Why M!LK Took Off: Old Media's Decline and a New Fandom Marketing Strategy

M!LK is a five-member vocal and dance group. Their song "Iijan" (roughly, "Sounds Good") was reported at more than 2.7 billion total views on social media, more than 1.6 billion on TikTok alone, and around 94,000 related hashtag posts.

Numbers this large can feel remote, but they break down into individual short videos. Someone dances, and someone who watched it dances too. The views that piled up came not from ad spend but from fans' hands moving.

Their first appearance on NHK's New Year's Eve song contest, Kohaku Uta Gassen, at the end of 2025 and the entrance-march song for the national high school baseball tournament at Koshien in spring 2026 are major achievements, but the order matters. Fans built the heat on social media, and TV found it afterward. Who controls the way in has changed.

This spread didn't happen overnight. The group itself has been active for more than ten years, and it spent that time building up before the song was discovered. Much of what looks like sudden success is really just a long run-up before being found.

That's why "aiming for a viral hit" is a bit off from reality. You can't aim and land one. What decides the outcome is whether you had kept yourself ready to be received when you were found. The quality of the song, the number of live shows, the relationships among the members: the parts that don't show on the surface pay off the moment something spreads.

There was a time when a male idol group had to appear on TV music shows and variety programs to become widely known. The Japan Fair Trade Commission's 2019 caution about the relationship between talent agencies and TV networks suggests that there was an era when the ways in were limited.

Social media bypasses existing casting, and fans' reactions are visible there. It has become an environment in which fans can prove a discovery before the media picks it.

That said, social media isn't a level playing field either. How posts are shown depends on the platform's system, and you can't make something grow just by aiming at it. It's open to anyone, but in exchange you can't predict what will happen.

This change isn't a story of TV losing its power. If anything, stages like Kohaku or Koshien have gained value, because they reach people social media can't reach in one go. What changed is the order.

Before, appearing in the media was the entry point to recognition. Now, showing that you already have support is close to a condition for appearing. Fans can now create the track record that gets you chosen. That is the structural change.

The entrance has widened, but things also disappear faster. A song known through a short video gets replaced by the next one just as quickly. The dividing line is whether you have prepared what to hand people next while the numbers are still rising.

So what's needed after discovery is not more promotion but something that lets people spend a little more time with you: live footage, interviews, another song. For someone who learned about you in fifteen seconds, prepare five minutes and an hour. Without these steps, awareness ends as just a number.

Behind the spread of "Iijan" is not just the recording but a short dance and an expression. It isn't too hard, and you can work it into your own video. There was room for the people posting to arrange it in their own way.

Fans aren't watching an advertisement; they're putting the song into their own lives. A format people can take part in extends a song's life. The official side's respectful attitude toward fan-made content matters too.

Choreography that's easy to join has a few things in common: it centers on hand movements, so it works in a small space; it's complete within a short stretch of the chorus; and it still works if you mess up. Design it as a contest of dance skill and participation drops sharply.

Another big factor is that people can tell the official side welcomes their posts. If the range of audio you may use and how videos are handled stay unclear, the more cautious people are, the less they post. Whether permission to take part is visible determines how many people take part.

Participatory spread has side effects, too. A song can travel on its own and become a trend without people knowing whose song it is. It's not unusual for the choreography to be imitated while the group's name never comes up.

Closing that gap takes the steady work of getting people to remember the name: making it clear who is who in the videos, having the official account respond to comments, and providing a path to the next post. A song's popularity and a group's recognition have to be grown separately.

The major second album MIX recorded 62,177 copies in Billboard Japan's weekly album sales. What stands out is that a physical release moved in an era when you can listen to music by streaming.

That number matters because it's a different measure from social media views. Streaming is free, but buying costs money and effort. It may be the same "popularity," but the gate it has to pass through is heavier.

A CD isn't just a container for a recording. It became part of the fan experience as proof of support, a keepsake you keep at hand, and a reason to go to the live show. It also needs the healthy option of choosing whether to buy.

Even in an age when you can stream songs, discs still move for reasons beyond "ownership." Buying is a statement that you supported the group, and it remains as a record.

But this structure becomes dangerous if pushed too far. A design in which you buy the same disc many times for bonus items puts the heaviest burden on the most devoted people. Creating a reason to want to buy is different from building a system that makes people buy. Lose track of that line and fans can't keep going for long.

The first Kohaku appearance and the Koshien entrance-march song moved the heat born inside social media to places people of all generations encounter. TV and school events carry a song fans already knew to new people.

The media hasn't ended; it has just stopped monopolizing discovery. A division of labor has emerged: fans light the fire, and the media hands over a big stage.

Standing on a stage like Kohaku matters for fans, too. A song they found and spread reaches their families and colleagues, and the time they spent cheering gets recognized from outside.

The Koshien entrance-march song is a prime example. High school students in the stadium and families watching on TV hear it without even trying. Almost nowhere on social media today do you hear something whether you're a fan or not.

Social media reaches deep, while TV and events reach wide. Their roles differ, so neither is above the other. What has changed in the past few years is that this order now works: build depth first, then borrow breadth.

Someone who learned of the group through a post next listens to the recordings, then moves on to the live shows and the album. What matters is to build that staircase without rushing people up it.

People don't have to climb the whole staircase. Some like only the song, some go all the way to the live shows, some follow an individual member. Wherever they stop, they're fans.

The real problem is missing middle steps. A person who likes the song doesn't know what to do next and simply drifts away. Building the path is close to making sure the person who has fallen for you doesn't get lost.

M!LK's rise is not a story of rejecting TV. A song that fans found, imitated and talked about on social media reached big stages like TV and Koshien. The key for oshi-katsu marketing from here is not to create heat with advertising but to prepare an entrance people can take part in and to trust the time it takes for the heat to grow.

What companies and creators can learn from this is not the spreading technique itself. Make it something people can copy, welcome participation, and be ready to respond when you're found. All three apply just as they are in fields outside music.