QRIMOLE – June 2023
It’s time for QRIMOLE! Let’s take a look at questions for Kpopalypse!
do you keep up with eurovision? i`d assume no but i thought they honestly had a lot of good selections this year. i haven`t stop listening to cha cha cha lmao, better than kpop has been this year so far honestly
and
Were there any Eurovision entries you enjoyed this year?
Only the ones I was introduced to in the May Qrimole, I haven’t listened to any others. I don’t follow Eurovision generally, or any other pop music generally outside k-pop, as I just don’t have the time for it. I’m exceptionally time-poor (multiple jobs plus this site and novel writing/game writing keeps me VERY busy) and I have no idea what’s going on. That’s why I don’t know who a lot of your western faves are, any recent western pop knowledge I have is usually because another reader told me about it.
You probably won’t know how to answer my question but…
What the hell is happening with YouTube search engine?
Today I tried to listen to “Kkot-baem” by “Choi Sam”, one of your favorite songs from 2018, but who said that the fucking site allowed me to? Not even her channel’s name APPEARED as an option to me!
That’s not the first time that happened either. Basically everytime that I try to search for something that is a little nugu (not only K-pop related), it’s almost impossible to find by the search engine.
Music videos from famous artists but that weren’t the biggest singles from the artist? Same shit. Even when I try to acess these songs from their channels! The lists that used to show all videos from the artist simply doesn’t show all of them anymore!! There is old songs from Azealia Banks by example, that I can’t remember their names, and I simply can’t find them in her channel anymore.
And what pisses me off the most it’s that I don’t even know WHY those cunts are doing this!
I mean, what the fuck is even the purpose in frustating users like that? Are they trying to unmotivate people from watching “unpopular” videos as a reason to delete them from the platform and liberate dataspace?
YT has been the main social media that I consumed in the past 15 years… but I guess that’s gonna change now. I will probably start talking more to people in real life than to spend my free time watching videos in such a dickface platform. FUCK THEM. Whoever thought that shit would be cool deserves to catch Clamydia in their stinky genitals.
I also kinda miss the time that funny thirst comments were common in K-Pop videos. I personally remember JackalGrim’s on BTS videos, much funnier than stupid fanwars about who paved the way for insert-your-vapid-brag-here.
Oh, and thanks for teaching about the reverse-racist-jellyfish. It feels nice too not be a target, for a change.
I’m going to guess and say it’s YouTube deliberately trying to divert traffic to things that are more popular, to try and generate more revenue for the platform. Although in Choi Sam’s specific case it’s just because her videos don’t have any English labelling, searching up 최삼 will get you results.
It took me about 15 minutes to work out what you meant by ‘reverse racist jellyfish’ but yes it’s true, Australian jellyfish will respectfully avoid black people in the water, but they will just attempt to travel right through a white person as if they don’t exist. Erasure in cunty Australian marine life form.
so I’ve experienced some weird feelings while I’m nearing the age of 25 and no not quarter life crisis (that’s pretty normal ig) it’s a crush? idk what it is anyway there is this guy at work who upon seeing him I felt super curious about and possessiveness towards him. I was pissed that two of his female colleagues were chatting with him in a very normal and professional manner about some work topic like I was pissed at the girls which is a precedent for me I’ve NEVER been that kind of girl and never understood them yeah I get jealous that my romantic interest is chatting or giving attention to other girl but those feelings were never directed to the girls except that one time which is really weird to me what puzzles me the most is that I’ve literally felt my heart flutter over random and non random guys and girls before I’ve felt lust I’ve felt romantic feelings like come one hold my hand and let’s skip on the beach but that ? idk what’s that. Luckily those ugly feelings only lasted one day but the curiosity remains.
So I’ve did a little stalking and struck up a conversation with him and I’ve found out he’s one year younger than me and now now I’m not sure how I feel about him I’ve never liked guys my age let alone younger than me even tho for girls I don’t mind being with younger ones but idk for guys it’s different maybe because of my daddy issuesanyway I have no plans to act on my feelings especially that he is a colleague but I would like to hear your opinion what do you think those feelings are.
give your cat many kisses from me and have a good day my favorite hag
Answering this question accurately probably goes into realms of psychology that I’m simply not qualified in. However if you want my completely uninformed and non-educated opinion I think that you might have just been feeling a bit stressed and run down and not feeling much love that day from other things, with a side-helping of horniness. Humans have a tendency to ‘attach’ to things (not just people, but all sorts of things, like hobbies, work, addictions, drugs, etc) so if you’re not feeling ‘attached’ and it looks like other people are, then it can inspire feelings of ‘fuck those bitches where’s my happiness’. It can happen even if on a rational level you wouldn’t want to be in their shoes. Who the fuck knows though. Glad it only lasted one day for you, some people get in traps like that which last years.
A long time ago, I had the opportunity to read your article and your comment about T-ara. It seemed that in your opinion that the T-ara scandal did not significantly hurt the group when we viewed their profits with the holistic lens. However, my question would be if we try to scrutinize it in a detailed manner, we could say that the scandal still hurt the group. For example, let’s say that Samsung wanted to hire T-ara as their advertisement model, but they changed their mind after the scandal. You mentioned that there were going to be a smaller phone brand that would be willing to hire them in the absence of Samsung. T-ara is still going to receive money from the contract with the smaller brand. However, they are losing the prestige factor of Samsung and probably Samsung is willing to offer a higher amount of salary.
Could you provide some opinion about my thought process or should we still see T-ara’s profit in terms of the “wider” perspective?
Well you’re basing your statement on a hypothetical scenario (which I don’t recall bringing up myself, but I suppose I could have) which is that Samsung were going to hire T-ara in the first place and then didn’t. We don’t really know what deals were in the minds of CEOs but never even got brought to the table, all we can go on is what actually happened, which is that T-ara made a shitload of bank in Japan, and then even more in China. Yes they suffered somewhat within Korea, but not as much as hyped. “Sexy Love” was a monster hit and it was everywhere when it come out, and it came out right at the very height of the T-ara ‘hate train’. If you believe the netizen/k-pop media narrative, they were never more hated than at the time “Sexy Love” cane out – so why was that song so popular, in a music scene where (as we all know only too well) song quality often plays second-fiddle to popularity? The answer is obvious – despite all the online ‘noise’, most people still liked them. People need to realise how incredibly unimportant Korean netizen opinion is and how little it relates to actual popular opinion in Korea, certain sites enormously inflate the importance of Korean netizen opinion for the sake of their own continued relevance and web traffic, but that’s not the reality. Imagine basing the popular opinion of someone off their YouTube comments, that’s essentially what people do with these sites. “Oh [group x] is over now” – not they’re fucking not. In the real world it doesn’t work like that, people who leave comments are a niche and not an important one, that type of noise should always be disregarded. That’s the real lesson from the T-ara situation.
What are the differences between these backing tracks of DIA’s Will You Go Out of Me? They sound slightly different, the instrumental of the third link sounds like a different song a part from the melody. I put the timestamps post song intro because there are no differences, only after. And also what is your favorite between these three version?
There’s a lot of differences, too many to go through. But the second one’s main difference that really sticks out is that they don’t half-time the beat in that section, they keep the pace going. The third one… well it’s a completely different bit, with different everything, including different lyrics too. It’s practically a whole other song at that point where you’ve marked it.
Is it a requirement to like rock/r&b/rap/indie songs in order to consider yourself a “music lover”? I have to admit that I only enjoy upbeat pop music, hence kpop and anything else doesn’t really interest me as much unless it has a really good beat. My friends and close acquaintances seem like they like each other’s music because its mostly the same genres and when I give out mine they go like “ew what in the crap is that”…I wanna try and be like them but I just can’t enjoy the music that they really like.
It’s not a requirement to like [specific category x] in order to be a liker of [broader category y].
Fuck trying to be like your friends. Not worth it. Just do you and enjoy the things you personally like. If they’re really your friends, they’ll understand (even if they disagree about the music). If they don’t understand, and can’t let you be yourself, then they probably weren’t really your friends to begin with.
