As expected, the 2017 favourites list and worst of 2017 list of Kpopalypse exploded in a colossal fountain of joy, confusion and cyber-butthurt.  However what did readers think was going to be on the list?  The following is all the results of the end-of-year survey!

The end-of-year survey is deliberately shorter because it’s only focused on the best and worst songs.  Some of you were confused by this and expected a longer survey.  The long surveys happen twice yearly, in March/April and again in September/October, and those will continue!  However there are sometimes shorter surveys in between such as this one. Anyway here’s the results!

Question 1: Hi! How are you? Answer in as much or as little detail as applicable.

Several caonimas did go into detail.  Here’s a small selection of some replies.

I’m shit.

There was an earthquake in my country. And some dumb religious people began to associate it with this LGBTIQXYZ thingy

A lot of people who did the survey said they didn’t feel great, but remember that if your country doesn’t have an earthquake that your religious leaders are trying to blame on too much gay sex disturbing the Earth’s tectonic plates, you’re probably not doing too badly in the grand scheme.

Not bad considering that I just had something shoved into my uterus. Actually pretty pain-free. This is my second IUD, and IMO the short amount of pain for the insertion is totally worth it for the effortless extremely effective five (now seven they are saying) years of being pretty damn sure I’m not pregnant. If your willing to give your readers advice from a stranger on the internet (but one who likes kpop!): if you are a person with a uterus who has sex with people who produce sperm I highly recommend getting an IUD. They are now fully covered in the US by insurance thanks to the ACA. Yes, the insertion hurts. (FWIW the removal is near painless.) But it is followed by years of not worrying about pregnancy and lighter (or no) periods. It’s pretty great.

Also readers may wish to, at their own risk and judgement, take note of this sex education advice.  Please note that Kpopalypse is not liable for any medical difficulties or pregnancy you may experience, nor can he take the credit for any years of worry-free sperm absorbtion that you may experience as a result of following this advice.

been thinking a lot about never getting into a relationship again since everyone i meet irl is kind of really full of shit. kinda blame my ever-increasing obsession with kpop idols and their unattainable, pr-packaged perfection, but hey, at least i’m self-aware now. though to be fair, people these days really are just cunts

also i study at a uni that i never wanted to go to but ended up in because of forceful parents, and now its making me hate my prospective major (because my uni is SHIT AT IT but my parents hold the uni name over the field of study). not sure what i should do. was planning on applying for exchange to fulfil all my major credits in an exchange institution (planning on doubling so at least i won’t like, die from boredom and hatred), but every time i think about studying in my uni, i literally just want to shoot a bullet through my foot. to put it shortly, my uni is making me hate my passion. that kind of sucks. but i’m pulling through.

i dunno? i’ve been having a lot of existential crises that sort of make me feel weird about life in general but these mostly pass without harm. its not really anyone’s business. the world’s just been getting messy recently. also by the time i graduate i won’t be able to buy a flat because rent over here is like over 4 times a uni graduate working salary. like im probably still a bit too young to be thinking about all these things but as a privileged first worlder, i have nothing bUT time to think about stupid useless shit like where to have lunch or what kind of bag i should bring on holiday. sometimes i think a lot about running away to tuscany to start a tomato farm.

in conclusion, i’ve been having an okay time. i think once you’ve moved past most of your teen angst, anything that counts as ‘bad’ happening to you just becomes a mildly irritating distraction towards the afterlife. not that i believe in an afterlife, but ykow. metaphors. looking forward to your best 30 songs of 2017! kpop quality really has been decreasing. i need some new music. i’ve been listening to the same song since september because i couldn’t find anything worth my time. it’s korean christian rap. i’m not a christian.

Actually people were always cunts.

Uni is temporary, I’d recommend pushing through, it’s okay to lose the passion for a bit while you’re actually at Uni because it will return once you finish and aren’t forced through it every damn day.

I cried myself to sleep last night but I’m good now I guess. If you want to know why it’s because of school troubles. I know boring. I’ll try to make it short but when I graduated high school years ago I went to this uni but dropped out after like 3 months lol. I took a year off and started working but after that year I decided to go back to school. I started up at a community college and started fresh. I actually did pretty well and finished my 2 year degree and fixed my fucked up gpa. Well now, I transferred to a 4 year uni to get my bachelor’s degree. Everything was going well until yesterday when I get a letter that says I lied about my college history. Basically when I applied to my current 4 year uni I didn’t think I needed to send my transcript from the first uni I dropped out of. I just sent my new school the transcript from my community college. My current uni caught it and apparently doing so is illegal or some shit? I honestly had no idea since I applied and no one said anything. Plus, I dropped out from that first school, didn’t get any credits and my gpa is fixed now so I have no fucking idea why it’s necessary. I called the uni I dropped out of and they’re refusing to send my current school the transcript because I owe them money. Over 2000 dollars so I’m fucked. I did some research and apparently my current school can kick me out for this and I won’t be able to attend any college until I pay that money. School starts in a couple weeks and I don’t have the money to pay. I asked about a repayment plan but they said I had to pay the full amount before giving me my transcript..

I’m the first person in my family to go to college so I had no one to guide me through or help me. If I had known back then that dropping out would have caused all this trouble, I wouldn’t have done it.

It seems like everytime I try to finish school, something always gets in the way and I feel like a total failure. I started crying so hard because honestly it’s depressing.

Today I woke up and called my school and they helped me out a lot and told me that they have worked with students in this same situation before. The people at my current uni were really understanding and believed me when I said I didn’t know. Fortunately, I’m getting a refund in some months which will be used to pay off the debt to my old school so everything should be fine and they’re letting me attend school until I do so..

I feel better now knowing they’re not kicking me out and are actually trying to help me. I’m even happier knowing that I made a good choice by picking this uni. Now that I think about it I get way too ahead of myself. I’m a really pessimistic person and always assume the worst. Anyways that was really long and probably made no sense.

What was the question again?

