QRIMOLE – February 2024
It’s time for QRIMOLE, the series where readers ask Kpopalypse questions! Let’s take a look at the mailbag for the last month!
Have you noticed Kpop artists getting hotter as they grow older? I feel like IU and Taeyeon seem to age like fine wine, growing hotter with every passing year.
Yes for IU, who looks better than ever these days. Not so much for Taeyeon, who has done some weird eye surgery lately, or maybe it’s CGI I don’t know, but there’s something so different about her eyes now that’s just odd, and also she looks really gaunt lately. But generally speaking, yes I’ve noticed this pattern. My bias lists change very little over the years for this reason, and most idols on there look a lot better now to me than they did when I first put them on there.
I don’t know much about song quality, but I know I didn’t love Ive’s I Am the first time I heard it and moved on. I heard it again today and remembered it subconsciously immediately. It wasn’t in an ear-wormy way where I feel uncomfortable since I really dislike the song but much more pleasant. Is there something particular about I Am that makes it so memorable beyond the chorus repeating so many times?
I feel like I went into quite a lot of detail about exactly why I found the song to be catchy in my favourite k-pop songs of 2023 list. I don’t think I can really give you any more detail than that!
Since you keep hinting at your super secret info, I was wondering if you could pass along any charisma and presentation advice from the kpop training realm. Or any of your own. I don’t spend money on kpop, so I don’t feel guilty asking for this
If I was very sneaky and smart I’d probably start a book series and put in there all of the information that I’ve learned about the k-pop world but that I can’t publish in articles for legal reasons, but I’m not that intelligent so my books just have a bunch of completely fictional stuff in there instead.
Dearest oppar,
For some reason, I was convinced you hard a “advice for caonimas who want to start their own blog” article, but it seems that it was all in my imagination! I am thinking about starting a blog, and you’re one of the two blogs about media that I read, so I was really curious about if you had tips for aspiring bloggers! Xoxo
The main piece of advice I’d give anyone who wants to start their own blog is – make it yours. Don’t try to do what someone else is doing, there’s no point. Nobody wants to read [insert popular blog here]-lite, so don’t fall into that trap, it’s a mistake that even veteran writers sometimes make (ahem) and it will weaken your output and harm your identity as a writer. You want to find your voice as a writer, not lose it. So find something that’s unique that you can bring to the table that nobody else is doing, and do that instead.
There’s other advice I could give but I really feel like that one point is more important than anything else I could say. Maybe one day I’ll do a post on it but you’re correct that no post like this exists here currently.
YouTube recommended me an interesting documentary from 1989: (MTV decade).
Part of the documentary focuses on artists feeling pressured to promote themselves on video and their concerns not only for themselves but also for other artists who don’t fit beauty standards. David Byrne states at 43:06 that “A lot of musicians and artists got passed by. They didn’t look pretty enough to be in videos or whatever and yet they might have made great music that was really from the heart.”. Do you think he was right? I personally think this is true for pop music including the idol industry but I don’t think this applies as much to other music genres. There isn’t any pressure for them to feature in their own MVs, they can always hire actors or go with an abstract concept with no humans in the video and most members of my favourite bands are either average looking or ugly.
I agree with you that I think it’s true for commercial pop performers, but for anyone outside that realm I don’t think it’s so critical. There’s plenty of modern bands out there with no video presence at all who do just fine, but if we’re talking pop music then yes you have to get on board with marketing techniques if you want to be popular and that means video, just because you’re expected to compete with everyone else who is also doing video. Doesn’t have to be a video of you though, if you’re an ugly mofo just hire someone prettier, or work with something other than human faces. Pink Floyd were scruffy looking ugly dudes so they built an image for themselves out of amazing album art and concepts, those concepts became their image. Visual marketing is important and always will be, but there’s more than one way to go about things.
I’m genuinely having trouble recognizing some older Kpop artists. Apink is especially difficult, but it’s true for a lot of others as well. Is it just the consequence of their original plastic surgeries, or are they just continuously going under the knife?
A little bit of both, but to be honest it’s the newer ones that I struggle with more. I can pick out the Apink members easily most of the time but don’t ask me about TripleS…
Are there any specific writers or pieces of writing you’ve modelled yourself on? I’ve always wondered if this Steve Albini article was in the back of your mind.
While I wouldn’t say I’ve modelled myself on any one writer, I’m familiar with this article (I have the hard copy somewhere) as well as quite a lot of Steve Albini’s writing and thoughts in general. There’s a fair bit of stuff I definitely disagree with him on: his criticism of a lot of newer music just reeks of old-timer snobbishness, plus he seems to hate Ministry with every fiber of his being which is pretty funny but also kind of weird to me as I quite like their better records, guess there’s some bad blood there. However I’m very much in agreement with him about the way the music business operates, as well as his own personal business ethics, his linked article above is absolutely on-point and is a must-read for people interested in the music industry. It’s dated a fair bit since it was written, but only because the situation for musicians today is largely even worse.
Other people besides Steve Albini who I think are worth reading when they talk about music business topics include Frank Zappa, Henry Rollins and Moses Avalon. There are probably also good newer writers covering these topics that I’m unaware of, that my readers could advise you on. Of course I can’t fail to be influenced by all of the people I read in some way, but I’m more concerned about exploring my own voice as a writer than trying to specifically model myself on someone. Of course we probably all sound a bit alike at times anyway, just by virtue of having similar opinions about a lot of the same topics.
What do I do if I found out one of my close friends cheated on someone for no good reason? The situation didn’t impact me directly and I wasn’t too close with the other party, but now knowing I’m friends with someone who would be irresponsible like that (I even was romantically interested in him at some point but he didn’t reciprocate) makes me feel icky. Yes he’s my friend and I don’t see the point in cutting off contact with someone I see daily anyways, but if I’m going to stay friends with this guy, is there anything I can do to somehow make things better?