What is the deal with background dancers? Are they washed out from the idol trainer process, separate dancers hired on contract, where do they come from?
Sometimes they’re k-pop idol trainees at the same agency. Fiestar’s Cheska talked in her interview with me about being a backing dancer for Sunnyhill before Fiestar’s debut. However more often they’re people employed specifically to be backup dancers, either by the agency themselves, or contracted from another agency that specialises in outsourcing dance talent. (Here’s a western example of this kind of agency.) A surprising amount of backing dancers are also dance teachers!
I’m high on some ultra high hopium right now after finally checking out Gfriend due to recommendations, and I’m imagining a world where Gfriend got an actual breakup song and decided to do a greatest hits song by returning to their roots and giving us Rough 2.0. And, then, I’m hit with the reality that it’d likely be Brave Girls’ Goodbye. Mago truly was better than anything we could likely hope for, huh?
Viviz just doesn’t scratch the same itch, both in overall quality and in music choice. Yuju and Yerin deserve way better songs than they get as soloists (and should really just fucking join Viviz). As good as CSR are, they don’t have the shredding guitars of Gfriend (Granted, Gfriend kind of dropped those too.) and are more like a more consistent Lovelyz anyway (and also have same voice syndrome unlike Gfriend.).
Yeah a reformation song would probably be shit. I mean, this is about as good as ‘kpop reformations’ get, and it’s woeful.
The only reason why people like this is that nostalgia value with k-pop fans is super strong. It’s nobody’s favourite Girls’ Generation song, and will probably be barely skimmed-over in any retrospectives of the group that are ever written. Be grateful Gfriend got to go out on a high note, here’s hoping they don’t fuck it up in future with some trash like this, or even worse, some horrible sitting-on-white-chairs gazing-wistfully-into-space ballad.
I agree that Viviz hasn’t been as good as Gfriend so far, the only place where they’ve outpaced Gfriend is image, the songs have been relatively weak. Mind you ‘relatively weak compared to Gfriend’ probably describes most groups currently out there, period.
help oppar what song is kingdom stealing from with the keys in the chorus
So I’m in a Kpop production class, very thankful actually because the sitting A&R is also recruiting students music directly for Jype, Newjeans label, SM as well. The thing is, the instructor strongly is suggesting we make 90s Rnb/Soul and NewJeans music. Then also the strange arthouse and weird structures. I think pretty much all the types of stuff on your “worst list.”
I’m at odds with either adapt, or don’t have a career. But if you make music for genres u dont enjoy, it obviously will fail because your subconscious won’t allow u to make it the best. and people will know. I think on the other hand, you can’t do your own thing or create a trend until you got your foot in the door and at least got one cut out.
How would u go about this? I need to make it pretty transparent to fool people that either I’m loving Newjeans.. or find some way to make it my own and better somehow.
Embrace it as a creative exercise. If I was there I’d think “how would [genre x] sound like if it was being made the way that I wanted to make it?” Then make it like that. These are the problems you will have to overcome as a professional songwriter. If you get any level of success, someone is going to hire you and say to you one day “I really want this to sound like [genre x], preferably [specific group y]” and you are going to say “yes I can do that for a fee absolutely” and you’ll be groaning internally. So this is training you to get through that situation with the best possible outcome. Music that you don’t like sucks for reasons – work out what those reasons are, and then think of it like a puzzle – how would you approach solving the issue of making good music in a genre known for bad music? There’s all types of potential solutions to this.
Do you think that today’s Kpop vocals are too compressed? I was listening all week and I have a bit of fatigue listening to it. If I’m correct, it seems they are far more squashed than even a few years back? I don’t know it seems certain songs the compression doesn’t seem to fit. Might be something else
If we’re talking literal compression, no it hasn’t changed in k-pop much, almost everyone gets it right these days, and in the instances where they get it wrong it’s usually in the direction of not enough squashing rather than too much. Compression is one of those effects where, if it’s used well, you can’t hear it at all. So it’s quite possible you’re thinking of something different. I’d need to hear specific examples to know more about what you’re talking about.
Would you consider NMIXX Lily as a potential casting for Hana in your hypothetical “Show Me Love” kdrama? She seems down to murder some very bad people.
Oh yes she’s very suitable. How awesome, that’s the leading role sorted. Now I just need all the other actors cast plus about $50 million to make the series.
Dear Mr. Kpopalypse-oppar Sir.
Jambinai is touring Europe these days. I went yesterday, and musicians rocking out on their instruments are indeed sexy. People, remember Kim Bomi, Sim Eunyong, Lee Ilwoo, Choi Jaehyuk, Yoo Byeongkoo when voting in the upcoming objectification surveys! (Would the latter two be eligible though, being ‘touring musicians’?)
Related to concerts – I have been wondering recently why concerts seemingly must be held late in the evening? I’ve been concert-going a bit more than I used to, and the bands usually begin playing at 21, sometimes even at 22, rarely at 20 (depending on the number of bands playing, it seems), regardless of the weekday, unless it’s a festival. I get that it is in the interest of the venues and bands to have the ‘product’ available at a time-slot where it is accessible to as many consumers as possible, meaning standard working hours on weekdays are out of the question. But why not have a nice metal gig at, say, 16, or even 14, on a Saturday or Sunday?
I’d consider all of the Jambinai touring lineup eligible but realistically competing with the k-pop idols is very very hard, even for people outside of that realm with a massive theoretical advantage, let alone some independent musician performers. Yua Mikami unbelievably never made it to picture status, even after me highlighting all those drama appearances, if even she can’t get in… it just goes to show that the results of that survey are very little about what I like and very much about what the readers as a whole like, I can’t bias the damn thing even when I try my hardest…
Idk if there is an equivalent in Australia but if not here’s an extremely boring fun fact for American culture…we have a retail chain for automotive supplies called AutoZone. You can think of it as a smaller grocery store for anything remotely auto related.
I went to my local AutoZone a few weeks ago. There were a few employees and an older man I assumed was their manager. As I looked around the store I noticed that the manager wasn’t doing…anything, tbh. He just sat at a table near the back and played some YouTube videos extremely loudly. The rest of the employees around him were hustling around to help customers.I see a young girl, probably 15-17, come in and buy something. Once she leaves the manager immediately starts badgering the guy who checked her out. It was something like this:
“She was hot right?
“What?”
“She was hot, like physically attractive?”
“Yeah I guess she was pretty…”
“Oh so [guy]’s face is red because of a hot girl! Ahahahahaha”
The guy at this point looks very uncomfortable. A few seconds later a woman comes in and the boss makes some weird remarks like “wow there are so many women here today” and how “[guy] can’t handle being around women.”
Feeling increasingly uncomfortable as a woman myself, I decided to check out and leave ASAP.Did I just encounter a rare old incel in the wild? Or is that normal behavior for guys? Why was he sitting and bothering people instead of working?
We have Autozone in Australia but only a couple of stores nationwide, they’re a very small player here. The big market-dominating “auto accessories and vaguely related stuff” retailer in Australia is Supercheap Auto. I’m sure nobody cares about this information.
Seems like the manager is the one who can’t handle being around women and the others are just putting up with his shenanigans to keep their jobs. They’re probably happy that he spends his time in the office watching YouTube instead of scaring the customers away. People who work in stores with a very male-dominated customer base do sometimes have these attitudes though. It used to be that way in guitar stores when I was younger, fortunately the demographic of guitar players has become more even since those days so the ‘old guard’ has mostly vanished.
How do you deal with having a not so ideal relationship with parents?
[lots of details edited at reader request]
The way to escape parents is share-housing. Rent and bills are nothing if you split them four or five ways. Not really an option if you don’t have friends to help though.