Navigating school and uni stuff like this can be tricky, the best bet is to do it with someone else who has been through the process.  Remember that if someone tells you “no”, the best choice is always to try asking someone else in a different department.  Different administrative bodies have to interact with each other, and unlike sex (unless it’s sex with Gain), only one party usually needs to co-operate for things to start moving in the right direction.

Hi Kpopalypse! I’m not sure if you remember from your last survey, but I’m the one who had amnesia. Just wanted to let you know I’m doing much much better. I’m still not at 100% and I don’t think I ever will be, but I was a pretty forgetful person anyway. I still have trouble remembering certain names, but it’s weird. The other day, I was watching figure skating, heard a Korean skater’s name a few times and somehow can still remember it perfectly, yet I have trouble remembering much more familiar American names that I’ve known for years. It’s confusing how things like that work. Anyway, I hope you, your girlfriend, and your kitty are doing well. From one atheist to another (I’m assuming you’re not a Rainaist anymore), happy holidays!

I had to dump Rainaism because Raina proved that she is in fact fallible and not perfect by getting too much surgery to please Asian Junkie’s sexual fetish for every k-pop girl to look like Rainbow’s Jisook.  So I’m an atheist for now, however I’m open to possible conversions in the future.  Anyway glad to hear things are getting better, and don’t forget that browser bookmarks are a beautiful tool.

i hate and love a person, help me, its as painful as listening to a ballad ost crossover with tropical house song sung by sehun

Why have hate/love when you can have love/love, or hate/hate.  I suggest that you convert the love part of your hate into hate so you can have hate/hate, it’s less confusing this way, and preferable to trying to love that which is hateable so you can have love/love which really isn’t all it’s cracked up to be if the other party isn’t worthy.

Why is it that I’m in a bad time everytime your surveys pop up? Anyway, I recently got terminated from what I thought was finally the job close to my dreams – after a month, after I resigned from a dreadful, anxiety-inducing corporate job. I can’t really draw anymore and though I already kinda knew, the art degree I took 5 years busting my ass is absolutely useless now. Also, I lost so much money on K-Pop. What a waste. I’m probably gonna jump off a building very soon.

From someone who has tried it many times, don’t worry about getting a job close to your dreams.  The “dream job” usually isn’t what it appears anyway (as you’ve found out, right?).  Just get a job that you can tolerate, that pays a lot of money, where you get to live and do what you want with your free time.  A degree is never useless even if it’s in a useless field.  I’ve used my useless music degree to land both music jobs as well as completely unrelated corporate office jobs.  Employers are interested in your skillset and reliability, more than what’s on a piece of paper.  Hang in there, it gets better.

Hi! I’m fine. How about you?
I am currently taking a break from repairing my friend’s thesis which he asked me to do though I kinda don’t want to do but now I’m stuck with 50+ pages to correct and I regret it now because I would rather fill up some useless survey than to correct my friend’s thesis which will not affect my life in any way.
Also I am considering quitting my uni because I think that I suck at learning. Any words of wisdom for me to just go on? Or you would prefer me being a quitter lol

If your friend is actually trusting you to correct his shitty thesis, you must be a lot better at learning than you think you are.  You might also find these tips useful to enhance your learning.

Hi! Idk if you would remember this conversation from ask.fm but I once asked you if I should host a k-pop show in my uniradio -which was risky for me because I didn’t want to be called out as a Koreaboo or something like that- and you said that it’s fine and I shouldn’t listen to what others would say about this. Thanks to you, I’ve gained my courage to sign up for the show and next semester, I will have my own show! I am really thankful for your advice and hope to be great host like you, you inspire me so much!

Some good news!  Awesome work.  No matter what you do in life there will always be people trying to bring you down, and there’ll also always be negative voices inside your own head.  I’m sure you’ll blunder around a bit at first (as I often did when I started DJing) but practice makes perfect, soon you’ll be awesome, better than me probably.  While it’s good to listen to criticism, it’s also good to trust your vision and your capabilities.  If you think you can do it, you probably can, after all how do all those other people manage?  They’re not superhuman and you don’t have to be either.

I need to finish my thesis in two weeks, but I literally got to the point to hate the subject already. You?

I’m good!  I’m sure the deadline has now passed, but for anyone else in this situation just “hate-write” your thesis.  They can come out great that way.

My body hurts everywhere after going crazy at the club last night but it was so worth it because they played kpop and khiphop all night and it was probably the best night of my life so I could just die happy now.

Here is someone who is living.

Hi! I am fine although all these shitty renaissance history and Ghorkaland projects are killing me. Just let the Gorkhas have their state, everyone knows that the West Bengal govt is racist as fuck ( but who in India isn’t?). How are you? I hope that you are having a good day/night. Also HSH’s face is irritating me and are you happy now, you unbelievable motherfucking cunt.

I’m good!  Don’t forget to take breaks in between projects to have healthy meals.  Here’s a picture to inspire you.

This guy I really liked took advantage of my inexperience just so he could experiment with me. I’m really angry that I let that happen, and the way he admitted it was really hurtful, basically dismissing my feelings and making me feel like I was selfish when he was the one who told me lies the whole time to keep it going, then later ignoring me like nothing ever happened between us, then telling me to contact him and acting like everything was cool until he suddenly got angry and told me he didn’t actually want to hear anything I had to say. I put so much effort in trying to be nice to him and give him the benefit of a doubt only to find out that he only wanted to use me. I have no idea why I let that happen to myself.

Gosh, he sounds like a dickhead.  Still, you’ve now got some good knowledge going forward, you’ll be able to pick these signs in the next person.  I’ve had shitty relations too but they all taught me something about myself.  Take the positive lesson and move on to make your life more awesome.

Doing fine. I need a girlfriend.

No you don’t, because you’re doing fine.

Very horny. I’ve been fantasizing about fucking all sorts of kpop girls. All. And it’s messing with my head. Clearly I should be enjoying kpop for the rich, diverse, and totally unique music that America is JUST beginning to appreciate because of the WORLDWIDE impact BTS has. /s
But in reality I’m a hot-blooded male who jerks it to asian chicks. No regrets.

