Bannerman is Swiss Ghanian. An aspiring artist with a notable following even before joining the group, she was scouted on social media to join the competition midway for a spot in Katseye.
The nearly three-year-old group was born out of a cutthroat competition orchestrated by Hybe—the multibillion-dollar South Korean powerhouse behind the biggest boy band on the planet, BTS—and the American label Geffen Records. Their objective: build an international girl group in the K-pop mold that could conquer the Western mainstream.
Only 20 of the 120,000 young contestants from around the world who auditioned for Katseye were chosen to battle it out in a grueling, tear-inducing 12-week boot camp. They were ruthlessly ranked and judged by a panel of industry experts ahead of each elimination round as Netflix documented the entire journey.
“Now, when I think about it, I’m like, ‘How did I do this?’” says Jeung, who was just 15 when she moved to LA to join the competition. “But that journey also made me more mature.”
Since then, the grind hasn’t slowed down. Together, the women of Katseye have accumulated 34 million collective followers on Instagram and nearly 37 million on TikTok. Their rabid fan base, nicknamed the “eyekons,” have propelled songs from two of their EPs onto the Billboard Hot 100. They starred in a Super Bowl ad for State Farm and a hypnotizing Gap campaign choreographed to Kelis’s “Milkshake.” Erewhon has sold a $22 smoothie named for their viral hit “Gabriela.” Even more impressive, they’ve accomplished all this before even releasing a debut album.
It would be easy to dismiss Katseye as a corporate experiment. Yet the band isn’t a carbon copy of any groups that came before them. Instead, Katseye is a collage: They’ve got the Spice Girls’ feminism, Destiny’s Child’s artistry, the Pussycat Dolls’ sex appeal, and Blackpink’s discipline.
“I think Katseye could have easily been very artificial,” says Raj, who quickly emerges as the spokeswoman of the group. “We got really lucky with who was chosen to be in Katseye, because all of us are very authentically ourselves.”
Thus far, Katseye has been defined by and criticized for its hyper-pop internet anthems like “Gnarly” and “Internet Girl.” But with more than 30 million monthly listeners on Spotify, it’s clear their music, which they perform in English, translates to fans around the world. Come August, Katseye will release a new EP, Wild. “It’s a more mature evolution from our last era. I think there’s definitely a lot more vocals,” says Raj. Consider it an older sister to their earlier work.
“I do everything for the little girl inside of me,” says Raj.
“We’re still kids,” Avanzini adds. “Like, low-key I feel like I’m still 14 years old.”
What they’re feeling—caught between being a girl and a woman—is a classic pop conundrum. “We’re forced to grow up fast,” says Laforteza. “But at the same time we’re like, I want to go out, I want to have fun. But we have these big-girl jobs.”