Overall your situation just sucks. You probably don’t have a chance of changing your family’s culture and way of doing things. Hopefully you’re studying something that is going to make you a shitload of money soon and then you can get out of there and get a job that pays stupidly well, please think of my Patreon when this happens. You will find that your relationship with your family improves exponentially as soon as you move out of home. Until then, know that your parents probably are trying to support you as best they can but because of the cultural difference emotional support doesn’t really enter into it. Your best coping mechanism is to make sure you’re not completely isolating yourself, I think that’s probably what’s hurting you the most right now, rather than focusing on the family I’d focus on study (if you’re miserable you might as well be miserable with good grades, will pay off later) and also making friends by either smoothing it over and burying the hatchet with your existing friends, or if they’re dicks then just making new ones (which is as easy as starting a new hobby and getting to know people who do it).
I’ve noticed that older idols have become skinnier in the past couple of years, even the ones who were already very thin. The girls in Itzy are a good example of this but it affects everyone including male idols. BamBam invited I.M on his show and he described himself as a ‘pig’ in the past (starting at 07:09) when he was already skinny by any sane person’s standards. Later in the clip, BamBam disses his own appearance in the past. I hate this because it’s so harmful to the fans, pushing the ones with a healthy weight to try dangerous diets and disrespectful to all their overweight fans. Do you think these established idols feel under pressure to be even thinner because of all the super-skinny newly debuted idols?
Yes.
I know you play video games. What do you think about video game soundtracks? Do you play with in-game music on or off? If you do like video game soundtracks, do you have a favorite orginal game soundtrack? Is there a particular reason you like it if so?
I pretty much always play video games with the music turned off. I don’t even know what most of the music in the games I play even sounds like. I’ve gotten into this habit because I kind of suck at games especially these days (my reflexes were already bad but now that I’m an old cunt they’re even worse). In single player games I always spend ages playing because I suck so bad so the music loops around and pisses me off through repetition. In multiplayer games I don’t want music because I need the advantage of being able to clearly hear sound effects to compensate for my lack of general aptitude. Plus on top of this I really try to limit my own exposure to sound when I’m not actively listening to music or playing in a group etc so the less “junk sound” the better.
I’ve been on yet another Gfriend binge again. I recall you heavily criticized Glass Bead for being an inferior copy of Into the New World, which I totally agree with despite still enjoying the song. I recall back when Gfriend came out, some people thought they should have debuted with Neverland.
Do you think Gfriend should have done that? I don’t believe they got really popular until Me Gustas Tu (partly due to the falls) and Rough, which is a masterpiece, but Glass Bead’s early Girls’ Generation plagiarism definitely put Gfriend on the board.
I don’t really like either song that much, Gfriend didn’t impress me a lot on debut, it was really “Rough” that got me very interested in them. “Neverland” is okay I guess, maybe it’s slightly better than “Glass Bead” but instead of sounding like an ITNW clone it just sounds like… nothing that specific. It doesn’t stand out. For all its failings at least “Glass Bead” made an impression, who knows if “Neverland” would have made the same impression. It’s pointless to speculate about because what’s done is done.
Did you know that “Into The New World” is so ubiquitous that if you just type in “itnw” into Google Search, with no other context or search history at all, you’ll find the song immediately?
Dear Qri, how is Blackswan still a thing? They’ve been nugu for twelve years, several scandals, haemorrhaging members, but DR keeps sending in money and new people instead of just disbanding them and starting a new group with a clean slate. I’ve heard some people say it’s money laundering but that doesn’t make sense to me, why would you put your laundering business in the public eye when you could just start a restaurant or something that nobody would ever notice? Thank you for your wisdom and for showing me Karma via the roundup, I do like it along with their other new song Cat & Mouse.
Sometimes the best way to hide is in plain sight.
Hi,
I need your help to shut my friend’s mouth. He adores the Beatles. It’s fine, everybody is free to like whatever, but when it comes to my dislike of the Beatles, he switches to a raging fanboy and becomes very annoying with his “it’s so goood! they’ve changed the music forever” discourse. I feel I lack vocabulary and tangible facts to stand up to him because he is an intelligent guy and impossible to reason with if the counter arguments are not well thought, well expressed on an expert level. Can you please help me with all the rational arguments you have, the more the better, so I can shut his mouth once for all. Thank you for your help.
My mother always said “you can’t accept the communication if you can’t accept the communicator” and John Lennon is a hard communicator to accept. He was a domestic abuser. He showed it too, especially in the lyrics of “Run For Your Life” which are straight out of a fucking horror movie.
What kind of sicko would write something like that? Everyone gives poor old GG Allin a hard time, he was just misunderstood when the real psycho was right there hoping people would give him a free pass for being an asshole if he at least sung about peace and love sometimes. What’s scary is he was right. But okay, that’s nothing to do with the music, really, is it. So let’s talk about music. Yes, The Beatles changed music forever – for the worse. They opened the floodgates for a whole heap of utter shit, rock music was cool before The Beatles came out, and by the time The Beatles were done rocking they’d “influenced” rock music to the point where it was a bland drug-fuelled shadow of its former self, that wasn’t fixed until punk came around a full decade later. The Beatles blew open the doors of popular music to the point where it was permissible to do anything, so in other words they lowered the standards until there weren’t any.
Who the fuck wants to listen to this all the way through, fucking nobody, not even Beatles fans… and this is from “The White Album”, supposedly one of the “best albums of all time” according to every critic list ever, which just tells you how full of shit music critics are and also why I don’t call myself one. Get the fuck outta here with that trash. I know which “Number Nine” I’d rather listen to.
In January, I asked you for advice about my first relationship, and you advised me to be honest with her. Thanks a lot, but unfortunately it wasn’t enough to overcome my shyness, pressure and fears and she left me. Now I understand that being honest not only meant to be “honest”, but also to openly share any thoughts I had with her, to not be afraid to show her who I am, even all the bad sides I tried to hide. Now she’s back with her ex who probably is a lesser idiot cunt than me and I think the massive shock I experienced will help me to “reflect and come back with a better image”. So, this question is an advice to all the very introverted idiots like me that may be reading it, but I also would like to ask you if you have advice to help me cope better with this situation and find positive energy to overcome it until I meet some other girl that likes me for whatever reason. Thanks a lot again because even if I fucked up everything your suggestion still had a massive positive impact and even if we broke up we didn’t split in bad terms so who knows, maybe I will have a second chance one day.
Yeah being honest means being open, if you really want someone in your life and they’re cool you gotta build a bridge and get over your hangups, and just be straight up. I’ve been with a lot of women and while many things varied with each one, something that every single one of them appreciated about me is that I’m a very no-bullshit person and I will just say straight up what I think, and won’t worry about letting outside (or inside) forces get in the way of communication. Apologies if I wasn’t clear enough on that point.The good news is that by focusing on the positive aspect of all of this and learning the lessons from it, you’re already doing the right thing and that’s bound to make your next experience (whether it be with her or someone else) go smoother. There will definitely be more experiences so prepare for them not by worrying about them but just by being the most true to yourself person that you can be, and practising that in all your interactions, while also being respectful of others (to the extent which they should be respected). Good luck, but you won’t need luck, only time.
hi kpopalypse, let me just ask how you feel about hate to innocent females. people lesser than them hating on females for the sole fact that they are more successful or pretty, or idols with some privilege compared to other. like wonyoung and her “scandals” every month, i just know if a male idol ate a strawberry like she did there fans would go crazy and get a boner. bahiyyih of kep1er had an entire subreddit made just to exclude her from the group, pinpoint any tiny mistake she has every made, and shame every part of her for the sole fact she gained some popularity because of her brother. and let’s not forget what happened to momoland. why do people hate female idols so much? i never could find out why?
Misogyny is unfortunately a thing with k-pop fans. I don’t know why this is exactly, jealousy perhaps. Or maybe racism because k-pop fans are more racist than Hitler. But I just want to say that Bahiyyih is a cool name and I automatically like her now just because she’s called Bahiyyih and no other reason because that’s literally the only thing I know about her. Also I can’t remember how many questions I’ve been asked about Wonyoung and I can’t even remember what a single one of those questions was but I’m dimly aware that she gets hated for some abstract new reason every week and I’m really not following it at all but I assume she might be attractive or something (I’m just guessing – I couldn’t even tell you who she is in the group in a photo).
