QRIMOLE – May 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!
How are you doing? I hope you and yours are doing well!
I’m good! My girlfriend and cat are also good. Verification of cat status:
This is my cat, on my girlfriend’s shoulder. As you can see, cat.
OKAY LETS GET THE MIN HEE JIN STUFF OUT OF THE WAY
Are you going to incorporate Min Hee-jin’s VS HYBE drama on your next book? I haven’t buy your books because truth to be told, it’s out of my price range lol.
Anyway, I vision GFriend would go to Viviz route if they are not disbanded. They are already do a whole story of change of something like that from Crossroads to MAGO, so eventually they’re going to do MANIAC
My books are fictional so there definitely won’t be any direct reference to recent events in the k-pop world, although perhaps certain situations in them might take certain knowledgeable people down memory lane by matter of sheer honest-to-goodness coincidence that’s right. The main company in the books is kind of a C/D-list company, not a company on the HYBE tier. If the physical books are out of your price range, the e-books are a LOT cheaper. If even the $5 USD e-books are out of your price range… I feel you, I’m broke too. Don’t worry they’ll always be available as long as I’m around, and probably even after, so If you’re keen but broke just hang onto your cash for now and buy them one day in the future when you have money.
Do you think Min Heejin made a Lolita reference at 0:40
Probably, of course she’d deny it with a 34625 word statement about how heart-shaped lollipops aren’t taught in school and not everyone is familiar with them…
Do you think Min Heejin is being weird again
ILLIT isn’t a Min Hee Jin production, it’s just HYBE doing a Min Hee Jin lite thing because they noticed sexy concepts for adults aren’t trendy and pedo-pandering is what’s hip with the k-pop fans these days. Of course then Min Hee Jin got upset and had a big press conference where she said “how dare HYBE steal my pedo pandering, that was my idea” and now Korea all love her for it because they’re a nation working themselves to death and have all had someone higher up the company ladder fuck them over at some point.
OKAY, NORMAL(ISH) QUESTIONS NOW
I’ve been thinking a lot about April recently mostly for dog whistly reasons but also because sometimes i get reminded of the bullying scandal that ended them (for the record i definitely believe they did bully hyunjoo everything they did in response was the actions of guilty people saying horrendous victim blaming shit but that’s not the point) and i wonder if these two things are correlated. not in a ‘if you debut a group doing creepy dog whistling concepts they’re obviously bullying each other off camera’ way but more in the way that dsp clearly didn’t care about keeping these preteens safe at all which is why they went about both situations as is. i think. maybe. what’s your thoughts about it
Well yeah if you were to draw a correlation graph between “agencies who don’t give a fuck about their performers” and “agencies who put performers into concepts that could be seen as a bit compromising” you’d probably find a close match, because one is kind of symptomatic of the other. So it makes sense.
Let’s pretend that a record company has debuted 2 new girl groups: one with 4 members and one with 8 members. The groups are pretty much equally popular in every single way (album sales, single sales, ticket sales, brand endorsements and sponsorships, etc.), the contracts they signed are similar, and they have the same net worth. Will the 4 member girl group get paid twice as much simply because it has half as many members, or will the record company find some reason not to pay them that much?
This is a great question, and the answer is definitely not simple! It’s a very big “it depends”.
Album/single sales – depends on royalty splits. As a general rule the amount of members makes little difference because more than one member at the most having a hand in writing a song in k-pop is very rare. It’s possible to see NO income from album sales if you didn’t write anything on it. If we’re talking about a group where everyone is a songwriter, then more members means less of a slice for each member AFTER the agency and distributor take their cut. You can see some examples of splits here.
Ticket sales – depends what’s in the contract about this, basically. But whatever is paid, whether it be a wage, a flat fee, a scaling amount, or whatever, typically divides completely evenly between members, AFTER other expenses are paid for. So the less members and the less personnel and “stuff that needs to be paid for” in general on the touring crew, the better, because the sooner the production will reach the break-even point and start turning a profit. Yes, this sometimes means that if the concert doesn’t sell enough tickets, everyone gets paid except the performers. There is some variation here depending on arrangements but this is the typical scenario.
Endorsements and sponsorships – if it’s the entire group picking up the endorsement, it splits between the group, usually evenly. However sometimes endorsements just are for one member, in which case usually only that one member gets paid. So a group with a lot of members therefore has more (mathematical) chance of attracting endorsements, this is why groups with ten or more members exist, more chance of getting that one breakout celeb who can endorse every goddamn thing under the sun. Keep in mind that there are exceptions, miss A famously had a clause in their contract where endorsement splits were (supposedly) divided evenly no matter who got them, even though most of them were only for one member (Suzy). I don’t know if JYP still does this, or if other groups do it commonly, but I wonder if it’s designed to ease intra-group tensions (I need some more insider emails in my email inbox before I can answer that one).
Out of all of these, endorsements are the main earner for k-pop groups, as touring schedules generally aren’t all that consistent (k-pop groups won’t tour the entire fucking globe for a year and do 200 shows like a high-profile western group might) and album sales are frankly a joke unless you are selling BTS quantities of stuff. So given the factors involved it’s really hard to say what is a better situation for the performers.
Knetz are accusing IU of giving preference to international fans, in regards to the strict rules she and EDAM Entertainment enforce in ticket verification, and because she expressed her sympathy with Taiwan regarding the recent earthquake. Knetz are fucking dumb, but would you say most internationally known k-artists DO give preference to international and/or western fans? Nugu/underrated groups almost have to if they want to make any money, but a huge artist like IU doesn’t necessarily. But if an artist already has Korea eating from the palm of her hand, why wouldn’t she want to give preference to international audiences? Money is money.
The bigger artists and agencies just see it as one global audience and Korea are small players in the global market. The smaller artists, Korea is usually all they’ve got unless they get a lucky regional breakthrough somewhere else. However keep in mind the stuff about endorsements above – that’s where the big money is for a lot of these artists. The hard truth is worrying about local vs international fans obscures a bigger issue – k-pop artists and their companies don’t give preference to ANY fans, in general. That’s why every “for the fans” video is the same trashy lazy ballad with minor variations. That’s why idols are so insincere about their audience as soon as they think the cameras are off. That’s why companies put out bullshit press releases that we know are bullshit. That’s why I don’t care about any of it. These companies don’t give a fuck about you. You’re not the consumer, you’re the product.
