It’s time for QRIMOLE, the series where readers ask Kpopalypse questions! Let’s take a look at the mailbag for the last month!
It’s April 3rd where I am and I’m about 1/4 of the way through Girls909. It’s really reeling me in! So consider this an endorsement. I feel like every time I take a break from kpop I’m like “ahhh, so relaxed,” then you drop Qrimole or surveys or crazy high-effort posts/books and my life gets taken over by kpop again for like, a week. (Usually the posts make me check out songs, which then make me learn dance/singing/instruments again, put together playlists, listen to other musical influences, etc.) Not sure if this boom-bust hobby is the best one I could have, since I literally have a client saying their mental health would be improved if they could take a break from kpop…
Regardless, I was wondering parasocially if you ever share crazy news stories or in-jokes from the kpop world with your girlfriend. I know she’s not interested in the music, but do you show her things like “the fucking dick goes in the pussy” or explain caonima or force-rolling? I feel like there’s such a dense tapestry of in-jokes that it would wind up popping up in your head in daily life. Or do you have your own collection of in-jokes about other topics with people you know in real life? (PS: I got only one bonus question wrong on the Kpopalypse trivia quiz, I will be contacting you for product placement shortly)
I don’t really meme about k-pop with people I know, because each meme would require about ten minutes of explaining and backstory. Just the “how the hell did you even get into k-pop” questions I get alone are exhausting enough (which is why I made a video response that I could link to anyone asking me about that) so then adding on to that explaining of the origins of “caonima” etc is just too-hard-basket.
Rather than a constant cycle of boom/bust maybe you should just trying being a casual but distant fan. That’s pretty much what I do. I don’t spend every second of my life immersed in k-pop, there isn’t the time and I have my fingers in many other pies. I just interact with it to the extent that it enhances my life and creativity and that’s about where it ends.
As might know, Zara Larsson is the pop sensation of the year so far. What you may not know, since you’re not Zaralarssoncalypse, is that this success came after 10 years since her debut. She’s had multiple hits in her career, especially in Europe, but she was what Western pop fans call a “faceless singer”: people know the songs, but have no idea/don’t care about who’s singing.
Zara never denied she wanted to be a huge star, but she lacked vision (something she herself admits now): she always described all her albums as a “collection of good pop songs” and would just follow the trends to chase a hit. After a while people just stopped paying attention, so for this new album she had to work on a lower budget, so she worked only with a team of roughly five people. The album wasn’t perfect or anything, but it was more cohesive and even explored personal themes like aging and failing to achieve your dreams. The music videos were also more connected conceptually, you can even tell all the three singles belong to the one same album, which can’t be said about any of her previous albums.
Even though it did lower numbers initially, Zara claimed she was more proud of this album than the previous ones because she had a vision this time and turned it real. The fans’ reaction was also more positive and she started to go viral frequently online until the songs eventually became hits.
How all of this relates to k-pop, you may ask. Well, Zara is a living proof that pop fans now want some sort of consistency from their favorite artists. They might like you and listen to your songs, but they won’t grow attached to you if your music is all over place. Yet, and I don’t know if you’ll agree with me on this one, I have the impression that K-pop groups have been jumping from one sound to another too frequently now, more than ever before.
And yeah, I know that concept changes are nothing new in k-pop, but up until a few years ago, most K-Pop groups had a “core concept” of sorts, like, you knew more or less what to expect from an Orange Caramel comeback, from a 2NE1 comeback, from an AOA comeback, from a GFriend comeback, from a Twice comeback and so on… The one big concept switch-up used to come years later into their career after the fandom was already attached enough to just embrace whatever.
Nowadays you can barely guess what your favorite group will release next. Like, what can I even expect from Le Sserafim at this point? They already went from hip-hop to afrobeats to house to whatever the fuck “Spaghetti” was supposed to be. The same can be said about TXT, or Babymonster, or Izna, or even Young Posse or pretty much anyone who’s not tripleS and Illit. I know you might say “they’re looking for a hit”, but I think it’s not only that. For example, aespa had two huge hits with “Supernova” and “Whiplash” in 2024, but in 2025 they went for a completely different sound. Why is that so? Is there something I’m missing here? I mean, if you got everyone liking that one electropop, why not release more electropop songs?
