QRIMOLE – Christmas 2023

It’s time for the last QRIMOLE of 2023! Let’s take a look at the final crop of questions for Kpopalypse for this year!

So I’m too lazy to scroll back and find your opinion on this already, which is why I’m asking here. Let’s say a popular kpop artist 2-3 years ago was outed as being a royal bitch to underlings such as stylists. As a result, you didn’t like this artist, because you’ve worked as an underling and know just how hard shit can be for them. But then you’ve liked the artist’s group’s new release, and you started watching “get to know” videos, and now you LIKE said artist. Now you’re conflicted, because you know what it’s like to get yelled at by someone who considers themselves superior, but also, the artist is just so gosh darn cute! The artist has apologized and reflected but you’re not sure how genuine it was or if they’ve learned from the experience. So my question is, even though it’s something as “mild” as bullying a stylist and not like, Kris Wu-level shit, how do you balance liking the artist but really hating what they did to other people? Am I being dumb and should I just let it go and enjoy it?

The artist exists as a separate entity to their art. In k-pop this goes even further because very VERY often the artist had little or nothing to even do with how their art looks or sounds, it’s all been decided by engineers and corporate pen-pushers and the artist is only the ‘delivery mechanism’. In the idol system, people like BTS RM or (G)I-dle Soyeon who actually get a (strictly monitored and vetted) say in what they do are the 1%, for each one of them there’s at least a hundred others who don’t even get to decide what colour headband they wear in the video let along what the music sounds like or what dance moves they do. This also extends to the looks and personality aspect in a lot of cases. K-pop idols are often given designated roles within their group that also encompass aspects like personality, “the cute one”, “the sassy one” etc regardless of how it fits them personally. So separating the artist from the art isn’t only sensible, it’s actually the only correct reaction to the idol system, because the idols aren’t even the ‘artists’ anyway, the good ones are mostly more like ‘crafters’, creating the artistic vision of others.

So I’d say, let it go. Or, don’t let it go… if you don’t want to. But if you’re going to “hold artists accountable” by refusing to consume their product (be that listening to their music, appreciating their images or whatever else) if they are bad people who do shitty things occasionally, you might as well get every single record and CD and MP3 you’ve ever listened to in your whole life, throw them all in a big pile and burn the lot of them. Trust me, these people are all just as flawed as the rest of us assholes. If you look hard enough you’ll find behaviour you disagree with or find problematic from every artist, even today’s trendy-with-the-Internet can-do-no-wrong darlings like Dolly “keep your mouth shut” Parton and Britney “trust your president” Spears. I’ve done shitty things in my life, so have you, so has everyone, we just don’t all have cameras following us around and recording all our stupid fuckups 24/7 because we’re not that important.

What do you think of the Western pop boy bands in the 1990s/early 2000s (NSYNC, Backstreet boys, etc.)? Was there a reason that Western boy groups reached their peak popularity in that era and then never made the same popularity again?

Hated them at the time, still dislike them now. When they came out I was just a boybandphobic metalhead and so dismissed their music out of hand, k-pop has mostly cured me of that but I still think their music was terrible at the time and has also aged poorly.

I think the differences were due to marketing, and the increased activity of those types of groups in general in the west and that it was a newer concept at that time. Boy groups in that format don’t tend to have much of a shelf life – as so much of it is based on image, as the group grows older and the image changes as they age, they attract less young fans, so the focus switches more to keeping the fans they’ve got as they grow older (that’s why all these group go through an  awkward “image maturing” process). It’s the same reason why all the older second-gen boy group members in Korea are wearing suits and pumping out dreary solo ballads these days. However Korea has a structure to replace old boy groups with new, the west doesn’t have that same focus, so when the 2000s era boy groups died off, not much was there to replace them. One Direction were probably the last group to really get on this train.

After reading your review of BABYMONSTER’s “Batter Up,” it seems like YG, starting from 2NE1’s “I Love You” and extending to almost all Blackpink songs, employs similar audio techniques as those found in songs produced by SM, such as f(x)’s “Dracula” and Loona’s “Why Not.” However, I perceive subtle distinctions between YG and SM songs. YG’s tracks feel like they pack a stronger punch or are more geared towards the club scene. I can’t pinpoint the exact terminology, but there’s a noticeable distinction. My question is: Do YG and SM employ the same audio strategies in their songs? Are there discernible differences between the two when it comes to this particular musical style? Thank you!

You’re not imagining this. It’s a product of YG tending to use the same producers all the time, vs SM who tend to also use the same producers all the time, but a different crop of producers from the ones that YG use. Different producers tend to develop different production styles and preferences over time, even when working on different types of material. I would definitely also agree that YG’s songs are optimised for a club environment, which is plainly apparent as soon as you hear any of them through a club-sized PA system vs just about anything else in k-pop, and that’s definitely the main difference that I detect. From the way they use sub-bass to the overall lower-detail mixes (removing all the elements that wouldn’t cut through on a big club PA so as not to muddy the mix) this is pretty evident.

Hi Kpopalypse,

I wrote in a previous QRIMOLE asking about my boyfriend who wasn’t sure about proposing after 2.5 years together. I said I was going to give him an ultimatum because it was important to me, and you said I was right but you weren’t holding your breath (paraphrasing).

After I wrote you, there were a lot of discussions where he reasserted that it wasn’t about me but more about him getting used to the idea of marriage soon and becoming excited about it. He also said several times that he was happy I’d been clear on this from the start and happy I was setting clear boundries, because it was forcing him to tackle his own uncertainties and grow.

Anyway, long story short: we got engaged! It took longer than expected because of a death in my family, the mood wasn’t appropriate for a couple months.
We’re both excited about a future together and in retrospect, I’m glad I respected his wishes for time and glad I also respected my own wishes for clear boundaries.

So… hurray for good communication I guess?

Good news! Glad things are working out. Communication does solve a lot. My current partner is great but she isn’t a perfect person and I’m even less perfect, however we’re both very open and honest communicators and this is what gets our relationship through the tricky stuff. Just about anything can be solved if both parties are willing to tackle problems head-on instead of evade them… and in any relationship there WILL be problems., so dealing with them maturely is important.

As a recent convert to the Cult of Trains, I’d like to say fuck cars, fuck Elon Musk (piece of shit made up the bullshit of Hyperloop to derail California’s high-speed rail for a decade), fuck electric cars, and fuck suburbia.

More seriously, I’m trying to find a place in my city to live, and the real estate prices are depressing. Rent is also obscene. I’ve come to realize parking lots take up a ton of space that could be used for real estate, so cars are a major contributor to the escalating prices. It sucks, especially when you consider the fact that we have such a robust public transportation system that no one needs cars (In fact, most drivers I know constantly complain about traffic and parking). Cars also make it much more dangerous to bike and walk. It’s not exactly helping our public health to force people to sit in some vehicle instead of getting some exercise when going somewhere. Roads also suck. They only need to be so wide due to cars. I blame all our woes on fucking cars.

