It’s time for another episode of QRIMOLE, where Kpopalypse tackles reader questions!

when will loona break-even in your opinion since their debt is undoubtedly huge ????

I don’t know and honestly I don’t think it matters.  I don’t think the group were even created with those kind of considerations in mind.

To explain, there’s two types of musical projects that I do – the first one is work for other people, where the idea is to get paid making music or doing musical things.  The second type is the stuff that I do just for myself only, because I want to.  I don’t care if I make a loss on the second stuff.  Yeah it’d be nice if it made money but I have no illusions that it ever will and honestly I make no attempt whatsoever to gear it toward any kind of commercial reality, so I know it certainly won’t.  I’ve got enough of the first kind of work going on that this doesn’t bother me.

Loona definitely falls into that second kind of work category.  The creators don’t give two shits if it makes money.  They probably won’t even pass the debt onto the girls once the project is over.  They’re doing Loona because they can.  Sure, they won’t be upset if it suddenly does generate tons of income, and they’ll certainly try to give it some push just because it’s something to aim for and why the hell not, but that’s not the primary reason why the group was created.  Fans of the group need to wake up and realise this, and stop wasting time thinking about where Loona are placing on award shows, charts and all that other crap.  Just enjoy the ride.

I think long-time readers already assumed you talked to some well-known people in the industry, but your comment “I can’t name names but you’d be amazed who talks to Kpopalypse” in the last QRIMOLE struck me for some reason.

Despite your loveable fuckwad persona, the boob and butt posts, etc., I think you perform a valuable journalistic service on the site. Do you consider yourself a journalist?

Could you see idols or company workers deciding to pull a Snowden/Ellsberg and start leaking stuff? I have to imagine there are some people in that industry who get awfully close to saying “FUCK IT!” Some internal documents, simple cell audio recordings, etc. could potentially cause quite a stir. I’m not sure there will be any significant changes made in the industry without whistleblowers exposing this stuff. Obviously, there is real risk (and the industry reaction would be severe), but it just takes one…

I don’t consider myself a journalist and really I don’t like most journalists.  Certainly most of the ones I’ve had to deal with personally have been horrible people (or at least, ordinary people compelled to do horrible things).  Yes I understand that my website might perform a vague “journalistic-like function” in some way, but I don’t like the way journalists do things.  For instance, the way my interviews read is nothing like most interviews, because I don’t interview people like a journalist either.

While I am completely open to being the Wikileaks of k-pop if people want to send me stuff, for me to go public with anything, I need the “leaker” to put their name and face to it, or the content simply won’t be believed, whatever it is.  I write so much satirical content that it makes sense for people not to believe me unless I can definitely prove something.  Plenty of the stuff that is now coming out about idol life is stuff that I’ve known and been told about years ago, but that I didn’t publish, because who the fuck is going to believe me if I say it?  That’s why I started doing interviews on this site.  So anyone with something interesting to leak out would be better off asking for an interview, and making sure that they put their name and face to it.  I realise that’s a big ask for a lot of people, but that’s the step people have to take if they want their information to be taken seriously.

Do you know Paulo Coelho, the writer? He’s an cunt older than you that seems to defend the piracy of his own works to promote access to less privileged people. Have you ever read something that he produced?
By the way, I found his opinion on music and, to him, music is always generational. Do you agree with this opinion and why?
Have a nice month!

I’ve never read anything of his or even heard of him, but I agree with his take on piracy.  I make fun of lazy kids not paying for shit, but honestly music piracy is a net good.  Metallica may have been anti-pirate but the reason why they were able to go on world tours that included third-world countries and pack out large venues was that people from the poorest parts of the world were able to have a way to hear their music for free.  I also agree with him that people respect generosity, that’s why I don’t paywall content even on my Patreon.  Everything that is Kpopalypse related is there for no cost if you want it.  If you can pay then I graciously accept all donations with extreme gratitude, but I don’t expect it and I’m definitely not interested in squeezing money out of people by either paywalling or directly monetising traffic.

As for music being generational, I think that’s also largely true.  I’m am exception to this rule obviously, but then I’m also pretty strange and I engage with music slightly differently to the way a lot of people do.  There’s always be exceptions within the music industry where it pays to be interested in new stuff, BBC Radio DJ John Peel springs to mind, who relentlessly championed new bands in new styles right up until his death, and he was my father’s age.  The friends that I have who are my age and aren’t in the business don’t listen to new music at all.