In k-pop, the music is not the product. When sonic consistency therefore happens, it tend to happen accidentally for the most part, just by circumstance. It’s usually because the same songwriters are being used repeatedly, and they just happen to write similar songs. 2NE1 used the same in-house writers for most songs, and they came out similar just because songwriter/producers tend to develop a certain style. But it probably wasn’t a case of “we are aiming this group to have signature sound x” but more likely “just write the best, trendiest hit you can and keep doing that tysm” so they keep trying to replicate their success. That’s why late 2NE1 and early Blackpink sound similar, as YG himself said at the time Blackpink debuted “it’s not Blackpink’s sound, it’s YG’s sound”. It’s highly unlikely that anyone sat down with AOA songwriters in a planning meeting and said “right, let’s define a signature sound for this group”. It’s far more likely that Bravesound became hot in the marketplace and AOA’s company thought to themselves “gosh we want hits, so we can make our group big and then get the REAL money from endorsements and sponsorships, these Bravesound guys are proven to be able to write hits, let’s hire them and then we’ve got the reliable platform we need to then do the other stuff”.
That’s not to say there aren’t also conceptual elements at play with some groups. Orange Caramel were deliberately positioned as kind of a female girl-pop answer to Norazo, for instance. But those conceptual elements are always secondary to the main game, and companies will just reach for whatever they think works. Part of what I hope that my writing acheives is that it points out to people at these agencies (who do read this site, see below) that sonic consistency and quality is something listeners appreciate and would like to see more of, even if it’s not their main game.
The Jimin live singing videos amaze me, because while he certainly can’t hold a note, there’s a clear style that’s almost pleasant to listen to if you imagine the notes in. Is that modulation of accessing different parts of the larynx…? Is it dynamics control…? Can you have good control of these things and just not care about hitting the notes, or are the skills intertwined or even prerequisites of each other (like with instruments, how learning the bare-bone notes come before learning dynamics control)?
I think you just like the tone of his voice. That’s totally fine. I highly doubt Jimin is doing anything in particular consciously to create that tone, other than singing what he’s told to sing, the way he’s told to sing it.
Is having 2 monitors directly to the left and right of the drummer, at shoulder level, a normal monitor setup? I feel like I’ve never seen it before.
Also, can stage monitors play things like clicks and stage manager cues the way IEMs can (without the audience hearing), or are they usually similar to PA with some levels tweaked?
It’s unusual – if a drummer is choosing to use wedges instead of in-ears, usually only one wedge monitor would be used. They might have done two because they had a spare, or it may have been a requirement in the tech sheet for this particular act. It could be that he has two different mixes in the two different monitors, to mirror the stereo field of the stage (guitar on his left, bass on his right), just because that’s the way he prefers it. Personally I’d rather not have to check the extra wedge into load-in but whatever.
While it’s absolutely possible to play clicks or stage monitor cues through wedges like that, it wouldn’t be done simply because to play them loud enough for those things to be heard by the actual drummer while he’s smacking his kit, they would also be loud enough to be picked up by the microphones on that drum kit, and therefore would work their way into the front of house mix, which is definitely not what you want! A little bit of bleed-through is fine if it’s just an instrument or vocal coming through the wedges, but not if it’s click or some instructions from a running sheet, something that’s obviously not supposed to be anywhere in the final mix. Click tracks and stage cues are generally played through in-ears only.
the iu good day high note are ascending semitones but to are there any >2 step high notes that have kinda wide intervals (ignoring that this is musically a little absurd)? i can only think of the berrygood angel one, but thirds are obviously not very wide.
The closest thing I can think of is the chorus of “Golden” from the Kpop Dmon Hunters soundtrack.
But even here the wide intervals are tempered by various passing notes and smoother sections, it’s not a constant oscillation. Constant wide-interval singing for high-notes generally isn’t done, because it just doesn’t sound all that musical in most contexts. There is one 80s pop song example that springs to mind but I can’t remember the name of the song so you’ll just have to take my word for it that this generally almost never happens.
is he in denial over his identity? [link about someone swooning over anthropomorphic animals in the Super Mario Galaxy movie] do you think he’s in the furry closet and actually wants to fuck the fox guy?
