly planted tangent about a missing Sheena standee. One commercial endorsement. Two commercial endorsements. An attempt, so far successful, to charge fans for exclusive content. The smallest development gets treated as big news, either by ABS-CBN programs or by the fans themselves. You know the drill. And you know what comes next.

From my vantage point, it began with news stories about the group’s members being harassed by the public on their days off. They had just wrapped up all three days of the BINIverse concert and were given time to spend with their families. Suddenly I’m hearing of fans pestering Maloi as she was having dinner with her family. Same with Aiah—and that’s back in her home province of Cebu. The group’s management, Star Magic, came out with a stern warning asking fans to respect the members’ personal space. Interestingly, we saw the same from the group members themselves. Their social media accounts, home to off-cam interactions that get turned into memes, suddenly

The next thing I know, the group is getting flak for asking for their privacy to be respected. There were photos of the group arriving at the airport in hats and masks, and somehow this was made out to be a bad thing. “Lumaki na ulo nila” (“They let the fame get into their heads”) is a typical comment. “Gaya-gaya lang naman sila sa K-pop” (“They’re just ripping off K-pop”) is another. Inevitably, there’s a post about how “more talented” people don’t act that way. One viral post cited Sarah Geronimo, who’s had a successful career in both music and acting for roughly two decades now, and how she still engages with fans in public, unlike those upstarts.

I’m exposed to K-pop, so images of idols somewhat covered up in airports are not new to me. And it makes sense, because if you’re in demand and your schedule is really full, you’ll want to hold on to every little bit of me-time you can have. (I was watching a vlog from actress Angelica Panganiban, where she talks about her recent hip surgery, and tellingly a doctor tells her to wear a mask as she is discharged so as not to attract any unwarranted attention.) It seems reasonable, but I don’t know. Bini doesn’t deserve it because they shouldn’t be imitating K-pop anyway? Bini doesn’t deserve it because they’re “the nation’s girl group”—and we are the nation, and we get to dictate what they should do, what they should offer us?

Right now, that push and pull between the boosters and the haters is unfolding. My social media feed is filled with many shots fired, from both fans and anti-fans, amplified by those news outlets who want a slice of the action. Every live chat will have a mention of it, even if it has nothing to do with it. (I was watching Eat Bulaga! online and someone was spamming about how that show’s Singing Queens—which is a completely different beast, notably in not being a P-pop group—is somehow better than Bini.) Even Bini themselves got in on the act, engaging in an act of trolling I never expected to see in Filipino pop culture: they flew to General Santos last weekend for a concert, and they were all covered up like the Jabbawockeez, all throughout the trip.

And, of course, everyone has a say, from “professional” shit-stirrers to little-read publications like the Once Monthly. Well, this isn’t much of a say, not so much a hot take but an observation. It’s not like we haven’t seen all this before. SB19 is P-pop’s first big success, and in their heyday they got criticized for being a K-pop rip-off, for having their faces done—and are they actually gay? That’s always a go-to, isn’t it, pretty-looking men on our screens being gay because that diminishes them somehow?

And it’s not just musicians, and it’s not just people who are suddenly popular. I followed the new love team of Kim Chiu and Paulo Avelino before it became too much of a trigger for me. Both established actors—the former is a very rare example of a Pinoy Big Brother contestant surpassing the reality show; the latter established himself as an indie darling—and both with electric chemistry, as seen on Linlang and What’s Wrong With Secretary Kim? Of course that was followed by several live shows, both here and abroad—there are a lot of KimPau fans in the Filipino diaspora—which meant photos of them wearing shades and masks in airports. And then I see someone repurpose that post about Sarah Geronimo, only the other side is KimPau. Like, again, can’t they have their privacy? Are we entitled to see every little bit of their supposedly blossoming relationship? Are they ours, too? I thought they were each other’s and all that.

(An update from 27 July: Nat tells me the whole KimPau thing was a “copypasta”—essentially a meme. Still, I think my point stands.)

I suppose I should cover my bases and clarify that this “backlash” is most likely coming from a small subset of people, amplified by the algorithm and pounced on by fans who are up for a fight. I should also say this isn’t unique to the Philippines. We just have a different term for it. You call it “tall poppy syndrome”, we call it “crab mentality”. Also, the laws of fandom are universal. If you’re a fan, you defend your favorite to the hilt, as if your life is at stake. If you’re an anti-fan, you devote your every hour to chopping down the tree until it falls, as if, well, your life is at stake. Add to that the nature of parasocial relationships and our general sense of entitlement, and you have something messy unfolding in front of you.

In the end, all we do is feed the beast. Who benefits from the cycle the most? Who wins? If any publicity is good publicity, certainly, for one, ABS-CBN.