Well, “no good reason” probably deserves some thought. If you don’t know the other party and therefore they didn’t cheat on your best friend etc then I don’t think it’s worth breaking up a friendship over, but I do think that it’s worth talking about. I don’t think cheating is always bad by default, I think there’s various reasons and contexts for cheating and it has to be taken on a case by case basis. Personally I’ve never done it, but I’ve been the “third party” in someone else’s affair and I didn’t lose any sleep over it because in my opinion the person who was being cheated on, definitely deserved it because of how neglectful they were being about the relationship that they had (and YES in my opinion that’s a damn valid reason). But maybe it really is “no good reason”, in this case, in which case, it is what it is. When my friends do things I think are shitty, I don’t call off the friendship, I just silently take note of what their values are so I know what to expect from their future behaviour. You’ll never agree with 100% of everything your friends do anyway, if you go through life expecting that your friends will only ever do things you approve of, you’re going to become disappointed a whole lot. So my advice is you don’t have to condone the behaviour, but you should certainly be mindful of it. People act like friendship is an ‘all or nothing’ situation but it really isn’t, there’s degrees of friendship. This incident is perhaps a sign that this person can still be your friend perhaps, but perhaps they don’t belong among the absolute inner circle of trust…
Oppar, I recently got into 1960s folk revival but I hate Bob Dylan
I don’t like his music but Spotify keeps recommending him in the playlists. Do you have any other artists that I should listen to instead? Or maybe folk-inspired genres that I should check out?
I really don’t like 1960s folk whatsoever so I can’t help you there. I do like NeoFolk but that’s more like a subgenre of industrial music and sounds a bit…. different in terms of mood. I can’t guarantee that someone who likes 60s folk would be into it… but maybe. I would probably need a whole year’s worth of roundups to explore industrial music and its related subgenres as much as it deserved, maybe in 2025!
I’m just curious, what is your opinion on Crowded House and Split Enz, if you have any? Do any of the (many) other projects involving the Finns strike you at all?
I really, really heavily dislike them. This is probably mainly just due to sheer overexposure, Crowded House in particular were very popular in Australia when I was growing up and were flogged to death on radio and television, I also had to learn their songs in school bands and so on. Very, very, very sick of all their music. I’d probably feel a bit more charitable towards them if I wasn’t nearly pummeled to death by “Better Be Home Soon” in my teens (which I can’t even bring myself to link because fuck giving that song more views, fuck this entire band’s discography).
You seem to have a thing for slight crosseyes (Chuu and Kara’s Seungyeon); any reason that doesn’t extend to Fromis’s Saerom? Asking as a fan of all three.
I honestly couldn’t even pick Saerom out of the other girls in FromisUnderscore9, whereas Chuu and Seungyeon both have a far more distinctive look (apart from the crosseyes) and are just more recognisable generally.
Music theorist caonima here—do you ever struggle to turn off “theory brain” while listening? I notice a lot of your “real-time” descriptions of songs focus on you figuring out form and other bits of musical structure; do you ever wish you were listening less analytically?
I can’t really help it. When I hear music I automatically dissect all the structures around it, I’m s used to it that my brain just does it without prompting. I interpret structures, intervals and chord changes in real time as I hear them, even if I don’t want to. (Probably the only exception is stuff like jazz where I’m not that good at identifying relative extended chord structures on the fly, but then I don’t really like jazz so whatever.) It’s a bit like Neo seeing the Matrix, you can’t unsee it once you’ve seen it for what it is. You can still pretend it’s not there of course and just get lost in the moment of music, but you know it’s always there.
What’s your opinion on Bluey? I have kids and this little Australian show is always on the TV since it’s their favorite (and also mine, it’s helped me a lot as a father).
Never seen it. This wasn’t on TV when I was growing up, or if it was I never got to see it.
how am i supposed to make friends that are into kpop when every fan my age is just obsessed with hot korean men?? i’m a lesbian who dislikes bts and i find it difficult to connect with other people who like what i like, even online.
Good question but I feel like some of my readers might be in your shoes, if you’re feeling courageous why not put your social media profiles in the comments below and anyone else who wants a k-pop loving friend who isn’t into k-pop boys can add you and start a conversation.
Hello oppar!
How are you (in this new year)?
So, I kinda wish to know your opinion on this video.Do you generally agree with it?
I’m good!
Yes I agree with the point he’s making. There’s no question that music theory has a European bias. This is exactly why my own music theory series covers things which are not normally considered “music theory” in the traditional sense (i.e the harmonic style of 18th century European musicians) such as technology aspects etc. It may also interest caonimas to know that I studied north Indian music theory at university as part of my degree! I’ve forgotten most of this knowledge since as it’s not something I really use in my day to day life (and don’t hold your breath for it to appear in the music theory series because it won’t, unless k-pop songwriters start very heavily drawing from Indial classical music all of a sudden), but the concepts that are being talked about here in the North Indian section of this video, such as taal and raag, were all stuff I went through back in uni days.
Why do you think your objectification results get such different results from kpopfap’s?
Here’s 2022 for them.Is it a gender demographics thing, Australians, or something else?
Definitely nothing to do with me having Australian readers because Australians only make up about 4% of my readers which is about the same nationality split as theirs. Also while my readership is slightly older, it’s not by much – for the most part both nationality and age are similar across both sites. What’s different though is very telling. Their readership is about 95% male, and mine is only about 38% male! Men and women like different things, so this one factor alone has to make a huge difference! Also the sexuality demographics of kpopfap are 85% heterosexual vs Kpopalypse readers who are only 31% heterosexual! So kpopfap is mostly “what straight heterosexuals think” on average whereas Kpopalypse is a much more diverse audience.
hi kpopalypse, hope you’re doing well.