Sounds to me like if he wasn’t a furry before he watched that film, he certainly was afterward.
do you find his arguments [more of the same] to be compelling at all?
I couldn’t even read. Someone should give this writer a private booth, a copy of this film and a tissue box and leave the rest of us out of it.
Ayo cunt i wanna give you some insight on why the millionaires are lumped in with the crunkcore groups. I know about this because my sister was scene/emo when I was little and I’m interested in the scene/emo revival.
It’s because you’re thinking about it backwards. The millionaires aren’t crunkcore, crunkcore is scene and the millionaires are scene. It’s like goth right? 45 grave and dead can dance are both goth bands but they’re not musically that similar. That’s because of their deathrock and etherealwave respectively. Which are both under the goth umbrella.
I don’t blame you for not getting this because what qualifies as “scene” is even more nebulous than most subcultures. Especially with all the overlap with emo. It’s one of those “you had to be there” things and I was only tangentially there. Crunkcore is a mashup of metal and the electropop/hiphop styles of the time right? The thing that the kids are calling ‘recession pop” now? (stupid name but music journos are gonna music journo) The Millionaires are just a grimier underground version of like Kesha or something. That’s how it connects.
You can look at the subgenres on this page
Thanks for this explanation, it was surprisingly helpful and this actually makes total sense to me!
I’ve noticed that can’t seem to get over having bias against who delivers the news to you. If a source gives the matter of fact of a current affair, what difference does it make? Eg a place like Daily Mail, Sky News AU, might get a scope on an event. If they’re the source then they’re the source.
Like the Pirat_Nation Twitter account, it’s just a news aggregate. So what if occasionally they post non-gaming, tech, entertainment news with a USA right wing slant? Popbase Twitter account occasionally post non-pop music or entertainment news with a USA left wing slant, would you keep the same energy and call them out?
Oh I absolutely would not trust PopBase as far as I could throw them. I also don’t wildly trust, for example, The Guardian. But that’s generally not what I’m getting linked. For some reason I always get linked the accounts that also have a hard-on for boosting extreme-right culture-war talking points, so that’s what I notice. I hate culture war bullshit, it’s all so fucking boring and it rots people’s brains because it gets them thinking inside dumb boxes that don’t exist in reality. That’s not to say people can’t follow these accounts, just be aware of the bias that exists when you read their content, because often these outlets frame what they’re talking about in very dishonest ways that pander to those biases, or that are designed to get you thinking along certain lines that benefit their own culture-war agenda.
i noticed that when Rolling Quartz drop MV there’s usually lots of long, lingering shots on their drummer. why do you think this is?
is she seen as the “face of the group”, so they focus on her? are they trying to attract gooners to become fans?
It’s because she is attractive. But it’s also because of something else.
Rolling Quartz straddle a line between an “idol group” and a “rock group”, they do this by having a rock band sound but a presentation standard that is more akin to what idol groups do. The standard visual editing for a rock group music video is majority focus on the singer when singing, majority focus on the instrumentalists during non-singing sections. The standard for idol groups is a little different – effort is made to focus on each member more or less equally, in order to make sure fans of each specific member aren’t disappointed with lack of camera time (granted, there are exceptions, but that’s how it goes most of the time). Rolling Quartz follows this idol-style format with their video editing, so that’s why it’s noticed when instrumentalists get more shine. Also not only does the drummer get a lot of screen time of just herself, but she’s in the background when the camera focuses on other members, just due to being at the back of the stage. So it does feel like the drummer gets the majority of the screentime but actually it’s about even. Unusual for a rock group but if Rolling Quartz were i-dle or IVE or something you would barely notice this.
I don’t think groups care whether fans are gooners or not. Bands/groups of performers just want fans in general, any way they can get them, and will get them any way that works. Same goes for anybody in any creative realm. As long as you’re not exhibiting genuine stalker-type tendencies that go beyond mere fapping, it’s fine. The desire to share your creative output in a way that is sustainable far outweighs any concerns about consumption. I personally couldn’t give a shit if people goon to my livestreams or my writing in general as long as they’re happy readers who keep reading my stuff. I’m just grateful for the support. You have my permission to goon.