Do you know Elon knows what to do with Twitter?
No idea. You’d get more sense out of his goddaughter.
I don’t know if you remember this retrospring question but I was the bi girl who was interested in a girl but wanted to approach her as a friend first.
My parents and extended family are horribly homophobic and can’t advise me so you get to read about my immature gay troubles![Kpopalypse note: I edited the square brackets bit out because I assume you wanted me to and that’s what it meant? Not sure but thought I’d better err on the side of caution]
I’m still in contact with the friend in common. But I know if I ask about her then any plausible deniability about my intentions are gone. Should I ask my friend about her? Or should I cut my losses?
Ask your friend about her. Why the fuck not. What have you actually got to lose at this point, and what do you even need plausible deniability for now that you’re no longer in the same social environment, as long as it doesn’t get back to your family. If you don’t shoot your shot you’ll never know. I think it’s better to regret something that did happen, than regret something that didn’t happen because you didn’t do anything to make it happen.
Hi, hope your month’s been good. I (and I’m sure you) have seen complaints about Hybe’s production quality over the years. I know very surface level info about audio engineering and mixing, but people usually complain of a “muddier” or more garbled sound from Hybe groups (mostly for BTS starting from 2019-2020, TXT, ENHYPEN, and Le Sserafim). I know that most companies have pretty high quality mixing, they process and put tons of pitch correction and effects on vocals even with good singers, they all extensively layer, etc., so I’m wondering what Hybe does that sounds different and bothers people. Do you think there’s anything to this or is something else going on? People also tend to leave out the pre-formed acquired groups (Seventeen, Gfriend, Fromis_9) as well as Newjeans (who go for the “natural, less processed” perception that I know is at least not completely true) from these complaints as well, so I’m curious if there’s anything significantly different with them. If you get to this, thanks for answering!
I ignore all these complaints because they’re all full of shit. There’s nothing wrong with HYBE’s productions, technically speaking. Whether people like the result of how it’s produced, that’s a different conversation, but the actual aptitude – there’s never been an issue there. Not ever, not even once. They know what they’re doing with the tools, if they sometimes use them in ways that suck then that’s a conscious decision to do that, not a result of any kind of incompetence. Even a truly dogshit song like NewJeans’ “Hype Boy” with that awful person-who-can’t-clap-at-a-concert rhythm actually sounds that way because someone made a conscious (boneheaded) decision to make it sound that way – and no it is definitely NOT “less processed” by any means, New Jeans has processing up the ass, that’s just the washed-out Rotta-esque visual styling of some of the videos fooling people into thinking it “sounds natural” because k-pop fans tend to listen with their eyes, that’s why they like k-pop in the first place. You can safely ignore any A-list/B-list “production quality” gripes as the rantings of people who have no education in audio production, audio engineers who suck at their job simply do not get given jobs at that level in k-pop, they get weeded out on the lower rungs.
Do you think any trainees have ever gone all Tonya Harding kneecapping or something on each other? I always figured stuff like that must happen in kpop cause of the harsh competition and cause I’ve known teens who have done worse for less. But maybe things are different in Korea or just non-shithole parts of the world in general. Looking forward to reading your book soon btw
Yes.
I think you’ll enjoy the book especially given your question! Note that “Show Me Love” e-book is now available on Rakuten Kobo so if you don’t want to give Amazon your money you now have another option. More options for physical copies might be on the way soon too, currently working it out with some vendors.
The entire “who is Nile Rodgers” discussion is distracting us from a very important question that only you can answer: is Nile Rodgers a kpop?
Not until he appears in a k-pop music video wearing a tribal lycra spacesuit.
Are the YouTube links on your roundup posts blocked on purpose or is it a bug? I get this error:
http://www.youtube.com is blocked
http://www.youtube.com refused to connect.
ERR_BLOCKED_BY_RESPONSE
I only get this error on your site. I know I can just copy-paste the link, I’m just curious as to why it’s happening?
No idea but it’s definitely just you. Sounds like a browser issue. I searched up your error message on some help sites and got this. It may not be the solution but it’s probably something related, maybe you’re blocking javascript or similar. Resetting your browser to default settings, changing browsers, I’d try those things.
I thought you might be interested in this video:
“What Is It Like To Be Black In South Korea?”It’s 26 minutes long, so I wrote down a few short sections for you if you are interested but don’t want to watch the whole video:
9:57-12:05 if they get offended by appropriation of black culture in Korea
12:05-14:43 if they think Korea has a strong cancel culture
18:33-18:59 about a Korean facebook group for black peopleApologies if you’ve already seen/covered the video, I did a search on your website but didn’t find it.
Very interesting, thanks for this.
9:57 – the divided opinions here are pretty realistic, there definitely isn’t the consensus on this issue in real life that you see online.
12:05- I vaguely remember Sam speaking about blackface. Some people think all blackface is bad, others think it depends on whether it’s considered a tribute (such as dressing up as a celebrity or public figure that you idolise) or something else (an art project, military camouflage, etc) or there’s a specific intent to racially mock the target race. If you want to know what I mean by ‘racially mock the target race’, here’s an example featuring… gosh, Sam himself, at 0:55.
Hmm. Having said that, I don’t agree with cancelling people, it never ends in anything good, it just makes people double down. I would still buy Sam a beer, and sit down while I calmly explained the nuances of this to him. Like Tina in the video says, “I don’t get offended, I just wanna be the educator”…
18:33- Not shocked that the black communities in Korea are separate. There’s a pretty wide cultural gap in Australia between the African-Americans who live here, Africans from African countries who also live here, and indigenous Australians. All three are “black” but they don’t tend to mix together much, because it’s not about skin colour, it’s about culture, and having the same skin colour doesn’t mean your culture is the same or that you’ll find it easy to get along. Not to say that you won’t get along either, but it’s not necessarily easier for Africans to mix with African-Americans than it is for them to mix with white Australians, regardless of skin colour the cultural distance is still pretty far apart in a lot of ways.
Oppar HELP. I have a class about fucking sound mixing and music composition of all things (my major is unrelated), and the software the lecturer wants us to use is for mac OS (Garage Band) and I can’t afford that apple crap. I showed up at the first two-three classes and embarrassed myself trying to understand the interface of the apple laptops and I haven’t showed up again. We have a project for the end of the semester, we’re supposed to use this program and the lecturer never offered any alternatives or said if they’re even allowed so I have no clue how to work on it. I’m genuinely thinking of giving up now and retaking this damn class next semester. Also, we’re not studying music theory bc my university is shit. I don’t know what to do
First, watch this:
Then watch this, take notes (seriously – take notes, and save them).
Then if you still don’t feel confident, set aside two hours and watch this. Again, take notes.
Then go kick ass.
u implied newjeans is postmodern in one of ur roundups. pls explain how newjeans is postmodern when shrek came out in 2001. its ok to take it back.
Shrek: ancient, back when dinosaurs like H.O.T roamed the Earth
T-ara’s “Absolute First Album”: modern, the first true ‘Korean idol group’ in the modern sense.
Anything after T-ara – postmodern
Hi! Do you know of any cool places in Adelaide to buy kpop merch? I live out of town so I don’t know a lot of the smaller shops. I sure do miss going to Morning Glory
Thank you
No. Don’t bother, there’s nothing. Just get it online.
In public, do you find asian women catch your eye more than other races?
In public I have tunnel vision, I don’t even notice the things I’m supposed to notice half the time, let alone some rando chick walking by who has nothing to do with me. Nothing catches my eye.
Hi Kpopalypse, I hope you’re doing well!
[redacted]
Here are my questions:
– as a man, what do you think of his inner block on proposing? I know all men are different but I’m still curious what you think of it.