I’d love more rail where I live but the problem with Australia is that it’s so sparsely populated that building rail just isn’t worth it for most of the country. As much as it would be awesome for me personally, it’s just not cost effective to build kick-ass high speed rail to service three towns where only five dozen people live over a stretch of 2000kms. It would seem to make more sense in the US though, certainly more sense than that Hyperloop junk, just another bad idea from Mr Musty.

in light of recent events in my life, i’ve realized i’m probably more fucked in the head than previously thought. about 3 years ago i was diagnosed with general anxiety and adhd (because my father fucking died and i started having sleep paralysis nightmares about my horrifying russian gymnastics coach)
and recently i’ve quit gymnastics (finally) and started moving on in my life, but i’ve started to realize i lack all social graces and i am oddly superstitious. like to a disturbing degree.
my family (mostly my sister) has said in the past that i might have some form of high-functioning autism?? but that’s not something i’m ready to tackle in my life because my stepdad once punched a guy because he called him a r*tard and a disturbing amount of my social circle makes fun of “special” people.
i’m mostly socially inept (when i don’t know what to say, i just stay completely fucking silent, whenever i want to get out of a situation because im tired or pissed off i just start crying because that’s the only way people ever take me seriously, and i can never pick up on proper social cues and i always give in to impulse whenever dumb ideas come into my head, especially when it comes to conversationally), and also highly specific about my food and my bedroom and anything that i consider “mine”.
i also have very specific rituals relating to my food, my morning/night routines, and i doomscroll more than i breathe.

all signs point to either OCD or autism, or both! what do i do?
because i could just bring all this up to my parents but i don’t want them thinking they created a lemon of a child, BUT it also means more excuses for all of my shortcomings in life.
advice?

My girlfriend told me out of the blue recently “you’re probably autistic” and she’s probably right. All online tests I’ve done also point to the same thing. However I haven’t bothered with a diagnosis because 1. it costs a ton of money and I’m too poor to do cool shit like see Twice or IVE let alone spend money on a boring doctor’s opinion 2. I don’t get any real benefit from knowing, like a cool prize, or a level up, or a special ultimate ability (I’d choose the “Rain Man” counting cards superpower) and 3. I don’t want to become one of those annoying people who talks about how they’re autistic all the time. I mean my life will just go on as normal except with less money and more excuses. If nothing else I sure know that I’m “different” somehow and I don’t need a test to figure that out. So my advice to you would just be aware of your limitations, whatever they may be, and since you have a reasonable sense of what they are already, try to work on making your life fit better with them. Getting a diagnosis is a good idea if you can afford it but you probably don’t actually need one to make proactive changes, you just need to know what makes you happy and what doesn’t. Talking to a doctor about these things might not be a bad idea.

thoughts on DSBM??

I added a link so people would know what you’re referring to. Musically I don’t detect any real difference between it and any other black metal, sounds pretty much the same. Lyrically I couldn’t give a shit as I can’t understand the words of that stuff anyway most of the time, I don’t think just different lyrical themes on their own constitute a new genre. So, no opinion really.

Say what you will about Viviz’s music (and Untie is genuinely better than I expected), but their stylists are absolutely killing it. I’ll take more performance videos if we get to see the girls in more outfits. Untie’s hot as hell.

Viviz have never looked or sounded better.

not really qrimole more of a suggestion/inquiry. Would you ever consider appearing on blind item podcasts? I’ve been on a bit of binge of them recently and, there’s an obvious connection with you in how you somewhat expose the entertainment industry similarly to them. Mainly I’m asking because I have heard a few of them talk about kpop in a “I’d love to do an episode on kpop, unfortunately I know nothing about it” sort of way. I’m thinking like Beyond the Blinds podcast or something. I think your content heavily reflects a blind item uncovering the truth of the industry kind of way, especially with your experience. Just thinking it’d be pretty interesting to hear you talk about the industry with people who are also knowledgeable about the “dark side” of the industry.

specifically what made me think of this is that beyond the blinds had an episode where they discussed new edition and basically the establishment of “slave contracts” and have talked about boy/girl groups and the dynamics in the industry and it made me instantly think of kpop and which parts kpop companies exported from America. Idk I feel like it’d be super interesting to discuss kpop in terms of the original American groups and industry practices and how kpop has evolved from that

I don’t even know what “blind item podcast” means, but if someone wants me on their podcast or stream or whatever else for whatever reason they should reach out, I would happily do it. I’ve appeared on other people’s podcasts before, as well as done interviews on Korean radio stations etc. but it doesn’t happen very often because most people would honestly rather not hear what I have to say as it doesn’t fit the established narrative (neither the official line nor the “dark side” stuff).

It’s been almost eight years since Cross Gene’s “Noona You”; also known as one of K-pop’s first (good) NMIXX change-ups. In the original post for your favorite tracks of 2016, you said that it followed something close to a “Rondo Form”. I’ve been listening to plenty of K-pop in the past seven years and I can’t really recall any other tracks that have taken a crack at this song structure. Despite this, the genre-switching trend has only gotten more popular since this track came out. Do you think there’s hope that Rondo Form will be revisited soon?

I’m aware that there’s decent tracks outside of K-pop that move through genres without adopting this particular structure, so I know that it’s not the only way to make this work, but K-pop seems to be completely musically clueless. What advice would you give to a K-pop producer who’s been commanded to create a song with at least one NMIXX change-up?

I would say don’t look to any other k-pop as an example, instead look to how the more successful western progressive rock groups do it. Queen’s early prog-rock phase is a good example of how to combine structures that are more akin to those in classical music with pop sensibilities.

Hi, sorry to the people reading this is gonna be redacted

[stuff redacted]

Since you’ve struck out with therapy I’d recommend doing some serious research before you approach another one. Psychologists etc have online reviews and so forth like anyone else these days so seek out those. Just be aware that with reviews naturally comes bias (people don’t tend to write online reviews unless they are either VERY happy or VERY not happy, so there’s an “anti-middle-ground bias” in any collected reviews that you do see of just about anything). Note that in places where there’s not a lot of mental health services very good therapists get a good reputation and thus tend to book out in advance, so if you’re struggling to get an appointment don’t be tempted to see someone else who is very very available because they might be shit.

I’m way out of my depth with eating disorder questions sadly, but yes a specialised ED hotline is a good idea to contact, they won’t be able to wave a magic wand but they’ll give you somewhere to get started. College counsellors are also awesome not because they’re experts but because they’re FREE. Once you’re not at Uni anymore you have to pay through the nose for someone to sit there and listen to all your issues, so use them while you’ve got them. Never hesitate to use college counsellors, just realise their advice may not be any more definitive than my own.

I want to ask that whether you have faced situation where your teammates being late and how did you deal with it? Currently the deadline is super near (about 1-2 days left) and my teammates just feel so quiet when I ask for their progress. I think I’m about to have a heart attack waiting for them while I do other stuffs in anxiety. Like even if they can’t do it they should have informed the group so we have other solutions for them being late…

I find that this happens a lot and my solution is to have a contingency plan prepared in advance for if my teammates are a bunch of losers. Basically, if you always expect disappointment and prepare in advance for it you’ll never be let down.

Please give me some major copium for Ootd. Also, some shares at the company to fire whoever greenlit it as the comeback song. I’m certain there’s got to be something better in the album even without listening to it.

Dreamcatcher have had below-average songs before. I mean for them it’s terrible but by any other group’s standards the song is acceptable enough.

Maybe I missed it, but I really can’t find it on your site: have you been following Nayoon’s song release and promotion?

It’s kinda crazy to me that she seems to be promoting as a US-based K-pop artist targeted specifically at Latin America. And it might even be working? (or was she just that big on tiktok already?)

On the other hand, I don’t think any K-pop outlet at all picked up on this song. So I wonder what kind of fandom she’s going for. People who are into the idea of K-pop but not already in that media environment?