Can you explain why this happens? Ancient songs seemingly randomly get uploaded to big kpop Youtube channels one day.
I think Genie Music is some sort of publisher or distributor. Is it a case of somebody buying an old music catalogue of some defunct agency or whatever and then trying to monetise it?
Things like this happen for exactly the reasons you might think: because a rights agreement expired and/or an agency sold the rights to another company.
[link about Dayoung not wanting to do physical albums because of it potentially not being popular]
having all the physical albums made would’ve just been added to her debt by the agency?
good business sense. the solo comeback couldn’t have been cheap and would’ve been entirely a gamble by the agency, considering that she had been “in the dungeon” and thus out of the public eye for years at the point.
There are a lot of nightmares with physical product and yes it does cost more to manufacture. Not that artists tend to make a high quantity of physicals anyway unless they are huge, they tend to be ‘collectors’ items with limited production runs aimed at the superfans. But it’s a lot of headfucks. These days Amazon handles my physical book manufacture and that’s a pretty seamless process but it does cost more, hence why the paperbacks are much higher priced than the ebooks. But back in the days when I was releasing music on CD before the days of online distribution and directing every step of the process myself, just the amount of pain in the ass that goes into a simple CD and accompanying jewel case foldout was huge. It would be tripled for these companies making collectors box sets with fancy packaging and all trying to stand out from each other. An expense and hassle artists taking a risk could do without.
If you were a hardcore Korean weeb, would you opt to play/watch Korean made games/animated TV+film with an anime art style with using the Japanese dub?
I read this question to myself about ten times and I’m still not sure if I understand it. I think you’re asking “would I watch Korean content with Japanese audio if I was a Japan fetishist” and if so I guess the answer might be “maybe, if I wanted to practice my language skills”? Beyond that, I don’t know. It feels like asking “if you were a bird, would you find worms tasty” and the answer is “I’m not a bird, so how would I know”.
Hey, oppa! I wanted to ask you a few questions. I know you’ve been producing K-pop content for a LONG time and have never run out of ideas (I think), because you have some specific types of posts that you can reuse as many times as you want (nugu alert, roundup, positive posts, qrimole, etc.) Did these ideas come about throughout the blog? Because I also produce K-pop content, but I have absolutely no idea what to talk about. I love writing, giving my opinion, etc., but I want to make posts that don’t fall into the same old routine that other people do (album reviews that I find a drag to read and write, talking about K-pop news, etc.) In short, where did the ideas for your posts come from?
Origin of Nugu Alert explained here.
Origin of roundup explained here.
Origin of QRIMOLE explained here.
Origin of POSITIVE posts explained here.
As you can see a lot of these ideas evolved “organically”, I didn’t exactly have a master plan or anything, I just wrote what seemed to make sense for the time. There’s similar origin stories for my computer games, books, various other posts etc. I think the common thread is that I’m the one doing it and I have a very specific point of view that I want to get across that unifies all the content types, they’re all different ways of exploring the same ideas and concepts. So if you want to write on a website (don’t do it, by the way, websites are dead in 2026, but if you must pursue this pointless soul-crushing path anyway) then start with the idea. What do you actually want to get across. The idea is king, the content flows from the idea.
do you think he just plays up the “mythos” surrounding him for branding and/or advertising? eg rarely cleaning his room or hiring a maid.
Yes. I think it’s much the same as how I play up to the idea that I’m basically a perverted asshole with no morals. I don’t actually spend all that much time gooning to your faves, but it’s much more interesting to have something like “he’s a slob” or “he’s a pervert” as your brand as opposed to some high-pedestal stuff that is boring plus impossible to actually live up to. Everyone loves their villains. “The immoral rights of the author have been asserted”!
i think it’s been years since i last saw one of his songs in round-up. did you stop covering him or he has just not released any music in years?
Just haven’t seen anything of his in a while. Given that he’s writing a memoir, that makes me feel maybe he’s at least semi-retired from music now? If I start writing a fucking memoir that means I’ve got one foot in the grave probably. Not that I would foist my life story onto people, what a boring-ass read that would be, I’m much better off with the “fiction” stories.
why can’t you identify australian regional dialects?