Hi Kpopalypse oppar, I want to ask for advice on what things I should be mindful of when searching for a job (as a young adult who hasn’t joined the labor force yet). If possible can you also give me some advice on how to prepare for job interviews? Also in your experience do you know what signs indicate a company is a “red flag” or can have toxic workplace (sorry if my questions are a bit confusing)
I could do an entire post on this. Maybe one day. For now, in summary:
Preparing for job interviews – look nice. If you’re a guy, wear a suit unless it’s a VERY blue-collar job. If you’re a girl, something neat and businesslike is fine, you have more options than the guys do. If it’s not a job in the sex or entertainment industry, don’t show more than a polite amount of skin (see separate guide here for entertainment audition dress code). Most employers decide whether they want you or not in about ten seconds (it’s a lot like dating in this way) so looking good is important. Don’t worry too much about trick questions and stuff, there’s no way of knowing what will be asked but come prepared to talk about yourself and what you’ve been doing lately, what your goals are, why you want the job. Always come prepared with one or two questions to ask the employer. Research the company beforehand, visit their website. Do not ask what the pay is unless you already have a job and are trading up. If you have a Facebook or LinkedIn, sanitise the fuck out of it. Smart employers will look you up there so remove anything that doesn’t look pro. Phrase answers in a way so that the employee sees the benefit for THEM – i.e not “I want this job because x” but “I can bring x to your company”. Look at it from their point of view. If it’s a remote interview, make sure the software and hardware all works ahead of time. Be early.
Resumes – make sure spelling, grammar, punctuation and formatting are all perfect. Doesn’t have to be fancy, simple plain text is fine, but clear, readable and not messy. A template can help but isn’t required, but simple not fancy. Don’t make it too large. One page is perfect, two is acceptable, more than two is a deal-breaker. Unless your country’s culture demands it, only put your photo on your resume if you’re going for a job where visuals are a requirement (acting, modeling, reception desk).
Red flags – any job that demands you pay money for something before you start work (ONLY acceptable exception – a driver’s license, forklift license, truck license etc if it’s a job that requires those things). Any job ad with gimmicky buzzwords, trying to sell itself as a fun, exciting place to work or any other “how do you do fellow kids” energy. Any job interview where they ask you hardly any questions and you kind of get the feeling like they’re the ones selling the job to you. Inappropriate job interview questions like your marital status, racial background, sexuality, age, political leanings, religion, etc even if sneakily slipped in as “just conversation”. Any type of personality/MBTI test. Aptitude tests are fine, but if you see anything assessing personality, get the fuck out of there. Also, if they have problems with things that don’t make sense (for instance if a job where you don’t deal with the public face to face requires that you cover tattoos or remove piercings).
Do you think HYBE is paying for ILLIT wins on music shows and for positions on charts? In my opinion, it was really weird how ILLIT got to be on the billboard charts within some days. Not even Cupid (Fifty Fifty) got a position on the billboard this fast
Not to mention the allegations during their debut era that LE SSERAFIM’s first win was payola
I think there’s a lot that goes on but your guess is as good as mine, so since I don’t know the answer I’ll talk about “payola” instead because it’s a misunderstood term in the k-pop fan space. People think it means “pay for plays” but it actually doesn’t mean this and never has. Since paying for radio airplay in the US is illegal, A&R there did “payola” instead which means they would do things like take the boss of the radio station out to free lunches and shout them drinks and all sorts of other nice things like that (use your imagination). At no time would they directly state “we understand that because I’m treating you so nicely, you are to give the songs that we send you favourable treatment” but of course that was the unspoken intent anyway, because why wouldn’t they? After all the man from the record label was so nice to me and look at this nice bottle of vintage wine I got. It sits in a legally greyer space than just handing over money for airplay because you can justify it as “just catching up with industry pals and being nice”. Think of it like how a lot of host clubs in Asian countries work where you’re only paying for “company” and hey if something a little extra happens, that had nothing to do with the money oh gosh no, it was just because you and the hostess were getting along so well and really hit it off, truly an ‘organic’ relationship, nothing to see here officer…
Hi kpop oppar!!! For context to this question i’m a teenage girl in highschool, thought i ask someone old about this stuff.
There’s this guy (i’m just gonna call him guy) guy is like someone I have a couple of classes with and we talk in them and we were pretty friendly. I noticed that he was cute and like was kind of eyeing him honestly.
One day I learn from someone on the track team (he runs track) that guy’s friend said he had a crush on me. And so I’m thinking “ok this is an opportunity I should go after it” because I also thought that maybe he did just because of how he acted around me compared to other people. That day I write down a note with my number on it and gave it to his friend to give it to him because I couldn’t catch him. Literally no texts from this guy for like those following days. The next time I see him I ask him if he got my number and he says yes then he says no (which was weird but guy’s friend told me it was because when he tried to give him the number he was running away from it) so at that point I just type it in his phone.
Like a bunch of sporadic stuff happens the next few days which isn’t important enough to mention, but we get to the end of that week and I’m in english and I have that class with guy and guy’s friends. I’m working with my group when I see guy’s friends laughing and guy is like losing his mind, I just dismiss it cause like why would you think anything of that. But, I go up to my english teacher to ask a grammar question and she gives me this note and is like “the people at that table wanted to give this note to you.” Like strange but okay, I open it up and it says “Hey (my name), want to hang out sometime? -guy” and it’s literally not even his handwriting like that was the first thing i noticed. So i go up to guy and ask him about it and he seems really like embarrassed, flustered, annoyed, and uncomfortable at the same time. His friends are like hyping him up and I’m like so genuinely asking “do you really want to” and saying stuff like “we should talk more” and he’s being like pretty dismissive. School bell rings and he like darts out, my english teacher was in on it, she wrote the note and told me “he likes you he’s just shy” so that’s basically the end of that.
