China’s hottest new boy band, Acrush, is actually made up of five androgynous girls







Lu Keran, captain of Acruch


Acrush is made up of five women mostly in their early twenties, who all have edgy short hairstyles and dress like a bunch of boyish hearthrobs. The group won’t formally debut with a music video until the end of April. But it has already garnered a big fan base after several appearances at music events. Its fan page on China’s Twitter-equivalent Weibo now has nearly 900,000 followers. By comparison, Katy Perry, also a big name in China, has about one million Weibo followers.

Fans are predominantly female, Zhou says, ranging from teenagers to recent college graduates. They like Acrush more than equally handsome boy bands, she says, because the five members can understand them better, which is particularly important in one-on-one interactions with fans. “I ask them to reply every WeChat and Weibo message,” says Zhou. “They need to show gratitude [to fans].

Zhou says they will avoid using the word “boy” or “girl” when introducing the group. Instead, they have carefully chosen a gender-free phrase, meishaonian, or “handsome youths.” But still, female fans on Weibo have taken to calling them “husbands,” a meme usually reserved for male celebrities like Justin Bieber.
Acrush china unisex band

21-year-old Lu, captain of Acrush, says some female fans send love letters to her, but “of course I won’t like fans back.” She says the company doesn’t allow her to discuss her own or her teammates’ sexual orientations.

Around 15% of Acrush’s Weibo followers are so-called “anti-fans,” Zhou says, who follow them solely for the purpose of railing against them because of their boyish looks. Lu says she doesn’t really care about the trolls, “as long as they are happy.”
The five members have been dressing like boys in their daily lives long before they took to the stage, Zhou says. Lu has been wearing short hair since she started to learn fencing at around age ten. She recalls that in her childhood she got routine checks before going into public women’s restrooms, with people calling her “little boy.” The situation is less common these days, she says.
With the exploding popularity of The Fighting Boys, a group of three wholesome teenage boys who sing about homework and patriotism, Chinese entertainment companies have revived their hopes of producing megastar homegrown boy or girl bands in a market that has long been dominated by their Korean and Japanese counterparts.

Behind Acrush is Zhejiang Huati Culture Communication Co. Ltd, an entertainment startup founded in 2016 in Tencent’s business incubator in Jinhua, a small southeastern city best known for ham. Huati adopts the same star-producing system that has proven a success in Korea. The company recruits trainees across the nation and selects them to debut as part of a boy or girl group. Aside from Acrush, Huati will roll out three other girl groups between April and May, says Wang Tianhai, the company’s head.

While those groups will have different styles, androgynous or sexy, Wang says, they are all bundled into a brand called Fantasy Football Confederation (link in Chinese). So for example, Acrush is formally known as “FFC-Acrush.” All FFC members have to learn play soccer, and make it part of their stage performances. Wang says playing sports can make the point that his pop stars are “sunny, healthy, and full of positive energy.” He says he has chosen soccer partly because the government has placed great emphasis on the sport.

Lu had never played soccer before joining Acrush. But she enjoys the training, “even as we get injuries sometimes.”