No idea. Undiagnosed autism/ADD perhaps? Or maybe I just never gave enough of a fuck to even notice them? I didn’t even know Australians had regional dialects until I started writing for this website and people told me about it (class dialects yes, regional no). I mean, everywhere else in the world does so of course Australia would have them too, I just never really thought about it. Too busy thinking about your bias’ boob size I guess.
Would any K-Pop group’s song actually reflect well against an Oldboy-inspired backdrop? That movie is defined by a level of rawness that the hyper-manufactured perfectionist corporatism of K-Pop could and would never match.
As a theme it’s been done long before BTS did it. IU paved the way.
Mind you I don’t think anyone is really trying to copy Oldboy right down to the film’s themes and messaging. It’s surface dressing only. It’s used just because Oldboy is an iconic Korean film and by referencing it, performers can hopefully position themselves as similarly iconic. But nobody is trying to recapture the “spirit” of Oldboy in any meaningful way. It’s just cosplay.
When is a remix better than the original, and what elements are relatively common in successful remixes?
Almost never happens. I guess when it does happen, it’s because the remixer thought up some bizarre angle that didn’t exist in the original song that expands it somehow. But usually (as in over 99.9% of the time) that’s not the case and the remix is just blandly throwing over the top of the original song whatever the latest crappy bullshit trending sound is this week. I can’t think of even a single decent example of a good remix off the top of my head.
Is BTS 2.0 them testing how far they can push their fanbase after years of hiatus from military service? It seems like the perfect loyalty test: if they’ll accept this trash, they’ll give money to HYBE for literally anything released with the BTS stamp on it.
Music is not the product. It’s especially not the product for a group like BTS. They could release anything, it really wouldn’t matter.
Thoughts? Does music industry do similar schemes and scams? (maybe “payola”? IDK.)
How companies try to trick investors by fudging the numbers:
Book publishers know how to game the New York Times Bestsellers list.
When you sub to Twitter premium you are really paying for Grok AI advanced features and the expanded Twitter perks are just a bonus. (Twitter was positioned as a subsidiary of X AI company, last I checked.)
When you’re subbing to MS Office 365 you’re really paying for Copilot AI advanced features and the Office 365 is just a bonus.
Disney sold dirt cheap subs to TV streaming service Hot Star in India. These were counted towards to global Disney Plus sub numbers.
TV streaming and game publishing companies don’t reveal actual viewing figures or sales figures. Eg Netflix will count person who saw even 1 min as a viewer. Prob MS Xbox Game Pass does the same. They’ll boast about “numbers of players” (or some other horseshit metrics like no or matches played, no of enemies killed), not actual game sales. Ppl playing on Game Pass are counted towards the figure.
Yeah sure. Happens in all sorts of fields. Statistics are always prone to manipulation through shifting goalposts and context and this is true in any industry or field from sales to warfare to politics to sport. None of this has anything in common with “payola” though, which is actually something completely different and not at all what most k-pop fans think it is.
“The older the fiddler, the sweeter the tune.”
Pope Paul VI
Head of the Roman Catholic Church 1963–1978This is a fallacy, right?
Eg “wisdom comes with age”. the amount of retarded elderly politicians who don’t know WTF they’re talking about regarding Internet and technology, eg when they try to ban encryption and VPNs.
Both things are a generalisation. There are some incredibly tech-savvy old people out there, I know people older than me who have coding knowledge that terrifies me. There are also lots of old people “left behind” by tech, because old brains not accustomed to the pace of change find it harder to learn new things, especially if they didn’t gradually introduce themselves to tech back when it first came in and are now playing catch-up. A lot of young people are really smart, and way smarter than today’s older people in power. A lot of young people are also REALLY fucking dumb, look how young men are being hoodwinked into supporting extreme right-wing political parties at the moment, parties that our parents (for whom overt fascism in the west is a less distant memory) would never have been fooled by. In general I’d suggest completely avoid paying attention to any generalisations about anything. Whether it’s true or false isn’t important, what’s more important is that you live your best life and make sure that decisions that affect yourself and those around you are well-informed and free of confirmation bias.
I don’t care much about Blackpink, but is it the first major group that dropped all pretenses K-Pop normally makes about music upon hitting it big and went straight into modeling? It is what people actually care about, how the idols look rather than the music. Do you think we’d see more groups like them, or is Blackpink unique in just how big they got so rapidly?
Blackpink were designed from the ground up to be “influencers” which was smart marketing on YG’s part, they realised what other big labels have also realised, that the music isn’t the product and what you’re really selling is the people, so that’s what they invested in and it paid off. I wouldn’t say the role of music vs image in Blackpink is drastically different to any other big k-pop group from the 2000s onward, just that they were better than others in leveraging image and social media to make the most of the formula.
How the fuck are you still here? This may be my ADHD talking, but I can’t imagine maintaining interest and effort in a niche pop genre for 14 goddamn years of content creation. Maybe that’s while I’ll never amount to anything. Food for thought. Anyway, the question stands: how the fuck are you still here?
I just take it one day, one week at a time. I think to myself “what would be cool to do, that’s in the scope of what I’m capable of/interested in” and then I go and do that. And then I do it again. Week after week. Eventually I look back and holy fuck I’ve been doing this for nearly a decade and a half. I don’t think about the big picture much though. It’s more important to just do what’s directly in front of me, at that moment.
Part of the reason why I’ve diversified my content into things like writing computer games, writing books, doing interviews I never thought I’d do, doing some videos recently etc is to keep things interesting for myself. Everything gets boring eventually, but if you have a lot of strings to your bow you can skip between them when one gets old. Who knows what will happen next?
What is your opinion / your or others’ lived experience of 50 / 50 relationships or marriages? Some women think it is fair if finances, but also housework, childcare, mental exertion etc are handled equally. Some say it just shows that the partner is a stingy ungenerous man who merely wants a convenient roommate or housesharing type arrangement. Some women say that if guys in general are into you, really care about you and have a large heart for you they’ll never make you feel like you have to go 50 – 50 and that it’s a major red flag. And that one should never settle for a 50 – 50 guy, that it’s better to be single in that case. Thoughts?
I do think relationships should be fair for both parties or one feels unduly exploited and will become resentful over time, but I don’t like “50/50” as a description either because it’s deceptive, it implies everything is divided exactly down the middle, whereas I think the best scenario is a bit more nuanced than that. When I moved in together with my partner (about a decade ago), we just had open and honest discussions about things we liked and hated the most, and we divided things in that manner in just a common sense way. In a healthy relationship you don’t go 50/50, instead you work out what’s your best case scenario and what the other person’s best case scenario is, and you look for a way to work it that suits both parties the best. That may mean at times you adopt traditional gender roles. Or perhaps it doesn’t and it works the non-traditional way better sometimes. Sometimes it may be unbalanced, but if it is and you care about the other person then you work out how to rebalance it. But don’t worry about that “society” shit, that’s just other people’s baggage – if you love your partner and also have self-respect you try to do what works best for you both, regardless of outside factors or what your friends/family some Internet rando thinks (including randos like me, btw).
I’ve been wondering for a while, but how did BTS succeed? Their dance routines are nothing special, and while song quality doesn’t matter, they’re nothing special there too. How did BTS come out on top among a sea of other proficient dancer but otherwise mediocre boy groups from no-name companies?
This question was put to AustralianSana (who was an actual OG BTS fan) in one of our podcasts and I think she nailed it (can’t find which one now but a caonmia who remembers feel free to comment below). But the short answer is – marketing that acknowledges the parasocial.
Hi Kpopalypse,
I want to ask about the production in this song
I heard this song few times and can’t shake the feeling that her singing style is too “breathy” I can’t hear the lyrics properly. Mixing (?)-wise, I find the instrumentals sounds too loud. My question, do you think the production here is fit to the singing style/voice, or do you think the song will be more listenable if we do something in the production?
Thank you!
Boring ass song for sure but nothing wrong with it from a production standpoint. It’s supposed to be a smooth kind of vibe so the vocals are sung that way to match. One of the true downsides of k-pop (and rap and R&B as well) is it makes listeners used to VERY “forward” vocals that are right up front and in your face but a lot of other styles aren’t really like that at all. Check out this great performance where the vocals, when they appear, are barely more than a whisper:
Here’s another group where the guitars are like a shadow under the drums, and the vocals another shadow under the guitar:
I generally like it when vocals take a back seat. There’s far too much focus on them in modern music.