I turned 22 this past December, and I feel like I’m behind where I need to be for my age.One of those sticking points that makes me feel immature is liking kpop. I’ve been a kpop fan for like 8 years now, and my mind switches between me being comfortable with the hobby since I’ve had it for so long, and then like disgust at myself for liking something that’s designed for teenagers and/or people who don’t get laid. It’s mean to say but I saw a video of a guy on twitter who was this gg superfan, like even went to airports and stuff. I could really tell he was not well-adjusted. I also see people that I’ve followed on twitter for a long time and increasingly more and more they seem insane.
I start following another person about my age. she runs a big fandom account. a few months pass and I go on twitter again. She’s screaming death threats and constantly fighting with other fandoms over…nonsense, like kpop voting shows or whatever. I try to keep my twitter space just full of news about kpop and Asian entertainment in general and pictures of idols so it was jarring.
Like am I really in that category of people? I guess so, but my ego really nags at me about it. Like I can’t imagine myself dating a guy who was into kpop at all. I wouldn’t mind dating a woman who liked it though, as long as she wasn’t obsessive. I guess I’m some sort of misandrist lmao.
Anyways, I think the common advice for adult kpop fans is “you shouldn’t care what other people think/assume about you. “
But the reality is for me that I want to be the best version of myself, and I can’t see that best version of me being a kpop stan at all. Also everyone does care what people think about them, it’s part of human nature.Sometimes the people who say stuff like that are like 50 year olds with 20 Jimin posters on their wall coping with the fact that they are empty nesters or something. Openly saying “yes I’m an adult with a strange hobby” is something they just don’t want to admit to.
There’s also a reason that most people drop out of kpop fandoms when they get older, even though older fans will try to convince you it’s normal for “adults to have hobbies”. Well yes, but usually a different sort of hobby lmaooI’m not sure oppar am I going through a quarter life crisis or something? Am I “too concerned about other people” like what reddit says?
Yes.
Don’t worry about it, really. I’m way older and I’m still into it. I don’t follow groups around at airports or engage in parasocial wackiness (maybe with my readers hahaha, but not with the actual idols) but I still devote a lot of my time to it. Is that bad? Am I wasting my life? If so, what should I be doing instead? Starting a family? Fuck that – I don’t want annoying screaming kids in my life, I would be miserable, I’d probably be quite a good parent, but I’d also want to kill myself every day. How about I just do what I want instead and if other people don’t like it they can get fucked? There’s a philosophy to live by. That’s what I think.
thoughts on this song?
Meh. Don’t mind the production style I guess, not really much of an actual song though.
Last year I found out I really enjoy hiking. However I’m a ADHD fueled procrastinator and I don’t exercise regularly. I have shit stamina and I’m a very slow walker. Hiking hurts but the humiliation of senior citizens flying past you hurts more. How do I keep myself from forgetting to exercise and how do I make it more fun and pleasant for myself?
Start slow, don’t do hills, bring a cool activity that you can do along the way. If you’re American I’d suggest shooting at tin cans or something. If you’re from a more sane country that doesn’t let you fill the wilderness with lead maybe take a camera and take cool photos. Get a dog and take it for walks. I don’t know. But that’s what I’d do if I really wanted to walk a lot but struggled with the mobility part, make the ride as interesting as possible.
Please explain in detail, utilizing the techniques you learned in this module of ‘jesus fucking christ, kpop” the differences in philosophy regarding Yoohyeon’s vaping versus Haechan’s vaping. Bonus points for explaining how in the hell boy group stans got so fucking insane.
I’m not in the loop, I’m going to have to handball this one to one of my readers.
Let me assume that you’ve at least watched the “Chuu cut” versions of Steel Troops. What do you think of the premise of this show? Does it say anything that they thought IVE Yujin was a good person to take Chuu’s role in Season 2?
I don’t even know what this is or what is going on here. Another one for readers to have a crack at if they want. Do it, caonima.
hi head caonima! i was wondering if you read this post.
in which there’s a lot of talk about chords but more importantly it states that k-pop does incredible things with harmony/melody in a way american pop music no longer bothers to do. however in your music theory class pt.14 you also state that most modern music put harmony/melody to the backburner. what do you make of this? cheers!
Hadn’t read it. “Standing Next To You” is a very retro song, so it’s copying the way chord progressions were often used in 1970s disco. The key word is “modern”, and “Standing Next To You” isn’t written like a modern song, it’s written like a song from 50 years ago, just with modern production. So to say “kpop does incredibly things with harmony”, well yes it does, when it’s imitating another style that also does incredible things with harmony. And when they imitate other styles that don’t do incredible things with harmony, then they don’t either.
Which kind of posts do you draft gradually, and which ones do you tend to write all at once? Or does it depend on the week?
Just depends. The year-end favourites/worst posts take literally the entire year to draft. Roundup is drafted on Sunday during livestreams and finished off the day after. Stuff like POSITIVE posts and other trufaxual posts are just one-shot and are done in a few hours. Nugu Alert also takes a few hours although I do maintain a draft shortlist for it. Other posts, it just depends on the length. If it’s over 8000 words or so it probably took multiple days to write. “List posts” (objectification surveys, etc) take forever. QRIMOLE usually takes two days.
Why do you think so much of porn is for heterosexual men? Yes, us women can also enjoy watching heterosexual sex, so we should be enjoy the same videos, but it seems like there really aren’t nearly as many hot men in porn as there are hot women. And, even ignoring porn, social media thirst traps seem to consist mostly of hot women. I don’t see many hot men streaming on Twitch while e-girl streamers are basically a meme at this point with how prolific they are. It’s not like we don’t have needs. Shouldn’t there be a larger market segment for this?