I just read this post from AsianJunkie and perceived in the comments box that a lot of people still seems to struggle with the death of SHINee’s Jonghyun and how the fact is still being used for profit from scavengers journalists. That personally made me remember my earlier days with the same phenomenon with Amy Winehouse being used to propel Adele’s career.
1) Do you believe some type of boycott like cancel culture could mitigate this type of media manipulation?
2) From your experience, what type of measures could be done to help this people still struggling with the sensation of loss?

1. No.  Not at the “user level”, anyway.  We see how boycotts don’t work on an individual basis.  Nestle has been the most boycotted company for many years, but they’re in no financial danger.  I think there’s a large Streisand Effect that happens with boycotts.  Where boycotts may make more of a difference is in the actual media itself, or companies that boycott.  For instance I won’t link to certain websites, and that definitely reduces their traffic.  However I’m just one person with a not-small-but-not-massive website and I probably have little impact, but if I was bigger then it might be different.  I like it that Asian Junkie deliberately won’t link to certain sites as well, that probably makes more difference as he has a lot more traffic than I do.

2. I never really had any huge feelings of loss over a celebrity death, so it’s hard to say – and that’s not to say I completely didn’t care (I mean both Sulli and Jonghyun were awesome in similar ways, I appreciated their outspokenness), but it’s not anywhere near the same level as my parents dying, my partner dying, several of my friends dying, etc.  Some person in a group, even my favourite group, doesn’t make me feel the same way, there’s too much emotional distance.  If anything, the caring is more in a “this stupid industry is fucked, can we please change a few things or maybe burn it down before more people needlessly die” way rather than an “I’m so sad I just wanna cry all day” way.  That’s not to say other people’s feelings aren’t valid or anything, I just find it hard to relate to being as upset as other people get.  I also think that for every person who IS really genuinely upset about Jonghyun, or Sulli, Or Eunbi/Rise or whoever, there’s another one who doesn’t really feel quite the same way but is just going along with what their friends or the Internet crowd say because they don’t want to offend, because it’s seen as somewhat taboo to be seen as “not caring enough”.  Just like how Krystal was harassed online by people because she didn’t tweet some emotional thing, they assumed that because she didn’t put on a big public display, that she didn’t give a fuck, when in fact she was at the funeral house for three entire days and didn’t leave the building.  People do exactly the same kind of harassment of others who they perceive to “not care enough” about the things they care about.  It’s quite pathetic really, because it fails to take into account all the different ways that a tragic event can affect someone, but that’s unfortunately what the hive-mind has become.  I don’t really know what to advise people other than to say that just because your feelings aren’t matched by those around you, don’t let it worry you, allow yourself to feel the way that you do – and also don’t give other people a hard time if they feel different.  It’s okay to care a lot.  It’s also okay not to care at all.  I assure you wholeheartedly my friends don’t give one solitary fuck that some k-pop person died, but does that make them bad people?  No – it just isn’t in their circle of concern, that’s all.

and:

Hi^^ I hope you are doing well~
So I guess I might be asking for advice from you lol

I’ll start off by saying that I am autistic and that Kpop is my so called “Special interest” that has helped me though a lot of issues. Including becoming more social, learning to successfully communicate, improving my ability to complete things and more. Though to be honest I think at some point kpop became more of an obsession for me.

So I’ll tell you what made me realize this
My two bias groups happen to be SHINee and f(x)
and when Jonghyun died I went into a downward spiral. My depression that I had been starting to recover from came back in full force and I ended up quitting my job and using all of my savings to spend a year not working (though I have a new and slightly better job now). After that I tried to build a wall and make it to where I don’t feel as much from what happens to idols but to be honest it just made me feel numb. Then Sulli died and it just made me think that maybe kpop was a bad idea. But the thing is I’ve tried to quit kpop before and it made me feel so empty that I literally couldn’t live like that.

Like I’m fully aware that I’m mentally ill, that isn’t even a question, but I was mentally ill long before I started following kpop. I just don’t know what to do because the thing I used to help cope with all the shittyness in my life is now making me feel shitty, but nothing else brings me any sort of joy at all. I even learned how to speak Korean because of kpop. Like I can’t just leave that behind.