There’s nothing wrong with being honest with yourself.

Both good and bad. In a few days, i’ll be graduated from university and soon have to find financially stable job. At the same time, my dad is still in hospital (this is his 6th hospital stay in six month. If not because my country have healthcare program, my family may already broke because we have to use all of our money (and sell our rice farms) for his treatment). He’s a teacher and forced to take a break for a whole semester because of his current condition. Because of this, my mom (who lived in other city because of her job) have to go here and also take a break fron her job to be with him. I’m kinda lucky because my university life is over and i can help my mom treat my dad. I want to travel and find job at another city but i can’t leave my mom alone with my sick dad and my hyperactive toddler brother (he’s a cute troll boy btw enjoyed t-ara songs when i played it for him). I hope our condition (especially my dad’s health) will be better next year :).

The kid likes T-ara, this means that all will be well eventually.

I am crabby. I work in a pig slaughter plant and all I want is a normal, decent-paying job. That and I still want to take that hot guy’s offer of casual sex even though I’ve never had sex and I adore my boyfriend.

Forget the rando, why are you not having sex with your boyfriend.  Put yourselves both out of your misery and fuck already, sheesh.

Doing great! Although I went to a Bigbang concert recently in Japan and expected to see raving mad fangirls but it felt more like a regular concert with a bit more staging, so I was a bit disappointed. Thoughts?

Japanese audiences in big arena shows are very polite.  Even at thrash metal concerts they are pretty chill.

Every year I ask about how is your cat and every year you ignore this question.

That’s because it is self-evident that my cat is awesome.

I’m pretty good, I did a college presentation about language and managed to put the phrase “cao ni ma” in there, there’s nothing like saying motherfucker in front of 50 ppl I tell you

Elite caonima status achieved!

I’m starting to feel like I’m trying to do too much in my first semester at college because I’ve always been an overachiever and I want to continue, but given my field it’s sort of necessary in order to get to the top. Recently I’ve been feeling sort of consciously numb, if that makes any sense – something’s off, but I can’t tell what’s wrong. I’m so focused on getting my shit together – doing a credit overload, get a part-time job AND do research all at the same time – that I haven’t gone on kpopalypse for 3 weeks. Atrocious. Thank god I checked back in time like a responsible caonima for the year end survey and get every single prediction wrong.

Slow down there.  Take some time out, you’re probably in early burnout stages.  Pace yourself so you don’t crash and burn.

I’m Libyan so…. you know….
We killed our sick dictator prisedent, been bombed by NATU who claim to care for Libyan civilians not for the Libyan oil. been on-off civil war for 7 years. And now we added slave market to the mess! so yeah… It’s hard to keep going every day when things only get worse snd worse.

Sounds pretty fucked up.  Thanks for reading in between the bombings and general fuckedness of life.  Oddly, your IP comes up for me as Iceland.  I suggest moving to Iceland if you’re not already there.

you know, i’ve been reading kpopalypse for almost 2 years, and i’ve never managed to complete a single survey, because i never know what to answer in this question

Don’t let the pressure get to you.  I have faith that you have the determination to complete a Kpopalypse survey one day.

Hi! Long time reader from Indonesia, but this is my first time filling this questionnaire. I am currently doing quite okay mental health-wise, especially after experiencing something devastating. I am now trying to find a job for myself, but the prognosis is not too great. Wish me luck Kpopalypse Oppar!

Good luck!

Still dealing with a chronic pain condition and have a giant metal contraption going through my shin and ankle, so pretty meh.

Hopefully this post helps you get your mind off it.  Oh wait, I probably just reminded you about that metal shit in your leg didn’t I.  Sorry about that.

Pretty stressed out, in the past few weeks I’ve lost like a third of my hair which is thinning like crazy and so far nobody knows why and tells me “oh don’t worry, it’s nothing” but I borderline am starting to get (small, but still) bald spots. Now if I was a middle aged man I wouldn’t gaf, but as a 23 year old girl, I can’t help but feel self-conscious. Other than that, I’m mostly fine…how about you?

You’ve probably got alopecia which is the same shit that I’ve got.  It’s not the same as the balding that comes with age, and you’ll lose hair in really patchy weird ways.  It’s a genetic disorder which is hereditary (my mother also had it) and there’s no cure for it, but it also doesn’t adversely affect your health.  Your hair may or may not come back.  If you feel self-conscious I would suggest investing in sexy wigs or sexy hats.  There’s a girl I knew for a while who wore a different wig to her job every day, including some crazy Harley Quinn style shit, it was fantastic.  Another option is to just be like me and not give any fucks, but this may require practice.

Are you going to put my answer this time? What is the point if I do not appear in the results post anyway, cunt 🙂

Yeah nah get fucked cunt

I am poor as shit and have no better job prospects as I have no influential contacts or a STEM degree or ass kissing skills and my brother’s set to lose his own job soon so not great.

You’ll sort it out.  Necessity is the mother of getting your shit together, something will happen for you.

I’m feeling a bit shitty right now. My friend keeps forced me to learn make up and do a beauty routine. I don’t like make up that much and just feel lazy to even wake up in the morning, let alone apply makeup for an hour. My friend see that as a sigh of ” not know how to take care yourself properly, not being a woman and an adult”, so she is trying really hard to make me “mature”. I’m very annoyed and confused at the same time because every girl i knew apply makeup and never go out bare-face. Also i never have a boyfriend and i’m 24 now. So people around me are saying that i need to be prettier to be able to have a boyfriend. My parent even think i’m gay just because of the whole “no makeup no boyfriend” thing. Sometimes, having a different thought with everyone else seem weird. What should i do? Continue like this or start learn makeup and find a relationship?

Trust me, your friend is full of shit.  Guys don’t give that much of a fuck about whether you wear makeup or not, they care about if they get along with you, and if you have the type of physical and personality attributes that they are looking for (and that changes with every guy, it’s a lot more varied than you think).  Most straight guys wouldn’t know the first thing about makeup and won’t give any fucks, if anything they’ll appreciate a low-maintenance girlfriend who doesn’t take an hour to get ready.  You don’t need to “get pretty”, but what may help is just making sure you feel good and comfortable with yourself, because guys do pick up on the positive energy of a girl who is happy in her own skin.  By the way I was a virgin until I was 22 and was 24 when I had my first steady girlfriend (who turned out to be horrible actually, but it was a good learning experience) so don’t put pressure on yourself there.

Hi. I’m addicted to Destiny 2. Do you have any advice for helping kick the habit so that I can play other games?
Thanks in advance.

I’ve never played it so I don’t know what you’re dealing with but you could try getting addicted to Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds.

fuck you

no u

Can’t really breathe well cuz asthma/air pollution (love almost everything else about it, but fuck China’s air quality), but somehow am dating a new guy hot on the heels of the last thang falling apart. I’m confused, but enjoying it. ALSO, had amazing Indian food recently, and also got a good lead on Mexican, which is…a fucking godsend. Maybe more than the guy. I’ll just keep him around until he takes me to the Mexican place, cuz we live an hour apart, and I at least wanna get laid as well if I’m gonna go for an hour train ride for Mexican food.

Sometimes it’s the simple things that make a relationship work.

shit fucking sucks, I got diagnosed with schizoid personality disorder this year. I never thought about it before they told me, it was never mentioned as a possibility by any previous doctors I’ve seen, but I was wondering why my depression just wouldn’t fucking end no matter what I did, turns out that it’s kinda just who I am. They said SZPD is treatable, but not curable and that’s very hard to come to terms with to be honest. My family don’t care much at all, they just think I’m lazy, so I’m venting this out to some random cunt on the internet, that I share a niche interest with, who sometimes makes me laugh with his shitty jokes. I honestly just wanna be happier, man, fuck, I’ve been fighting my own brain for years and I’m only now realizing that I should accept all these thoughts and feelings and not trying to get rid of them and change myself because, well, I can’t, it’s not possible. I guess what I am trying to say is that it’s all fucked up, but it’s who I am, I’m fucked and… that’s okay… I hope I’ll be okay.

You’ll be fine.  Awareness is half the battle and it’s the hard part.  Now that you know what you’re dealing with, things will actually get a lot easier, not perfect but “manageable”.  I know a lot of people close to me with mental illness and they do get by and have fulfilling lives, it’s all about finding the best treatment options, there’s a lot of different ones out there and not all of them are chemical.

I’m good, thanks. I actually interviewed you about two months back for a university assessment, but I still haven’t gotten my results for it, which is kind of annoying. However, interviewing you was an absolute blast and I am forever appreciative for it!

Glad I could help!  All readers know that Kpopalypse IS available for interviews!  Just flick me an email if you require this service.

I’m alright but a little troubled. Just broke up with my girlfriend of 6 months because I simply stopped liking her and I feel totally fine – happy even – about it, does this make me a bad person?

Only if you didn’t really explain it to her.  I mean, there’s not much you can do about that, but you should probably be real with her rather than just use avoidance or whatever.  It will mean that she hates you for a time but that will pass and she’ll appreciate the honesty eventually.  If you’ve already done this, disregard.

Great. I’ve been a fan of your blog for a while. I enjoy the roundup posts the most, though Nugu Alert is my 2nd fave. I got into K-pop fully earlier this year (sometime in Feburary). I’ve studied Cert. 3 in Sound Production at TAFE NSW this year, and just yesterday I got selected to continue into Cert. 4. (I’m just as much of a music nerd as you are.)

It’s great how people enjoy roundup the most when it’s the series I put the least amount of thought into.  Maybe that’s why people like it?

Good. One year ago I was unemployed, now I’m in a career path I couldn’t have imagined with awesome colleagues and I’ve already been employee of the month. So it’s been a pretty transformative year. Also I lost my virginity last weekend and it was almost comically underwhelming. Don’t know what I worried about all these years!

First time was shit for me too, I think it’s that way for most people!  Like anything else sex takes practice to git gud.  Glad things are working out well career-wise!

Ugh, I’m behind in school. My meds successfully took away my anxiety but I think I’m still really quite depressed, meaning that I have not motivation to do anything. I recently did a new skill on trampoline however! If I solidify this one and then get one more double flip in my routine, I’ll have the difficulty to become an elite level trampolinist, which is cool I guess. That’s like the only exciting thing in my life rn lol everything sucks. My super intense Bulgarian piano teacher is gonna tear me apart for not practicing my Beethoven but idk how to tell her that for every 4 enjoyable measures there’s like 2 pages of bullshit sonata wank? Enough about me, how are you, your girlfriend, and Stiglitz?

I’m good and girlfriend and cat are good also!

I’m pretty good but lonely, if I must say. I’ve been with my boyfriend for a year now, and our relationship is great, except that us being young and naive, we thought we were the only people we needed in our lives.

I gradually drifted apart from my friends because I was always spending time with my boyfriend and his friends, and he wanted his friends to be my friends too so we all hung out and played video games. The issue is that I wanted a close friendship with everyone but everyone was more interested in playing video games, and they didn’t feel like they needed to talk like close friends do. I addressed this of course and they figured I’m just not compatible with them.

This caused me to be pretty depressed, to be without any friends who I felt genuinely cared for me and it’s all my fault, I know. But it’s a lesson that I had to learn. I would fight with my boyfriend and they would always take my boyfriend’s side and then treat me as if I’m bad for him, talk shit behind my back and then whenever I talked about wanting a bit of support while I’m depressed, no one except one person seemed to care enough to reach out. The worst part was when they would say they care which I would’ve been willing to believe but their actions really didn’t show it.

This toxicity led me to make the hard decision to stop talking to his friends, and I’m much much happier now not having to worry about people like that, but I do feel lonely. He still plays with them and I give them time, but I was used to being able to talk to him all the time. We made up time to spend together and we go through with it, but I just wish I had other friends to spend time with while he’s with this.