What do you mean? My own stream exists so clearly the need for hot male streamers is well and truly catered for. Okay just kidding… but I think men just prefer visual stimuli. Don’t know if this is the result of something something brain chemistry, or something something society, or a bit of both (society impacts the brain and how it grows which impacts more society etc) but I really think it might be a lot of society in there because the women I know definitely like to look, I think it’s just not as acceptable for them to say it. But I think it might be becoming more acceptable, which I think is good? I definitely would like a world where women can feel more free to express their perversion, I hope that my website contributes positively in this regard. So yeah I guess what I’m trying to say is I don’t really assume that I have all the answers here or pretend to but I will definitely think about this when I watch porn next.
I noticed that almost all of IVE’s songs have the same lead(?) composer, with a bunch of same names under him. This does mean that Ryan Jhun chooses who he works with through his own connections, or is it the entertainment company rounding up a bunch of sub-contacts? I’m guessing the first? I’ve noticed other successful groups recycle the same composers for their title tracks (Han Jae-Ho and KARA, Iggy and Gfriend, etc., JYP and his girl groups), to keep the same sound and repeat their success, I assume. (Well JYP owns the groups himself, so that’s a bit of a different matter.)
Speaking of composers, do you know specific composers in Kpop that you feel have a better song rates than others, similar to what you feel about T-ara and their discography? Or are the songwriters way too varied in their quality to tell for sure. For me, I appreciate Kenzie’s work overall, even though I def wouldn’t say I like all of the songs she worked on or anything.
I’ve answered variations of this question before a lot. Basically, there’s no way to generalise. The reason why is that you can have the best composer of “thing A” in the world, but the creative director says “today I want you to do thing B” and they happen to SUCK at “thing B” but hey the company is paying a lot more than usual so they give it a go anyway and the result ends up being poo. OR, maybe the composers themselves has a great track record and now has a lot of power but just decides to mix things up and do something different, and they’re not as good at the new different thing (due to it being out of their wheelhouse, or they haven’t practised it enough, or whatever other reason). OR maybe the composer does a great job, but then the company doesn’t like it because the song is too long or too short or too this or not enough of that so they insist on some changes, or maybe just go ahead and make those changes themselves. OR [insert one of about ten dozen other possibilities here]. For the same reason it’s also impossible to generalise how they work, and this is made even harder by the fact that most composers aren’t very public about the process. There’s just too many variables in k-pop to say “this composer is always good”, and that’s why I don’t stan composers, and take little interest in who writes a song (the only reason why I sometimes know, is because my readers have a habit of telling me). Now you know how someone like Kenzie or Ryan Jhun or Shinsadong Tiger can have so many songs on my best lists and worst lists, at the same time, often even while writing for the same group, in the same year.
I’ve actually been wondering, but I’ve read some of Rolling Stone’s other rankings, and they’re also terrible. The company’s been around for so many decades and has some decent amount of renown. Surely, they could hire some competent writers and analysts. Why are their rankings so incredibly shit? Is it just because of the need to pander to popular audiences to avoid flaming and to keep ratings high?
Frank Zappa said it best – rock journalism sucks, because people who actually know stuff about music don’t generally cover rock. (Substitute “rock” with “k-pop” and you can see why k-pop journalism is even worse.) So you get know-nothings like Rolling Stone magazine positioning themselves as some kind of “authority” even though none of them know jack shit, just because their shitrag has been around for a while, and people lap it up like it’s important or something. What they write doesn’t have any more or less weight than what I write – it’s just someone’s opinion. The only difference is that I don’t try to pass myself off as any kind of authority. Ddespite the illiterate social-media-ites often insist that I call myself a ‘serious music critic’, building that strawman so they can then dismantle it, the fact is that I really fucking don’t and never have. If anything I’m doing the reverse in my roundups – if I can do music reviews so fucking unseriously, maybe it’ll give other people pause for thought that it’s only a fucking opinion and perhaps my published opinion isn’t any better or worse than theirs, or Rolling Stone’s, and that they shouldn’t listen to what ANY dumb website has to say about songs… it’s all part of the media deprogramming…
Hi kpopalypse, I’ve been mentally tired these last few weeks. Less than 2 weeks ago, my great-uncle passed away due to heart issues (he was 90 so while this was expected to an extent, the actual event happened out of nowhere). His funeral was the first funeral I’ve attended, so it goes without saying that death and grief is new to me. For some families, a great-uncle may not be that close to them. But in my culture, even extended family is very important. In particular for me, my great-uncle and great-aunt were like grandparents to me and took my family in when we first immigrated to the current country we live in. My actual grandparents were in our home country and I didn’t meet my grandmother for a decade. So my great-uncle and great-aunt meant a lot to me growing up.
Anyway, going back to the present…after my great-uncle died and before his funeral, I visited my great-aunt a few times. She wasn’t well and was doing very badly mentally from the shock. It really pained me to see her like that. She even forgot who I was. The night of the funeral, she had to be hospitalized. A few days later (today), I learned that she also died in the hospital. I don’t really know how to deal with it. Especially because I just flew in to a different city yesterday and I won’t be able to attend the funeral with family in our home city due to school.
On one hand, I’m kinda glad to not be there. While I was visiting everyone last week, the reminder of my great-uncle and seeing everyone’s grief at the funeral, was a lot. Being away from them during my great-aunt’s funeral makes me feel disconnected from the process a bit, almost like it didn’t happen…so I don’t feel as bad. There are fewer “reminders” of her, if that makes sense.
At the same time as all of this happening, my grandma (my great-aunt’s sister) has been in intensive care for 6 months now. She’s also in her 90s. Can’t speak or eat by herself and is sort of in a waking coma stage. I know it will be her time soon and that will be even harder for me since we were even closer these past few years.