I text him later that day like asking him what happened, and so we are talking about it for a little bit and I just straight up ask him “hey do you like me or are your friends making it up” and he says “my friends are making it up” I WAS ACTUALLY SO PRESSED. I was so genuinely annoyed at guy’s friends cause I was genuinely interested too.
That following week I catch one of guy’s friends and I ask him if he made it up and showed him the text messages and he just shakes his head. Idk what to believe or what’s happening. Is guy lying or guy’s friends??? It doesn’t even matter anyways cause guy has been chronically ignoring me. We’ve been talking more again but I really think that guy’s friends were just making it up and it’s really annoying.
Cause that original friend on that track team that told me about guy liking me asked guy directly and he said he didn’t. So yeah he definitely didn’t and that’s so annoying. I don’t know if I’m asking for advice, I just want your thoughts, I know this is just dumb highschool stuff but this was actually making so mad lol.
Love your reviews btw! Also I’m so sorry if this is incomprehensible.
More comprehensible than you think, I got some big deja vu from this. There’s one big lesson here and it’s one that I also learned in high school. If you like someone, and you want to make an approach, there’s two people at school/work/the club/wherever who should know about it immediately:
1. you
2. them
And nobody else. Other people can find out afterwards, but not before you shoot your shot. Do not involve friends as go-betweens etc, do not rely on others to do important shit like convey messages, pass notes, no no no, they’ll just revel in the drama (especially at school because school is boring but this is interesting) and sabotage you, even if they don’t mean to, they will. Do not even talk to your friends about who you like, I promise you they will find a way to make it more difficult for you every time. If you want to approach someone just do it, get your answer, and then you’ve done it and whether it was a yes or a no at least it’s over with a minimum of fuss and you can move onto the next step of either going out with them maybe OR de-crushing before you get in too deep with any drama etc. It’ll feel awkward but it’ll be less awkward in the long run because the social situation won’t spiral so far out of control. Guess you struck out here in the end but it happens to all of us, rejection is just part of life – good luck for next time!
Just found out that NJ’s Cool with you is in a garage genre. Do you have recommendation of other great garage song?
Yes.
I think this is the first time i’m asking a serious personal question but i guess it was bound to happen. I’m a very monogamous gay man struggling to find a deeper connection outside of a one night stand. This has been going on for a while and honestly at this point im starting to have doubt about whether i’ll ever truly find something like that(not in the sense that nobody wants me, but rather i fear monogamy is slowly dying). I never tried hooking up for one night stands because i always had a fear id develop feelings or ask for more than that up until recently, while it did at least help me satisfy my sexual needs, there’s always a problem of hooking up with a person who possesses potential for something much more meaningful than that, so i end up in a loop of “shit i invited him for a hookup but now i’m not so sure if i see him only for that” which fucks up my mental because my brain is just programmed to see people as long term material or a one night stand without much thought and emotion. A couple of days ago i invited a guy over who i thought was going to be a hookup>finish>leave kind of situation but we ended up talking for hours before the actual sex happened, which i didn’t mind whatsoever, but now im rattling my brain over whether thats all i want now or something more. I know this is something i should communicate with him to best get the answer that i need, but i don’t want to come off as needy/delusional when i have no idea what he thought of the whole thing(he seemed very easy-going lets say that) and it would kind of pain me to know the feeling isnt mutual. We only met that one time but we are supposedly meeting again when i get back from visiting family. Should I wait for the next time we see each other and say how i feel and how does one get into hookups without developing any kind of feelings for something long term?
Don’t overthink it, play it by ear. I wouldn’t drop big questions on it at this early stage, just roll with it and see how it goes. I’ve been going out with my current girlfriend for 14 years, and I never had some kind of big dramatic “how I feel about you is x but I’m not sure if you want y” type conversation, we both just had the attitude of “we like each other, let’s just try being together and see what happens” and we ended up sticking together because that’s what worked for us. A casual attitude doesn’t mean you don’t care, it just means that you’re not placing big expectations and burdens on something which may not yet have the weight to support that. If you get too deep you’ll probably scare him off, or maybe you’ll scare yourself off. Just be cool, and see what happens.
Sorry for asking about a Jpop song.
And you should be, but go on…
I don’t care if you don’t show the song’s link, I’m curious what is wrong with this track. Is it the mixing? I can barely listen to their vocal and lyrics because the drum and (I don’t know, like the tidbits of the instruments) is so upfront. Strangely, the other songs in the same release (it’s a maxi-single/EP) sound more listenable than the song.
I remember songs like in this Kpop (OEC’s Chaotic comes to mind) where it also gives me similar impression. What purpose they might achieve by mixing a song that sounds so muffled?
Thank you Oppar
This one was worth leaving the link in as there’s actually something here to discuss beyond “j-pop is shit” (although it still is). So it sounds to me like they overdid the aural excitation. Aural exciters/enhancers are a specific type of signal processing that boosts frequencies most often around the human voice range using a combination of equalisation, phase trickery and altering harmonics. It’s used to make a recording sound brighter and more present, and especially to bring out the vocals more in pop mixes without boosting overall volume, but it can be easily overdone and the result is a very hard, artificial sound. Quoting from this article: “Most problems occur when a stereo enhancer is strapped across a complete mix and, if it is not adjusted with extreme caution, processing a complete mix quickly leads to a very unnatural, tiring and fatiguing sound, albeit a superficially exciting one!” – that in my opinion is what you’re hearing here. In my roundup reviews I’ll often mention when I think one is being overused, much like I do with Autotune.
play helldivers 2 you cunt.
I would but I’ve seen gameplay footage and… I don’t know if I’m interested? Third-person squad-based shoot bugs thing… meh? My computer doesn’t meet the system requirements for it aynway, so it’ll probably judder around a bit and heat up my poor dying graphics card. Also it’s expensive, $60 AUD, that’s a nope. Even the devs have said “if you can’t afford it now, get it later” (exactly what I say to people who can’t afford my books, see above) so I think that’s good advice, I’ll pass on it until a few years from now when it’s cheaper and my computer is better, and their servers can cope with the playerbase.