I suppose it’ll all come with time though. Just a lesson for everyone out there that your boyfriend can never be all that you need, you need your friends too.

Trufax.

I just want to say ‘props to you’ for having this question on every survey. You know that it’ll result in spending hours doing unpaid counselling work, but you do it anyway, ya little champ.

Yeah, don’t I know it.  If my blog ever becomes Allkpop levels of popular I won’t have time for this, let’s hope I keep pissing off enough people so that I never achieve that level of popularity.

Yesterday I was playing Akinator and decided to have the genie try to guess you. Though he he didn’t say you, he did guess “Your Music Teacher” which made me lol.

That’s pretty close!  For those curious there will be more music theory/tech posts in 2018!

Hi oppar im fine thank you,

Im on my final year of high school and I am stressing out for no reason (not really). My grades seem alright but theyre not up to the standards that the universities that im applying to want me to fulfill. For the first time in my life im not that excited for the upcoming winter break because i feel like im lacking so much in school and i think i didnt really have enough time in school to absorb all the knowledge that the teachers have been giving me. Im also stressed about this 4000 word essay because i keep flopping it no matter what I do. How can I de-stress myself from the hell that I’m living in which is the last year of high school and meeting up to everyone’s expectations. Idk what to do i cri 😦
Oppar pls help a caonima in need.

Thank you for reading my rant,
A loyal caonima

Take it from me, the knowledge you get in school, in your real life you’ll apply less than 1% of that fucking shit.  I don’t remember fucking jack shit from school except hating people and getting bullied and assaulted, but the skills of how to learn things sort of kick in later, and literacy is important, so just focus on being smart and literate and don’t worry so much about the grade.  Your expectations of yourself matter a lot more than other people’s.  If you fuck up your grades and don’t get to university, that doesn’t have to matter to you if you don’t want it to.  I went straight from school with strictly mediocre grades to an office job and came back to do university as a mature-age student where the entrance requirements are lighter and they don’t even look at your school grades.  Employers barely give a fuck about Uni anyway except for a few specialist fields.  You can get any job if you have the skillset and can demonstrate/convince people of this.

Filling in this survey made me realise that I must have been into K-Pop for around 6 years now. My first group, actually, was Kara (and not Kara like Kara is now, pre-Kara Kara, you know what I’m talking about) and I’m pretty sure that my first song was Lupin. I honestly struggle sometimes to remember a time before I was a K-Pop fan, before I had to explain my “weird obsession with Koreans” to people about 50 times after admitting that I do, in fact, regularly listen to music in a language I can’t actually understand. I mean, I thought the whole “female who likes metal” thing was weird enough, but at least people seemed to know what to do with that. K-Pop…I mean, unless my friends were already into it…well, let’s just say that it got to the point where I didn’t give a fuck any more. You pass me the aux, I’m playing my music!

Anyway, despite the slow decrease in the amount of real jams each year (I blame Jimin for this), I’ve just realised that K-Pop has pretty much singlehandedly got me through the worst 6 years of my life. I’m down 2 (almost 3…) university degrees that I never really wanted to do, probably about a year and a half of full on depression, a book that nobody read, a divorce, a car accident and the slow but creeping realisation that roughly everyone on this planet is shit. There were times when I literally had nobody to talk to but people on forums. There were times when all I had to look forward to in my life were variety show appearances, music video releases and (back in the early days of Bangtan) BTS Bombs. I’m pretty sure that for most of the past 6 years, K-Pop’s been literally the only thing in my life I could rely on. I mean damn, the literal amount of time I’ve spent on your blog, checking to see if you’d written something new, grateful that at least SOMEONE in this goddamn world was able to see the funny side of everything…it’s just insane to even think about it, really.

The good news is, I didn’t want to tell this story until it had a happy ending. After years and years of being screwed around and over by just about every human being in my life, I finally managed to get a job in the industry I’ve wanted to work in since I left school. What’s more, after learning some more extremely hard lessons about how shitty people can be, I’ve finally found someone who makes me happy.

So, you know, for the first time since I started reading your blog all those years ago, I can honestly say that I’m doing pretty well. Thanks for the last few years, Kpopalypse. You keep posting, I’ll keep reading!

Anyone going through hard times, know that it can work out.  Persistence and high determination levels is the key, even if you make bad decisions it’s not the end of everything.  Don’t give up!

I’m okay, lately I’ve been feeling good because I’m using your tips in not giving af. How are you oppa? I wanted to tell you I appreciate all the attention you give us(caonimas) even though you have a lot of important stuff in your life to deal with. I love you ❤

I love all readers of Kpopalypse blog!  Here now are the results of the other questions from 450 participants.

Question 2: Rate the song quality of k-pop in 2017 overall.

Most readers felt that 2017 was just kind of average in k-pop, or to be more accurate, “average, veering on the side of slightly shit”.

Question 3: What will be Kpopalypse’s favourite song of 2017? Name both artist and song.

Tallying up all the #1 choices, this is what the Kpopalypse 2017 favourites list would have looked like, according to readers.

The number on the right shows the amount of valid votes for that particular song.  The colours show what list the song eventually was found on.  Green is a song that made it to the top 30 list, pink is the #1, blue is an honourable mention.  Orange is a dishonourable mention and red is a bottom 30 pick.  If the bar is white that means the song didn’t appear in any list.  For some reason many readers were pretty certain that Twice’s “Likey” would hit the number one spot for the year, but it was not to be, however overall the accuracy of reader picks was impressive!

Question 4: What song will Kpopalypse hate the most in 2017? Name both artist and song.

Tallying up the choices for potential worst song of the year, here’s what the results were:

No readers picked the actual #1 worst song, but it was interesting that Twice’s “Likey” dominated the consciousness of readers to such an extent that a large chunk of people who didn’t pick it as the possible best song, instead picked it as the possible worst song!  Many of the big-ticket boy bands with songs that you thought I’d hate actually released music that was nothing more than spectacularly average, and therefore those songs didn’t appear on any list at all.

Question 5: What absolute bullshit song from 2017 will Kpopalypse actually be into because he’s such a cunt? Name both artist and song.

The most popular picks were well-chosen, with “Signal” just beating out “Likey” as “that song which is going to appear on the best-of list and give everybody the shits”, and Red Velvet’s “Rookie” coming in at a respectable third position.

Question 6: What song from 2017 did you really like that Kpopalypse will probably take a big fat shit on? Name both artist and song.

The fears of Kpopalypse readers that I would take a massive smelly dump on their biases’ stupid songs turned out to be largely unfounded, and only a few songs that you really liked got shat on in a big way this year.  More of your faves that you thought I’d hate actually ended up on favourites lists or the honourable mentions than in the shit bin!

Question 7: This is a picture of Han Seo Hee.

Why is this picture here?

Apparently my woke radical feminist pedigree is the true reason for this image being included, according to readers.  Never forget that Kpopalypse is a true champion of women’s rights.

Question 8: If you’re salty that Kpopalypse didn’t review a certain k-pop song in 2017, you can request it here. Your request may (possibly) feature in a future “2017 clearing house” post, where it will be reviewed in the time-honoured lazy written-while-taking-a-shit style that Kpopalypse is known for. You can nominate as many songs as you want, or skip this question if you want. Name both artist and song. Feature tracks only.

Thank you for your suggestions!  The ones that were eligible (which was surprisingly few) found their way into clearing house posts near the end of 2017.

Question 9: If you have any feedback for Kpopalypse, you can put it here. I’ll probably ignore it as usual but it might make you feel slightly better about the time you just wasted filling out this bullshit. This question can be skipped if you want. Thank you for doing this survey!

This was the last question.  Thank you to all of you who left feedback!  Here’s some selected feedback and my replies.

What’s the point? You’re only going to take these suggestions, stir in you’re knowledge of proper music construction, pepper in your years of actual experience in various areas of the industry, season the mix with your disregard for the fact that music is something that defies being a quantifiable recipe of right and wrong, garnish it with edgy douche-baggery, then toss the contents of the pot in the trash and write a review that simply boils down to your personal likes and dislikes; which mostly have nothing to do song structure, actual talent, or the heart and soul poured into the effort.

You’re a hypocritical critic (HypoCritic?) that breaks his own standards to elevate some songs because they fit nicely in the small “I Likey!” box, while denigrating other songs because “It’s not my thang!”. Sometimes, you surprise me. I’ve read some of your articles about musical composition/structure and think, “He knows his stuff.”; provisionally. You ramble off names like GG Allin, Blixa Bargeld, Steven Stapleton, and William Bennett and I think for a second.. ..”Hey, this guy has opened himself up to the fact that music is more than the mainstream.” Then you turn into.. ..you.

You know that even though there are some great songs playing on the radio or that chart, there are many more hiding in spinach bins from obscure artists such as Zoviet France, Bourbonese Qualk, or from the semi-famous like The Specials/The Special AKA. Hell, if current options bore you, then have Sherman set the WABAC machine to Django Reinhardt for some tingly toe-tapping. In the end, it doesn’t matter. You’re just a guy with a small “I Likey” box and a blog. Regardless, I’ll still come here for.. ..reasons.

Merry Christmas, Caonima!

Well they are completely subjective lists driven by personal taste and written for entertainment purpose, I do always make that pretty fuckin’ clear.  Other than this I’m not even quite sure what your complaint is, but thanks for tolerating my writing here anyway!

Do more fashion posts on boob enhancing clothes.

Coming in 2018.

This year was very good for the blog, but I shall ask for more Yezi.

Can you do a roundup of songs you actually like sometimes?

When someone fuckin’ releases some, I’ll get right on it.

Don’t be too nice when replying to SJWs in your own comment section. I am secretly cheering for you to snap their heads off.

It’s not in my nature to be nasty for the sake of it.  I love all my readers regardless of their politics.

i think this year you became lazier

Maybe that would be justifiable.  Find me a k-pop blogger who wrote more words than me over the last 12 months.  I’ll wait.

stop getting off on underage girls and writing posts about their bodies thx ❤❤❤❤

If you actually are clueless enough to think that this is happening, it probably says a lot more about how you’re reading my blog as opposed to what I’m actually writing.  Most readers “get it”, some don’t, and some never will, but I’ll give you all the chance to potentially do so.

I need to visit your site more often. It makes me laugh so much, and that’s something I could do with more of. Thank you!

Thanks!

thank you for continuing to create a ~safe space~ in kpop where your readers can feel free to share their stupid opinions, seriously i read your ask.fm semi-regularly and cant believe some of the stuff you get. but you never seem frustrated by most of them except calling them as they are (i.e. stupid). it helps me feel a little more zen on days when something ridiculous happens in the kpop world

It’s good for people to express themselves, far better than being bullied or silenced, which seems to be the strategy of many people lately.

You should include a vetting process to this because I literally took a big fat shit in it. Bye Oppar~

Nah it’s all good.  Just like an electrical circuit needs resistance to function, a Kpopalypse survey needs a few troll answers to deliver the trufax with more integrity.

Fuck I love kpopalypse surveys, they make me cum harder than Jihyo’s tits FUCK

I’m glad that my surveys satisfy your needs.

I think my only wish is that the posts on this site were easier to find through searching or tags or something because it can be really tough to find older posts one might want to read. Other then that, maybe when you make kpop’s best boobs post you can also put up a post about kpop’s hottest shirtless men. Your straight female and gay male viewers would appreciate this. Not all of us are dudes or lesbians you know. Okay have a great day!

I will consider this feedback.  In the meantime know that the search bar on my site is actually quite powerful and you’ll be amazed what can turn up.

ludens echo isn’t actually that good of an item

Noted.  I rarely build it anyway on anyone except Morgana (I play support pretty much 100% of the time).