So I guess what I’m asking is: how to not feel shitty about kpop while also not leaving kpop behind because that would probably kill me at this point.

I’ll end probably the cringiest question you’ve seen this month by saying that I’ve been following your blog for a few years now and, for some reason, I actually respect your opinions. So keep it up~ I hope your year ends well^^

I wouldn’t say you should leave k-pop behind, after all it’s clearly done a lot of good for you, but what I would say is – don’t put all your emotional eggs into one basket.  Diversify your interests a little.  If all you care about is thing X, when something bad happens with X it’ll ruin your whole world, but if you care about X, Y and Z then you still have your love of Y and Z to fall back on.  Yeah I like k-pop but I like other music too.  There’s also other things that I really like that aren’t even musical, like computer gaming, martial arts and cooking (I’m a lot better at the cooking than the other two).  I also love my partner and my cat is just the greatest cat ever.  Well-rounded interests make you more interesting as a person, and they also make your life more fulfilling, plus it’ll make it easier to cope with that next k-pop celebrity death (which WILL happen).

do you think the UN actually is doing good for the world or just useless af and actually making things worse?

I wouldn’t know.  I honestly think most people with a “strong opinion” about this subject would also have no idea.  It’s easy to read articles and think that I know everything but I have no experience with something like that so what can I say about it really apart from rehash whatever article I’ve read that fits my pre-existing belief the closest.  Perhaps ask someone who’s had direct dealings with UN troops stationed in their country, about whether they thought they were helping or hurting, or not doing anything.  Maybe Baekhyun knows.

Hey oppa,
Who are your favorite oppas and why are they the bogdanoff twins.

Shindong outsold

Hi oppa! So this isn’t a kpop question but ofc you get all types of questions on this site. I just want this one thing explained by an actual man instead of other women or my guy friends. Here the thing: I think I’m a relatively attractive girl and every now and then a guy will tell me that they find me attractive. However, recently I got a lot of interest from this one dude who was in the same year and friends with a very close friend of mine who is two years older than me (they graduated high school last year). From first impressions, he seemed like a very nice, sweet dude that I only saw as a friend for a long time. I sent out a snapchat that said “im bummed but whatever” and he responds asking why I was felt sad, I answered that I had an opportunity to model for a runway (and it’s always been a closeted dream of mine to be a model) but unfortunately I could not go because it was to raise awareness for Leukemia and types of blood cancer (my mother has leukemia). My mother sadly was badly affected by overdosing on pain medication and we couldn’t go to the event where I could model because they really just wanted my mother at the event. I told this dude all this and he promptly replied “that sucks but you’re gonna get another chance. You’re really cute.” I was kind of taken off guard because this dude was also quite attractive himself and I don’t often get compliments from good looking dudes. I told him thank you and he kept on telling me that I’m just objectively and subjectively attractive. I had said thanks more than twice at that point and he finally stopped telling me. He then decided to ask “so wyd today cutie” and we just have regular conversation but hes lowkey flirting the entire time until he asks me “Yo awkward question, Did you know that I’ve always found you attractive?” I told him “no, but I guess now I know haha” and then he tells me “well now you know.” A couple days later, like at 11pm I sent out another snapchat and he responds, he was at the gym and i was doing homework and he asks me “whatcha doin” (whenever a dude who I’m not close friends with asks me that I usually assume that he’s gonna attempt to flirt with me) I respond and it’s normal conversation, I’m not suspecting much other than a few flirty remarks here and there. Suddenly, he expresses that he “likes” me and he started making very sexual advances. Me being the stupid attention whore that I am, positively responds and he just jumps on the opportunity to sext me. I find him attractive so I figure maybe just give him a chance (i mean he’s a dude afterall) but I’m not much of a sexter and frankly I find it unamusing. I’m just responding to what I think he likes. It was around 2 am when I went to bed and I decided I was tired of his remarks and just figured that he’s just horny because it’s late and he’ll be normal in the morning. the morning comes and he talks to me and he’s pretty normal, but as soon as I get home from school he tells me “ngl I’ve been thinking about fucking you all day.” and he goes on with trying to sext me with my dry responses. he finally tells me that he’s not horny anymore (he was sending me some nasty shit like for hours) and i reply “finally, sorry luv but sexting really isn’t my thing, I’m dtf but ya know I’m not a good sexter” he then just slowed down the conversation until i sent him something that was repliable and he just fucking left me on read. The worst thing about this situation was that I really thought that this dude was a very nice, good guy but he told me that he’s thought about sleeping with me numerous times while he was still in school with me and he sent me some filthy fucking messages (thankfully no dick pics). It turns out he’s like all the other dudes that have shown interest in me. They just want to fuck me. If I dont fit all their little fantasies then I’m as good as gone to them. These kinds of situations have happened more than once to me.
my questions are: why do guys do stuff like this? why do I attract guys that are like this? Do all guys do stuff like this? Does this happen often to others? (you don’t have to answer all of these questions btw)
anyways, if you’re reading this long, pathetic question, I just want to say thank you so freaking much for just reading this! I love your blog oppa!!