– is it unreasonable of me to want an engagement after 3 years together? I’ll be 29 by then.Thank you Kpopalpyse, and GFRIEND supremacy!
My site must be growing in popularity hugely if everyone with personal life problems is getting paranoid that other people might be reading their business and wants me to chop out half their questions.
To be honest this sends my bullshit detector skyrocketing, but then I’m a cynical bastard who has never wanted children, so I don’t really know what being someone who actually wants children feels like. So we can give him some benefit of the doubt – but not much. So let’s talk about children because that’s the real deal here, that’s where the real commitment lies, not the proposing. Anyone can propose anything. I can propose that I’ll go to the moon next week. Marriages can be annulled too. So. I did do my best to try and consider children with previous partners who really wanted kids, but not because I wanted kids, because I wanted them, which was in hindsight a bad reason. Ultimately I had to admit that I was forcing myself to like the idea of children because it was what they wanted, and I wouldn’t have been happy. Best thing I ever did was forget all that, man up, agree to mutually split up with the Eunha lookalikes who were very pretty but had incompatible lifestyle goals and then I hooked up with my current partner who hates children even more than I do (“cunt goblins” she calls them – she’s hilarious, I love her). We’ve been together just over 13 years at the time of writing and very happy. But I think this guy you’re with is either allergic to responsibility (a lot of men are, it’s male culture to a degree, but it can be overcome) OR perhaps just isn’t very paternal by nature and that’s his block (which is fair, you can’t really force that), or (worst case scenario) is knowingly stringing you along because he likes being in a relationship with you and will continue to do it until you wise up. Regardless, the issue is he supposedly loves you but is leaving you in limbo, so he needs to tell you exactly what’s up (“I have a block” is too vague, that could just be a block about being called out, as Hana would say “technically not a lie”) and sort his shit out. And quickly.
Creating a deadline – very reasonable and exactly what I would have done but I would have gone harder. I was halfway through reading your thing and I was like “create a deadline!” and then I read that you did just that. Good. But you should be setting the deadline on the marriage and the children, not the proposal of the marriage. Even if he proposes he might then say “let’s marry after wishy-washy timeframe x”, don’t let him throw that curveball at you, that’s more time where he can reneg on the deal at any time. So get a marriage deadline, make it soon, and hold him to that fucking deadline. No matter what. Do not accept ANY wavering. “One more week” “One more day” “ten minutes” no. A HARD no. He can do whatever he needs to do from now until the deadline expires but if there’s no ring on your finger within the alloted timeframe walk out that door, and don’t come back. Same applies when discussing kids. Set a timeframe that YOU want, stick to it, be relentless on adherence, if eggs aren’t being fertilised within the timeframe, bye bye. The stick doesn’t work without the carrot, so ALSO incentivise him being early. “If you pop the question/walk down the aisle/get me pregnant within [much shorter timeframe x that you would prefer] then we can do [insert something he really likes here].” If he’s really into you, all the way, and wants what you want, this’ll be like Christmas for him. If it just makes him waver more, it means he’s shaking in his boots because you’re calling him out – there’s your red flag. Good luck. Honestly I am not hopeful but he may surprise both of us. Give him a chance – but a strictly limited one.
“I’m so mature, I’m so mature
I’m so mature, I got me a therapist to tell me there’s other men
I don’t want none, I just want you
If I can’t have you, no one should…”
– SZA describing my current mental state about my love life (minus wanting to kill my ex obviously)I’ve probably loved this guy since we were forced to sit next to each other in 6th grade. We were somehow placed in the exact same classes from 4th grade till high school graduation, but all those years were nothing but awkward sexual tension
We dated for like 6 months in college but we were in different schools, we both had busy majors, so we broke up. I thought that was it for us – we dated, it didn’t work out, and the whole time I couldn’t shake the feeling he was treating me like a secret because I was overweight then, so that’s that, right? I could move on with life, right? Wrong!!
Our conversations had died down to nothing except birthday and holiday wishes and we haven’t seen each other since we were 18. But two months ago he replied to my Instagram story about my cat, showing me photos of his own, and since then we have been speaking way more regularly than we did in the last 5 years, and Lord help me, my heart is doing somersaults and flip flops again
It’s gotten so bad that I felt jealous when I saw he followed a classmate who someone said he had liked in like 8th grade, and who’s my complete opposite physically; she’s a white blue-eyed blonde and was always one of the pretty ones in school, and I’m brown with severe self-esteem issues about my looks….this girl is now happily married to someone else mind you, yet here I am with my heart sinking.
Anyway as things stand, here I am acting like a dog desperate for affection from its owner (only on the inside thankfully) despite us being MIA to each other for 6 years now. I’ve seen other men, I’ve had plenty of lustful crushes on hot guys, I’ve hooked up with a few of said hot guys too, but nobody has come close to the way this childhood crush has made me feel.
A part of me really hates myself for acting this down bad over someone who never really assured me of mutual feelings, but it is what it is now.
Do I really have feelings for him or am I just lonely? Idk what to do, I feel too damn old to be acting like my 11 year old self again
First things first – get your self-esteem in order. Recognise that you are attractive and people ARE going to like you. Not everyone, to be sure (because that’s impossible – there are even Suhyun haters, can you imagine?) but guys don’t spend time talking to people they’re not attracted to. If you don’t sort your self-esteem, the same issues that broke you up last time will poison the relationship again. I’ve dated girls who thought that I wanted to keep them a secret because they thought that I thought they were ugly, but if I thought they were ugly we wouldn’t have even been going out in the first place. It’s really frustrating as a guy to be in that position where the girl just can’t get into it because she doesn’t feel like she is worth it, and there’s nothing I as a partner can do about that. Nobody can give you self-esteem except yourself. So get yourself into a state where you feel like yes, you are worth it, you are worth the situation that you desire. I feel like that’s the main issue here, and once you get a handle on that, then you’ll get clear signals from within yourself about where to go next (because you’ll feel the desire maintain or increase even more, or, you’ll forget about it completely as your new self-esteem makes you realise it was just loneliness driving it).
Do you think kpop has objectively gotten worse since the golden age days? Or is it nostalgia? Sometimes I have trouble wondering about this. I have several songs that were released between 2010-2014 that I know are terrible on some of my most-played playlists, yet I hardcore struggle with most 4th gen releases.
I personally do think the kpop scene has gotten worse, yet whenever I bring that up most people tell me I’m clouded by my highschool memories lol. It’s just that when I think of the top ggs of the past (T-ARA, snsd, etc) and compare them to today’s triad of powerhouse groups (IVE, newjeans and LESSERAFIM) I don’t think those hold up? They’re great and I like them a lot, and they’re definitely really well produced, but why doesn’t that necessarily translate into good music? Nugus in 2011 had 2 dollars and a dream and they made it work.
Is it because the kpop scene has been crawling with foreign producers nowadays? tiktok rewiring everyone’s brains to consume 2 minute long nursery rhyme songs? A combination of both?
Production value has skyrocketed and you’d think that would bring the quality up but idk. What brought this on was TheBiasList ranking of Kpop’s strongest years
What do you think oppa?
I think it’s just nostalgia. Honestly I think 2022 was an amazing year and quality this year has been good too. Most weeks I find something to like. But then I’m a very, VERY allergic to nostalgia person. I used to have a Facebook and one of the reasons I stopped using it was when they brought in “facebook memories”, no I don’t give a flying fuck about what I was doing five years ago and I don’t want to see it. Nostalgia for me is like death. When I’m on my deathbed I’ll look back on my life, until then I’m always looking at the present, and to the near future, what’s the next thing on my radar to do. People always like music from the past, but I don’t. I’m always looking for the next thing. Everyone else my age that I know still listens to the music that they grew up with, that they listened to in their teens and 20s. I’m not interested. With k-pop I’m not even into nostalgia there, I’d rather listen to something new, always.
