Propaganda

Ateez's July Comeback Announcement Update

What we know so far: (See full recap in Ateez Storyline: What (I Think) We Know So Far).

My current theory for the upcoming comeback: (Wake Up, The World)

After two LONG months of silence post "Wake Up, The World" posters and teaser, the lucky Ktiny who were in line to attend Ateez's performance on The Show received an air drop message:

Which included this audio message: https://wave.evolphin.com/IwtM7Y

Thanks to whoever uploaded it onto YouTube so I could embed it into my post:

First Impressions

My first thought was, "What is the Morse code saying at the end?" All those who were on Scener with me when this dropped had to live though that tragic time and my poor Atiny friend got to experience my meltdown in text form (that I am now sharing with the masses).

And there you have it people, the ending Morse Code is, "Eyes in the sky"!! My friend is very right, it is creepy and big brother(ish). Also, I have decided I need to learn Morse code. They use this WAY too much in their lore and I am not good at learning languages which means I will never learn Korean. I can at least learn a code, right?

Now that I had that taken care of, I moved to the other section of the propaganda audio message. The first thing I heard was the underlying music, Rhythm Ta. I have been talking about this song a lot in terms of this come back and the fact that they are actually using it in this audio message confirms my theory. [Pause for happy dance here]. I am relinking it for anyone who hasn't heard it yet or read anything I have been writing about it.

Millisecond by Millisecond Breakdown

There were other parts of the audio that were easy to hear, like the "wake up world" line but there in the middle it got kind of muddy with the distorted voices and all. I was joking on Scener that we needed an Atiny who was good at separating audio (like they do when they remove the backing track on live stages to listen to the vocals alone or when they remove the main vocals to listen to hidden vocals), but then I realized, one of my best friends' husband may have that capability! I sent him the audio link and asked him to do some magic. He was kind enough to help but my idea of separating a condensed track back into its individual tracks was not possible. He was able to do some magical filtering that he explained to me but went WAY over my head. Here is what it looked like though:

(That scary guy on his computer screen is from his favorite band, Ghost, so is not as scary as he seems). With the magical help of music technology, we were able to isolate some of what was said in the audio but not all. We are now going to go through this thing millisecond by millisecond (because that is how I role). I will also preface this that I am not guaranteeing you that what I am proposing is what is being said. Even with the audio technology help, we had to do a lot of guessing.

0:00:00.000-0:00:02.868

Here we hear static and then what sounds like a matrix/computer start up or something which tells us we are about to hear a message that is "interrupting our regularly scheduled programming".

0:00:02.869-0:00:02.999

Silence

0:00:03.000-0:00:12.579

Layer 1: "Wake up. Wake up, world. Are you there?" in what sounds like Hongjoong's voice

Layer 2: What sounds like sirens going off

Layer 3: The beginning of Rhythm Ta

Layer 4: "I'll be there" and "It's time" in a very low male voice

0:00:12.580-0:00:24.655

Layer 1: "Wake up. Wake up, world. Are you there?" continues

Layer 2: More sirens in a lower register

Layer 3: Rhythm Ta continues

Layer 4: Several messages in different voices including, "Breathe" in a very low male voice, "We are one" in a mid range male voice, "We are the world" in a higher male voice, and "Reverse technology" in a woman's voice

0:00:25.656-0:00:40:046

Morse code: "Eyes in the sky"

UPDATE: I was just informed of this GENIUStiny who reversed it and found another hidden message in the part of the clip we couldn't interpret:

Serious props to her!! Here is a link to her tweet if you want to hear it for yourself. END OF UPDATE.

Separate from the audio, was this image containing the audio's QR code:

This is our "first time" seeing the name of their new era, The World, and the title of their next comeback, Movement. I said "first time" because there was apparently a leak a couple of weeks ago that may have accidentally exposed the name of this comeback and possible release date. I did not see the leak but others may have. In my last post related to my theory of this comeback I stated, "So here is my theory. I think this upcoming comeback will be from Halateez's point of view. I think we are going to see them in their world, forming their anarchists groups, the Black Pirates, to fight the government's rule over their citizens. Ateez's first era was them already part of the fight, their second era was how they got into the fight, I think their third era will be why they need to fight (from Halateez's perspective ) and how Halateez started the fight." Based on the title, The World Ep. 1: Movement, I think that my theory holds true; "forming a group to start the fight" could also be called a "movement". We also get a lot of anarchist messages in the Propaganda audio that the Black Pirates would use to gather more to their cause.

The Show's Utopia Stage

The other new content we received yesterday/today (depending on where you live), was a special stage for The Show's 300th episode. Everyone thought Ateez would add some comeback spoilers in their performance so I stayed up late to watch it. I honestly think their choice of song was less about their comeback and more about how much recent exposure Utopia has been receiving through South Korea's soccer matches but that does not mean they did not add a few easter eggs for us to find.

What I Found

Before the stage even began, we saw an intro video comprised of images from Wave, the title track of Treasure Ep.3: One to All. This was to be expected since this is Utopia's album. However, the intro video also had images from Eternal Sunshine.

Judging from what we know about how Eternal Sunshine portrayed the effects of Strictland's yellow smoke on people by causing them to hallucinate, and what (I think) we know about how Wave illustrated Ateez coming out of the influence of their illusion brought about by yellow smoke, this juxtaposition could be showing Halateez and the members of the Black Pirates going in and out of the yellow smoke's influence and eventually ending with a shot of Wave indicating they are no longer under that influence.

During the Utopia stage, the first thing I noticed was the wardrobe. Half of the boys were in light colors and half were in dark colors.

This was reminiscent of Hongjoong's "Cruella" hair:

Which, I believe, is meant to illustrate the masks used in Ateez's Kingdom stage, Awakening of Summer:

We know from Ateez's spoilers that Hongjoong had this hair for the filming of their comeback's music video. Due to this mask being so prevalent in easter eggs related to this comeback, I did a little research on the mask. This mask is similar to a Venetian mask used for disguising and freedom of speech.

Additionally, the eyes and mouth of their mask is reminiscent of the comedy and tragedy mask that represents the theater. At face value, they could be wearing this as a protest for the centralized government's ban on the arts, which would include the theater, but the theater mask also represents "the range of human emotion or the extremes of human experience" as explained by TL Team in their article "The Fascinating Story of the Comedy and Tragedy Masks" on the Theater Love website. By taking into account all of these meanings, Halateez is using this mask for disguising, free speech, and to protest the removal of emotions and the arts. The continued references to light and dark color schemes through Hongjoong's hair and the clothes in the Utopia stage seem to place high importance on this mask and its different meanings.

The last easter egg I noticed was the "Welcome aboard" life savers used to decorate the stage. There were two but they were not the only life savers on stage. The other ones were blank. This tells me that the set decorators were able find life savers without words, which means those with words hold a message for us. "Welcome aboard" could mean "welcome to the movement" as they will be asking them to join them.

What We Still Don't Know

As of the writing of this blog post around 8:00 am KST on June 29th, there has not been an official release date announcement for their comeback. When the leak happened, I did post this with the date I am hoping for:

I guess we will see once they finally announce it.

UPDATE:

AAAHHHHH!!!!! END OF UPDATE

Final Thoughts

My original theory in my last post, "I think this next comeback will be from Halateez's perspective and will portray the beginning of their revolution (or at least their side of things)." remains valid. The new information dropped yesterday seems to confirm my thinking. We will know for sure once the comeback is released. The wait is getting shorter!!