For a guy who has had a boner for you since high school, he sure went about things in a funny way.  Some guys are so sold on their own little world about how they want things to operate that they completely fail to care about what you might want.  I’m all for sexual fantasies, but that shit is a two-way street and it’s gotta work both ways or no deal.  It’s sad how many guys don’t understand that.  He seemed like he was all into telling you he liked you, but without checking in with you about what YOU liked.  Hey if it was me, and I was confused, I would have just asked some real questions.  On a date I’m all like “what do YOU want to do”, “are YOU have fun” etc, I make it about her.  Yeah I’ve got my things that I like, as does anyone, but if you’re a confident person you don’t worry about that stuff straight out of the gate – if it’s meant to happen, it will.  Unfortunately many guys lack that sort of inner confidence.  Sometimes, them approaching you is really more of a therapy session for themselves as they try to build that confidence, then when they fail they think “well at least I tried with that crazily attractive girl that I liked from high school”.  The point being, that it’s more about them than you.  I mean, you can sext to anyone, or even a bot.  They’re not really into you, they’re using you as a conduit for them to be into themselves.  If that sounds a bit lame, er, welcome to “alpha masculinity in 2019” I guess.

Why do you attract guys like this: because you’re attractive.  You’ll always attract that type of guy from time to time.  I don’t envy my female friends who are really attractive, many of them work or have worked in modeling and related industries, and boy have they seen and heard it all.  They always deal with things like this, but after a few misadventures they’ve all developed a razor-sharp douchebag detector.  Listening to them talk about guys and their terrible behaviour is drop dead hilarious, I’m constantly stunned by the stupidity of dudes.  These girls have learned not to give people like that an inch, so my advice is – don’t be tolerant, and don’t be afraid to completely shut someone down, if the alternative is that they think they’re “in with a shot” if they’re not.  A reasonable person will prefer the honest “hard no”, and a douchebag might not, but fortunately you’re not on this planet to please douchebags.  Not saying all guys are like this, but if you’re an attractive female you’ll tend to draw to you the ones that are, because it’s usually the douchiest guys who bother to think up these lame approaches (often to cover for their own insecurities etc as per above).  The solution here, assuming you actually want a guy in your life, is to be more proactive to mix up the pattern of people you meet.  If you’re not willing to choose from among the jerks, or at least alter the playing field, then you’ll be stuck with choosing from among the jerks who choose you.  Opting out of it all completely is also fine, of course – there’s no reason why anybody HAS to be with anyone at all!

You had a song in your roundup a while ago that had a MV where all the girls were acting out the ‘before the clothes come off’ scenes in JAVs.
Any help finding it? Figure you might remember for the same reasons I’d like to.

Also, your dog whistle posts have made me feel uncomfortable watching fromis_9’s fun. Once you see all the juice bottles are dicks you can’t unsee it. I’ll leave the link in the question for curious readers if you answer this one:

Hope you’re having a lovely day!

You’re thinking of Sixbomb’s “Hiccup Hiccup”.

You’re welcome!

hey hyung do you get annoyed when people say bts isnt kpop

No I just share with them this.

Heyyy if you can rank Loona solos what would it be in your opinion? I know New – Yves would be at the top and maybe followed by Heart Attack by Chuu but I’m really curious where would you rank other solos since you’ve said in your weekly round up that they are good songs . Thank you!

Ehhhh….. hate questions like this.  However it’s Loona so okay then.