Yeah I’m not sure of the strategy, her YouTube isn’t very popular but then her TikToks are doing well and they all seem to be aimed at the Latin American audience so I guess that’s where it’s at for her so she’s found a different niche. Mind you she’s been huge on TikTok and Instagram for a while now. Good luck to her, hopefully she consents to her interview being republished again one day, mind you it’s already been out for years so I figure anyone who wanted to read it probably already has by now, and I’m sure someone has stored it somewhere, you know how the Internet is, nothing ever really gets deleted…

When is the long-promised microtonality theory/appreciation post coming out? This question brought to you by yet another session of googling “i am the best 2ne1 sheet music” and giggling at how bad their attempts at transcribing the synth riff sound.

I’ll get there when I get there. The fact that I struggle to think of much k-pop that uses microtones and doesn’t sound like dogshit is a significant demotivator to write anything about it.

It’s fucking december again which means it’s kpop christmas songs time again lord give me strength to not end myself

At least you don’t have to review ’em like I will be.

Hiya,

I wanted to ask whether you’re in contact with the person behind TheBiasList or if you’re acquainted with one another? I’ve seen you dealing out a few jabs at them (like with your most recent Golden Child – Feel Me review) and wondered whether comments like these are born out of mutual understanding and jokes at one another or if it’s just you taking the piss out of them lmao

I’m Australian, and for Australians the Venn diagram between “mutual understanding” and “taking the piss” is a circle. How he feels about it, I don’t know you’d have to ask him, but honestly I think he’s cool and I hope he takes my typically Australian idiocy in the right spirit. We’re acquainted somewhat in that I’ll leave him messages on his site sometimes, although I haven’t recently because I’m too lazy to log in but that doesn’t mean I don’t like him, just that I don’t tend to traverse onto other people’s sites much due to time constraints and being very busy doing my own thing.

In an old Qrimole, you mentioned that you don’t really revisit the Wonder Girls Reboot album. Is that still true? I know you ranked it as one of the better kpop albums way back when, and everybody lists it as an all-time great, but I’ve never really understood the appeal (or most of Wonder Girls’ output tbh—Sunmi’s solo stuff is great though.). Mostly asking because the other albums you named (Pink Tape, Absolute First Album) are obviously still in your rotation and it’s easy for me to see why.

Still true. In fact between book writing, roundup writing, end of year content writing and just generally trying to stay afloat financially I’ve had almost no time to listen to any albums at all lately. For something that it’s very well documented I barely give a shit about (k-pop albums) I sure get a lot of questions about them.

How do you have the time to run this blog with all the writing you do (especially all the questions you answer on here) and juggle your girlfriend, cats, and taking care of yourself? Any time management tips?

Yes. Don’t listen to k-pop albums, save yourself a ton of time sifting through filler ballad crap.

why is willow smith hogging all of the family talent. i listened to “wait a minute” (live version – studio version) by her and it touched my soul and relaxed my inner demons. her parents and siblings could never. also, what style of music would this be considered?

She’s definitely an excellent singer, no doubt about it. Would much rather listen to her sing than her dad rap. I don’t care much for the actual song personally though. Seems to be entirely riding on her vocal talent to carry it and nothing else.

I’d just call it pop music? Maybe R&B if I was being racist?

hey kpopalypse oppar

it’s me, your chronically online romance obsessed gremlin. so i’ve been dating my boyfriend for 2 months and i want to marry him. so fun fact, my family is very supportive of this because they like him and they like that i’m happy with him. how do i approach this topic with him? we had a funny little non serious conversation about marriage recently, and he doesn’t see any benefit in marrying early. i didn’t say anything because i didn’t wanna freak him out. so. how do i tell him i’m interested? i’ve told him before i’m the “date to marry” kind of person, so he knows that at least.

(i am from a culture where it isn’t uncommon to marry quickly/early, but he is not)

I would just be like “so hey, I wanna marry you, so how about it? Are you cool with that? When do you wanna do it? Like, no pressure, I don’t wanna do this next week or some shit, I’m just asking…” and get some real answers. I know that’s not a very romantic way to go about it but you could be waiting all fucking life for some guys to turn on the romance, sometimes you just gotta grab the bull by the horns. Yes there is some risk involved here, but there’s risk in this situation no matter how you slice it. I mean yes rushing into it could scare him off, but you don’t want to leave it too long either because you don’t want to waste years of your life waiting to find out if you’ve got compatible goals in this area only to find out that he’s not down for the ride. Romance is nice but honest communication is better.

Would love a breakdown of what happens during all these “live” kpop song performances — I picked TXT Chasing That Feeling as an example because I thought it was a great song before listening to this version.

First, what’s going on with that double keyboard thing at the start? (timestamp 9:00) Is it the same instrument as the synths in the actual studio recording? I feel like it sounds worse.

Secondly, what’s up with the other people in the back? One guy’s job is just the tambourine? And I can’t hear the two other vocalists at all so what are they there for? (timestamp 11:33).

The original track is several layers of programmed keys, and it’s not something that’s designed to be recreated live. When tracks are put together in the studio, especially in the pop realm, “how are we going to reproduce this in a live context” is generally an afterthought, if it’s even thought of at all. The keys player is doing it anyway and props to him as that’s not a super easy part to play, not because of keyboard dexterity per se but because of having to juggle sequences and live playing between the analog synth on the top shelf and the Nord on the bottom. But there is no way known that he could get it sounding 100% like the record unless he also used sequencers (preprogrammed keys that he would trigger) to fill up the sonic space, after all he’s only got two hands. Are they the same instruments, maybe (or he may have had to just find the ‘closest match’ in his keyboard’s sound collection), but what’s definitely different is the ambience, the studio recording has a lot more room reverb on it that’s missing from the very “dry” sounding live version.

The backing vocalists at 11:33 and other places aren’t supposed to dominate, their vocals are meant to sit further in the back of the mix. After all TXT are the stars here, nobody’s here to see the guys in the back. However they serve an important role in thickening up the sound of the chorus, basically mimicking the role that the backing track itself would play if TXT were performing this song live on a regular idol TV show and singing over the top of a studio recording with their own vocals on it (as is common practice in k-pop). Everything sounds a bit lusher and fuller by adding those extra layers of vocals, the chorus would lack a bit of oomph without them. And the tambourine guy is singing as well, the little shaker in his hand is a good way to keep all the vocalists in time and it also gives him something to do when the vocals aren’t needed. Hand-held percussion is pretty common for backing singers, especially Latin American ones but also elsewhere.