Oppar..? Is that what you’re called? I’m kinda new here… Anyways to the question.
Context: I went through a major loss when I was 11 and I’ve been major depressed since. To cope with that, I was desperate to find something that could make me forget about these constant terrible thoughts clouding my brain. So I started “fixating” on things as a form of escapism. And it’s become a habit. I’ve liked anime, manga, dramas, reality, drag, music, video games, and now kpop. And each time I go into this deep obsession and dependency.
Problem: Obsession and dependency? that’s not really bad I mean it’s how interests work. Except I don’t *actually* care about these things. It’s like all it is to me is a place to drown my thoughts and forget about the fact that I’ve been feeling the same shitty way for so many years now. And every 2 weeks when I realize I really don’t gaf about any of these, I feel defenseless. And when I try to find something productive/creative like sewing, editing, taking photos, crocheting, writing, cooking etc. I tend to give up after a short time since I’m easily discouraged. Though It’s definitely more of a mental thing than it is about the interests themselves, the mental part isn’t getting fixed anytime soon.
Question: is there ANYTHING you think can fit me and also be beneficial in some way? Having a genuine interest goes a long way for depressed people from what I’ve seen. I’m sure you’ll notice that all those interests are ones I can obsess over in the comfort of my own bed, I don’t have enough daily energy to do anything athletic, or rather I don’t care enough. I don’t think I have enough genuine interest in music to pursue anything there. I think disingenuity of it will make it like all my other attempts in finding a productive hobby and I’ll ditch it after a few. I also don’t want to invest too much money with my level of uncertainty. I like making things for others or supporting other people, if that helps. Should I just take the L and convince myself I actually like these things? Am I cooked?
I’m very much out of my depth answering questions that boil down to mental health as while I do have some experience with it I’m not a doctor nor a psychiatrist/psychologist. So my first recommendation would be to talk to one of those about how you’re feeling. It seems from what you write that you may have already been at least partially down this road, but I’d encourage you to pursue it. Mental health issues, just like physical health issues, should be taken seriously. So take it seriously. Prioritise getting well, or at least getting to a point where your condition is manageable, as your current thought patterns are ringing alarm bells for me. I think those are the core issues, and once you settle your brain’s flightiness and depression down a bit you might be able to have a better idea of what it is you actually like and deeply care about vs what it is that’s just something you’re using as a quick distraction. Keep in mind that perhaps there’s some crossover there – and that may not necessarily be a bad thing! There isn’t even necessarily anything wrong with cheap distractions anyway, as long as you recognise them as that. I feel like forcing yourself to like a hobby won’t work, that’d be like forcing yourself to like a person. Not really sustainable. But like with people, if you can take time to calm yourself down enough to smell the roses the right hobby or interest may come. Good luck with it!
What are the odds that some writer for this country song ever heard Roly-Poly? Tune and chords are almost a direct quote.
It has some similarities in the meter and the melody and even the chords, but she doesn’t do the hand-dance so she’s not a true OT6 T-ara stan.
Oppar why do 99.99% of male-directed “support” content online just fucking sucks? Why oh WHY is it that whatever flavor of “manosphere” you opt for, whether it’s your NoFap or your Jordan Peterson or your favorite video gaming forums, it seems like there’s ALWAYS an undercurrent of fascism and “women bad” in them that makes you ick. Is it really hopeless for us males? Is THIS garbage really the best us males can do?
Damn.
Because it makes money. People have worked out that lonely men struggling to find their way in the world have disposable income and can be parted with it easily if you say you’re on their side and offer simple solutions to tricky problems. There’s a lot of grifters out there and the gamer crowd is ripe for plunder because these people are employed and/or have a comfortable home life and single and have money to spend on graphics cards. Twenty years ago the gamer space wasn’t the right-wing shithole that it is now, it changed when the con-artists moved in for a quick buck and the neo-Nazis also realised it was a fertile recruiting ground for lonely people looking for a community to belong to.
[first two questions redacted at reader request]
Sorry to bother again oppar, it’s “Oppar, I need to vent to someone” person again. Please, forget that I sent my first and second ask. I spoke about this issue with someone I know irl and I think I’m calmer now. Guy is blocked and reported now. Thank you for your patience and sorry for being such a nervous wreck.
All good. Yes I would have just said block and move on anyway.
Nearly 20 years ago (holy shit) Paris Hilton released her iconic debut album Paris, which introduced us to the timeless jams that are “Stars Are Blind” and “Nothing in This World” – have you heard these singles Oppar, and which one do you prefer?
Also Miss Paris seems to be teasing to release a second album this year, so praying to Chuu for songs of similar quality to those two.
Yes I have heard them and the reggae-lite of “Stars Are Blind” is very cool, Skull could never (not before getting stoned at least).
There’s this girl from Rescene named Zena. She’s the visual model for “AI” girl group member Zena from Mave. Here’s the thing. Zena the character is supposed to be 20, while Zena the person was just 14 when Mave debut. For all we know she could be even younger when she modeled for the character. I wanna know the reasoning behind it. Like why not just hire a 20 year old model for that instead? Wouldn’t that make more sense?
Yeah I don’t know why companies do this strange shit. Korea has this weird obsession with youth for some reason. I suppose it will only get worse as their population ages.
DO YOU LIKE TYLER THE CREATOR BECAUSE I LOVE HIM WHAT DO YOU THINK OF HIM
I always hated Odd Future when they were a thing. However Tyler, on his own, has much better beats and rapping on average. I still don’t really click with it, there’s something about his style that just bugs me a bit on a pure sonic level. I’d put him in the same category as Eminem in this way – obviously highly talented just a bit weirdly irritating to actually hear. His trolling homosexual raps are great though, there should be more of this.
I guess this is a quarter life crisis?
So one of my closest friends began her internship at NASA this past fall. She won some sort of award and will probably be hired. In college it has slowly dawned on me that I probably was intelligent, it wasn’t just my mom’s biased opinion (lmao). I am not joking when I say like 95% of my friends and acquaintances are becoming doctors or lawyers. It’s not from a context of being from a privileged background either; my friends are mostly middle or working class and non-White. Despite their disadvantages, they’re just very smart and driven and are “moving up the ladder” themselves.
The issue is that I feel like I don’t fit up with them. I lack discipline.
Today I went and googled a girl to find her instagram. We had gotten along super well but she moved away and we lost contact. She now works as a financial analyst at some hot shot company in New York. She’s only a year older than me.
When I saw this, I honestly teared up. I’m obviously not going to become a failure in life, but when literally everyone I befriend is like 4.0 GPA med student or law student with 300 extracurriculars and honors, you do feel like a failure. I will graduate from college right around this time this qrimole comes in. I feel like I’ve wasted my college years and more importantly, my potential in life. I guess I’m smart enough…so why I can’t I do anything with it?
I plan to go into clinical psych for grad school, but I have to take a gap year (or two) since I messed up during undergraduate and don’t have the experience I need to be competitive. So I have to do postbacc and work as a research assistant.
All of my friends are these crazy driven women (in a positive way) who are like guaranteed success out of college. Hell even the guys I date are super nerds who are in engineering or whatever.
It makes me feel awful.I’m 22 now. I’m still not sure what the fuck I’m doing!! I don’t have any specific interest that I’m passionate about. I’ve done all sorts of career aptitude tests and personality tests (bullshit and real ones) and I’m still not sure.
Yes I am well aware that my friends going into finances or whatever are likely not passionate about that either, but due to autism or adhd or whatever it is super impossible for me to do much of anything I don’t care about for so long. I could not imagine having a career that drains me. So I have to find something I like a bit and pays well.
I kinda like clinical psych, and I have an area in mind I’m interested in, but I’m not even sure I want to continue down the clinical psych path. For me once I start down that path all these other doors close, and I’m not sure if I want that.
Is it too late for me to turn my life around and do something better? how do I not waste my brain?
You just graduated college! That’s huge. Not only that, but with an actually useful degree that can get you work, or at the very least looks impressive on a resume, unlike me who wasted my life doing a music degree. You will be FINE, trust me. Yes autism/ADHD makes it harder but you got this far. If you’re thinking about the path you like (clinical psych) and you know you don’t have the stamina to do shit that you DON’T like, then that decision seems like a no-brainer to me. What good are ‘other doors’ that you don’t want to go through? Your work doesn’t have to be your passion anyway, it just has to be tolerable, so clinical psych sounds like it might be tolerable as opposed to mega-drudgery and then you can seek your passions elsewhere.
terrible australian cat news
When will Stiglitz own up to her crimes?
I removed the link because the article is paywalled (I have the courtesy to not paywall my site, I expect the same from others) but it’s just something about how cats in Australia kill the native creatures and you should keep them indoors which is totally not news here and just normal daily shit. Variations of this question come up every so often here. Cats are actually quite damaging in Australia because they are killers, and they kill a lot of local (and also very cute) creatures. Stiglitz was adopted by me and my girlfriend at a very young age before she turned into the agent of pure destruction that she is today so I doubt she had much to do with it, although if we let her out into the country she probably would try to eat everything that moved, and fail because she’s too slow to catch any of it.
Are Riot’s Pentakill songs any good or are they just the same power fantasy anthems to you?
Same old shit.
I know you often talk about how bad remixes are. I’ve never understood what you meant until I heard this.
Here’s the original.
Here’s the remix.
I don’t know anything about music, but the remix sounds substantially worse to my ears. Can you briefly explain what I may be instinctively disliking in the remix?
Is it indicative of the frequent problems you have with remixes in general?
The very striking difference between the two is that the remix has so much less treble, it’s way too muddy.This isn’t a typical remix problem as they didn’t butcher the original’s actual sound radically, it’s just a piss poor production for no apparent reason.
“SM’s horrid attempt to try and cross aespa over to the art-music snob crowd falls flat on its face because they just try to add too much to the arrangement, too much of the time. The only good thing about the original was it had a decently punchy riff, with that punchiness diluted and swallowed up with layers of nonsense there’s little reason to care about what’s left.”
I recall you wrote this about the Black Mamba orchestral remix, and as someone who doesn’t think there’s anything special about Black Mamba, I don’t really know what’s so ruined except that the remix barely sounds like Black Mamba.
Well Black Mamba at least had a few riffs going for it and the orchestral version dilutes those riffs into a ‘motif’ and waters it down to basically nothing. The problem with all of SM’s orchestral versions is they’re actually TOO orchestrally treated for the material. In other words they throw out a lot of the pop song conventions that actually make pop music work in context, and instead use the themes of the original for a bunch of classical art-wanking. The results are always a disaster. It’s not about music, it’s about SM jerking off in our faces with “look how important we are because we have classical versions of our songs with a real orchestra” art wank.
How prevalent is AI in k-pop songwriting right now? Someone on Reddit said that Loossemble’s new title track “sounds pretty AI generated to me,” but is there really any way to tell whether a song has been written with AI assistance?
There’s not really any way to tell and honestly with most k-pop it sounds so fucking generic anyway who would even notice the difference. Just like in the art world, most music that’s AI generated that actually sounds any good isn’t 100% the machine, it’s the machine coming up with the basics and then humans applying some tweaking, the audio equivalent of removing the extra finger on the hand.
Did you know that annoying kpop stans have invaded the international LoL esports community? It’s likely from all of the kpop/LoL collaborations. The immature-ish fangirl behavior you see from stan twitter is funnily similar to how they behave over pro gamers.
I heard that you used to play League. As someone who only cared about the game when starting to follow esports, I feel like it’s some koreaboo thing that attracts kpop fans. What do you think? Because I find little similarity between LoL and Kpop (besides the collabs), other than how both things have groups of Korean dudes.
I only started playing it because Zaku (ex-Anti Kpop Fangirl writer) was tweeting about the LoL e-sports games and so I watched some matches and wanted to follow along so I thought I’d play the game a bit so I could understand what was happening a bit better. I’m not sure what attracts others but I’m sure that the k-pop collaborations certainly helped and that’s of course why they exist, to draw people into that world. I gave up LoL when Riot made Vanguard anti-cheat mandatory for all their games, I don’t like the idea of always-on rootkit software, I think it’s a massive security issue and I’d honestly rather have hackers in my games than in my hard drive.
I’ve noticed a lot of on the internet hate and criticism at Jojo Siwa’s new song while simultaneously a lot of love for Brit Smith’s previously unreleased version.
The Brit Smith version obviously sounds a lot better to me, but it’s not like Jojo Siwa’s version is downright grand preeeeeeeee levels of terrible. I think it’s because of her bad attempt at changing her image that made me and everyone else hate it more
It got me thinking – how do I differentiate my bias of an artist(or even genre) to my opinions on the song itself? Or is this something that’s always ingrained within the music?
Wow, these questions comparing two songs I’ve never heard of (or have heard before but only very dimly care about) are exhausting!
I think Jojo Siwa’s choice of backings are a bit trendier, and so a bit more like everything else these days and therefore less interesting. So I think that’s what’s making the other version stand out.
Onto the interesting part of your question, and biasing the artist vs biasing the music is just a matter of blind listening before you know who the artist is, that’s the easiest way. I had a lot of my prejudices broken down in situations where I heard a song randomly somewhere, thought “that sounds cool” and found out only later on that it was someone I didn’t like, or didn’t “want” to like.
Hi! I’m not sure if I wil be able to explain the background for this question correctly because the English names for academic hierarchy really confuses me, but I’ll try: two years ago I did an individual research project while getting my bachelor’s degree and my thesis supervisor didn’t really give a fuck about me so I assumed no one did. So, I never really showed up to research seminar or any collective activity on his research group. This was obviously a mistake, but hey people are dumb sometimes. Two years later, I’ve just started the masters programme and I realised I fucked up because first thing my thesis supervisor says to me (is the same guy btw) is why the fuck I never show up to the lab/research group stuff. I guess I’m now known as the person who never shows up. So, here’s the thing: I’m going to show up to every activity but how do I make this not miserable? Because I think the train has already left and people already have a bad impression of me and are besties among themselves. And also my thesis supervisor is a great professional and good name to have on my curriculum but makes me very insecure, as you can see. I really like researching but really need help with the social aspect. Please help
Oh my god, why do people always ask me for help with the social aspect of stuff? Do readers not pick up on the fact that I’m a mega nerd who writes about k-pop all day? I’m not any better than you at this, I promise. I can kind of ‘force’ sociable behaviour out of myself though, but it’s not pleasant and I can’t sustain it for long. I guess perhaps just focus on the researching part when you’re there, which is the bit that you love, and try to get deep into that so you don’t have socialise as much. I dunno. I’m sorry, this question is too tough for me. You did well with the academic heirarchy names though, I wouldn’t have guessed you’re not an English speaker. The amount of people who write to me with disclaimers about their English usage and end up with killer English skills better than native English speakers, is… a lot. But yeah, I think just try to attack it with an open mind, sure it might suck, but hey you might meet cool new friends and stuff. Or maybe not, but that’s what someone more sociable than me would probably say in answer to this question, so I think try that and see how you go. I guess a metaphor for me would be that I play in bands which requires interacting with people, so I do the amount of interaction that’s required but I don’t do any more than I have to unless that’s also required. In any even you’ve got nothing to lose and the worst thing that can happen is you’ll be a bit miserable which is fine really because it’s only temporary, it will pass. You might just have to roll with the punches a bit. I’m sorry this is really bad advice, perhaps people can help me out in the comments below.
Since you really ate with that roundup, I decided to let ChatGPT translate some questions of your previous Qrimole episode in TikTok lingo and answer them in TikTok lingo as well. From the 5th one onwards (also the 1st question), I also asked to add some gay lingo as well for maximum “ate” effect.
[stuff deleted for the continued sanity of all readers]
This was the most horrible thing that I’ve ever read and it wasn’t even a question so I’m not going to fill QRIMOLE with it. I guess I don’t need to paste it in here as with your guide above anyone could just generate the same in ChatGPT. Also the emojis broke my website. Since it’s not a question, JAV of the month for April 2024 is HSODA-012.
i tried a kpop idol diet (just for funsies, not because of eating disorder reasons), and i fainted by the 3rd day. it’s really tough and it was so hard finding the energy to get out of bed and do anything productive with my day
Yes it would suck. Also not a question so bonus JAV is LULU-283.
What do you think about Ktubers who are negative for the sake for views?
They should reflect and learn from my POSITIVE posts. There’s no negativity in this house! I don’t care if it means less web traffic for me, I will not succumb to negativity!
1. How would you respond to someone who calls a kpop group “sluts,” then deflects your arguments of why sluttery isn’t necessarily bad by saying, “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with sluts, I just don’t like them.”
Perhaps I did look too deep into it and they just in fact, do not like sluts. But I just can’t wrap my head around…why?
I would get it if they were an ultra-conservative religious zealot, but they aren’t, they ogle female idols and listen to explicit rap music all the time. So I’m just wondering how this contradictory mindset can exist.2. (* Please delete this part from Qrimole as it’s a bit more personal lol, sorry, i know you kinda dislike hiding potential experiences people can learn from)
[stuff redacted at reader request]
Thanks for listening.
Yes, I’m actually bummed that I couldn’t include your quite nuanced take on the individual but I still deleted it because I am a respectful caonima.
My knee-jerk response to someone saying “k-pop girls are sluts” around me would probably be “well, they probably wouldn’t fuck you, even if you DID pay!”
If you want to continue the friendship, it’s worth trying to get inside there and seeing if you can actually talk out those kind of values. Okay so you don’t like sluts – why? You sure spend a lot of time looking at them. So what’s the problem, would you prefer if all women dressed like nuns and you couldn’t look at them? If not, then what’s the actual problem? Keep pushing until you get an answer. Then go deeper, and deeper. Not to berate, but to understand. He’s obviously got reasons for feeling like he does, and I’m sure they’re completely shitty reasons that make no logical sense but it’s worth at least exploring what’s behind it, and just listening. That black guy who turned all the KKK people off racism did it by just asking questions and listening, and through that process he didn’t even have to berate them, they just started to realise on their own how stupid their ideology was, that they had been sold a bunch of lies.
Any fashion trends (current or past ones, doesn’t matter) you find fucking stupid/ugly/impractical? (For me one of the most ridiculous ones is the gigantic 18th century panniers. Google “sophia magdalena wedding dress” if you’d like to see something hideous)
I see your “sophia magdalena wedding dress” and I raise you one “70s men’s knitwear”.
OPPAR!!! Just found one of my favorite female artists has said some insanely misogynistic things. I’m not going to say who lest her fanbase descends on you like vultures. I don’t do parasocial relationships (I hate digging into celebrities’ private life, political statements and controversies) but that disappointed me, considering she broke down many barriers for women in the music industry and helped male critics see women’s art as important, crap like that. I would give absolutely ZERO fucks if she was dead, but she’s not. How do I get over this? Should I continue buying and streaming her music? I’m afraid she could be using the money she’s made from her music to support crappy policies for women and other vulnerable classes (please don’t make fun of me for this – I know the measly sums she’s received from me basically amount to nothing, but it’s a really important issue to me). I need your insight, you crazy Aussie cunt
Search hard enough and you can find problematic behaviour with everyone (especially me). I don’t think I 100% agree with the opinions of a single artist I listen to. Hell, I don’t 100% agree on everything even with a single person I know personally, let alone taking strangers who make music into account! If you’re looking for that person you see completely eye-to-eye without about everything, they don’t exist so stop looking, the best you’ll ever do is “close enough, except for these one or two things where I totally disagree”. The question then becomes where do you draw the line at “enough” and that’s up to you but generally speaking music that is successful is not made by good people who tick all the clean living ideologically correct boxes because you have to do a few deals with the devil just to get in front of any significant audience at all, so if a few bad statements bother you, you might as well get every single piece of music you’ve ever listened to and fucking burn it. That holds especially true for k-pop where it’s mainly put out there by corporations with some pretty shady backstories that we all know about and which it doesn’t take that much digging to uncover. It always amazes me how k-pop attracts so many fans (this is not directed at you btw, just a general comment) who are obsessed with the idea of their faves having the correct political opinions when the entire scene is one giant child torture circus, and this is widely known and just kind of hand-waved away. If you were really putting your money where your morals are you’d be into something else, period.
Not one but two Eurovision questions in April’s Qri Mole and somehow none of them mention the fact that the contest has been embroiled in a MASSIVE, and I really do mean massive controversy worldwide for actively allowing “israel”‘s participation (they rightfully banned Russia from the competition as soon as they invaded Ukraine but they have a double standard when it’s brown people dying, also literal MPs have been asking them to drop pissrael and they still refuse) lmao that’s the average Eurofan for you I guess. They’re aaaall like that too and I really fucking despise them and their little racist competition because, while the music can be good sometimes, the fans have even less critical analysis than a kpop company stan and they refuse to admit that Eurovision is a (cringe) display of white supremacy and european exceptionalism.
Another thing that really surprised me was the islamophobia and… general veiled hate, displeasure and snarkiness against Arab people and even singers of Arab descent who participate in the competition, unless they’re fully naturalized and don’t dare to flaunt their heritage. A Canadian-Moroccan singer revealed she was told to dye her hair blonde to “look less Arab” and general behind the scenes mistreatment from her team and the comments online across several platforms were so incredibly dismissive and victim blaming it took me off guard. I know Europe is a racist shithole but it didn’t quite sink in until I started following eurofans on twitter.
Oh yeah also it seems that quite a lot of singers who participate suffer a lot to the point it’s common for many to quit their careers or fall into a crisis afterwards, especially if they get bad rankings. Reminds me of some music shows in certain Asian countries, but I digress.
I have a couple of questions, related to Europission of course:
1. What do people around you think of the competition? is it seen a kitschy joke or just a regular tv show that you put on the background/don’t even bother watching?
2. I might be a bit biased against it because I was born in a country formerly colonized and enslaved by one of the many former colonial powers that participate in the competition, but do people in Australia notice the supremacist undertones and general cynicism of the competition too (sending token gay/racialized singers to pretend there’s no racism and homophobia in Europe) and does it have an influence on how they see the competition? from what you’ve written before, Australians seem to be very cynical when it comes to Europe/the UK and their former colonial power.
- Some people I know really like it and watch it religiously, and I think it’s pretty big among the gay community here, but it’s more of a cult following overall rather than a mainstream one, it’s not like EVERYONE watches it and talks about it constantly all the goddamn time, like they do here with the fucking sportball, they might talk about it once when it airs on TV and then they’ll forget about it for the rest of the year and just talk sport sport fucking sport zzzz… people are all aware of the competition but mostly clueless about any drama around it.
- I think that sort of stuff flies under the radar of nearly everyone here except probably the more educated and online young people. Most Australians wouldn’t even know the half of what goes on in Europe, what homophobia is like there, etc unless they have relatives from those countries giving them intel. I wouldn’t say there’s NO awareness but it would be a minority of people here who you could even talk to about such things, the big European issues are news here but most stuff isn’t. If you bring up Eurovision, in any context good or bad, around Australians, the likely response from most people here who aren’t actually FROM Europe would probably be something like “yeah I saw that once, pretty weird hey, hey did you see the sportball last week…” Oh and never mind Israel being in it or not, most Australians are still getting their heads around the concept that WE are somehow allowed in it, like, what the fuck… while I guess we’re grateful that someone gives a shit, that decision still makes NO sense to us…
Kpopalypse-oppa hello! I hope you, your girlfriend and your kitty-cat are well and eating all the tasty food you can.
i’ve been meaning to go back to drawing after a looong time of leaving my art supplies -and skills- to rot. It’s proven so hard to start again, though. I drew a chibi in Christmas and wanted to die because of all the lines it took to make it presentable. I dread seeing how shitty my art looks, to start from the basics again and then reach a level where I’m comfortable to publicly show my art. Especially since I failed to take the leap some years back, to put it up on the internet and attempt to make some money, I don’t know whether there’s a chance I’ll even succeed. I feel I just end up piling pressure on me, falling short to my own expectations, so I end up doing nothing. I wonder whether I’ll ever be enough.
