Hi, did you miss me?? 😉
Well I missed all of you (Soobin style).
We are back with another installment of Moaville Stories! This series features MOAs who contribute a lot to the community. Today our guests are none other than one of our OG streaming fanbases, @moa_station! They are some of the most dedicated MOAs on Spotify and have done so much work to help more MOAs learn how to stream and increase engagement. I really enjoy their streaming sessions (and there’s an Eastern egg hiding in this interview about a SHOCKING revelation).
But, my biggest takeaway from this interview is not about streaming or Spotify. It’s how CLOSE the admins are to one another, even though they are from all over the world. I see so much love and support coming from their words, it really moves me to know how MOAs are such loving, supportive, and fun people to be. It is really a great fandom to be a member of. You can make many friends, who will be with you even when you are literally oceans apart.
Anyways, enough of my sentimental rambling. Let’s get to the interview! And please subscribe to this newsletter, it means a lot! Follow @moament304 on Twitter and interact with Michael! Lastly, if you prefer, the Substack app on your phone is a much nicer reading experience than the web browsers. I highly recommend you try it out.
Introduction
How many admins are behind @moa_station? Do you have nicknames?
Coffee☕️: We have 7 main hosts/admins but we also have 2 inactive members who help us a lot.
Aj🍋: I think for us it would be enough that we will be acknowledged as our name, MOA station. A team created for streaming platform Stationhead and Spotify.
Coffee☕️: Exactly and for the hosts, each one of us has a designated name that we would love for our listeners to call us. We would love if our listeners are comfortable with us and treat us like friends.
Lion🦁: Yup, MOAs’ comfort and care are one of our top priorities! For me, some MOAs already know my name and some don’t, but on our station, I go with Lion/ Leo.
Where are you based? Do you work synchronously?
Aj🍋: We are a worldwide/international base. We try to establish a schedule that will allow us to stream 24/7 by discussing daily among one other on who is available.
When and how did you come across TXT? What made you fall in love with them?
Aj🍋: I am a casual listener since 2019 and fell in love completely during freeze era.
Coffee☕️: A HAG MOA hehe, I was there for Yeonjun’s first pre-debut teaser and I’m stuck in that chaos ever since.
Em🐰: I saw Big Hit was releasing a new boy group so I was waiting for them to debut in 2019. When I first listened to all the songs in The Dream Chapter: Star I instantly fell in love and after reading the lyrics I fell harder. For Crown, I liked how it sounded so bright while the lyrics were so dark and the choreography oh my oh my.
Lion🦁: I feel like it was fate - I meant to find them! I was a K-pop casual listener who also watched anime and one day I came across Everlasting Shine while watching Black Clover! YOU KNOW HOW IT ALL STARTED OF COURSE. It'’s from curiosity, finding out and remembering their names, and tadaa ~~ I fell so hard, especially after I found the Queen, Run Away. I mean how can you not love TXT? <3
What makes TXT different from other artists?
Aj🍋: Their flexibility. There’s a stereotype that certain groups tend to follow a certain role in a team and I am very happy that TXT covers all of them.
Coffee☕️: For me, it’s how unapologetic they are when it comes to their learning process. They are hardworking people who know their worth, their potential, who they are, and what they can be. And they do it all while enjoying every second of it and not shying away from the dark times. It makes me personally aspire to be a better and more confident person.
Lion🦁: What makes them different? It’s because they’re TXT, they’re different and amazing from the start. I love how sincere, brave, hardworking, considerate, loving, thoughtful, honest, and big-hearted they are. I know that others also have these elements, but something about our boys is just different… It’s just the TXT-ism. It’s hard to be explained by words but I know MOAs can tell what I mean.
Michael: These two questions are always so insightful. Learning about how every MOA came across TXT, fell in love, and found special about them is one of the best things to do as another MOA who just happens to like writing.
Stationhead Stories
How did you meet? What is the story behind this account?
