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The story
A thread on 5ch’s Hello! Project board titled “Old men and grannies really shouldn’t be allowed at shows anymore, right?” took off. It started with a crowd photo from a show in Ise, where the strikingly high average age of the attendees became the talking point. Opinions in the thread clashed head-on: some argued fans should hold back voluntarily because “it looks bad,” while others countered that what people like and where they go is nobody’s business but their own. At the same time, some pointed out that older fans have supported the group for decades and represent a demographic that helps attract sponsors from certain industries — turning it into something messier than a simple generational spat.
What people said
Yeah, exactly
offshore = company, right?
If you want the group with the strongest 'nursing home' vibe in all of Hello!…
The age range is way different from other idol groups
and now it's the hottest act around
why not just move a little further underground (into the indie/'chika' idol scene)?
is full of old men itself
people will get mocked based on whether they're above or below that level
Then pretty much every group is wiped out, lol
Sounds like you only just found your way to Hello! Project
It pisses me off that you can jump on the bandwagon now and still trash-talk the people who've supported the group all along
Just stay home
It's an optics problem!
Come on, Showa-era old-timers, hold back a little
At a genuinely young scene like iLiFE!, the average fan age is barely over 20
Don't worry though, Hello! is never going to end up that dominated by young people
This year I actually did it
Had about a month of withdrawal symptoms
This year I actually did it
Had withdrawal symptoms for about a month, but surprisingly, I felt totally clear-headed after that
it's kind of sad, considering they supported the group back when it wasn't even popular
In Hello!, the fans who follow so-called 'grandpa-killers' like Ishii or Fukuda are basically the average age for most 48-family groups and members
They broke big something like ten years after Morning Musume, so why is their fanbase that much older?
Ressa's fans average 60 years old, and AKB still tops that — that's impressive
No need to hit every single date on a tour either
Right
Just gradually cut back
That never really ends, though
Even if you start by telling yourself you'll just stop traveling to away shows, between tours, festivals, bus tours, and fan club events, you're never actually going to 'graduate'
Short of flat-out skipping your favorite member's bar events Re: #39
it's just not going to happen
You could never run that kind of ad campaign with a fanbase like iLife! or Kawalab's
Having a different customer base from everyone else is the strength
It's also why RESCENE, the biggest K-pop girl group right now, became the first idol act to land a deal with the convenience-store chain CU — because their fandom isn't 'women-only' (a crude slang term implying an all-female, sponsor-unfriendly fanbase)
Lol
They're not at the age where you buy insurance anymore
they're at the age where you collect on it
You realize it wasn't that you wanted to go — you just felt like you had to
Of course Hello Pro Kenshuusei events are full of old men
it's so old-man-heavy that the vibe is actually really safe and orderly
Background and points of contention
Hello! Project has roughly 30 years of history since Morning Musume’s 1997 debut, and the fans who followed from day one have simply aged right along with it. Because of that, it’s well known among fans that Hello! Project’s live audience tends to skew older than other idol groups’. The thread’s central fault line came down to one question: should older fans hold back for the sake of “optics”? That drew pushback from people who saw it as excluding fans who’ve supported the group for years, set against concerns that a highly visible older crowd makes it harder for new, younger fans to stick around. There were also arguments that an older audience makes it easier to attract sponsors from industries like insurance and health foods — showing this is a more complicated issue than simple taste, with a business angle woven in too.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Hello! Project board) thread “Old men and grannies really shouldn’t be allowed at shows anymore, right?.”
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