The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Teen opens K-pop store in Macon
16-year-old wanted something closer than similar store in Doraville to get her fix of popular music genre
At 16, Chase Kiernan of Macon is doing something most of her peers are not. She’s managing her own K-pop store, which she’ll likely own outright once she’s legally old enough. K-pop is a South Korean music genre.
But until she turns 18, her parents, Misty and Scott Kiernan, who rotate shifts working alongside their daughter, legally own the new business in the historic Ingleside Village.
Chase came up with the idea for Macon K-Pop at 2320 Ingleside Ave.
“I select what albums we carry,” Chase said. “I’m looking into all of the decor options, all of our, like, accessory items. I handle all the social media — so messaging customers, making the posts, doing our, like, daily stories and whatnot.”
Her mom, who has civilian IT job at Robins Air Force Base in Warner Robins, built the store’s website. But Chase has the final say on what’s featured on it.
New to Middle Georgia
Macon K-Pop is the only K-pop store of its kind in Middle Georgia, Chase said.
She offers a variety of albums, photo-card binders and other accessories. Though there are a few vinyl records, they’re not as popular as the K-pop albums that include CDs, photo cards of the idols and other goodies that fans like to collect and trade. Within the K-pop culture, idols refer to the artists, Chase said.
An individual album may include different photo cards, which leads some fans to buy the same album multiple times to get the photo cards they desire, Chase said. Some fans also trade photo cards similarly to how baseball cards are traded. The photo book includes promotional photos and generally the track list, credits and messages from the artists. The photo cards are of individual artists. Other inclusions can be postcards, bookmarks or stickers.
An advantage of having a K-pop store rather than an online-only business is that people can hold the albums, which is especially important to collectors, Chase said.
“Most people like to physically hold the albums and look at them because you never know what exactly the size is
going to be in,” Chase said. “Some people have very specific ways that they organize their albums where if it’s something too big for their shelf, they’re not going to get it.”
For fans who only want the music, there are albums with just QR codes. But they aren’t as popular because most fans want the photo books and other inclusions, Chase said.
“Some people like all of it. Some people just focus on trading. Some just focus on the dance and don’t even really collect the albums but love the music just as much,” Chase said. “It’s such a big variety.”
What’s most popular in the K-pop genre, Chase said, are the boy groups and the girl groups. Her favorite K-pop idol is The8 from the boys group Seventeen.
All the members of the boys groups and girls groups sing. But some members specialize in rap or are known more for their dance moves than singing, Chase said. In contrast, members of K-pop bands sing
and play instruments.
While K-pop has been around for years, Chase believes the music genre really took off in the U.S. market about 2010 with groups like Girls’ Generation and SHINee.
Even if you’re not familiar with K-pop, most folks likely have heard, or know of, PSY’s 2012 global hit “Gangnam Style,” which became the first YouTube video to hit 1 billion views, according to an Associated Press tweet.
“People love music and the dancing,” Chase said. “These music videos and the concepts they do are also such a big part of it . ... There’s so much artistic aspects that go into all of it.
“You’ll have groups that they will write and produce all of their own music compared to, like, some other companies that make music for the artists,” Chase said. “All of their ideas from the members are going into album concepts, from what the packaging is like to what the photo looks like to the choreography to the songs to, like, everything.”
In the future, she’d like to hold events at Macon K-Pop such as photo-card trading events and random dance events.
“There’s no place where K-pop fans can go and get together and actually interact with other people that have similar interests to them. … So I wanted to kind of provide, like, a safe place for K-pop fans and a way for us to all get to know each other more,” she said.”
There’s a large space in the back of the store that may be transformed for such events, while her mom noted that they may seek a permit to temporarily close a section of Vineville for a big, random K-pop dance party.
“Dance events, which is a big thing in the K-pop world, are where we learn the choreographies these K-pop songs have, and then we can all get together, and we’ll play, like, random parts of the songs, and if you know the song, you jump in and you dance,” Chase said. “It’s just a way to have fun with this community.”
The back story
As she really got into K-pop over the past few years, Chase said she saw the need for a local K-pop store and approached her parents about opening one.
Chase and her friends had been traveling to the closest K-pop store, in Doraville near Atlanta, to get their K-pop fix, and though stores like Hot Topic and Barnes and Noble carry K-pop albums, they offer only select K-pop groups and not a large variety of the genre, she said.
Also, Chase and her dad, who’s a chef and co-owner of Root 76 Cuisine in Warner Robins, talked for years about doing a business together such as a retail store on a corner where they’d have cute anime and cutesy products such as stuffed animals and decor, she said.
Chase decided that she’d rather operate her own retail store after high school than go to college, and after doing some research, her parents thought the K-pop idea was sound and launched the business for her.
“My thought process was get it open now, and by the time she’s ready to graduate, then take her on as a partner or pass it on to her, and this would become her business and her future,” her mom, Misty, said.
“We even set it up — we did an LLC — as a retail company doing business as a K-pop store, so at any point, K-pop is no longer bringing in income or anything, she can move into a different retail of her desire and not go through that LLC process all over.”
Her parents handle the financial aspect of the business, with plans to teach that to Chase so she can take that over when she’s 18, said her dad, Scott.
Chase is enrolled in the VIP Academy, the Bibb County School District’s online homeschool option.
She does her schoolwork Mondays and Tuesdays, when Macon K-Pop is closed, or when she gets in after work if she hasn’t already completed the coursework.
Hours are noon to 6:30 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday and 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday.