I thought it might be nice to reprint here as a nice introduction to my worldview and taste in k-pop. Enjoy. Or not. I’m pretty sure these weren’t the kind of answers the OP was fishing for.

1. Who was your first boy group? That I heard of – H.O.T. That I liked, SHINee.

2. Who was your first girl group? SNSD.

3. First song? That I heard, probably H.O.T – We Are The Future. That I liked, SNSD “Oh!”.

4. favorite girl group? T-ara.

5. Favorite boy group? SPEED, although BigBang is close behind.

6. Favorite song? T-ara – Roly Poly. The perfect k-pop song, structurally, melodically, production-wise. The benchmark for the entire genre.

7. first OTP? I had to Google this just to find out what it meant. One True Partnership? Are you people fucking kidding me? I don’t really do this shit… I mean, I’m an adult, I have actual partners, I don’t need a pretendy one…

8. Favorite OTP? see above

9. Kara or SNSD? SNSD are more consistent quality overall but I think a few select KARA tracks like “Wanna” are better than anything by SNSD. So I dunno, you choose.

10. Exo or BAP? Not familiar enough with EXO’s material to give an informed opinion.

11. SJ or Bigbang? BigBang just going on latest output, but SJ have some great earlier songs.

12. Bias from girl group? Raina from Orange Caramel, although if she’s not returning my calls I’ll settle for T-ara’s Eunjung.

13. Bias from guy group? I’m a heterosexual male but if I ever go gay I’d like to think I’d be into BigBang’s T.O.P. because he’s rather suave. Although knowing my luck if I turned gay tomorrow I’d be into some weedy little pipsqueak like G-Dragon. I guess you never know until you go.

14. Favorite SNSD song? Chocolate Love (I know f(x) also did it but SNSD’s is better).

15. Favorite Nu’est song? The one that isn’t a ballad but doesn’t have a needless dubstep drop shoehorned in at the 2-minute mark, how about that. Sorry, my memory is hazy on Nu’est.

16 Favorite BAP song? One Shot, although any song of theirs where they’re doing the heavy metal/rap influenced “look how badass we are” thing rather than the sappy One Direction-ish “we’re nice guys really” thing is good.

17. Dorkiest idol? maybe SNSD’s Seohyun. Dorky in a good way, like a librarian. I’d ask to see her reference section.

18. most underrated group? Crayon Pop by a wide margin – something genuinely different in a genre where most acts are the same. Of course they get hate, which just means they’re awesome.

19. Most mature idol? I don’t know what you mean by “mature” here so I’ll pass on this one.

20. best rapper? E.via (now Tymee) – a rare case in music where the technically best performer is also the most tolerable to listen to.

21. Best vocalist? 2NE1’s BOM! I know she can’t sing, but if we’re talking about “who I actually like to listen to” as opposed to “who can sing the best”, I’ll take Bom’s broken, stuttery, strained, jaw-flapping mess over the intolerable showoffy wank of the technically best singers in k-pop any day. Bom has basically no natural ability and sings with pain a lot due to her lymph node condition, but she DOES IT ANYWAY, BECAUSE FUCK IT, I’M GONNA BE A SINGER AND FUCK YOU and because of that her delivery has charisma and charm which is 100000 times more important than actually knowing what you’re doing – ideologically, she’s more punk-rock than anything in k-pop. Maximum respect.

22. best leader? T-ara’s Soyeon by such a wide margin that it’s not even funny. To lead T-ara through the crisis and hate that they had to continued commercial success shows true guts and, dare I say it, REAL determination (as opposed to what netizens think determination is in their wet power fantasies). She makes other k-pop “leaders” look like leaders in name only. She didn’t even give up the leadership role at the end of last year (which she could have easily done and was expected to do so – T-ara have rotating leadership and they usually swap it every 12 months) – clearly she’s keen to be certain the ship is sailing right before she lets go of the wheel. You can’t fuck with that integrity.

23. Best maknae? I don’t generally keep track of idol’s ages. T-ara’s Dani springs to mind. Any 13 year old girl getting hated on by cyberbullies before she’s even debuted but who refuses to give up or even acknowledge the hatred deserves respect. Imagine yourself at that age and every fuckhead in the world with a keyboard and an opinion thinks you’re shit, thinks you’re being raped by your CEO, or thinks you should debut in some nobody group instead of the extremely awesome group you’re going to debut in, wouldn’t it just make you want to load up an AK47 and pay a surprise visit to some Internet cafes, of course it would. Netizens should thank Dani daily for the fact that they are still breathing.

24. weirdest idol? I don’t know what you mean by “weird”. Most people who meet me think I’m weird so I’m not going to go around pointing fingers at someone I don’t even know. Idols do a job, they’re not actually like that, so if they have a weird image it’s just part of the job. You people all know that, right? I’m stating the obvious, right? Right?

25. Favorite variety show? Fuck variety shows, seriously. I hate how they underline the jokes with stupid captions and replayed footage because they seem to think their audience are all idiots who won’t understand the joke unless it’s shoved down their throat multiple times. Patronising trash made by morons, for morons. Fuck. All. Variety. Shows. (And before any of you fucking start, I think western TV is trash too. I don’t watch it, I don’t even have working TV reception where I live and although that situation would cost me about $10 to rectify, I can’t justify the expense, so I haven’t watched TV in my own home for about 11 years now).

26. Block B or BAP? Either/or. Both very good when they’re not doing ballads.

27. Zico or Bang Yongguk? Don’t care

28. Banghim or Kaisoo? I’m a thinking adult who is not mentally ill, so I don’t do this “ship” stuff. Although “banghim” has a nice ring to it, hahaha.

29. Banglo or Taoris? see above

30. DaeJae or HunHan? see above

31. Least favorite idol from girl group? Don’t have one, although I always get a few of the girls in SNSD mixed up and that annoys me, I wish they would dye their hair different colours for easier identification. Sunny had the right idea, but she’s one of the few who doesn’t actually need colour-coding because she’s easily identifiable by her short height, unique face and actual boobs.

32. least favorite idol from boy group? Don’t have one, some of SuJu come off badly in public statements sometimes but I don’t know them personally so I won’t judge, my experience in the music industry is enough to tell me that you can never judge any celeb by the dumb-ass public statements they make.

33. Favorite indie group? The word “indie” has no meaning when applied to any music scene, so I refuse to answer this question on moral/factual grounds. Often “indie” or “independent” artists refers to groups on major labels with mega budgets, and stylistically in terms of actual music it doesn’t mean anything either because an “indie” band can sound identical to something on any other label with technology these days, especially in ballad form. In the west all the big k-pop labels would qualify as “indie” labels because of their business structure which just goes to show you how meaningless the concept of “indie” is. So this question cannot be answered. All the groups that you think are “k-indie” are actually just k-pop groups with less choreography.

34. Least favorite boy group? 2AM. Boy group ballads are just not my thing so a group specialising in just that is obviously not interesting to me.

35. Least favorite girl group? Busker Busker. Don’t tell me they’re guys, I don’t believe you. No self-respecting man would make music like that. They’re so sleepy and dull that they make the last three Weezer albums sound relevant. It’s easy to see why ultra-conservative South Korea loves them, they’re so docile and non-threatening like a puppy with valium in its dog food.

36. Why do you like Kpop? The better k-pop is recapturing what was great about western pop in the 80s, the west has forgotten how to make good pop music since. Of course there’s a lot of crap in k-pop too, but same goes for any genre.