K-pop acts like BTS, BLACKPINK, TXT, EXO, Stray Kids, and GOT7, to name a few, are extremely popular worldwide. They also have fan bases of their own. What distinguishes the Big Ocean, then, as a K-pop act? Well, Big Ocean is the first hard-of-hearing band in K-pop, and they are winning over audiences by using sign language in their music.

An overview of the Big Ocean

The group, which was founded under Parastar Entertainment, released its first single, Glow, on April 20 of last year. The Day of People with Disabilities in South Korea occurred at the same time as this. The group is made up of Kim Ji-seok, Park Hyun-jin (PJ), and Lee Chan-yeon.

They practiced for almost two years before making their debut. Their hearing impairments range in severity. According to the Korea JoongAng Daily, Chan-yeon's hearing loss occurred at the age of 11, Hyun-jin suffered some of his hearing loss at the age of three, and Ji-seok was born with a hearing impairment.

Regarding the concert and Big Ocean songs,

Their debut single was a cover of the 1998 song Hope by H.O.T. Big Ocean's second hit, Blow, was released in June of the previous year, a few months after their debut. Their third hit, Slow, was published in August. Big Ocean released their debut EP Follow in November of last year. It included a fresh track called Flow.

Big Ocean will perform utilizing Korean Sign Language (KSL), American Sign Language (ASL), and International Sign Language (ISL), according to an announcement made by Parastar Entertainment. According to Parastar Entertainment, the songs were recorded by the members themselves, but in some areas, AI helped with the recording.

They gave their first show in Nagoya, Japan, in March of this year. They began their first European tour, titled Underwater, in April of this year.

The social media presence of Big Ocean

There are 474 videos in total and 206,000 YouTube members in the group. They post videos of their songs in addition to providing followers a peek into their lives. They share videos of their journeys, excursions, courses, live performances, behind-the-scenes footage, and other material. Instagram has 997,000 followers for Big Ocean. They are just doing what their agency tells them to do.

About themselves, Big Ocean stated:

In an interview with the Korea JoongAng Daily last year, Hyun-jin said that they "usually talk to each other, but we end up using sign language sometimes if we don't get each other."

Ji-seok had mentioned their hearing. "Since we all have different hearing abilities, our reflexes and reactions toward the same sound are also different. Although it made it more difficult for us to synchronize our dance, we were aware that we couldn't and shouldn't use our impairments as an excuse. We had asked everyone at the agency for every little detail and simply practiced and practiced until we had integrated every movement into every cell of our body," he had said.

Chan-yeon had discussed how the public responded to their efforts. "Rather than receiving compliments from the start, I want people to stay tuned with our activities and say, 'I can see that you're getting better and better with each new event.' I want people to think that we're a team that gets better with time," he had stated.

Before their debut, what did they do?

Prior to their debut, they worked full-time. Hyun-jin was a TV personality and YouTuber, Chan-yeon was an audiologist at Korea University Anam Hospital, and Ji-seok was a professional alpine skier and member of the Seoul Disabled Ski Association.

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