Coffee☕️: At first we were all listeners at host Em🐰’s Stationhead and we all got introduced to each other slowly from there. Some of us even became hosts around that time and just like that. Once upon a time a MOA offered the idea of a mafia game streaming party to us. We formed a team and made a very successful and memorable party that brought us all closer. We kept going as a non-public team for a while, sorting hosting times with each other and then came in @TXT_book. They mentioned us in a tweet and suggested we form an official team. They didn’t know we were a secret agency already hehe xD The idea was swimming in our minds for a while. We all knew we wanted that, but we weren’t sure where the others stood and whether we were ready for such a step, so it gave us the final push and confidence boost to do it and just like that, we became a family ^^
Aj🍋: As someone who was just an additional part of the family, I met the MOA station team through one of their loyal listeners and my closest mutual here in Moaville @ri_danielchoi. She introduced me to Em and I was actually kind of awkward during the first 2 weeks, because I don’t know anyone from the team but I somehow got closer to everyone and now we all share a deep bond. Not just friendship or as professional co-admins but as a family.
Michael: This is so beautiful. 🥺
How was the planning process? What did you do to make these sessions possible?
Aj🍋: We usually have each other’s back. We always respect and support everyone. The planning process is usually initiating something and adjusting along the way for the team, so that would fit each other’s personal and hosting schedules.
Coffee☕️: Yes definitely. We are very professional and well thought... But it’s all a lie really. We are as chaotic as it gets XD I think it has to do with us being too comfortable with one another already that we just share whatever is on our minds whether it’s work-related or not. But as soon as we get an idea we like, we put all our effort into it until it comes to life. We try our best to still make it fun while working hard so I guess like idol, like fans, right?
Lion🦁: This amazing team… Ever since I joined honestly I can’t imagine my day in Moaville without them. The key is really on communication, respect, and understanding each other, with a good will/mindset everything is possible ^^
Michael: Seems like your love for tubatu translates into how you conduct your life as well. They are such positive influences for us.
Can you share your first-ever streaming session? What was it like? Were there challenges?
Em🐰: My first ever streaming session is on June 27th 2021 using a Stationhead account called 'creamygyu'! Before starting the stream I felt really excited and scared since it was my first time hosting. I didn’t really know what it's like, but I was excited to be able to stream with MOAs and help boost TXT's Spotify streams! But of course, since creamygyu was still a small account with no followers, only some of my close friends joined in. As for challenges, I think spreading the message about my station was one of them, since not all MOAs have Spotify premium accounts and I didn't have good friends with a big amount of followers but luckily @txt_book found me and started sharing my station! I'm forever grateful to them!
Lion🦁: Mine was on February 12th this year. It was during our Magic Trials streaming party! Back in 2021, I didn’t know how to host T-T Sad but true, but during my time on this team I learned a lot and yearned for more, now here I stand as Lion ^^ I don’t think there were any hard challenges in particular, because my team always got my back, it makes me feel more at ease!
Is this your first time doing something like this? What is the time commitment level like?
Aj🍋: For me, yes, I have never tried hosting or joining a streaming fanbase before. It’s a responsibility you also have to handle because fan bases are usually as professional as the agency.
Coffee☕️: I used to help in a lot of streaming parties and games for both Spotify and YouTube, so it wasn’t my first time but it was the first time I had a team of my own? As cringy as it may sound, it feels like now I have a place and people to whom I belong and to whom I want to give my all.
Lion🦁: Definitely my first! Since I became a MOA recently, to be exact a few days after Soobin’s birthday in 2020 (Michael: you are a Blue Hour veteran then!). As for the commitment, the thought of giving good things to TXT and MOAs through this station, as long as it’s for us, our own good, and our happiness, I'm all in!
What are some interesting and funny stories from the streaming sessions?
Aj🍋: When the listeners are joining and having fun during the sessions! When Cat & Dog is playing, you will see “BARK BARK BARK BARK” in the replies. It’s adorable when they put the lyrics and sing along.
Coffee☕️: Our opening sequence party was a lot of fun. It was on the day TXT came to Stationhead. Everyone was excited and very loud and chaotic as we waited for them to go on air. It was also our highest listeners peak ever: 500 listeners! And personally, it was the first time I opened the mic as host to talk with the listeners, and dear lord everyone was just so sweet and supportive. Some were even flirty for reasons I still don't understand lol. And I can speak confidently when I say everyone had fun.