Based on an ask from the last April QRIMOLE edition (?), can you explain more on the “If a guy believes that thinking of someone sexually is equivalent to “disrepect”, and that “true love” is somehow an opposite of sexuality, that is like the biggest red flag I can possibly imagine though, that’s literally training yourself to be a rapist.” thing. My stupid brain can only think of “so to disrespect a girl because she happened to upset him, he would… force himself onto her?”, but such thing felt… absurd, but then people are different so maybe such thinking did in fact may exist?
Sexuality is a normal part of a loving relationship. So if someone is separating the sexuality and the love, and treating them as completely different opposite things, that’s actually kind of psychotic. Religion sadly fuels a lot of that psychosis by equating sex with shame and calling pleasure sinful. Religion really is the number one thing that fucks up people’s attitudes to sexuality, nothing else comes close.
first of all why did i have ‘great sounds no song though’ in my head while listening to this does every caonima eventually get kpopalypse brain or what? second of all i was going to complain about the disclaimer at the end for being cowardly but then i found out that she did and is still getting shit for calling the song kgb because she’s ‘making light of the soviet union’ when the song clearly is drawing an uncomfortable parallels between how the kgb and pop starlet machine makes the people who want to be in it. so now the question is why do people consider any form of pop music that tackles any subject automatically making light of it or being frivolous about it just because it’s a pop song.
Because people are stupid. The film “Life Is Beautiful” got criticism for “making light” of the Holocaust, because it’s a comedy, but the truth is that adopting a lighter approach allows you to deal with heavier scenes. I put humour deliberately into the most intense scenes in my books for the same reason, I’m not “making light” of the events, I’m trying to sprinkle some light in so you can cope with the darkness. People are getting worse at reading subtext and dramatic intent these days… or maybe they’re not getting worse overall but those who are have a louder voice now, so these things get misconstrued easily. I’m sure the cancel culture will come for Girls909 at some point, read it while you can I guess!
this {a bunch of scientists in America dying suspiciously} reminds me of the stories of ppl who would invent alternative energy sources (i.e. not fossil fuels based) and meet mysterious accidents. your thoughts? just coincidences?
I wouldn’t know. I don’t like conspiracy bullshit because it leads to nonsense like Pizzagate which sounds more stupid the more you read about it but is actually shit that tons of dumb fucks around the world still believe. Back when I was young conspiracy theories were fun but these days they are not, it’s a toxic pipeline. It’s such a shame too because when stuff that really IS conspirational and messed up happens, it now gets written off, thrown into the same bucket as Alex Jones’ lizardmen and fake moon landings. Who knows, maybe there is something to it. Or maybe being a scientist is just really that fucking depressing, which would actually make sense in today’s age where people think it’s “enlightening” or “funny” or “cool” to deny science.
Hello Cunt
FIrst timer here for qrimole, and since in two qrimoles the fact that there are male idols that could very well be gay was mentioned I decided to share some information as well on that topic (and yes there will be a question at the end of this I promise)
So, a little background on how I came to know these things. Dor over ten years now I’ve been in contact with two people who work in the Kpop industry. I initially became internet friends with them because I met them playing games and we played well together so we stayed in contact and would play together from time to time (we had lag problems ofc but nothing to bad). I found out about their job over time and talked shop with them occasionally (and yes one of them confirmed to me with proof that he is who he says he is and he is really in that profession with actual proof, and as far as I’m concerned, I have no reason to doubt him). To be frank much of what they told me was already public knowledge (and they we mostly talked about what a manager’s job is) but i did find out some things that aren’t known or talked about much in the Kpop sphere.