I took the day off from school and work tomorrow. I also took a day off when my great-uncle died. But it feels so weird to just go back to normal and smile on Zoom calls and when people ask “how was your break?” I just want to say “it was horrible stop asking.” I don’t want to put up a front that i’m ok because i don’t feel ok. I’m ok watching video lectures, doing homework, working from home…but i don’t want to see anyone or interact with people because I just want to cry. A lot of things takes a lot of effort right now. When I told my manager, her response was “I know this isn’t the same thing, but my partner’s dog just died…” LOL. I know that she didn’t mean it in a bad way and was probably just shaking up because I started tearing up during our meeting, but i just…don’t want to talk much.
Well actually, on one hand, I want people to be aware of my situation so they don’t bother me and that they understand I’m going through some things, but i also…don’t want to talk about it at the same time.
I’m guessing you’ve dealt with grief before. Wondering, how do you manage it? I know “time heals all wounds” and I’ll come out of the rut eventually. But these days, I’ve just been crying a lot. I loved both them and they were such a part of my childhood; I feel like I’m losing a part of my childhood in a way and that nothing will ever be the same again in our family.
And sometimes I have thoughts of my parents passing as well…which really hurts since I’m an only child. By the time you respond to this, I know I’ll be better just due to time passing, but as this first funeral will be my first of many, i would appreciate hearing any advice you have.
Yeah you probably will be better at this point, to an extent, but it will still hurt which is pretty normal. I’ve dealt with a LOT of people dying, and unfortunately many of them quite young too. It partly comes with the territory of being in the music business, the wild behaviour that people do in their teens and twenties really starts catching up with them fast a couple decades later. For every Iggy Pop and Keith Richards who has managed to avoid the reaper there are thousands who went to an early grave because they thought they had to live the rock and roll fantasy for some reason. Then there’s the countless amount of people I’ve lost to suicide, I can’t even remember how many, including a partner and nothing hits harder than that, when the person you love the most more than anyone else dies. So I know a lot more about grief than I wish I did.
The main thing to remember about it, I think, is that there are no rules for it. You’re going to feel however you’re going to feel, and that’s fine and that’s just how it has to be, for as long as it has to be. You will emerge on the other side eventually, which doesn’t mean you “no longer care” it just means that you’ve gotten it out of your system. You may also feel different to how you expect. When I found out my partner died I didn’t even cry at all until a full day or two later, I was just walking around numb, dealing with the more practical aspects of her death and it hit me later on. Yes other people can be annoying about it, especially when you don’t live up to their expectations, but ultimately they don’t matter. They are not going to understand and that’s fine, you’re under no obligation to explain it. Remember it’s also awkward for them too, nobody really knows quite what to say, and that’s because ultimately there’s really not a lot people CAN say. Everyone wants you to feel better but nobody really knows how. So just let it be what it is, it will suck and then it will get better, gradually. Try to be a bit tolerant of others being a bit stupid about it (because it seems to be a bit inevitable sadly), and hopefully they will also extend you the tolerance you need to grieve.
How’s Haneul’s (Kiss of Life) guitar playing?
Bonus: her miming that section with an umbrella in the dance practice. She seems to be moving her hand in a very similar way to the actual performance, but as someone who doesn’t play the guitar I’m not sure whether this indicates that she actually knows her stuff or she just had a “choreography” to follow and was completely faking it.
The original first link you sent me was for a private video, so I substituted it for another video of her playing guitar, no idea if it’s the same one. She can play but she’s not playing anything that technical here so it’s hard to judge it. She could have fucking tuned up though, damn.
The second one with the umbrella is decent quality miming. It’s actually quite hard to mime the guitar convincingly if you don’t play it. So I’m going to take a guess and say Haneul is kind of “intermediate” level based on what I’ve seen here.
instead separating Top 30 Best/Worst and Honourable/Dishounarable list of the year, why not just combine the two and make it into Top 60 Best/Worst Songs of the year?
Because people already complain about how long the embedded videos take to load as it is, so 60 to a page, I try to avoid that. People had a near riot when I did my best of the decade with 100 videos each. If I was smart (and wanted to space things out for maximum engagement and clicks) I’d actually do the opposite to what you’re suggesting and break up the lists so they were smaller and serialise them.
how do i become inspired/motivated again to do my artistic hobbies? i feel like i’ve come to a point where i have done all i wanted to do back when i started so now i’m at an impasse, but i still really wanna work on my hobbies because that’s where i’m at my happiest.
I’m not sure, try to integrate something new into them maybe. With my writing I’m always trying to do that, drag something fresh in if I can.
Are there any live-version changes/ad-libs that you prefer/find more memorable than the original version? Stuff like the “hah!”s from Catallena
Can’t think of anything off the top of my head, but then I don’t tend to check out live stages much anyway.
The macro images were fun and i’ve missed them too, and i’ll make my best to be able to buy your books this year. How do you feel knowing that you’re giving Rachel Kim serious competition in the kpop literature segment? Maybe she will step up her game on the next book i hope.
I don’t think she’s going to do a third one, I think she got it all out of her system with the two books she has. I owe everything to Rachel, she is my guiding star.
What are your favorite rock/metal songs?
Keep checking out roundup, I have some killer ones coming up in the non-Korean Asian music feature!
Have you ever checked out Caroline Polacheks music? Not sure if you’ll like her but I think she has some interesting contributions to the more experimental side of pop worth looking at. Here’s some of her stuff to check out if you’re in the mood.
I’ve been getting recommended her about once every two months for the last few years. Doesn’t really excite me, but it’s okay I guess? I don’t know. Lukewarm.
How do you like the “sound” of Korean (like is it smooth, more aggressive, idk etc..), and what is it like compared to other Asian languages like Chinese and Japanese. I grew up with Korean around me so I’m curious how it would be characterized by someone who doesn’t understand the language and only hears the sounds of it.