Lion🦁: Let me take this chance to reveal the truth! Something that we have never officially announced… During Thursday’s Child comeback, you know that @TXT_OFFICIAL was on stationhead right :D They joined our sessions twiceeee! And after that our hosts were internally joking about how TXT probably learned about fillers through lurking in MOAs’ sessions xD
Michael: Wait these are actually BIG reveals?? Incredible. Daebak.
What are your main takeaways from these sessions?
Aj🍋: That we can make streaming fun and not an obligation.
Coffee☕️: That fandom work is teamwork and not the responsibility of only one MOA, so it's not a crime to ask for help or advice. You should never be shy in suggesting or speaking what's on your mind to us because we are all equal here and it definitely should always be a fun process.
Lion🦁: Besides streaming and having fun, while increasing our Spotify streams, MOAs can also bond and get to know each other. We remind and encourage each other through the chats, from TXT-related stuff to trivial things about life.
Michael: I totally agree! My time during these streaming sessions is always fun. People asking how you’ve been, even noticing details such as what you ate for dinner the day before… Such kindness brings a closeness even in-person hangouts sometimes lack. We definitely do our best to make being online the opposite of the lyrics of Ghosting…
TMI
Can you share a little bit about your data?
Coffee☕️: Well, on normal days and since we are quite new, we get an average of 40-50 listeners but during the comeback, we managed to pull an average of 100 listeners in the slow hours and even got a strong 200 for long hours, so we hope that this would be the future norm for us and Moaville.
How many streams can a member add? Well, that depends on the listeners and the playlist. But since our playlists have a well-balanced rotation for the focus, if we said we played “Good Boy Gone Bad” 6 times in an hour, and in that hour we had 200 listeners, it means the station managed to add 1.2k streams in only one hour.
For the most requested song, no one can deny the grip “20 cm” has on all MOAs but for us, it has its own backstory. It’s one of our family member’s favorite song and back when she was active, she made sure that all our listeners would enjoy the song as much as she did, thrashing around and doing the most ridiculous yet endearing skits in our station’s chat for full 3:37 minutes so eventually, it meant a little more to our listeners and they kept requesting it a lot.
Michael: This is so cute. 20 cm is so smooth, like really really smooth.
What are the biggest events for you so far? What do you think will it take to get to 500 or even 1000 listeners?
Aj🍋: The biggest by far was the Minisode 2: Thursday’s Child streaming party. And Yes! I do think we can reach that in the future.
Lion🦁: Yes! we’ll get that 1000 in the future, so please stay with us, and let’s get ittt.
Michael: Get itt git itt, skrrrrrrrr - Choi Yeonjun 😎
How does it feel to top the Stationhead weekly chart?
Aj🍋: Very thankful and appreciated. It feels like the admins and our listeners’ hard work paid off.
Coffee☕️: True that. And the fact that our station never stepped out of the chart ever since the release of Minisode 2 is actually insane to us. We really appreciate all the MOAs that work hard with us for TXT and recognize our efforts for that.
Lion🦁: Proud and happy! We’re really grateful for everyone who’s with us along the way, either our loyal ones, casual or new listeners <3
You have a close relationship with @moa_lympics. Can you share with us how that came to be?
Em🐰: @moa_lympics reached out to us for collaboration during January 2022, our first streaming party is a streaming battle between IONs and MOAs called the Magic Trails. Ever since then, we have been having collaborations together to encourage more MOAs to join TXT’s streaming parties while having fun or simply streaming comfortably.
Lion🦁: Oh yes, our first encounter with them was on Magic Trials. Wt that time we were handling Stationhead/Spotify and our lovely @moa_lympics was handling YouTube. We were having lots of fun together! After that, we managed to maintain a good friendship and the fact that they joined MOAs now as Stationhead hosts made us even closer since we’re supporting each other’s sessions.
What are some challenges behind running your account? How do you manage personal life and your role in Moaville?
