Jennie has accumulated nearly 90 million followers on Instagram alone, to say nothing of her fervent communities on fan platforms like Weverse. (For context, pop sensations like Olivia Rodrigo and Sabrina Carpenter have around 41 million and 51 million Instagram followers, respectively.) This moment in pop music feels unique, a response to the previous era of the undercooked star who built a career off of viral fame alone. Or, like Jennie, they’re coming from a part of the industry built around the old-school notions of incubation and professionalism. All across pop music, hardcore stans campaign for tours, petition for splashy magazine covers, and band together to stream songs until those songs hit number one.