I think my opinion of the years in k-pop is almost 100% opposite to The Bias List! But then, he likes boy groups so that makes sense I guess…
There was a recent qrimole in which you wrote that grunge was the 90s version of punk and that it was a reaction to the glamor of excess of 80s hair metal bands. My reference point for 90s punk is different. Grunge was more early 90s and had a very moody tone. By the mid 90s and late 90s it looks like there was a shift: the new punk bands were brighter and more upbeat (Rancid, NOFX). And then of course there’s Green Day and all the other pop punk bands that would emerge in the next decade and lead to Hot Topic mall punk (Simple Plan, Blink 182, Avril Lavigne etc.).
Why did it seem like punk took such a big shift in the 90s? Some thoughts I had:
1. It could be related to Kurt Cobain’s death — maybe people didnt want stuff as depressing after that since he was such an icon of Gen X.
2. Maybe the moodier grunge merged with emo and the brighter punk stuff was inspired from somewhere else instead of grunge (Like ska/Op Ivy for Rancid; there also seemed to be a handful of ska punk bands that came after like Goldfinger and Less Than Jake and idk why those made it so big)Interested to hear your thoughts since i dont think I’ve seen you write much on this punk era and what the implications of it was. I also wonder why it never really came back outside of more washed down versions in the past few years (Avril comeback with Travis Barker, MGK)
Related to the above, do you know of other bands with a similar walking bass like Rancid?
Yeah grunge, just like the first wave of punk, was a short-lived movement or at least its time in the public eye was. This was largely a result of American radio stations curtailing it after its initial burst and going for the watered down versions when they became available. In the mid-late 90s there was a punk revival with Rancid, Green Day, NOFX, The Offspring all getting quite big but I saw that as pretty unrelated to grunge, two fairly different sounds. The punk revival for me took more of a lead from 70s/80s punk, Green Day were very obviously Stiff Little Fingers 2.0 with better production, same goes for Rancid and The Clash, whereas NOFX and The Offspring were both descended from the 80s US hardcore punk scene. Only the Offspring got close to grunge sound (close your eyes and Dexter kind of sounds like Kurt vocally). The “bright” sound has always been part of punk, The Ramones and Sex Pistols had very major-scale type melodies. About 2005 the punk revival had died in the ass at least on the charts but the bands keep going because they don’t give a fuck and there’ll always be a demand for that sort of music I think.
Matt Freeman’s walking basslines don’t really have any peer in the more well-known punk groups (he’s highly regarded for a reason) but if you investigate the “psychobilly” subgenre you’ll find a lot of that kind of sound. Mostly done on upright basses, too.
Hi oppar, I’m going to be travelling alone for the first time in July. My flight is from Canada to Sweden. Do you have any advice for me? I’m doing all the research I can. What’s it like traveling alone?
I travel Australia a lot and it’s huge, but I don’t travel between countries at all really so I’m probably not the person to ask about things like being in a foreign country. But travelling alone is great, I wish I could do it more, but usually I’m in a group of ten other people. It’s still cool though, there’s still fun on the road but I’m an introvert what can I say.
Armchair corpo-psychologist time. Do u think SM resents Red Velvet for not getting as big as Girls Generation? I had a drunk convo about it with a friend so now I’d like to ask the only other intelligent kpop liker I know.
Not sure about “resent” but I’m sure they would have liked it if they were even bigger.
Do you think that kpop idols are sex workers?
Some of them yes. But in a broader sense, we’re all whores on some level. Including me. Maybe especially me.
Why are sexy girl group concepts dead in kpop,Oppar? Even in boygroups I think there are less outright sexy concepts if one doesn’t count the gay fanservise type stuff
I’m pinning my hopes on Jennie mostly to do something about this since she seems more comfortable with this stuff ig and is going to be acting in Werkend’s egocentric fuckfest show (and is likely to feature on the ost) or maybe Lisa with her pole dancing
Did you not see Youha bringing sexy back last year with Jay Park some rando guy?
It seems that Ed Sheeran was accused of plagiarizing Marvin Gaye, due to having a I-V-vi-IV chord progression in his song. A musicologist testified for the plaintiffs. What is a musicologist? Are they as garbage as audiophiles?
Long twitter thread of a bunch of songs with a I-V-vi-IV.
Ed Sheeran beat that case, and good. My opinion: Marvin Gaye’s estate got greedy after the Blurred Lines case and now they just sue everyone they can think they can get away with. Hope they lost a bunch of money.
A musicologist is just someone who has done all the same uni courses that I have but decided that they didn’t like drugs and sluts enough to start a band.
Dear kpopalypse
What is your opinion on friendship between different age groups? For example a friendship between a 15 year old and 10 year old. Is it weird in your opinion?
I have 2 months off school as its vacation and to be honest there is nothing to do. My friends from school have been planning to hang out outside since the beginning of vacation and its already been one month. Its more difficult to plan because we have to convince our parents. This experience is not really common to me but almost all of my peers. Its even more common for girls even those who are 18. My parents arent really the type to go out so I had been looking forward to this. I also dont have any siblings. As a result I had mostly been cooped up at home this whole vacation. With nothing to do I started to talk more to my neighbour who is 10. She is a girl same as me. And to my suprise we could talk about a few common interests not all but some like gaming storytelling that type of thing. And since I cant really meet any of my friends I started spending a lot of time with her. And to be honest I enjoy it. It feels good to talk to someone instead of spending hours on the phone and computer. There are days I do get frustrated with nothing to do. Cant get out of the house. Almost all my friends are too busy to chat or dont want to. I have thought of picking up some hobbies but….. As a kid I had tried to pick up many hobbies but never sticked to any of them As a result my parents lost trust in me. Also theres no way I can go out for classes outside because my parents are busy with work. And theres no way I can go out by myself. I guess thats understandable ahh I dont know at this point. I strayed from the original question. Sorry. What is the best thing to do in this situation?
Maybe it’s a little weird because when you’re 10 someone who is 9 is like a baby and someone who is 11 is like retirement age. But I know that as a 10 year old I would have loved a 15 year old friend because they would have been able to sort out the other 10 year olds who were bullying me. Enjoy having nothing to do, it won’t last. Try to find things to do online. Learn a programming language, why don’t you learn pandas and python then you can help me if I can’t get my code to run (which I can’t).
Thank you for your blog! It’s pretty help me more conscious from kpop’s consumerism. What do you think about Fuji Kaze’s songs? He is a jpop singer got popular recently. I guess I just want another reason to not buy his album music outside the price reason.
I don’t listen to jpop at all (apart from the guitar shred stuff) so there’s an extra reason I guess.
“In 2024 I might keep it going, or I might switch it up to something else, haven’t decided. Open to suggestion.”
How about metal? I would love to have a year of metal recommendations from Kpopalypse. You have also said multiple times that Japanese music, outside of Jpop, can be very good. You could do music from Japan or even specific genres, such as Japanese metal.
Thanks – will note these ideas. Never know what you might get, they’re both good.
Hi, Kpopalypse!
I’m writing to you from Russia, so it might be googletranslate a bit.
If you suddenly decide to publish this, please correct my grammar, if it’s not difficult.
I just want to whine
Not only that we live in a dictatorship, under the rule of a mad dictator (possibly with dementia) and each of us can be jailed for 10 years for one anti-war post on social networks.
Not only feeling incredibly guilty for the war crimes that our country is committing and have panic attacks from newsreading every single day.
I also can’t buy your book. Because Russia was disconnected from the international banking something.
I would like to send you a couple of tens of dollars by pigeon mail, but unfortunately it is difficult to buy dollars in Russia (and buy a carrier pigeon too).It’s not a question, I’m just sad. Anyway, hello to you from one of the maddest countries in the world and thank you for your posts. They help to distract.
It must really blow goats living in Russia right now and it’s probably not going to get better anytime soon. Email me something and I will write you back an organise a way for you to read the book. Please don’t send me money or anything of value, you are going to need it yourself over there.
Hey there, I hope you’re doing fine. I’m writing because I was just catapulted in a shitty situation.