Aj🍋: The challenge may be the account itself. We want to run a full-time streaming session for MOAs because that’s the main purpose of our team. It’s tough to balance personal and admin roles at the same time.
Lion🦁: Yup, we need to discuss well to make sure everyone is okay with the running agenda because just like Aj said, it’s a challenge for us individually when it comes to balancing our personal life and our role as admins as well as a MOA. We’ll keep trying and do our best!
Michael: This is really awesome. Please take care of yourselves. We want to be with you in the long term!
What are your goals in the next year and beyond? Do you have any projects cooking?
Aj🍋: We want this station to last and Yes, we may or may not have projects in store for MOAs 😉
Coffee☕️: Nothing too crazy though, 4-5 projects in the next few months, perhaps some games... Or a new show, who knows?
Lion🦁: Oh yeah~ who knows oh our beloved curious cats ;) And for the goals, well, things don’t always go as we planned, right? I just hope that we’ll grow more, grow stronger and better while reaching our goals with MOAs. That we’ll be together, safe, healthy and happy, that’s the most important thing for me ^^
Michael: You will definitely reach them all!
What are some things you'd like to see more often in the community?
Coffee☕️: MOAs are very hardworking and stubborn, always up for a challenge and what you can say “being easily provoked”. So I’d love to see us being loud about what we already achieved as a fandom together. Yes, encouraging and aspiring for more is crucial but we sometimes take it too far that we forget to stop and take a look at what we have and what we did. I just hope we can give ourselves more credit and show more confidence!
Admin D: I feel like there is often this slight disappointment in Moaville when we see our performance metrics in a comeback. When we don't meet our goals, everyone thinks there has been no improvement. However, in retrospect, when we compare current data to past comebacks in which we thought we were doing great, there is actually a SIGNIFICANT improvement. The growth is constant. It's just often subtle, unless you have access to past data to compare it to.
Admin R: To add to what Admin D said, it gets difficult to see the forest for the trees for everyone, but the forest has always been growing, outwards and upwards. @moachartdata
Resources
What are your suggestions for MOAs who want to stream music more effectively?
Em🐰: You can make your own Spotify streaming playlist! You can add your favorite songs in between TXT's focus songs to make it fun and you can enjoy listening while streaming at the same time, as long as you follow the playlists guides, you're free to make your own playlists!
Coffee☕️: Also passive streaming is really effective, if you are busy working, doing chores, or sleeping, leaving your device with us can garner you a handful of hours a day of effortless streams.Even if you don’t have a premium account, we provide playlists for free users that you can play with a broken headphone plugged in and go about your day games... Or a new show, who knows?
Lion🦁: Listen to the beat, the music, the message, the layering voices and enjoy it your way!
What do you recommend MOAs do, if they want to learn more about txt? What are your key insights/ideas to understanding tubatu?
Aj🍋: If MOAs want to connect more with TXT, it would be through music. Lyrics say a lot about their personality.
Coffee☕️: since some YouTube guides CAN be misleading, I’d suggest they try our translating accounts or accounts like @txt_book, they show you who TXT are really as people and music creators through the moments they post, their Wever comments and their activities in general.
Lion🦁: Their music, their shows, V Lives, and @translatingTXT and @304verse! The path can be different for everyone. It could be from their music or personality first, but either way, it’ll show the sides of our members, their truest self. Also pay attention to simple and little things, because you might find things that will make you love them more <3
What are your favorite TXT songs? Anything that stands out to you?
Em🐰: Does any MOA really have a favorite song though?! Since TXT has so many amazing songs you can't just pick any! For me, I recently kept on listening to Our Summer, MOA Diary (of course) and Dear Sputnik! As for content, I like watching To Do a lot, when I'm feeling bored or sad I would just watch To Do! It makes me really happy seeing the members being happy and enjoying themselves.
Coffee☕️: For the sake of my sanity, I’ll respectfully pass this question, thank you.
Lion🦁: Eyy you guys are so cute xD Well, for me it will all set and change based on the life phase I’m in haha Because TXT only has the good stuff, whatever it is we love it all!
Is there any specific playlist you love?
