KOR
The music video for "ICONIC BY MISTAKE," a collaboration single by the groups LE SSERAFIM, ILLIT, and KATSEYE, is drawing significant attention for its groundbreaking direction that flips conventional K-pop tropes on their head.
Director Cody Critcheloe, who helmed the "ICONIC BY MISTAKE" music video, recently sat down with Weverse Magazine to explain the intentions and symbolism behind the project. He defined the work as "twisting and subverting existing norms," stating, "I wanted to break free from conventional standards of beauty."
Instead of a glamorous stage, the three groups in the music video are placed in unfamiliar and eerie settings, such as a cemetery, a dental clinic, and a storm-battered cornfield. Rather than the polished, flawless beauty typically expected in K-pop music videos, the visual puts unstable and chaotic imagery at the forefront.
"The depth of the story, which allows fans to interpret and find meaning on their own, is a major strength of K-pop content," Critcheloe explained. "However, I believed that the way we express it should be completely unpredictable."
In particular, the police characters appearing in the video are not just simple props. "The police officers are a broad metaphor for the entertainment industry, where constant evaluation and scrutiny are repeated," he emphasized. "What matters is the artists' agency, remaining unshaken even under that gaze."
The existing narratives of each group were also reinterpreted in fresh ways. Symbols familiar to fans—such as LE SSERAFIM's tombstone scene, ILLIT's wisdom tooth motif, and KATSEYE's flames and stage—are connected and given new meaning within a single, unified universe. "I wanted to create a world where each group's identity is preserved while they coexist within a larger story," Critcheloe said.
At the end of the music video, a scene shows the three groups gathered around a campfire, roasting marshmallows and laughing together. The director described this as "a scene symbolizing the feeling of being connected and experiencing something together," explaining that it represents what is commonly referred to in the U.S. as "campfire-style harmony."
Cody Critcheloe is a multi-talented creator working as a music video director, photographer, and musician. Through his multimedia project "SSION," he has built his own unique musical and visual world, and he is well-known to K-pop fans as a director who delivers visually stunning and highly individualistic music videos.
He has collaborated with artists such as American indie pop singer-songwriter Perfume Genius, Swedish pop icon Robyn, and New York-based indie rock band Yeah Yeah Yeahs. His work with HYBE artists includes the music videos for BTS's J-HOPE's "Killin' It Girl (feat. GloRilla)" and KATSEYE's "Touch" and "Gnarly."
(SBS Entertainment News | Kang Kyung-youn)