On a little side note since you occasionally mention outside forces, I once told one of them about your blog, and joked about doing a Kpopalypse interview. Now why I am mentioning this, because apparently agencies are doing market research, in fact they put quite a lot of money into it and have been for some time. Companies either have inhouse teams for this or they outsource it but have been doing it for over 10 years now (think Hybe papers but professional, if that even is the correct term to use here, and yes these are openly available to agency employes, for the most part). Now initially they did this to see where they can expand Kpop to, checking if there is big enough interest to warrant the investment, and later to see who they can engage with for promotional purposes, you know who will give them that nice sanitized, scripted interview or fluff piece. So, when I was joking about doing a kpopalypse he pulled up a list of foreign blogs and sites and checked whether your blog is on it. Now i thought there is no way that is possible, but apparently, I was wrong.
You were on it, hell even AKF’s blog was on it (as of 5 years ago) and they clearly did not want to be associated with you guys in any way.Now about male idols, I was very much of the same opinion that yes, this profession attracts gay men, but so are the agencies because they do screen for this when selecting trainees, JYP and SM I know for a fact do. Now granted they do this quietly because while SKorea isn’t LGBT friendly to put it mildly, there are anti-discrimination laws in place even there, if for nothing else optics reasons, and if it got out that say Kpop agencies are rejecting trainees because of their sexuality, well it would be bad optics. Now mind you how they do this (they have people paying attention to “certain behaviors”) and how effective it is, is another story (not very effective in my opinion) but as far as their concerned, having a gay member in a boy group is too much of a liability because as it turns out the target demo for boy groups, teenage girls see a gay guy as a massive turnoff. And yes, we are talking about those very same teenage girls that make very explicit gay fanfics about members, ship them and get all giddy when they kiss each other on stage, but heaven forbid they find out oppa is actually into other guys.
As for my question, one thing i wanted to get your take on is the following, from what i know Kpop is still a niche in Korea, and very much so in the west. Yes, some songs break out of this niche and achieve widespread popularity, but other than that I don’t see it growing into this global phenomenon that the industry wants to make it into. (I know why they want to, mostly because they want to keep their share prices high to not annoy the national pension fund, but that’s a different discussion). So, the question is even with trying to appeal to western markets, especially with all the songs fully or mostly in English, even if they succeed in conquering the western market won’t they industry just end up making more western pop with a Korean veneer, and loose it’s entire unique identity, that set it apart from the western pop it tried to emulate? I guess what I’m asking Will it still be Kpop at that point? Because I got into Kpop BECAUSE it was different then the western slop, and honestly these days I find it hard like it because everything is in English and frankly getting more and more boring.
Sorry for the long text, and any errors regarding expressing myself (English is not my first language), if you’ve been asked this question many times before I am sorry to annoy you with it again and if you don’t wish to answer it that’s fine too, hope the other things I mentioned you found amusing/informative.
I know that the publicity machine tracks me because people employed by it (generally outsourced employees working as publicists etc) reach out to me sometimes. I get on their mailing lists for interviews and things like that, when they do the pitches to everyone on their mailing list I sometimes reply with “sure – if you dare” for some fun and then I have an honest conversation with them about what it is that I do and we usually have a good laugh about it and both acknowledge that there’s no way their gutless employers will ever go for it. The people doing this work are good people just doing their job, they generally know what’s up, and some of them would like to see more interviews done in the way that I do them… but yeah. Ain’t gonna happen. Only the bravest apply for Kpopalypse Interview.
LGBT idols, there are plenty of them and yes some bigger companies don’t want it made public because it interferes with the parasocial relationship and blah blah so it’s logical that they try to vet at the source to save the bother. A lot still get through. Sexuality is pretty easy to hide in an environment where you’re often not allowed to be publicly sexual anyway.
There’s always arguments that k-pop is losing its Korean identity and perhaps that’s true for the very top artists, but to even get to that AAA-tier level in the first place most groups need to pander to what the Korean audience wants on the way up. Western songwriters have been writing for the Korean audience for decades and they actually write slightly differently.
You can hear these producers talking about writing for k-pop, where they were given very specific instructions and specifically asked to focus more on melody than what they normally would for a western song, that’s a very Korean music trait. So while Korean pop sensibilities are arguably being diluted by the west, the opposite is also true… western production teams are being influenced by Korean tastes.
curious to hear your thoughts on itzy’s “8-bit heart”
So am I. Maybe I’ll do an Itzy album review one day.
