ILLIT's "Magnetic" Is "Haunting" K-Pop Fans On Spotify

If you’re a K-Pop fan, you’ve probably at least heard of ILLIT‘s debut song “Magnetic” by now, if you haven’t heard the song or have it on your playlists. The track went viral even before it was released, and even now, over a month after the girl group debuted, the song is still getting tons of streams and attention.

But is it all organic, or is there something else going on?

At this time, “Magnetic” has around 168 million streams on Spotify, making it the most-streamed K-Pop song released in 2024 so far. It has even surpassed V‘s solo song “FRI(END)S”, which is a huge feat given that BTS‘s songs pretty much always top streaming lists!

A recent post on Reddit by a K-Pop fan may give insight into how the song has got so many streams so quickly. The OP of the post claims that “Magnetic” is “haunting” them, getting recommended to them by Spotify after every K-Pop song they listen to despite never searching for it themselves.

And they’re not alone. Many of the comments on the post share that this has been happening to them too, whether they had intentionally listened to the song before or not.

6621c2e4275f7d60417244ed-p — Wonhee (ILLIT)

While the algorithm is usually what gets blamed in these kinds of situations, it seems that there is some other marketing strategy going on that’s pushing “Magnetic” even more than it would be otherwise. Some commenters share how this has happened to them before with other songs, namely “Espresso” by Sabrina Carpenter.