Yves > Chuu > Yeojin > Haseul > Olivia > Gowon > the others > that shit ballad by Vivi

ok so in response to this post someone sent you about magdalene berns, LMAO, listen i should be sending this to curious cat but i just want to square up with the mysterious sender because… girl do you really think this is going to fly on here

i noticed they used the word “Transactivists” in their submission, which is literally TERF dogwhistling and a word coined by TERFs to distance the feminist movement from the “trans activist movement” aka distinguish the ~real~ menstruating cis women from trans women (nevermind that a lot of cis women don’t menstruate at all due to a myriad of health conditions, but i digress). In reality, trans women have been involved in the feminist movement for decades, cis and trans lesbians have always lived in community and trans women were historically the founders of what everybody calls the LGBT movement… until the transphobes hijacked our own movement to expel trans people and erase their contributions from our history. If you think I’m talking shit, you can find all the info, carefully sourced, on theterfs.com. I’m also a cis lesbian and I have to keep watch on these hate groups to protect my trans sisters. They will call me an irrational libqueer who doesn’t want to “debate” them just because I can see through their bullshit lol.

Using the term “SJW”, implying that accepting trans people is just being a permissive libqueer, these are all dogwhistles. Questioning non-binary people isn’t done for the sake of semantics; TERF ideology believes that nb people are “confused” women who hate their gender. By promoting hate against nb folks, TERFs believe they’re “saving” the female gender from extinction. Because they can’t express their irrational hate for trans people too openly, they have to resort to fake rhetoric like the spiel of garbage you received in this month’s QRIMOLE edition.

Lastly, I’m not surprised that there’s people heavily invested trying to convert you to the transphobe side* since they are an extremely big, organized group with thousands of trolls at their disposal, already got a big chunk of the academia on their side (despite the many scientists and biologists who support trans people and know our binary men/women model is outdated and fully incongruent with what really goes on inside our bodies). I don’t give a fuck if you believe me or not, but I do give a fuck about the many impressionable teens following you, and some of them might be trans (shocking, I know!) and I really don’t want them to watch virulent transphobes without hearing the truth behind their machinations so these kids can form their own opinion and cultivate a critical thought. The haters think they can spread their propaganda on your website freely, but too bad! I won’t let them, not without a fight 🙂

Public Enemy said it best: don’t believe the hype AND stan loona, you motherfuckers.

*not just transphobes but you also get a lot of limp dicked attempts from fascist/alt-righters from time to time as if it weren’t obvious that you’re far from being a chud. Not a surprise at all as TERFs have always been politically aligned with the far right. Both groups don’t care what methods they use as long as it leads to the extermination and murder of the people they fear and hate at the same time.

Our lifetime in this vast universe is minimal, imagine wasting it hating a group of people who happen to be different from you and are not hurting anyone by existing. How sad!

Actually I don’t agree with, you, that other person OR Magdalene Berns on issues like this.

Like a lot of pointless debates on the Internet that go around and around in circles and never get solved (and in fact only become MORE divisive and MORE polarised the more people continue to argue), both sides of the extreme end of this debate have a point, which is being strawmanned heavily by the other side, as each side attempts to paint the other as far “extreme left/right” as possible.  Of course this only succeeds in ensuring that the debate will never come to a resolution, although the never-ending conflict if anything favours the advancing of conservatism, because given a whole bunch of very divisive conflict in society, people who feel “stuck in the middle” tend to lean conservative, as “conservative” feels “less risky” and lots of conflict psychologically makes people feel “risk-averse”.  That’s enough to swing voting from one leader to another, and it’s why we’ve seen conservative governments elected recently in so many countries.  It’s not happening in spite of all the progressive social media “resistance” activity, it’s happening because of it.  This is also how the Russians manipulated the 2016 US election, by using bots to spam ultra-progressive AND ultra-conservative talking points, to set up fake deeply polarised arguments, to then twist popular opinion as far off to either one side or the other as possible, the resulting sense of “escalating conflict” makes people feel nervous and swinging voters will usually vote conservative in that kind of environment.  The TERF/antiTERF argument is a classic example of this type of argument, where there’s actually quite a lot of nuance, but nobody really sees it because they’re too busy screaming insults at the other side.