So a friend of mine died yesterday under unknown circumstances. She was found dead in her bathtub, so I can only assume it was a suicide. This would line up with reality because she lost her grandma in January on her birthday. A few days after her loss, we went out drinking and she got drunk and started crying uncontrollably, to the point where we literally had to drag her back home. However, in the following months, she seemed to be okay, and neither me nor her closer friend perceived any signs of depression.
One of these closer friends is also really close to me, and she’s obviously wrecked so I must help her, but I’ve never lost a friend before so I don’t know how to handle it. What should I do and not do? How do I realise if I’m being too negligent or too asphyxiating towards my friend? How can I make sure I still have the emotional energy to help her, and how can I generate more of it?
Thanks for your kindness and have a nice day
Sorry to hear about what happened. I have been in a similar situation, as many readers will know.
This probably deserves an entire post on its own, and I might even do that, but I’m not sure how to write it because it would be kind of depressing. Until I figure that part out:
I feel like the most important thing with someone who might potentially be suicidal, is to keep them talking and checking in, and make sure they know that you care. Check in on them often and let them know they can always talk. If they start feeling better, that’s actually a warning sign so don’t be tempted to think “oh they’re better now, they don’t need as much attention”, it often means they’re about to act on suicidal thoughts so just keep up the contact and do your best for them. Obviously being a pest is bad too though, the main thing is just keep communication lines open and try to keep some regularity to things, but also with the flexibility to switch things up. Also try to plan some activities with them if you can. If you can give them something to look forward to, it gives them a reason to go on. I don’t know, that’s what I did or tried to do. In my case I guess it didn’t work because she died in the end, but it worked for a while. Ultimately, you can’t stop someone from doing whatever it is they want to do, but what you can do is give them every reason to look forward to another day. Also try to encourage them to talk to a doctor, anyone with very depressive feelings should definitely talk to a medical pro about it, don’t take all of the burden on yourself or you’ll get burned out. Also don’t think “it’s just because of the situation”, you want to be overcautious because if you’re not you may end up kicking yourself later. It’s important to get professionals who know what they’re doing onto the situation. Also watch for red flags. “Oh I bought a lot of alcohol today.” things like that.
For someone who isn’t suicidal but is coping with someone else’s suicide, I don’t know. I guess a lot of the same stuff applies, because you never really know if someone is suicidal or not until they do it, or try to. When people talked to me after my partner died, it was awkward. They didn’t know what to say to me, and I knew that they didn’t know, so I was just like “hey it’s fine, there’s nothing really to be said”. Just because I wanted to take the pressure off them feeling awkward, you know. People naturally worry about saying the wrong thing, but for someone dealing with suicide, what someone says to you about it is really the least of your problems at that point. So I’d just say speak what’s on your mind, no need to super walk on eggshells, but also try not to judge them. I had people who were upset at me straight after my ex-partner’s death because I ‘wasn’t crying enough’ so that meant I ‘didn’t care’ never mind that I had cried myself out deliberately just beforehand so I could then see them without freaking out and string a sentence together with a steady tempo if they asked a question. So I guess I’m just trying to say be prepared for unusual responses and try not to assume anything about what that means, because there’s probably a lot happening inside their head that isn’t self-evident.
I realise that creators get tired of doing stuff and switch genres, but I can’t help feeling so disappointed when people you start relying on for one thing like game playthroughs start doing music or philosophy etc.
I get that you want to write books now and I wish you good luck in it, but it does feel a bit alienating when all your content has some shilling for your books, when I got familiar with you from the asian junkie days and don’t read books a lot if at all.
It’s just not what I signed up for, and while I don’t have an entitlement to your content, checking the site and reading the new posts has become a part of my daily routine over the years and it feels a little sad to lose that connected feeling, I guess, now you seem to be losing some of the love you had for kpop and getting more into being a writer. Like when someone you do a hobby with gets into something completely different and it’s all they talk about.
I’m aware it’s very parasocial to feel this way as I don’t know you at all, except watching cat videos and having some idea what your mother and girlfriend are like, but as you’re someone intimately familiar with parasocial relationships given the whole kpop genre, I just figured you’d expect the same thing to apply when you switched your content up as you have, so it seems odd you didn’t appear to prepare for this reaction.
No one else seems to have mentioned feeling similiarly, so I suppose that’s why I’m writing in. You’ve said yourself in some of your posts like the reaction channels reviews that you don’t like when people (like MRJkpop in that one) put their own songs into stuff like how MR removed works so it feels weird to see it coming from you.
I suppose this isn’t really a question, but hopefully you’ll reply regardless. Best wishes with your books, at any rate.
Cheers!
I cover what I feel are the key differences between my approach to my books, and MRJKPOP’s (once) approach to his songs more in this post (scroll about 2/3rd of the way down).
The references to my books are, for the most part, references to the characters in the books, and they’re still in the original short story, which is on this website, and free. After I’ve written other fanfics I’ve liked, I’ve also gone on to repeatedly refer to the characters in them a ton, sometimes for years. So this hasn’t really changed. Hell, people on Asian Junkie are still talking about “Way’s Girls” which was one of my fictions (although in his wet dreams Asian Junkie wrote it himself).
As for the broader issue, I get it. I don’t write the same way now than I did in 2015, this is true and can’t be denied. I’ve aged considerably and so has the way I write, this can’t be avoided and nor do I feel that I should try to hide it. In 2031, I’ll no doubt be writing differently again… but I will be writing something, somewhere. Keep in mind that I never started writing with any idea to get popular or whatever. I just did it because I had things to say. I still have things to say so I still write, those things have changed somewhat, but honestly not as much as I’d like, because the industry itself that I’m writing about hasn’t changed as much as I’d like. The books actually exist by popular demand – I wrote a short story and a LOT of people were like “holy fuck you should make that a book” so I asked readers en masse if they’re like one, the overwhelming majority said “yes holy shit I’d love a whole book of your fiction insanity”, so I wrote one. There’s a few reasons for it. Firstly they satisfy the demand for merchandise (which people have been asking me for since about 2015) in a way that feels more sensible and organic than a cup with “Kpopalypse” printed on it or something (I mean it seems more relevant for a writer’s merchandise to actually be some fucking writing, right?). Secondly, readers wanted it, and while I can’t do what every reader wants me to do all the time (impossible as they all want different things, some readers might want me to fuck them and others just want me to go fuck myself) I certainly do try and please the majority of people who are doing their best to support me and have stuck with me, because I appreciate that so much. Thirdly, wouldn’t it be funny if the story and the sequels were actually full of all kinds of information that people have been telling me off the record but they’re too chickenshit to put their names to any of the stuff but I still want to put it out there somehow to give you that information, but in a fun entertaining way? Of course that isn’t the case because the book is completely fictional so don’t worry about this reason I guess. Fourthly, as that other noted k-pop author Jessica Jung would say, “just because”. Fuck it, if she can do it why can’t I. I bet people write to her and say “I got into you back in Girls’ Generation days, why don’t you do some more music”, hell she probably gets that letter every fucking day. But unlike her, for the most part I haven’t moved on. It’s not like I’ve shut up shop, far from it. I still do roundups (easily the most loved part of the site). I still do end of year lists (easily the second most loved part of the site – and I love writing those end of year lists too, because I still love k-pop – when it’s good – and enjoy having lists of the good stuff). I still do interviews (although people are too chickenshit to accept my offers or put their name to it most of the time), I still do podcasts, still do livestreams, still do Nugu Alert (9 years running, longest continually running k-pop review series in English language media history? Maybe…) still do miscellaneous other articles when I have time to squeeze them in, right now am writing my sixth computer game which readers get for free each year (I mean the games are shit, but they give people a laugh I hope…), oh and there’s the objectification survey coming soon so don’t forget to vote in that, and boy do those posts take a LONG time to tally up and create. And on top of all that, I sit down at the start of each new month and read every single one of my reader’s QRIMOLE questions and reply as helpfully as I feel like I’m able to, to the vast majority of them, even the ones where I honestly have no idea what to say, even the people giving me huge walls of text about their personal issues, because I love all my readers and I really want to help them, and I don’t want any of them to feel like they can’t have somewhere to turn when things get tough, because when I was younger I needed that and I wasn’t always able to find it. I don’t know what other people do with their free time but I write, that’s what I do. I will continue to write, on this website, completely for free, completely without ads, the same stuff I’ve always written, plus some different stuff here and there, when time allows. Forgive me if I shill my book from time to time because I am very passionate about it and also I am broke as shit (thanks Reserve Bank cunts for hiking my mortgage rates you dicks). Or don’t, I guess, that’s completely up to you. But the website stuff is stuff I will continue to do as long as possible, I hope you do stay for the ride but if you don’t, that’s cool, I hope I at least improved your life a little for a while. Have this sleeping cat picture.