I know there’s the onld “just do it” but you may have met through your work and hobbies people in similar situations who overcame their (not so) bullshit inhabitions and created what they wanted. So I’d appreciate your thoughts on this. Thank you kpopalyspe oppa, hopefully you’ll see this very last minute question.
Btw, I wasn’t casted as an extra in that religious series. Damn.
You just have to allow yourself to be shit until you get better. That’s what I’ve learned with stuff. Probably best example for me is gym. Now, I go a lot but I’m no Wonho, that’s for sure. I’m usually the weakest, least-built person there because I go during off hours when only the hardcore gym junkies are there because I don’t like being around a lot of people. I’ve been working out since 2020 and if I compare myself to literally anyone else in the gym with me, I suck, but if I compare myself now to myself in 2020 – damn I’ve come a long way. Sometimes I have to take a step backward because of health, for instance I had to stop all upper body workouts for a month recently due to some shoulder issues, and then gradually ease back into it, so that can be frustrating, and then I had to stop legs recently because I fucked my tendons a bit by going too hard on the leg press, and then I gotta get back into that… turns out when you’re an old cunt you can’t just gym like a 20 year old without consequences, who knew… but I’m still ahead of the starting line. You just gotta keep moving forward and try to do a bit better today than yesterday.
BOOK RELATED QUESTIONS (NOT JUST MY OWN)
I’ve just finished reading Love Carousel and I was wondering if you’re planning to share details about Hana’s family background in future books?
Hana is the narrator and Hana only reports on what Hana wants to report on. That’s why you get only very sketchy details about her family and certain other things she doesn’t care about much, but you get a lot more details on things that interest her more, like what certain other group members are wearing at certain times. Short answer to your question is ‘yes’ though, there will be a little more family stuff in book four, but only where it’s relevant to Hana herself…
Hello! I wanted to alert you to a kpop romance novel. Here is the summary:
““This could very well be the first great K-Pop literary phenomenon.” —Debutiful, Most Anticipated Books of 2024
Perfect for fans of Mouth to Mouth and Black Buck, this whip-smart, darkly funny, and biting debut follows a psychologist with a savior complex who offers shelter to a recently cancelled K-pop idol on the run.
Sang Duri is the eldest member and “visual” of a Korean boy band at the apex of global superstardom. But when his latest solo single accidentally leads to controversy, he’s abruptly cancelled.
To spare the band from fallout with obsessive fans and overbearing management, Duri disappears from the public eye by hiding out in the McMansion of a Chinese American woman he meets in a Los Angeles H-Mart. But his rescuer is both unhappily married with children and a psychologist with a savior complex, a combination that makes their potential union both seductive and incredibly problematic.
Meanwhile, Duri’s cancellation catapults not only a series of repressed memories from his music producer’s earlier years about the original girl group whose tragic disbanding preceded his current success, but also a spiral of violent interactions that culminates in an award show event with reverberations that forever change the fates of both the band members and the music industry.
In its indicting portrayal of mental health and public obsession, fandom, and cancel culture, The Band considers the many ways in which love and celebrity can devolve into something far more sinister when their demands are unmet.”
in truth i’m hoping you will read this so we don’t have to, but in either case i thank you for your time!
Ouch, those prices! $13 USD for an e-book is… a lot! And $27 USD for a physical copy, you could buy all of my e-books for that including the one that isn’t out yet! I read the free preview on Amazon anyway and… I found it tough going. I think it’s written from the psychologist’s point of view which would explain why the writing is so ponderous and full of oddities like footnotes and weird asides and such. A clever idea to do it from that perspective for sure and it’s written convincingly (I’m too uneducated to write from that perspective, the author is smarter than I am), but it doesn’t make it any less difficult to sit through a fictional psychologist’s ramblings on k-pop… but I see the idea having potential to develop well. I’d actually love to read it sometime just to do a review of it. I’ve reached out to her so we’ll see!
Hi, hyung! Hope you’re doing very well. In the last qrimole, you talked a bit about humour at the end, and I may be wrong, but that didn’t feel like a wisdom you always knew. Lately I’ve been trying to do better for me on some life aspects (like better sleep schedule and reading books), and it’s been working, but I think I still fail at being less uptight. In case you learned to add humour to your day to day life, do you have any tips? Also, do you recommend some books or writers?
I’ve known it for a long time! Certainly as long as I’ve had this site. I actually learned to add humour in my life in kind of a bad way, I was bullied pretty relentlessly in school and I found out that if I could make people laugh it would sometimes get me out of situations where I’d get my ass kicked. To this day my knee-jerk reaction to even the most horrendous violence (including when people are doing violence TO me) is to laugh and that’s probably my survival humour thing kicking in. So my tip is – get bullied at school. But really, don’t, because it’s not much fun and it kind of screws with your brain and I’m sure there’s easier ways to develop a sense of humour, I just don’t know what they are. I think American Psycho is a hilarious book, and you should check that out (the film adaptation is excellent too, correctly understanding the book as a satire rather than a horror), that’s very much my kind of humour. I used to read a fair bit when I was young and I grew up with stuff like Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, that sort of humour, but I’m not sure how much of that has stayed with me, perhaps the absurdity of some of it did.
BEST QUESTION
are you a furry
No.
However I probably saw furry content before any of you did, because back in the 90s I had an Amiga and the (extremely softcore but still disturbingly furryish) webcomic “Sabrina Online” was widely circulated among the Amiga pirate gaming community when it first came out back then (for some fucked up reason). No, I could not bring myself to even attempt to fap to a fox or whatever the fuck Sabrina was supposed to be and I had no idea at the time why people would even make a comic like that but with foxes or ferrets or whatever the fucking fuck (I didn’t find out that ‘furries’ were a thing until decades later).
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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