I like Kpopalypse because even though he has a life he actually reads what we write (even if he doesn’t care).

Yes I do read everything that you guys write, even if I don’t reply!

Thank you for all of the time you put into this site, even if it’s only a little for some parts(?) lmao this was sappy but I still wanted to say thanks so 🙂 also if you read this i hope good things happen for you, like less trop house songs idk

I’ll settle for that!

Put hotter women on the sidebar you dipshit. Even the hotties that are on it have shitty pictures. I’m pretty sure you can find a better Raina or Qri picture. And don’t get me started on Eunji. She didn’t work out to get the best ass in Kpop for you to put a picture of her in a hanbok.

Any readers complaining about “sexualisation of underage girls” might wish to take note of this piece of feedback right here.  Why do you think the sidebar pictures are really there.  Why do you think the boobs posts read the way that they do.  This isn’t Reddit/kpopfap or a listicle.  Wakey wakey, hands off Hwayoung.

More industry or general music OPs. The weekly roundups aren’t enuf, tho they themselves are getting a bit stale

You think they’re getting stale, ha – try having to write them!  I do roundups because if I don’t do them I get bombarded with “what do you think of song x” questions multiple times daily (this is already starting to happen again now just because of the new year break).  However if you take the roundups away the other posts are still there.  There will be more content like what you are looking for in 2018, but remember that I don’t get paid (much) for this so I can’t just neglect my daily duties to blog all day every day on here (would if I could though).

Love Qri mole and your shared knowledge on kpop as an industry. Also I like the satire on this blog, it’s fun.

Thanks!  Qrimole is moving to the end of the month so there will be a new Qrimole at the end of January 2018.

Your “friendly” banter with Asianjunkie is highly amusing. Please, keep it up!

I’m trying to introduce Asian Junkie to the ways of Australian humour gently.  Well okay, maybe not so gently.  Now that I don’t contribute to his site anymore, I think some humour is needed to spice up his writing and make it a bit more readable and fun.  He does report on humourous things happening in k-pop, but humour from his own pen, he could use a little more of that.  So I do my best via Twitter and also his comments section.  I’m sure that he appreciates the effort, as he often tells me.

You missed the thread on /r/kpop where “What’s one thing you could say to a fandom to piss them all off”. Can I tweet you if I want you to come and shit all over r/kpop.

Sure.  I think “breathing will do” would be the answer to that particular question, by the way.

You’re my forever fav, especially now that the Asian Junkie comment section has gone super meh. Please don’t leave me oppar, despite my sporadic reading if I’m not around my PC, thus my RSS feed. ❤ You’re a cunt, and I dig it. Also, as a curvy lady, always love a professed chubby chaser.

At your service.

Please kidnap Betsy to do a bit her aesthetic and visual analysis of kpop videos here, the format is much better for it than AJ.

ALSO FASHION CLASS COMEBACK PLEASE

That’s up to Betsy (a true gentleman never forces a lady to do anything, at least not without a safeword), but I’m definitely open to more Betsy content, should she be interested in providing such content.  Fashion class will return this year!

Can you please do a full rundown of which girls YOU find attractive in kpop and what your criteria is? Sorry, I’m horny.

This is here.

This is the part where it’s getting weird. So I propose a game in which I have to guess your Best of 2017 list. If I get 25 right out of 30 then I can write one shitpost a week for a year. If I don’t get it right you obviously aren’t getting anything, but out of courtesy I may click on Yooa. So here is the list (in no particular order):
1. AOA-Excuse Me
2. Dreamcatcher-Chase Me
3. CLC-Hobgoblin
4. Red Velvet-Rookie
5. Twice-Knock Knock
6. Lovelyz-WoW
7. Gavy NJ-An Obvious Melody
8. Gfriend-Fingertip
9. Loona 1/3-Love & Live
10. MVP-Take It
11. W ft Shin Hyunhee-Announcement
12. Momoland-Wonderful Love
13. Yezi-Anck Su Namum
14. Chaboom-Lord Of The Flies
15. Nine Muses-Love City
16. S.I.S-I’ve Got A Feeling
17. BP Rania-Beep Beep Beep
18. April-Take My Hand
19. Nada-Trippin
20. Dreamcatcher-Fly High
21. Loona-Loonatic
22. Twice-Likey
23. Block B-Shall We Dance
24. Sonamoo-I (Knew It)
25. Yves-New
26. Stray Kids-Hellevator
27. Loona 1/3-Sonatine
28. A.C.E-Cactus
29. Gugudan-A Girl Like Me
30. Danpyunsun & The Sailors-Love Song

The code that only I could possibly say is : One of These Nights is Red Velvet best song.
Also you like a shit ton of song, so I don’t know why people call you pessimistic cunt.
Best regards

Game accepted.  Sorry, but by #7 on this list you had already clocked up six wrong guesses.  Legit list overall though.

I’ve been reading for 4 years or so and I keep coming back for some reason so keep doing you man

Will do!

ive gone from being ???? abt this blog to being a big fan to being a fan w criticisms abt the blog and i think that’s great character development wow!!

Better character development than shitty k-drama that’s for sure.

improve on joke delivery maybe

What do a cheap hotel and skinny jeans have in common?  No ball room.  BOOM TISH

How about implementing an optional “dark mode” skin for your blog? It’ll make night-time viewing easier on peoples’ eyes.

I would love to do this but my blogging host doesn’t support this awesome idea.  Suggest you adjust your monitor.

you are funny sometimes
keep trying

Trust me, I’m not trying at all.  I thought that was fairly obvious.

POST. MORE. SHANNON. WILLIAMS. RELATED. CRAP. ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ !!!!!!!!

Will try to find an excuse to squeeze her into as many new posts as possible.  In the meantime have this fancam.