I guess Korean sounds like a smoother version of Japanese to me, maybe. I find Mandarin sounds the smoothest out of all Asian languages, it sounds sexy to my ear, like French. Japanese and SEA languages including Cantonese sound more angular and sharp, almost like German except it’s hard vowels instead of hard consonants. Not sure if this makes sense.
Hi, hyung! How are you? I hope your year goes great!
Had you had to deal with dissatisfying your parents growing up? I bring in my house as much as my family, but I’m gay and the only parent I live with is homophobic, so it’s hard to feel free on the love part. I couldn’t care less about their feelings about my wardrobe, but there’s this weight I feel when I think about dating and I don’t think it’s going to go away unless I move (which I can’t do right now), so I think about mixing those parts of my life, but I’m not sure yet. I know I’m on the right, but it’s hard to actually go through.
I didn’t have those particular struggles but my dad was a very outdoorsy kind of person and didn’t really understand that I liked nerdy indoor pursuits and hated sports. That definitely caused some friction just because I think he struggled to really understand me a lot of the time. He also didn’t like music much, although he was happy just before he died when I started really practising the guitar a lot because although he hated nerdy indoor things and music too he was also German which meant that he at least appreciated hard work and studying a lot.
Which of the standard Qrimole question types (personal advice, rando music questions, questions about your life/the website) do you actually like answering? I know that your favorite is “rate this jpop song??” of course.
Ahahahaha anything is honestly great and I’m grateful for all questions as long as they are actual questions. I’m always surprised by what comes up. Speaking of which…
QUESTIONS THAT ARE NOT ACTUAL QUESTIONS SECTION (YAWN ZZZZ…)
It’s not really a question, but I just wanted to share this MoCap actress’s video/channel:
Tangentially related to Kpop since she also danced to the incredible “I Am” by Ive.
All her videos are super impressive. It’s actually made me wonder how many animations are done through MoCap and how many aren’t.
No that wasn’t really a question, so this isn’t really an answer: JAV of the month for January 2024 is DASS-272.
This is apropos of nothing but the advent of social media has been terrible since everyone just fires their shit opinion all the time
Bring back usenet and irc, ain’t no way these people will know how to work those so i can be free(r)
(Also, i’m looking forward to your next book!)
And this isn’t a question either so December 2023’s JAV is MIMK-143 (I forgot to do one last month, too busy fapping to type properly I guess, thanks for including this non-question so I remembered and hope you like the book!)
Not really a question, but thought you might be interested in Ryu Sujeong (from Lovelyz’s) cover of Get a Guitar with an actual guitar. Also her new album comes with a guitar pick
For each “not really a question” I’m just going to do JAV recs until you all get annoyed with it enough to learn. Consider it a form of BDSM, speaking of which, BDA-187.
We at Blockberry Creative would just like to remind everyone that Vivi getting more than one picosecond of screentime was strongly correlated with the collapse of Loona, as the disbandment occurred shortly after. We were aiming to protect the interests of the group in our actions and did not desire to take the actions we had taken. Through testing before the group’s debut, we had already learned of Vivi’s influence on the group’s success, and in fact, it was because of our great care for Vivi that we allowed her into Loona despite her jinx. This public service announcement is our warning to CTDENM for the release of Sensitive.
SONE-012.
Oof at this clip of Somi defending her health from a concerned commenter by trying to list all the food she ate the day before and it’s uh one actual meal and a snack… this is not a question keke just reminded me of your “look at them take 1 bite and put it down” commentary
FAZM-010.
I randomly started humming Fingertip the other day. We were fucking robbed of another Fingertip. It’s the only girl-crush-esque concept I can get behind. Girl crush songs should kick ass on their own merits instead of being brash shouty nonsense about their own superiority.
STARS-935.
gonna get this man to propose to me within the next two years, you bet your fucking life on that (i’ll update accordingly)
If you need ideas for what to do with him once you’ve got that ring on his finger try AEGE-018.
Just a simple recommendation before moving to the real question! Could you please add links at the Honorable Mentions and Favourite pages so we can easily navigate between the two?
Now, let’s move to the real question:
With Blackpink informally disbanded, I started to wonder if it is possible for the other Big 3 or Big4 companies to replicate the Blackpink “Teddy sound”. Is it really difficult to replicate the “Teddy sound”? Does it have something to do with Sturgeon Law? We simply have to depend on “luck” where people keep trying to re-create the sound until at a certain point where it becomes very similar in one or two songs.Sorry for the messy question. I mean the big companies do have the resources to replicate them, but I do not think the results are quite up-to-par with Blackpink’s sound. Think of Aespa’s Drama. I think what I am trying to ask is that what is needed for a company to truly replicate “Teddy’s sound” for their own groups. I mean they have the resources, but what do they actually do not have? Thanks
Okay, but it’s actually a question, so good work! You succeeded where many before you have failed! Just as well as I’m running out of recent JAVs that I like (JAV complies with Sturgeon’s Law just like k-pop does).
I think a lot of the time because songs are collaborative efforts, the result can suffer from “too many cooks”. Teddy is just one guy and having just one guy do the main work often means the song follows one consistent vision a bit better. Or worse, as the case may be, but you’re still more likely ot get something that standsout (in a good OR a bad way) than if it was “written by committee”. Committees don’t tend to like taking risks, it’s part of their nature.
With AI art getting bigger and bigger, I’m afraid it will become inescapable, thus forcing you to remove 80% of your weekly roundup submissions. What do you think?