So there’s this girl I used to be classmates with in high school, we’re totally out of touch for 7 years now (didn’t interact much back then either) who still drives me crazy with yearning for her 7 years later based off sheer memory. I’m a girl too btw, bi with a marked prefernce for guys but a few girl crushes too . I’ll elaborate on why this yearning is a huge problem for me. So back then, she was my biggest bisexual crush in my teen years (as a tween too I crushed on girls but didn’t know I was bi back then), I was attracted to her platonically, romantically everything. I have no idea if she was into girls tho, I assume she’s straight like most ppl are. Also I can’t vent to my fam about this except possibly my cousin, cuz my parents are kinda iffy about lgbt people and romantic longing in general + my sis is busy. Plus I’m too embarrassed to discuss this with them cuz i feel pathetic for clinging to a memory for so long.
Anyways, even though this girl and I had a few nasty fights and she had both her fucking bitch and lovely person sides, she really GOT me. She was the only one who made super awkward, super eccentric teen me feel not judged but wanted. She reached out to me of her own accord, enthusiastically, and genuinely wanted to be my friend, genuinely wanted to hang out a lot, gave me good advice and helped generously. While there were others who liked me and have liked me since, I just don’t click with them like I did with her. I’ve never met someone as smart, brave, open – minded, scintillating since who ALSO wanted me back (platonically or otherwise). But back then, I was super depressed and super paranoid about my studies, so I rejected her invite to hang out in a way that must’ve seemed very dismissive judging by her great disappointment (it was not meant that way at all, I just had zero social skills). I also didn’t attend any social events. Therefore, we never became actual friends or grew closer.
Since then, I haven’t met a friend or crush who was so accepting, interesting, enthusiastic and desirable. I still deeply, deeply regret not being able to befriend her, I would’ve been perfectly satisfied with her friendship alone. Several times per year, I feel fine but then suddenly remember her or legit dream about her out of fucking nowhere and end up feeling like crying or outright crying. I’m scared that I won’t ever meet someone like her, I feel lonely, dissatisfied and insecure with my existing friendships and crushes because they lack enthusiasm, grit, acceptance of my rough edges, or intelligence. What do I do ? Is there any hope for me finding such a person later on in life ? Why am I so hung up on her ? I’ve never felt this way for someone else, ever. I feel both ashamed for how pathetic im being, and justified in my sadness because she feels like a one in a million type of gem.

Be aware that you could be looking at this with rose-coloured glasses a bit. Because you never really went down the path with her, you only really got to see certain aspects of her, and didn’t get a chance to look at much that could have ruined it for you. I can relate because I felt similar feelings about Dahyun my first love in high school, who I never actually confessed to. What made those feelings fade over time wasn’t “getting over her”, but forcing myself to meet more new and interesting people who grabbed my attention instead. These days looking back on it objectively, I can see that while I definitely wasn’t imagining her positive qualities, we probably also wouldn’t have been that suitable in terms of life goals given her background (conservative Italian family who definitely would have wanted her to have lots of children), whereas people I met later had more promise in the lifestyle aspect (although many of them also had their own issues). In summary the “perfect” person doesn’t exist and you’ll find something wrong with everyone, but quite a lot of “potentially very very good” people do, you just need to be in the right position to make it happen. A lot of that is down to luck, but there are also ways you can load the dice by just paying attention and making the most of opportunities that present themselves. Ultimately, the more you distract yourself with new people, the less the pain of old people will sting, and that’s not to say it’s something achievable easily but it’s doable with time.

I’ve followed k-pop since early 2014, and I’ve noticed a marked improvement in music quality since late 2020, when “Lovesick Girls” and “Mago” came out. I don’t know if the *average* k-pop song is better than it was ten years ago, since a lot of dogshit gets released every week, but the highs feel more frequent and, well, higher than they did ten years ago. (I give IVE a lot of credit for this.) Could we be in a second Golden Age of k-pop? Or is that the sort of thing we can know only in retrospect?

I’m not sure yet, I’ll address this in my end of year 2023 list! But I agree that if nothing else, the productions have improved in sonic quality over the years (even if the songs themselves haven’t). It used to be that only the very A-list had the best technical quality of productions but these days we’re seeing a lot of B and C-tier groups with sonics to die for, that can compete with anything else out there, and also outstanding videos and so forth.

oppar straykids did a rock ver to their recent title track and it’s not the typical pissweak kpop rock and i want to know what ur review of it is

Eh

Pardon the personal question, ignore if you so wish, but I noticed you always call your partner your girlfriend despite having been together for what seems like a long time. Do you plan on getting married? Do you even believe in marriage? I have an uncle who has been with his girlfriend longer than I’ve been alive, and they’re married in every sense but legally for reasons unbeknownst to me. I feel like there’s probably plenty of reasons not to; what does the government have to do with love

I tend to use “partner” and “girlfriend” interchangeably because no we’re not married and have no intention to be. If there’s some amazing benefit to getting married that we uncover, like the government handing out tons of free money then yes we might go down to the registry office and sign a bit of paper for the bucks but to be honest without a serious motivation like that neither of us have a reason to give that much of a fuck. Honestly if you really love someone why do you need to lock them in with a contract, I don’t see the point. We have a mortgage together and that’s harder to annul than a marriage anyway when you think about it so there’s the ‘commitment’ to each other right there, we don’t need the extra religious bullcrap on top of that.

I’m subscribed to some true crime YouTubers and I didn’t expect to see some familiar names popping up in this Dark Asia video (at 09:08): Burning Sun, Hwang Hana and Yoochun.

We knew about connections between k-entertainment and criminal gangs already but cartel-like murders in the Philippines is beyond anything I expected. I feel like when I spend money on anything kpop-related, some of that money is going to really dangerous criminals and I’m not OK with that. I’m not sure where to go from here?

Anyone with money burning a hole in their pocket who wants to spend on k-pop related things, please know that both my books and the Kpopalypse Patreon exist and these are probably the least morally questionable k-pop related things you will ever help fund. I’m probably not involved in any organised crime (except the fictional crime I write about) and will definitely use your money for things other than shooting people, like paying site hosting fees, making more books, and feeding my cat so she gets even fluffier. However if you’d rather not give your money to me (understandable, I am a cunt after all) then I would suggest seek out independent Korean artists who use Bandcamp or other such online payment services and buy some stuff from them if you can afford to do so. Thanks for the tipoff about the Dark Asia true crime channel, it looks interesting, my girlfriend is a huge true crime fan so I’ve let her know about it.

A lot of noise is made about the LGBTQ fanservice by kpop groups, but I have a kind of niche gripe: groups using sign language in their choreo. Now, I’m deaf, so hear me out (ha): groups are lauded for having one or two words of sign language in their choreo, but, as much as I love, say, Dreamcatcher, doing a very minimal amount of sign language for maybe two songs in their discography isn’t as inclusive as fandom thinks it is. There are exceptions to the rule, like Wheein of Mamamoo, and that one nugu af girl group who performed all their songs in sign language but now even I don’t remember who they are. GRANTED these groups can be using KSL and I as a filthy American wouldn’t know that anyway, but I can’t help but feel that these groups are worshipped for doing the absolute minimum in a very few songs and it seems a little insulting. Then again, they don’t HAVE to incorporate ANY sign language at all and it’s nice that they choose to do so… Do I have a valid complaint or am I just an ungrateful asshole? Or both, I guess I could be both.

I guess given that there’s choreographic routines for songs regardless, throwing in a bit of sign language is quite possibly a no-brainer for any choreographer who also knows some of it. I had no idea personally. I tried really hard to give a fuck about this issue for about five seconds just now but nope, I don’t have anything. Just be happy for what you get I guess. I’m still waiting for k-pop to be inclusive enough to feature stoner metal, we had that one song in 2014 with Jambinai and Luna and it’s really not enough.

You probably have data on this, but is it correct to say that commenting has declined on the website at a much faster pace than readership? If that’s right, why do you think it’s happened?

Traffic to kpopalypse.com has decreased slowly but consistently since the site’s peak in 2016, this year it looks like I’ll probably come in at around a million views, there’ll be a statistics post in a few weeks which will break all of this down (I do one of these each year in December) but that’s not a lot less than the previous year which was about 1,069,420 views. The main reason for the site’s traffic decreasing is…. wait for it… I do less boob analysis posts these days. Yes that is the actual reason, I should probably do another boobs post to get the traffic back up but there aren’t enough busty women in k-pop that I haven’t covered yet. However the comments decreasing has a more specific reason. I used to have no expiry date on when you could leave comments on posts, but more recently I introduced an expiry which I think is 90 days, just so I wouldn’t keep getting bombarded with comments about years-old articles. So this is probably the reason. Also I’m acutely aware that my comments section on this website isn’t the most user-friendly thing ever created. Currently I post all my articles to Twitter, BlueSky, Threads and Reddit, and people tend to comment more in those places, and they also visit Retrospring quite a lot to comment on things, where the traffic has been quite steady.

Have you encountered this blog yet?

It’s the first academic kpop content that hasn’t made me want to shoot myself in the dick (having read every academic press book on the subject)—but maybe you’ll still hate it!

Thanks for this! Some of this writing is actually pretty good, much better than a lot of the other wannabe k-pop academia websites which mostly have a smell of trying to hyper-inflate minor issues for clicks (“x has a y problem”, “we need to talk about z” etc). I enjoyed the Australia article which was reasonably well researched so I reached out to the author of that to say thank you and he got back to me and was really cool about it so I’ll keep watching them.

Naïve production question: how are (G)I-dle able to get such spatial separation between all the different kinds of drumming on “Change”?

I get that there’s some reverb stuff (or that the sampled snare was recorded in a much more live space than what the drum machine is going for), but why do the programmed drums sound so much “closer” to me?

They’re all programmed drums, but the drier-sounding machine drums have a higher transient peak which cuts through the mix more. “Roomy” drums likewise need a corresponding amount of room in the mix to breathe (to store all that more gradually decaying signal) or they tend to either get swallowed up, or swallow up something else.

OK so there are some very informative older videos and articles that you refer to pretty often (e.g. JYP telling shannon to worry less about vocal technique; his 2009 interview; that netizenbuzz behind the scenes of a TV appearance article)—do you have them bookmarked/saved somewhere and is there any chance of getting a dump of that list? “Essential primary sources” or whatever the fuck

For what it’s worth (in exchange?), I’m not sure I’ve seen you refer to either of these, which would probably go on my version of that list:

I wish I had the foresight to make such a list but I never thought to do so. It’s a good idea! If anyone else wants to make one go right ahead. Part of the reason that I upload things to YouTube is to preserve items for a list like that but that list only lives inside my own brain in very fragmented form.

Haven’t referred to the above videos because I didn’t know about them. Not sure if I ever will as I don’t have a lot of writing strictly relevant to what they’re saying but I’ll leave them here anyway for caonima use. The point about Japanese pop giving less fucks about performative perfection is relevant and comes up in the response two questions down.

Do you think your approach to kpop would be different if you lived in an area where kpop groups come by more often/there is more kpop activity in general/there are more koreans? Obviously I’m not going for the stupid counterfactual “how would you be different if you’d grown up elsewhere” more like imagine yourself/your job/your social life transposed onto LA or Manila or Toronto etc.

I guess if there was more of that activity I might cover something else instead, I don’t know. It’s kind of hard to say because there’s so many factors. Mind you Adelaide has a large Asian population which is about double that of LA on a percentage basis, so I’d actually expect there to be more k-pop fans here than there just when expressed as a ratio so I wouldn’t expect much difference in that instance. Another factor is that I’m very antisocial and just sort of follow my own path anyway so who knows whether other people being into it would make a difference… maybe? It’s such a hard question to answer with any certainty.

I’ve noticed you talking a lot about “excessive vocal layering” on songs I like (I even wonder if I like them _because_ of the vocal layering?). I was wondering if you could go into some more depth about your likes and dislikes there—is it about the overall sound? Or about it making it hard to hear the nuances of a given line? Something else?

Too many vocal layers tends to take precedence over the backing track unless those layers are very disciplined (like in a doo-wop song). They also tend to take precedence over each other – if there’s a lot of vocal lines and they’re all going all over the place because everyone’s trying to show off about how great they can sing different notes instead of just sticking to something, then shit gets messy, sometimes to the point where it’s hard to determine what the melody even is, or who is singing what line (if there’s no video cue). It’s bad harmony practice to just have multiple layers flying everywhere because every performer has a massive ego and wants to be the ‘main event’. That’s why the orchestra string section has a bunch of violas and cellos to hold down the harmony, instead of everyone on ‘first violin’. Someone has to do the unglamorous stuff for the tune to not sound like a fucking mess of ego-driven shit. Sadly, k-pop with its hyper-competitive environment tends to drive people to show off as much as possible. For all of j-pop’s faults (and there are too many to list) they don’t have this particular problem anywhere near as much, despite having much bigger groups on average with more performers in them, because those performers tend to just stick to the fucking melody.

Hello dearest, this is gonna be very quick please have a listen to this really old Balkan song

Call me crazy or do those drums sound dnb as fuck

How old is this? Pretty meaty rhythm section, he’s not fucking around.

Do you ever worry that the kpop industry has changed enough to make some of the stuff in the shin hana books out of date?

I hope that’s true! If k-pop has changed and is just one big old ray of sunshine and lollipops now, then not only can I feel happier about the welfare of performers in the music scene that I write about, but my books officially turn from “fiction” to “science fiction” and I can apply for the 2023 Queer Adult Science Fiction & Fantasy Books list which I only just found out existed this morning. However last I checked, things that I wrote in that book were being mirrored in the real k-pop world at the rate of roughly one horrifying incident per week so sadly the books read a bit more like “queer true crime fiction” for the moment.

I finally figured it out. The songwriters for Viviz are too busy fapping to the girls to write songs. They’re still good songwriters, so their half-assed efforts are still decent, but they can’t focus.

I don’t know, “Untie” is pretty damn good. Maybe they found a way. I guess it’s like the “pat your head while rubbing your stomach” trick, it doesn’t come natural to many but you can get good at it if you practice.

Maybe this isn’t really a QRIMOLE-style question but whatever I abuse this thing a ton already so one more won’t hurt: when will we see the return of the most important content you have to offer? By which of course I mean recipes, but also more music theory posts would be great.

Yeah I actually have another cooking post planned, the reason why it’s been a while is because I changed my diet to less carbs and that kind of has messed up what I want to show people how to cook… and yes there’s more music theory stuff I want to write too. I’ll get there eventually!

Hi, soooo I’m a girl thinking about going on dating apps. My issue is that I’m not used to talking or hanging out with men beyond work or acquaintances. I’m not quiet, I do have some “boyish” interests (games/anime are usually what people would say), I’m usually at least kind of funny if not silly, but I don’t recall many people showing interest in me I’m 24 and lack pretty much any relationship experience, so I want to just start out talking. Usually, I’m the one always initiating or working to continue convos, so I’m scared of being too much and being ghosted/left on read forever. Do you have any recommendations or ways to get over fear? Thank you

Women tend to do well on dating apps in terms of the amount of attention they receive, but less well in terms of the quality of that attention. I guess dating apps are an option but I tried them for a little while many years ago and didn’t have that much success. The plus side of them is you can weed out the people you don’t like fairly easily, but the downside is that these apps also make it easy to bullshit so you have to sift through the various grifters, con-artists and general assholes. Use them if you want (they do work for some) but be very careful.