Speaking of books (and I guess if you don’t care about books you will probably want to stop reading right here as the rest of this is now about book-writing and the question box below that, everyone else interested read on…) I asked a question last month and invited readers to answer.
KPOPALYPSE’S QUESTION FROM MAY QRIMOLE – ANSWERED BY READERS
My question was: I’m really interested in writing more novels. Obviously there’s the Shin Hana books (book 2 is 50% done) and I’m enjoying writing those a whole lot. I hope I don’t disappoint with the second book, because it’ll be a bit different to the first in some ways, being a ‘middle book’ that picks up where the first one leaves off and which also won’t ‘end’ the series on its own (there’ll be at least three books in Hana’s story, and then maybe some more stories from different perspectives later) so it might feel a bit like it’s lacking structure. I’m trying to make it more structural by having various sub-plots exist and wrap up in book 2 while still having the overarching plots going. I’ll see how I go. But it’s really made me want to do another unrelated k-pop book that is a standalone one-shot and won’t have a sequel, and maybe from a male perspective this time. I’m thinking about what this might be. What I was thinking about was having a protagonist who is far more evil than Hana is, for instance a person who might engage in extremely unsavoury and indefensible behaviour (Maybe be criminal or perhaps just immoral in other ways), and the story being told from their perspective, including their own flimsy justifications etc. But I wouldn’t want such content to read like I was endorsing the character’s perspective or condoning those actions, nor would I want to create material for those who agreed with the character’s perspective to ‘get off’ on. But I don’t want to fill the book with weak-ass disclaimers either. My question is, how would you approach the task of writing first-person perspective from the point of view of the most morally abhorrent person possible (assume whatever atrocity you can think up that you couldn’t possibly defend, like maybe a Nazi, or a rapist, or someone who produces R&B for a living), while at the same time A. making it clear you do not endorse those actions B. not providing satisfaction/ideological reinforcement for readers who MIGHT endorse those actions and C. not loading up the book with pathetic hand-wringing “I don’t mean it like that I promise, I the author am totally separate from my character gosh gee golly what a horrible person they are” disclaimers that nobody who is squeamish about the book’s concept is going to believe anyway?
A possible answer to your question at the end: as you already know, a great writer reads a lot. Try reading stuff with villain protagonists, see how the more experienced authors write them. You’ll notice some patterns pretty soon. I’d personally recommend American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis, Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, and Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk.
Did a quick Google search and found some more here, hope this helps
Have actually already read American Psycho already, absolutely loved it (readers of Show Me Love can probably tell). Although I felt Brett Easton Ellis’ response to the dilemma I’m having was to basically just act like it didn’t exist.
There’s a few other similar stores I’ve also read but I can’t remember names. But I’ll check out your list, thank you!
Hi! I’m not the personn who sent the QRIMOLE asking you to ask a question, but I recently read the book the Swimming Pool Library by Alan Hollinghurst. The book is written from the perspective of a hedonistic, mildly-racist, fabulously wealthy gay guy living in London in the 80s. While he never really does anything terrible (he’s actually a victim a couple of times), his thoughts and opininions are so gross and off-putting that I would have stopped reading if I wasn’t such a completist. This is the opposite to the tack that most authors take to writing terrible characters which is to have them be relatively reasonable and sane, and then gradually explain how circumstances or moral degradation led them to do whatever terrible thing they did. In the case of the Swimming Pool Library, the only thing that made me want to keep reading was that I wanted to see what happened to his sweet best friend, and the fact that the book was very well written. If you wrote the book from the male characters perspective, it would make sense to show factors in the music industry contributed to their grossness I guess? I imagine it would be very difficult to make us feel sorry for the victims of a protagonist, as I remember in your ‘advice for writing’ post, you mentioned how it’s best to describe secondary characters as they would be perceived by the protagonist. In the film Raging Bull, there are moments when you just spend time with LaMotta’s wife and brother, to develop their characters and see how his actions are affecting them. The ‘male antihero’ seems to be a very prominent cinema trope (There Will Be Blood, Citizen Kane, The Godfather pt II, Taxi Driver, American Psycho, etc etc etc etc etc etc). It seems like it would be difficult to write about without being cliche, but just the idea of presenting a boy band member as anything other than a fluffy angel will probably be shocking to Kpop fans, so it could be novel in the setting of the Korean music industry.
anyway, sorry for the essay,
love your writing and I can’t wait to get money to read Show Me Love
Thanks for this! I’ll make a note of the book, interesting point about how the character is approached so I’m curious to read that now. Hopefully by the time you read this you have found a suitcase of money and are rich!
hello! i’m the one who asked you to ask me a question.
First off, writing a “villainous” perspective sounds very interesting, but I agree that it would be challenging for a multitude of reasons. It is possible that you can just write whatever fucked up shit you want, put a tiny disclaimer at the front/back of the novel, then evilly laugh when everyone gets butt-hurt. But you could also create this potential story to be a tragedy, wherein the unreliable narrator faces numerous difficult decisions in the early stages of the story that shape them into a more insidious character later on.
For example, let’s say we have a character named Bomi, who is the main dancer in a boy group. Bomi debuts at a very young age and is instantly sexualised. He doesn’t have the greatest home life or support system and he doesn’t know how to handle all this strange attention, so it manifests in various destructive ways, such as flirting back with adults (because he thinks that’s the right thing to do) and acting rude/”cold-hearted” to young screaming girls. The overwork, lack of real friends outside of the insular entertainment industry, and rampant sexualisation leads to an encounter where he just mentally breaks down. Bomi begins to think that showing sexual/romantic affection is the only way people will love him, and acts out — but he’s rewarded by the media and the faceless shape of thousands of screaming young girls for this sudden “cold prince” behaviour, and it further messes him up. This is similar to the idea of “situational irony,” but in a nasty way.
Further on, the readers can see that Bomi’s inner dialogue changes. He’s less fluid and more darkly introspective. His intrusive thoughts pop up more often, things like “haha what if I fell off this building? would my album sell more post-mortem?” or “why are these fangirls trying to date me? They can’t see who I really am behind this pretty face, I bet they’d even thank me for hurting them.”
The final piece of the cake would be that Bomi actually does something bad. Something horrible. Maybe he assaults someone but genuinely enjoys the bloodlust and laughs at the pain. Maybe he touches someone inappropriately because that’s what all of the “hidden fantasy” shit online tells him is sexy and okay.
To drive in the idea that you don’t endorse a character’s terrible actions, try to make it clear that their situation is tragic and full of hurt, on everyone’s end. Unless, of course, you want to have a fun narrative wherein Bomi is just a flat-out psychopath, then feel free to go wild.
Happy writing, kpopalypse!
Thanks! While I won’t use the specific example you mentioned, I think that’s certainly a pretty good template if anyone else wants to have a crack at it!
That’s all for this episode of QRIMOLE! This series will return next month! In the meantime remember that there are places in Japan you must visit!
Oh, and do you have a question that you’d like to see answered in the next episode of QRIMOLE? If so, use the question box below, or if no box appears, click the Qri on the sidebar to open the box as a separate webpage! Kpopalypse will return!
0 comments: