page_title: K/DA
section_title: Cultural impact
hierarchical_section_title: K/DA / Cultural impact
caption_attribution_description: Español: Cosplay de Akali (League of Legends) Expotaku Logroño 2019
context_page_description: K/DA is a virtual K-pop girl group consisting of four themed versions of League of Legends characters Ahri, Akali, Evelynn and Kai'Sa. Evelynn and Kai'Sa were voiced by American singers Madison Beer and Jaira Burns respectively until the announcement of a new extended play in August of 2020, where it was revealed that the two were be replaced by Bea Miller and Wolftyla for the foreseeable future. Ahri and Akali have been voiced by I-dle members Miyeon and Soyeon through both incarnations of the group. K/DA was developed by Riot Games, the company behind League of Legends, and unveiled at the 2018 League of Legends World Championship with an augmented reality live performance of their first song, "Pop/Stars". A music video of the song uploaded to YouTube subsequently went viral, surpassing 100 million views in one month, and reaching over 300 million views, as well as topping Billboard's World Digital Song Sales chart. This would be followed up with the release of a promotional single in August of 2020, entitled "The Baddest".
context_section_description: K/DA has achieved significant popularity both within and beyond the League of Legends community. Writing for Dot Esports, Aaron Mickunas noted that "It didn't take long for K/DA [...] to completely flood the game’s fan community. Already, the group’s members have been plastered throughout Reddit, Twitter, the game’s forums, and Universe, League's lore platform." Pop/Stars reached number 1 on Billboard's World Digital Song Sales chart in November 2018, becoming the fourth K-pop girl group to do so, and only the fifth female act overall, leading Jeff Benjamin of Billboard to write that "all signs point to esports very possibly shaping what can make a hit song in the future." The song sold 9,000 copies in its opening week, according to Nielsen Music. It also ranked 10th on the Pop Digital Song Sales chart and 30th on Digital Song Sales overall, as well as charting first on Apple Music's K-Pop charts and fifth for pop music overall. 
  The Pop/Stars music video received 5 million views within 24 hours of its upload to YouTube, breaking the record at the time for the most viewed K-Pop debut group music video within 24 hours of publishing, a record previously held by "La Vie en Rose" by South Korean-Japanese girl group Iz One. The video continued to garner views, receiving over 13 million views within 48 hours , when the video trended on the site. On April 2, 2019, the music video reached 200 million views. Benjamin Pu of NBC News wrote that "The song's popularity highlights just how much of a cultural force video games have become in South Korea and around the world."
  K/DA's popularity has resulted in a large amount of fanart being created of the group. This includes a large amount of art featuring Akali and Evelynn, as the two were paired up in the Pop/Stars music video, with Akali being the most popular. Cosplay of the characters has also been popular,, including when Cloud9's League of Legends esports team cosplayed as the K/DA characters in April 2019. Professional League player Sneaky also cosplayed as K/DA Kai'Sa, and after he posted images of the cosplay on Twitter, the tweets received over 4,500 retweets and 23,700 likes within two days. Shannon Liao of The Verge wrote that through K/DA, "Riot Games has tapped into an audience bigger than the typical League fan base", with ex-players and new players joining the game "because the [Pop/Stars] video looks so cool." Riot's Patrick Morales agreed, noting K/DA's impact goes beyond just that of League fandom, with "one recurring comment that I tend to see on YouTube and social media about the music video is that they're "normally not into League/K-pop/gaming, but K/DA is the exception". 
  Steven Asarch of Newsweek compared K/DA to the popular K-pop dance group Blackpink. Lucas Lockyer of Dazed called K/DA a mix of "Girls Generation meets Little Mix and Hatsune Miku" and asked if the band was "leading the virtual pop future", where "what was essentially some creative promotional marketing could be the forefront of an interesting new branch of pop [...] Perhaps with developed AR technology, the characters could tour in hologram form without the physical appearance of the singers behind them." When asked about whether this would be possible with a holographic concert or augmented reality technology Viranda Tantula replied that "that could be super fun. But before we’d even consider that, we’d realistically want to make sure there was enough quality music to support it, and a good reason for us, a games company and esports league, to try that out." Pop/Stars was also added as a song to the virtual reality rhythm game Beat Saber as a free download.
caption: The K/DA characters have become popular subjects of cosplay (Akali pictured).[3]
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