I think at that point I’ll let have to let the shit through the gate and just call them all Nazi pedophiles until they stop it. This is also known as: “the TikTok strategy” – if you don’t like something just accuse whoever is behind it of being either a Nazi or a pedophile, doesn’t matter which, or whether there’s evidence or not (just strawman some up if there isn’t any), then you don’t have to actually engage with anything they say or do and can just write it off. It’s a neat alternative to using your brain and becoming literate that you can easily deploy whenever needed. Speaking of which…
MIN HEE JIN APPROVED SECTION
What are you supposed to do when the underage maknae of one of your favorite groups looks a lot like one of your favorite porn stars?
Fap to the pornstar instead. That’s literally why they are there. In the meantime think pure wholesome thoughts about your maknae, or they’ll do a Hana and turn up at your doorstep with a gun they only just learned how to shoot.
Would you say that artists who draw pedo/sexualized children would also be kinda pedophilic themselves, even if they’re drawing fictional characters? I know creepy weeb attitudes are directed towards drawings, but I still view it as problematic regardless- it would creep me out if someone near me was able depict that stuff. Someone told me in counter to this that playing violent video games doesn’t necessarily translate to IRL violent behavior, but I feel that’s not the right comparison.
I guess you’d have to ask them. Don’t like the chances of getting an honest answer but maybe someone would answer honestly somewhere anon? I guess it seems likely to me, but having never spoken to or met or even known any people like this (to my knowledge anyway) I can’t say for sure.
I guess it also depends on the degree of sexualisation, I mean there’s a difference between an image that is innocent but that could be interpreted sexually, vs an image that is dog-whistling, vs an image that is openly sexual. You can ask Min Heejin about that one.
The comparison to violent video games – more on that in the next question/answer:
Follow up to last month’s loli hentai question. You’re on the money about people being squeamish (and overly emotional) getting in the way of any meaningful change being possible. One very big thing that I’m surprised both the asker and you missed is the fact that the overwhelming majority of pedos are never going to rape a kid just like the majority of everyone else isn’t gonna rape whoever they find attractive. That assumption and the stigma that anyone who finds children attractive is inherently a deranged piece of shit waiting for any excuse possible to go on a diddling spree is a huge obstacle and I’m kinda disappointed you missed on that one. When that same stigma comes up at times with the gays and trans folk it’s clearly horseshit and it’s just as bullshit here IMHO. The people abusing kids are either straight up psychos for whom the pedo aspect is either secondary or irrelevant or more commonly people with other untreated mental illness that allows them to delude themselves into justifying it being ok. That stigma I think is one of the biggest impediments to the latter group being able to seek help. Almost nobody is willing to come forward and out themselves as a pedo in order to get support with the risk to themselves it carries.
There’s arguments that have been made that access to loli hentai and similar encourage offending against real children but personally those arguments ring just as hollow and unsupported as rock music makes children worship the devil and video games cause gun violence.
For context I’m someone who appearance wise finds girls from a couple of years before puberty up to a bit older than myself attractive. Romantically I’m only interested in a much narrower range around my own age.
So reframing things a little to assume a huge investment in mental health care is made that ensures that the people who abuse kids are getting treatment to prevent that prior to offending. Should loli hentai, child sex dolls and other things pedos can do sex with which do not involve harm coming to an actual kid be broadly available? Is it ok for people who find children sexually attractive to have an outlet for that via simulated children?
I feel like I already covered most of this in last months’ QRIMOLE. Saying ‘well, most people with pedo tendencies don’t actually fuck kids’ doesn’t really change the argument a lot, because… well, some do. Applying this same analogy to, for example, video games, and saying ‘most people who play video games don’t shoot people, but some do’ doesn’t really work, because there isn’t a direct cause/effect relationship there that can be scientifically demonstrated. That’s why that type of analogy doesn’t match for me. Killing someone in a game doesn’t literally make me want to kill someone in real life, there’s no logical reason why it would, the simulated act doesn’t increase my desire to literally murder. But having pedo tendencies as part of your sexual makeup definitely does make someone innately want to act on those tendencies that they have (even if they are responsible/smart/afraid/etc enough to choose not to). There’s a much more direct cause/effect relationship there, even if the cause doesn’t always lead to the effect, for whatever reason.
Other than that, the rest of what I said last month stands. I don’t really have the answer. I can definitely see a case for loli hentai or whatever, but I can also totally understand the case against it, too. So I think any implementation of “harm minimisation” that uses loli hentai or some sort of equivalent, while definitely a worthy discussion, certainly needs to be really carefully thought out so there isn’t a Cobra Effect.
Follow up from the pedo question (opinion? I can’t remember if I actually asked anything lol) back at the start of the month. One other detail I think I forgot to include is that by orders of magnitude the worst offenders for promoting sexually suggestive child content are the big social media networks, Instagram and YouTube primarily. Interestingly despite the young user base and being the most whinged about generally, TikTok doesn’t seem to have the same issue. As soon as the algorithm cops a whiff of potential interest (in my case it seems to have started suggesting it from following/watching smol adult JAV actresses and kpopfap). The content itself is a fairly even split between Japanese junior idols and Eastern European models with a scattering of kids posting accidentally suggestive content of themselves. I don’t think there’s any innocent excuse as to why it’s suggesting it either as it’s always packaged alongside much more explicitly sexual content (e.g. [EDIT: link removed for the good of humanity just so you don’t click on it and your feeds become full of junk just as this person is describing] {it’s amazing the shit that manages to sneak past the puritanical filters when you know how to game the system RIP sexycyborg}). Just like with right wing opinions as soon as you actually click any of its dodgy suggestions it will absolutely flood your feed with it too. That shit is even infecting Instagram ads now [EDIT: another link removed for the good of humanity]
In my opinion this sort of stuff caries a lot more risk to children as compared with more explicit but child-free lolicon type stuff since it’s directly exploiting actual children and if there’s any merit to the loli encourages offending argument it’s just as applicable here as to cartoons except that potential offender now has a human target too.
