The Very Real Stardom of Virtual Idols K/DA

As riot games cultivates a unique brand of omnichannel entertainment with league of legends taking over the world, along with it, the meteoric rise of virtual pop music group K/DA

- Andrea Sim

The crowd starts cheering as the countdown timer reaches the 15 second mark. They’re chanting now with ten seconds left, their voices becoming more spirited as it bears down to zero. Right on time, the orchestra flanking the silver Summoner’s Cup springs into action. Then Zedd emerges on stage, playing his synth keyboards to “Ignite” as the violins and cellos swell with urgency in an epic summoning of the 2016 League of Legends World Championship’s finalists to the stage. Both teams up for the cup are South Korean, with Samsung Galaxy going against the then two-time world champion SK Telecom T1. As many as 43 million people watched — in person at the Staples Centre and, via streams — as SKT T1 eventually took home the silver trophy once more. (For comparison, the NBA Finals’ averaged a viewership of 20.2 million that same year.)

The mania surrounding League of Legends (League) might seem hard to understand for those who have yet to come into contact with it, or one of its die-hard players for that matter. But this phenomenon, and its future potential as a pop culture mainstay, cannot be ignored or dismissed. The Riot Games-owned League commands a community of players that far surpasses in numbers that of other popular desktop games like Call Of Duty, World Of Warcraft and Dota 2. It boasts no fewer than 35 million active users monthly, with Worlds (as League’s championship is referred to in abbreviation) reaching an all-time high of over a billion hours watched for 2020’s edition.