Seventeen's Joshua and Dokyeom post on Weverse to celebrate group's fifth anniversary, fans love the surprise
K-pop group Seventeen celebrate their fifth anniversary on May 26 and members Joshua and Dokyeom chose to give their fandom CARATs the best gift ever with thankyou notes and comments posted to Weverse.
Weverse is a Korean mobile app and web platform created by Big Hit Entertainment, which is famous for managing BTS. While Seventeen was already on the app, they now also count themselves as part of the Big Hit family following a merger that saw the company acquire Pledis Entertainment, who have managed the group for the last five years. As part of the deal, Big Hit is now the largest shareholder of Pledis and lists the company as one of its subsidiaries, vowing to extend financial support and industry expertise to Pledis while allowing it to continue operating independently.
For many fans who have long found Pledis to be less-than-capable of managing a group like Seventeen, this is a welcome decision, particularly because it occurred just in time for the group's anniversary celebrations.
But in addition to the merger, Seventeen's Joshua (whose Korean name is Hong Jisoo) and Dokyeom (or DK) chose to add to the joy by hopping onto Weverse to say thank you to the group's fans.
"OMG finally Joshua post something at weverse... I'm crying," tweeted one fan, along with an image of Joshua's post that read, "We have both grown a lot in these short amount of years. That growth, that desire to always strive to make better music. The passion that we have for what we do is all connected to our love for you guys. You have really broadened our horizons, now I know with our CARATs anything is possible as long as we stay together supporting one another and believing in each other. I know and have confidence we will continue to have this strong bond for many years to come. Love you and happy anniversary," followed by several heart emojis.
Member Dokyeom also took a moment to jump on the platform and express his gratitude to the CARATs who have been with the group all this time.
Seventeen are a 13-member group that debuted in 2015 with a one-hour live showcase, the first ever from a male K-pop group on a major broadcasting channel. The group found instant fame owing to their distinction of being a 'self-producing idol group' which stems from the fact that Woozi produces most of the group's music, Hoshi handles their choreography and the members all participate in writing the song's lyrics and raps.
Their debut EP '17 Carat' followed three days after their showcase and became the longest-charting K-pop album of the year in the US. It was also the only rookie album to appear on Billboard's '10 Best K-Pop Albums of 2015' chart.
Following the members' activity on Weverse, one fan tweeted, "HONG JISOO FINALLY POSTED ON WEVERSE WAHHHH," another stated, "I literally just woke up and the first notif i've read is shua's message on weverse:(( it's a good morning and a good day ahead indeed:((," and another shared, "Joshua might rarely visits weverse but when he does.... :(((("
Sadly some fans missed out on the moment, tweeting, "DUDE I MISSED JOSHUA ON WEVERSE HE COULD HAVE ANSWERED ME I'M-" and others hoped to see posts from some of the other members as well with one fan tweeting, "I'm summoning wen junhui to install weverse again and post juseyo," and another fan stating, "He gonna post then uninstall weverse again." Jun isn't active on the platform at present, though his presence is clearly in high demand.