This, I can agree on 100%, and this is more of a general social media problem, than something to do with kids specifically. To take a recent example, when the Christchurch shooter did his thing the biggest spreader of the shooting footage wasn’t 4chan or the dark web, it was Facebook. Yet it was 4chan that ended up getting banned in Australia as a result – if the Australian government really wanted to ban something to help society instead of just looking like they were doing something, they would have banned Facebook instead because that was the social network that was sharing it the most. But nobody wants to ban Facebook because of all the potential knock-on effects of not having it, all the businesses invested in it that would suffer etc, it’s ‘too hard basket’ stuff. Big social media companies, once they get mainstreamed to a certain extent, can get away with a lot, because people just hand-wave it away as “the algorithm”, nobody ever takes full responsibility, just “sorry, we’ll tune the numbers a bit”. It’s why Twitter hasn’t been banned everywhere yet even though Elon Musk has pretty much turned it into a misinformation and hate speech platform by removing the few guard rails that it had.
THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTIONS, VERY IMPORTANT DO NOT SKIP
Hi oppar! I wish you a nice February!
I probably should not ask you, since you already denied your twink status, but I really don’t know what else to try, lol.
So, for quite some time I have been interested into sexually explore my ass. I had introduced various toys in it and realized a lot about how I can obtain anal pleasure, with lots of good, memorable experiences. The main problem is that I kinda want to share this with a future partner and there are some things that REALLY makes me insecure about taking this next step.
I love to fuck, but I really get upset with funky smells. That means that I almost don’t enter intercourse with someone unless me (and the other person) had recently taken a nice shower. I can tolerate some bad breath, but smelly crotch, armpits, face (yeah, some people have bad odour in their face too, specially behing the ears, gross) and feet (oh god, how I hate feet!) are very dentrimental to my performance and enjoyment of the moment. But, as you can probably imagine, I have a special problem with the smell of fecal matter.
I absolutely LOVE the smell of a really clean asshole. Is so erotically enticing that easily makes me hard.
My problem is, now that I want to use my anus for a change, I discovered that, aside from some people that take more time to feel the need to defecate after taking a good pounding in the bussy, I am actually in the team of the people who immeadiately feel the need (the real need, not just the feeling) to evacuate right after getting penetrated. It doesn’t matter the size of what enters, it can be a big 20cm dildo or a simple index finger, it makes me want to soil myself few minutes after the start of the practice.
Since i discovered that, I tried various solutions to circunvent this issue. I’ve tried to release the waste before the act, add more fiber in my diet, ingest fiber supplement capsules before the meals to “stabilize” the waste and regularize the bowel movement, but nothing really worked. There was always a moment amidst my personal solo enjoyment that everything went to shit.
Tired of this, I decided to douche myself. I found out online that using too much water will actually rise the chance of a shit incident so one should always apply small quantities of water inside the rectum, in various cycles until the water comes clean. After many tries, I found out that the results don’t last for more than 3 min of vigourous pounding (sadly). Since my wish is to be able to orgasm from being solely fucked in my arse, this amount of time is simply not long enough for me.
My last attempt was with the complete douching, were the person actually applies a lot of water in their rectum, enough water to actually enter the sigmoid colon and maybe even the descending colon. While I personally found the experience to be VERY pleasing (some people interpret the water invasion in the colon as a strong abdominal cramp, I almost came during the process), to complete the cleaning of all waste it is necessary to pass an eternity of time doing the cycles (more water means more time to expel the waste), almost getting to 2 fucking hours to get really clean! I read that, since this method is more drastic than the other one, people with health problems should definitely AVOID doing it, because not only the large quantities of water can damage the intestinal walls lining (by pressure, osmotic effects and possibly sending foreign microorganisms inside the body), it can also damage nutrient absorption, leaving them less capable of fighting an infection. For the aforementioned reasons, I kinda want to give up this method too, but it’s the only thing that makes me feel secure enough to have receptive anal intercourse! I feel so frustrated!
Should I stop my crusade for anal cleanliness? How could I ever get confortable with the smell of poop during intercourse? Should I give up my aspiration of having an orgasm with my ass? Do you know some other way to deal with all this shit?
Please help me (or judge me)?
From a stupid faggot bitch
This is not something that I have experience in (how I wish I was still in touch with HYSF, he would surely know). I did find a lot of videos about this online, but judging from your question it seems you have already done your research in this area. What I would recommend though if you haven’t yet, is listening to how pornstars do it. I think about pornstars are ‘sexual athletes’ as after all they put things in their holes for a living and have to be at ‘peak performance’ all the time when they’re on set, as well as be clean and all the rest of it. So I think it’s worth listening them to talk about what they experience, because whatever anxieties and pressure you might have about it, they probably have even more of as not only do they have to worry about the same ass things as anyone else, but it’s literally their entire careers riding off whether they can clean their ass successfully or not.
So good luck there. I’m learning as much as you are here.
hello just wondering how love carousel is going/where you are in the writing process? also do you drink coffee and if so, how do you like it? + would love to see more stiglitz photos please and thank you.
The third book in the Shin Hana series “Love Carousel” is done! It’s now in the final editing and proofing stages.
Amazon eBook – release date March 1st, can be pre-ordered
Kobo eBook – release date March 1st, can be pre-ordered
Amazon paperback – release date February 24th, cannot be pre-ordered
Barnes & Noble paperback – release date March 1st, can be pre-ordered
Shopfront links can be found by clicking here (or Stiglitz below) and they will be updated again when the book goes live. Prices vary between vendors due to the slight cost differences in dealing with each vendor and also currency conversion issues. Generally speaking Amazon is usually slightly cheaper than other places, but that’s not always the case so it’s worth checking.
I do not drink coffee, which is probably unprecedented for a novelist.
Cat
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!
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