Since you’re into games/anime a better option might just be to try and get involved with those kinds of communities – preferably ones with offline meets etc. I assure you there’s an abundance of introverted single guys there, and it’s those kind of guys who tend to go for girls who are games/anime fans and who are a bit extroverted and like to talk/be noisy. Just be aware that their social skills might be at rock bottom and there may be some mega incel creeps so try to avoid the total nutters and see if you can cherry-pick someone reasonably well-adjusted. But there certainly won’t be a lack of options. Don’t feel self-conscious about your personality, just be yourself, because it’s your true personality that’s actually going to be doing the heavy lifting of attracting people to you, not the made-up toned-down personality that you think other people might want. You know who else is 24 and has an extroverted noisy personality and likes to continue conversations and be silly? Chuu. And we all love Chuu, especially me. In fact, maybe you ARE Chuu, in which case I just want you to know I’m working really hard to get you that free Tesla from Mr Musty.

Hi! I used one of those Spotify analysis tools, which told me I listen to 20% less acoustic songs than other people in my country. There are certainly some good ones out there, and I should probably find more. However, most of them are painfully boring, so it’s hard locating those hidden gems. Got any suggestions?

I don’t like much acoustic music myself either. However if I had to listen to just one acoustic guitar performer it’d probably be Sungha Jung.

Dear Kpopalypse oppar,
I know you get a lot of essay questions on Qrimole (Bless you for doing the Lord’s work) so I’ll try and keep it brief. Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I’m a pretty good writer, and it all started with me discovering Wattpad at way too young an age and then Tumblr and asianfanfics at also way too young an age. I’ve mostly been doing creative writing on trash websites like Wattpad for years now. While I have strayed from overdone tropes and all kinds of fanfiction in recent years, that trash foundation has actually helped me grow into a pretty good writer and I’m actually really proud of my work now. I just need some advice on how to make some money out of it. It’s by no means my full-time career, but I’ve always done this as a side-hobby and I think it’s about time I figured out a way to actually make good use of my talent. What would you suggest?

Firstly, follow the advice here.

Secondly, the post I just linked is going to get a follow up post at some point soon which is going to talk all about the marketing and practical side – how to convert your text into something you can sell on a website, it will have in it all that I learned dealing with Amazon, Kobo and Barnes & Noble. Not that I’ve sold millions of books or anything but if your desire is just to get your writing out there it will help a lot!

What is it with you guitarists (and especially metal guitarists) and putting out just absolute fucktons of free informational material online? I feel like in some ways kpopalypse dot com is kind of an extension of all the gazillions of instructional videos and sites and god fucking knows what else you lunatics have put together for each other; what’s wrong with all of you?

We love music, and we want you to love music too. That’s it.

All the “satanic” stuff is mainly just marketing, scaring idiots, and cosplay for fun, heavy metal communities are very big on sharing the love of music first and foremost, and that’s their real religion.

Let’s say there’s a song you really like, so you’re trying to figure out what makes it tick. What’s your first instinct—picking it apart by ear? Reaching for your guitar? (or would it be your bass?) Do you ever sketch out tabs/notation just to figure out what’s going in the chords/riffs? Or does all of this vary too much based on the song?

Usually when I hear a song I just hear all the different layered instruments and/or harmony, melody, rhythm etc in my head and then just pick it apart mentally. Once you can think sound design, you can visualise sound design, like Neo staring at the world and seeing the green numbers of the matrix. That’s the ultimate music theory level (the theory then being the tool to explain that design). I don’t need to pick up an instrument unless I’m actually trying to recreate something in it.

You’ve mentioned a few times having a classical background as well as punk/rock etc. What’s a classical music take (idiosyncratic fave or hate or whatever) you haven’t had the chance to share here?

Music theory doesn’t actually predate music composition, in fact the theory was invented as a way to make sense of composition so people could do ‘soundalikes’. In this sense, music theory is actually a tool for ye olde plagiarism.

Related: modern music theory conventions were mostly codified in the early 19th century, before then the standards for what to put on a piece of paper to represent music get a little bit shaky. For instance, in Bach’s era (baroque) the standard practice of writing tempo and dynamic markings on scores hadn’t been codified yet, so Bach actually left most of that shit off the scores completely. It’s possible that he wanted people to use creative license, or perhaps there was knowledge within the group of people playing his pieces as to how he wanted them played (remember Bach was a relatively obscure church performer in his day compared to some of the bigger composers of his era, and didn’t see much fame until a century after he died), but this omission means that modern performers actually have no idea what his intentions were and are just making it up according to either their own dictates, or whoever published the latest version of his manuscript and what they thought was a good idea. Due to this absence, there’s even a theory (popular mainly among classical academic circles) that all old baroque era pieces may have actually been performed with a swing feel. (Actually in a few later pieces Bach does actually denote this with dotted rhythms, but the idea that this was across his entire catalog is… a theory.)

How are you feeling about the state of qrimole? have your feelings about it shifted over time?

It’s great! Quality questions tysm

I’m only 27 but feel like I’m having a quarter life crisis related to my career. I got a new job 10 months ago. It has been soul crushing. I liked my old job (it was in a creative industry), but it did not pay well. My current job pays me 70% more than my previous job and allows me to fully support myself and also help out my family.

On one hand, I keep thinking about running back to my old job with my tail between my legs but I’m scared of layoffs (which are common in the creative industry) and the low pay. But I really liked the job itself – I was doing what i really wanted to do.

At my current job, I have high stress (long hours and rude coworkers) and I’m not developing the skills that I enjoy developing and using day-to-day. The bad work life balance especially wears me down…i have less time to do the things that make me happy. I have frequent headaches and am tired and irritated everyday. However, like I said above, the pay is really really freaking good.

I don’t know how to reconcile this…..what I would appreciate gaining some advice on:
1. Do I have to become a lame capitalist and accept how much i hate my job just for a paycheck? And if so….How? How do I deal with: 1) bosses that ask for too much and 2) condescending coworkers? More generally….I wish I could “disconnect” and accept that a dumb corporate job is just a dumb corporate job to not stress over. But the stress causes the job to continuously take up room in my head even after work hours. I work from home which makes it even harder to disconnect.

Or…

2. Do I go back to the risky, low paying job that I’m passionate about? (And honestly, it’s not even 100% guaranteed they would take me back. There’s also not a guarantee I’m going to have a chill job since everyone is “passion-driven”, it can have long hours too.)

Since you’ve worked in music, I’m curious to know if this is something you’ve dealt with or seen others deal with. Some of my bad mood is driven at least by my ego. My identity was partially tied to the creative industry I used to work in…and now I feel like I’ve “lost” that part of me. None of the work I do now is energizing; it’s depleting me everyday, feels like I’m chipped away at with every new demand.

I’ve definitely dealt with this. I think it’s not a decision anyone can make for you and it’s up to what you can handle. If it were me I’d try to get the best of both worlds somehow. Since job A sucks but pays megabucks is there a way you can reduce your hours slightly, allowing less burnout and more room for creativity when not at work? That could be a cool third option. Be aware with job B that any job sucks after you’ve been doing it enough, regardless of what it is, there’s going to be times when it still feels like work even though it’s your ‘passion’. So you could potentially end up with the worst of all possible worlds at job B – long hours AND less money AND losing the passion for creativity. Maybe a little freelancing for B (or C, if B don’t want you back) is possible. If there’s an opportunity to dip your toe into something without burning bridges over at A, it could be worth a shot as long as you can manage it without a huge time commitment. The good thing about having lots of money is that more money means more options, so you might be able to think outside the square a little rather than reducing it to a binary choice.

Alright my man, you ask I deliver. Here’s the Ayreon albums ranked!

10. Actual fantasy: this isn’t really fair to be honest. I mean yes some of the individual songs like Eye of Ra and Computer Eyes are Ayreon classics but just the fact that this is the only album without a plot makes it a lot less interesting. The early Ayreon jank doesn’t help and it doesn’t even have the hooks of the first album to make up for it.

9. Universal Migrator part 1: To be honest I barely remember this album exists. It’s not bright enough to be fun and not heavy enough to be interesting.

8. Transitus: This was actually meant to be a movie but then covid hit so he had to convert it to a concept album. It shows and not in a good way. Arjen being very hamfisted with social issues doesnt help even though he has the right idea. Interracial romance for the win. That doesnt mean the performances arent great or that some of the songs arent super fun or that Tom Baker being the narrator isnt fucking awesome however.

7. Universal Migrator part 2: This feels like a proof of concept for Arjen’s side band Star One. it’s better then part one mostly because it’s the most consistently metal of their albums. The guitar solo on dawn of a million souls alone puts this up here.

6. The Final Experiment: The first album has got a pseudo medieval aesthetic so depending on if you find that tacky or fun will determine if you like this album or not. Also different people play one character on this album which is weird.

5. The Source: This is the “not special by their standards but very solid” entry into the Ayreon discography. It’s a good entry point for this reason, and also because it’s recent and does not have the aforementioned old Ayreon jank.

4. The Human Equation: I find this album overrated amongst Ayreon fans, it’s mostly because the theory of everything would go on to do human drama way better. This is probably the most “mainstream” sounding of their albums but I say that loosely. The nu metal is less of a selling out moment and more of Arjen’s old ass trying to modernize his genre soup. There’s no rapping though he’s not that crazy.

3. Into the electric castle: If the universal migrator part 2 is their most metal album this is their most prog album. Arjen has said he loved Jesus Christ Superstar as a kid and it really shows. This is a psychedelic DnD campaign and I love it.

2. The Theory of Everything: I’m very biased with this pick because it’s the first album of theirs I heard and the main character shares my autism diagnosis but I promise it’s worth it. It feels weird to call an album that consists of 4 25 minute songs “tight” but not a single second is wasted.

1. 01011001: It’s this one your honor. Every good artist has a mental breakdown album and this is his. It’s quite frankly way too fucking bleak to be made by a silly scifi fantasy themed metal band but that somehow makes it more gripping. This one is more industrial metal and is stuffed to the brim with atmospheric analog synthesizers. Occasionally broken up by a flute or a violin or something. The heavy parts make me want to dance dramatically and the slow parts make me want to curl up into a ball and contemplate the inevitability of human extinction. Even the obligatory happy acoustic guitar song is about people trying to ignore the horrible things in the world. This was my middle school angst album along with Dark Comedy by Open Mike Eagle and that probably says a lot about me. If you’re wondering how I found all this crap as a teenager there’s this guy called spectrum pulse on YouTube.

Thank you! I will try to find some time to investigate later! In the meantime hopefully this helps metalhead caonimas!

What the hell are the lyrics for T-ara “Holiday” supposed to mean? Even the official album book says “Loney loney day”, which means…what?

My theory is that it’s a combination of “lovely” and “lonely”. You could try it out if you see someone at a bar you like: “hi, just thought I’d come up and say hello because you looked loney”, see how that flies. You’ll get a kick in the genitals probably but if he or she is a T-ara stan perhaps they’ll get it.

Hi Oppar, hope you are doing well. I don’t know how much you know about this topic but any info is good.

I am tired of having small boobs.
I like the aesthetic of cleavage, if that makes sense? Like some dresses, tops, corsets look better. I’ve had issues with swimsuits and dresses being too lose because of my small boobs

I’m also very pear shaped so it would balance out my figure.

I am 22 now and hoping delusional for some second puberty to fix this isn’t cutting it. I’m also not willing to get pregnant and possibly fuck up my body for bigger boobs, so the only choice is implants.
There are the traditional saline and silicone implants, however women these days are reporting something called Breast Implant Illness — basically your body rejecting the implants and making you kinda sick. Boob jobs like these have always had other issues as well like leaking, infections, etc.

So I then I moved towards fat graphing — they just take fat from one part of your body and put it in another. It seems to have a lot less complications and looks more natural.
The trouble with this is very commonly, apparently, your body just reabsorbs the fat and makes the entire very expensive procedure not worth it.

So no matter what it seems there are potential issues. Do you know anyone who has gone either route? Do they like their boob jobs? I’m dying out here with my flat chest and no hope of reprieve.

While I would never recommend breast surgery to anybody over just simply accepting their body as-is, I also understand the reasons why people would want to do it, and ultimately it’s your body and you’re the one who has to be happy with it. It’s true that any surgery has risks and while complications are rare, they shouldn’t be downplayed. It’s definitely worth talking to a medical practitioner about options, and not just the cosmetic surgeon but get a second opinion also (because a cosmetic surgeon obviously has a vested interest, and by comparing multiple pieces of feedback you can gauge how honest they are, and therefore how trustworthy they are to be mucking about with your boobs). Also once you’ve selected a surgeon research their track record online (but be aware of online review bias as mentioned in an earlier question in this post). I know a few people who have had breast surgery, with mixed results (all silicone/saline, I don’t know anybody who has done fat graphing). Nobody I know has had major post-surgery complications but certainly post-surgery ambivalence has been a factor. One girl I know who works in the sex industry got them because she hoped that men would like her more if she did, and was surprised to find out that this didn’t pan out as expected. Other women I know who got them because they just wanted that type of look and no other specific reason were definitely happier. A few other things to be aware of are that breast implants often need touch-up work and don’t last forever, so be aware that you’ll definitely be going back to the surgery eventually, and also, whatever you do, if you do decide to go for it, don’t cheap out. If you’re in a country with a public health system that does this type of surgery – don’t use it! Save up and pay top dollar for the absolute best surgeon you can get because doctors in the public health system really don’t give much of a fuck about aesthetics and they will NOT do a good job. Good luck.

Just wanted to say Stiglitz is a very beautiful cat. Is it a Calico?

Yes.

need more cat pictures

not enough cat

See if you can spot my cat here, carefully camouflaged among the junk foilage in my backyard.

And here’s the picture that I sent to Harriet Sugarcookie because she said she was having issues with anxiety. My cat helps my girlfriend’s anxiety quite a bit so hopefully she can help independent pornstars also. The leopard-print luggage suitcase is one that my girlfriend found in Sydney for about $20 and our cat really likes sitting in it for no reason.

Hi, Kpopalypse! Gonna separate these by themes so you don’t get lost in my crazy verbosity!

1. English isn’t my native language, so I sorta have a difficult time to understand the nuances between some words, especially regarding the figurative meaning. Could you please explain to me what is the difference between the terms “jerk”, “ass”, “asshole”, “dick” and “douchebag”?

2. YG will probably be out of prison in 2-3 years from now, when some of the girls from BABYMONSTER will be legally not minors anymore. It’s clear that this group is already being sabotaged from the start so, which of them you believe he’s going to transform into his new wife in the process?

3. Have you ever been to New Zealand? It is true that it’s better to live there than in Australia?

4. (NSFW) I’ve been reading some older QRIMOLEs and found the one from August 2022. So, I pubicly reveal to you and your readers that you have a second reader who experienced a wrist climax!
On the contrary of the original poster, I only have it after drinking some alcohol (not much) and man, that feels fucking GOOD. It usually happens when I am masturbating myself or other people (fingering asshole or pussy, usually). Don’t really know how it works, but the skin on the “inside” part of the arm can be quite erogenous in some people, so it’s definitely possible. Also, it never happened in my dominant hand.
But, to be honest, I think that in my case is something more visceral than that, because I can also feel pleasure in my hand in a firm handshake, lol. It feels kinda weird to have a semi-hard-on after a sexy person do such a trivial thing, but it’s fun and nobody knows anyway, so what’s the problem, right? For some reason that I don’t know, the handshake thing only happens with men (I’m bi) that I wish to be manhandled by.
I guess masturbating someone (or yourself) for various minutes could trigger the experience in some people, but if you had any type of problem in the hand joints then it’s probably better to NOT try it.

5. Some months ago , I discovered Bangchan from Stray Kids. Aside from his very nice abs (for the curious, Victory’s Song fancams are a blessing), I don’t particularly find not a SINGLE one of his physical traits to be sexually desirable. The problem is that, somehow, I find him VERY physically attractive. I literally lose count of the times I came at the same day fantasizing about him. I mean, I obviously don’t know him, and what I see from him is very media-curated, and while the way he behaves in front of the cameras seems to be not problematic overall, that’s not something that attracts me in a person anyway, so I really believe that in his case, the physical appearance is the key to my horniness. My question is, how is possible to someone not attractive paradoxically to have such POWER in a sexual arousal response? Have you ever felt something similar, caonima?

6. Not a question, I just want to congratulate you for your last interactive Halloween fanfic! Your writing was so fluid that I really had no problems to insert myself in the story. Also, thanks for giving the representation to the rabid K-Pop fans that they deserve.

7. I’m a medicine student and some days ago I had a class about vascular surgery and how many of its patients becomes impaired due to glass shards damaging arteries, veins and nerves of their arms in automobile accidents. I’m really glad that this wasn’t your case, oppar. In fact, I think your level of cuntiness elevated after your accident, so thanks for all your determination to provide nice content for all bitches here!

And yes, I had a very lenghty wrist-climax to Bangchan, lol.

1. Not much difference between any of them, in the dictionary for all of them it probably says “see KPOPALYPSE”.

2. None, they’ll be too old by then so he’ll wait for 2NE4 auditions and probably pick one of the girls who didn’t make it.

3. No, and I have no idea. I imagine the standard of living is similar.

4. I forgot about that question back in the day, but I hope the person who asked it is reading! I’m still wrist-climax free I’m afraid. The only unusual wrist sensation that I’ve ever had other than RSI from too much typing, is when I was younger I’d get a weird harrowing sensation in my wrists what I think they call “skin hunger” which is what people sometimes get when the experience no human touch at all for years at a time. I was pretty severely ostracised in my childhood and teens.

5. I’m not really sure. I guess the closest thing I’ve had to this is where someone might have a lot of physical traits that would generally mark them as ‘not my type’ but then they also have some overriding characteristics that I just love that make none of that other stuff really matter much… and then as a result I end up warming to their physical traits anyway. Chuu is like that for me.

6. I’m glad you enjoyed the Halloween fanfiction! It felt strange writing something of typical Kpopalypse interactive fanfic length after writing two big-ass novels, but I think writing the novels also made my writing generally better.

7. Thank you! In the most recent auto accident that I had, my vehicle was rear-ended while I was turning into a parking lot, and because the impact was from the rear, there was no glass breakage in the driver’s cabin. I escaped with shock and some minor bruising only.

Speaking of climaxes, JAV of the month for November is STARS-953, purely because in the first male orgasm of the film, when the cum flies out of the guy’s dick and lands on the girl’s chest it actually spells out the letters IU, no shit. Now that’s a hardcore stan in every sense of the word. I forgot to nominate a JAV in the previous QRIMOLE for October so it can be MISM-285 (and for the person who asked in the most recent survey, I think shota is stupid but I do like Yuria Yoshine and MILFs in general because that is my demographic…)

I was 14 when you put this article out and at the time I was disgusted and offended at you for implying that Shinee’s “Hello” and that apink music video were sexual at all, and after reading the whole paragraph about Dream Candy thought you were a pedophile lmao

Then around 16-17, I re-read the article and realized “oh no he’s right”.

However, I still didn’t understand why you used shinee’s “Hello” as an example of porn for women. I thought to myself ehh, kpopalypse is just some straight dude who is out of touch with what women are attracted to.

Flash forward to a few days ago as a 21-year-old woman, where I watched RIIZE’s mv “Memories”

I immediately felt like I was watching something too intimate and at the same time disingenuous, and didn’t know why.

But then I watched it again and realized…” this is porn for women lmao”. It’s very parasocial, we-could-be-your-boyfriend-esque stuff. It’s so obvious though that it made me feel uncomfortable on a visceral level, like I could imagine in real time some little girl falling hard for this.

None of the dudes are wearing much makeup, there are a lot of closeup shots of their handsome faces. In short, they look kind of vulnerable(?) and idealistically normal. And of course, some of them are shirtless at the end. Even the way the video is shot is disingenuous like you the viewer are filming your hot friends frolicking around.

There’s really no question here but if anyone is younger and feels confused about what Kpopalypse is saying…it’ll click over time. And you’ll wish it hadn’t. I love getting older! (sarcasm).

You’re right on the money about the RIIZE video, it’s using deliberately shaky, hand-held “amateur”-style video and subtle makeup/styling/lighting that’s barely noticeable, trying to evoke that intimate “this could be candid footage you took of some boys you like from school or college just hanging around in your area” type of vibe. It’s exactly the same thing NewJeans does in some of their videos, using unglamourous relatable locations, natural or ambient lighting, shaky camera, and fourth-wall acknowledgement to suck you in and make you feel like you’re there with the performers, like they’re not just singers but something more personal. Very clever, very insidious, whether it’s ‘good’ or ‘bad’ overall could be debated forever but ultimately casting a moral judgement isn’t as important as just knowing and acknowledging that it’s something that exists.

Thanks for sticking with me, I appreciate it! It’s true that a lot of the hate I get is from readers who are young and might not get what I’m trying to say. That’s also why I collect so much hate on TikTok, it’s a generally younger audience who are not used to what I do, and lord knows the education system isn’t teaching these kids how to read or think critically these days, so the responsibility falls on whoever on the Internet wants to pick up the ball. Better me than some alt-right asshole. If that means I’m hated by some, or even the majority, that’s fine. The smart ones will get it when they’re mature enough to grasp the context, and unfortunately revelations about the k-pop world aren’t always positive! That’s why the ‘toxic positivity’ of the k-pop world is so damaging, a culture where people sweep darker elements under the rug is dangerous, because young observers think it’s all sunshine and roses and don’t know they’re in danger until they’re IN danger (like after they’ve been to that k-pop audition and their parents have signed that contract) and then it’s sometimes too late. That doesn’t mean everything is bad either. It just means, be aware, and don’t go in blind, the way brainwashed fandoms want you to. Look after yourselves, caonimas.

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That’s all for this episode of QRIMOLE! This series will return next month!

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!