Em🐰: For me, I have a private playlist for myself that I made. I listen to it whenever I'm traveling, doing chores, and whenever I feel like it. Of course, TXT is included in the playlist hehe.
Lion🦁: I don’t have specific playlists, but I really love to listen to their mood diary playlists and their song recommendations along with TXT’s discography.
Michael: I put Beomie here since it took my breath away.
Who are some great MOAs to know, if they want more resources to understand TXT?
Aj🍋: @translatingTXT!!
Em🐰: @txt_book and@304verse!!!
Coffee☕️: I already mentioned this before but @txt_book is a solid answer, also Justin @tubatuprint is a very friendly person and keeps you updated on all of TXT’s shenanigans, and oh! Our lovely newsletter will help you know your way around the fandom too.
Lion🦁: Wahh you guys already took most of the good answers, hmm I’ll choose a different one then.. It’ll be @txtlyricism! I remember reading her first interpretation, it was the amazing Dear Sputnik! Now they have MOA Music Monday to light up the Monday mood, which is amazing because MOAs are discussing and enjoying deep more into TXT’s music <3
Do you have any friends and moots to share?
Aj🍋: MOA STATION BABIES ARE THE BEST<33 Very very hard-working people I know and love ❤️
Em🐰": AW AJ MY BODYROLLERS AND MY DUMPLINGS AND OF COURSE MY MOA STATION BABIES!!! I LOVE YOU ALL <3
Coffee☕️: I heard the fellas at @moa_station are pretty chaotic, idk tho
Lion🦁: Same with em! Fun fact, our beloved Em was one of my first friends in Moaville. you can say we go here and there together since ever we met on Stationhead xD So shout out to BODYROLLERS, MOA STATION, AND MY DUMPLINGS <333
Please leave any message you'd like!
Aj🍋: I’m very thankful for your hard work each time. Thank you for always supporting MOA Station and for being with us on every journey. Also, I’m taking this opportunity to give a huge thank you to Michael for this. Taking this interview made me realize that we’ve gone far, long from where we started and I’m really really grateful for this and my team. A BIG HUG TO MOA STATION <33
Coffee☕️: Our eternalists and our admins, we ran a long way together, overcame a lot of obstacles, and reached even more good things and rewards and I’m forever grateful for every step of it. We still have a long way to go that I’m sure will be brighter and that will have a stronger version of us because of all our efforts together!
And thank you so much to Moament newsletter and for Micheal, our interviewer for considering us, recognizing us and our work, and for giving us this opportunity for our voices to be heard, we really appreciate that <3
Em🐰: I would like to say thank you to all of our listeners especially our eternalists for always joining us even when they're super busy and my MOA Station babies for all the hard work and everything, you guys are the best team members I can ask for really hehe~ Also I would like to thank Moament newsletter for reaching out to us and for this wonderful interview!
Lion🦁: I’m thankful for everyone here (MOA Station babies, readers, Moament304 newsletter/Micheal), our eternalists, our loyal ones, casual and new listeners! Thank you for hearing our voices and helping us grow better, for your hard work, support, patience, love, and trust! Please keep being with us, looking out for us, and having fun while working hard with us, we’ll hope to grow better and be the best version of us for TXT and MOA <3 moranghae!!
Michael: You are all so so awesome. Thank you so so much!
So there you have it, our lovely conversation with the admins behind @moa_station! I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did, because it’s always a delight to learn about the love, efforts, and fun MOAs have. This is our third post of the Moaville Stories. You can read the first two with @txtlyricism and @moachartdata!
Posting schedule will be wacky for a bit, as interviews take time to happen and my personal essays depend on my free time. Plus, the ACT: LOVESICK tour is just getting started! Please have a lot of fun! I’m going to the LA concert on July 24 (Sunday), so hope to meet some of you there! I will definitely write about that experience.
And oh, I am in the process of printing lyric card for Sweat and making a lyric book for all tubatu songs. If you are someone who has experience with InDesign or have illustrations (song specific or era specific) to share or recommend, please let me know! I want to make this project open to all and free for all!
Anneyong!