All I really want is more posts from you but seeing as you actually have a job and life outside of this, that’s a thing I can totally overlook; you’re welcome. But in all seriousness, I do enjoy the content you put out and since I’m young and easily swayed by the pretty girls and boys, your reality checks are a good way to not fall too deep into the fangirl territory.
Hope your year has gone well and the one coming goes even better!
Thank you so much for the entertainment!

Thank you for reading!

I may be a sadcunt in a shit situation but I’m working hard on making a change in my life. Your determination makes me want to try for a happier life rather than letting me wallow in misery. You’re a real madcunt

Happy to represent for all the madcunts

You’ll keep doing what you do no matter what I say, won’t you?

Correct.

I asked you to shit on Asian Junkie, you fucking didn’t you libtard loving CUNT, HOW COULD YOU? I THOUGHT WE HAD SOMETHING SPECIAL.
FIne NOW I”M DEMANDING IT. YOU WILL SHIT ON THAT LIBTARD ASIAN JUNKIE DO YOU HEAR ME CUNT. YOU CANNOT ESCAPE THIS, YOU KNOW THIS TO BE TRUE! It is the way.

Or you know AKF might increase the number of posts put out per month and we might get that epic trainfuck of a clusterwreck where him and AJ get at eachothers throats over some libtard bullshit. My moneys on nayeons vibrator by the way, no man would bet against something that important.

Dude, you clearly don’t pay attention to my Twitter feed.

Your blog is the best kpop blog.

Thank you!

Just saying thanks, really. I’ve watched certain other sites take a nosedive this year, to the point I’m fairly convinced they’ve switched to paid-for content and are only covering a few (paying) groups + social justice issues.

You’re probably the only one out there who gives a fair shake and pretty equal publicity to all the songs released out there, whether you hate them or not. As a fan of mostly has-beens, flops and nugus that are generally ignored by the international kpop community, I really appreciate that. So thanks for that. 🙂

Kpopalypse blog will keep up the caonima action!

I will here blatantly disregard the instructions and instead treat this as if it’s a free QRIMOLE box because I don’t want to wait a month.

1) So it seems to me that 2017 was actually not a bad year for female idols, relatively speaking? I mean, if we assume that the baseline is “any given female idol is probably being treated like crap by her company / various television executives / etc.,” then the events of the past year look like slightly less crap? By which I mean ChoA being able to prioritize her mental health and get out of AoA; 4/9ths of the original SNSD now being able to find other opportunities; Seohyun possibly starting her own agency; Hyolyn managing herself; two of the original Stellar members being freeeee from their shit company; and aren’t the rest of T-ARA’s contracts up at the end of the year? I know the default position to take online is Everything Is Terrible And Getting Worse, because optimism is seen as complacent or insensitive or both, but it does seem to me that there are points of slightly less shittiness that emerged this past year, in this particular narrow area. Feel free to argue with me.

2) Apparently The Korean and Youngdae Kim are collaborating on a book on K-pop; I’d love to read your review of it when it comes out (2018? 2019? it wasn’t clear from the announcement).

3) I had a long rant here and then I imagined you reading it and going, “Jeez, quit overthinking stuff so much.” Which is true. See, Kpopalypse, you can affect change without even having to actually read the long-winded rant in question!

4) Really I just need to be better at not worrying what other people think of me. Being in grad school exacerbates this (I’ve been jumpy for a week now, waiting to hear from my advisers). But my hypersensitivity to what other people think of me long predates grad school — in fact, it probably encouraged me to go to grad school when I could have done something different. The passage of time and maturity helps, but I’m almost 40 now, so I really need to be getting on with the learning how to not give a rat’s ass. I wish there was something I could do to practice the habit, like I can with exercise or getting a certain amount of work done each day.

Back to work now. Thank you for the opportunity!

1 – yes, treat any idol quitting or having a hiatus due to mental health as a very good thing.  At least it’s now being recognised as an issue.

2 – feel free to send me a copy when it appears.  I had no idea about this.

3 – fantastic!

4 – hopefully my blog helps in some small way with this!

I understand that you’re limiting the number of songs everyone can guess so as to save yourself the trouble of sorting through 8093847345 titles, but maybe for next year you can let us guess 2-3 songs per category or something? Or not, it’s ok either way.

I do a lot of sorting of question responses and they take forever, even for a simple survey such as this.  It’s a huge time-sink.  If I had paid employees this is the first task I’d outsource.

Thanks for not letting american morals and value infect your australian outlook on swearing and tone. Also, you only like 80s inspired tracks like roly poly and the new loona one because you were a young adult during that time. People always see the music they grew up with as better than the alternatives, no matter what years/decade they were young adults. Kpop is full of soundalikes, and there aren’t many ripping off 80s music because people don’t like that sound today. At any rate, keep being awesome.

Cheers, the current posting style will continue!  You’re probably correct about the music aspect.

Don’t reply to retarded political questions on your ask.fm. Just straight up ignore them. Don’t give the people who pester you about that shit some deflection or whatever you usually do. Just straight up ignore them and don’t answer.

I saw you saying something about Taylor swift trying not to get involved in that garbage- you were right on the money. That’s the proper way to do it, in my opinion. I think you should handle political stuff the same way.

I don’t think any question should be off-limits but the usual false dichotomy political questions (left vs right etc) are really boring and I do in fact already ignore the vast majority of them, because these questions mean nothing and my answers would mean even less.  Also I don’t give a fuck about telling people how to vote or whatever.  Honestly I don’t even understand that bullshit anyway, Australian politics is so vastly different that the questions Americans ask don’t even make any real sense to us.

Stop fucking swearing so much you cunt, you’re giving us aussies a bad name for fuck sake and stop being such a fucking perv, just dial it back like one fucking notch.

Lol get fucked cunt, also please enjoy this fancam of Yooa singing Asian Junkie’s #1 favourite song of 2017.

I was really happy to see Jaehyo and the Kpopalypse cat lately. Any chance of a Shetland pony? Or just Goo Hara on hers?

Goo Hara + pony content just for you.  Thanks to all readers for participating – Kpopalypse will return with more posts soon!