I know some TERFs (absolutely NONE of whom I’d call “far right”, in fact most of them are painfully progressive), and I’ve known them before I even knew what the TERF acronym was.  The argument that I’ve seen pretty much all TERFs talk about, is that their views aren’t actually about biology and whether you have man-parts or lady-parts, they’re more about sociology.  That’s an important point, that gets strawmanned to death with constant focus on body parts and silly bathroom arguments.  To explain this point of view, imagine if me, right now, decided that I was actually female or wanted to identify as female or whatever.  Now imagine that I use a magic gender-change machine that could instantly make this happen, I could step into it and come out and have fully functioning lady bits, I could even give birth and everything.  Even though I’m now biologically 100% a woman, I’ve still lived my entire life up until this point as a man.  What this means is that I haven’t experienced a whole ton of stuff that women commonly actually experience through their lives (female puberty, female socialisation, how men react to females, how the workplace treats women, the societal pressure that women experience from peers and advertising, and tons of other things etc etc too many to list), so I don’t yet really know what it means to be female, because I haven’t had that lived experience, even though I do in fact have all the “functioning bits”.  THAT to me is the core of the “TERF argument”, they’re basically saying “you’ve just hopped on board the female train but this train has been on a bumpy ride that you don’t even know about because you haven’t fully experienced it, so let us drive it”.  That’s why (some) biological women react badly to trans women getting into their spaces.  It’s not the biology, it’s the social aspect, the lack of “paying your dues as a woman”.

Having said all that, I don’t agree with TERFdom, because I don’t agree with the “exclusionary” part – where reasonable options exist to be inclusive (and in all but extreme edge cases, they generally do), I don’t think it’s a good idea to exclude anybody from anything, generally speaking.  While I actually agree with the central point that a man who transitions obviously has had a very different lived experience to a woman and therefore can’t just simply say “I’m a woman now” with any credibility, I also think that people who are comfortable with their biology can’t necessarily relate to the unique plight of the trans person either.  Trans women clearly aren’t women – but are they really claiming to be?  This insistence that trans women are all running around insisting that they are female in every aspect also seems like a strawman, I think most trans women are acutely aware that they will never be “100% there” and are just doing their best with what they have to get as close as they can (often at great cost to themselves, financially, physically and psychologically).  While I liked the Magadalene Berns video that was linked by the other asker, there are some other videos of her which are fucking disgusting, like this one where she picks on some guy at clearly the very early stages of transitioning for no obvious reason other than that he doesn’t “pass” and he’s a bit confused.  It’s straight-up bullying if you ask me.  Biological women might not be willing to let trans women drive the train, but maybe they could let people struggling with gender roles sit up the front every now and then, it wouldn’t hurt.  Obviously there’s a line somewhere – I certainly support the right of beauty parlor workers to not wax Jessica Yaniv’s nutsack – but generally I think “inclusion” should always take precedence over “exclusion” where it makes sense, just because I think it’s better to be compassionate than to be a snobby asshole.

Hey Oppar, I recently started (the equivalent of) college for game design and 3D animation, and while the classes are great and super interesting I’m 1 of 4 girls in my class and most of the guys are mega incel-y (gamers, man). One of them has a crush on me and keeps talking to me and saying stuff like “let’s be friends and maybe something more in the future, I wouldn’t be opposed to it”; problem is I fucking would be and he hasn’t even considered that. I’m a huge lesbian and I’d tell him that but like half of my class has already made homophobic remarks in the 2 weeks I’ve been here, so I really don’t wanna tell anyone yet. I ignore him SO MUCH it’s actually crazy he WANTS to keep talking to me, I don’t look at him or respond to him irl or in texts but to him this just makes me “mysterious”. I know if I tell him I’m not interested he’s going to want a reason plus I don’t know if he’ll react violently or something since GAMERS are unpredictable like that. What do you think would be a good way to approach this? Thanks in advance and sorry for dumping my concerns onto you 😦

Ugh, “gamers”.  When I was a teenage gamer we just kept to ourselves in our basements with our pirated Commodore 64 games.  Honestly, I’d talk to the dude openly, and I’d also tell him you’re a lesbian.  Why the hell not?  That shit’s gonna come out of the woodwork eventually so you might as well break it to him in the most annoying (to him) way you possibly can.  That’ll quickly stop you from being “mysterious” at any rate, and yes you’ll probably get a lot of shit from the incels in your class but who cares.  You should honestly have a quick response for anything they could possibly say to you anyway, as incels aren’t that sharp.  If they ask you why you were a lesbian you can tell them that you were a pure straight girl and then you joined this game design class full of mouth-breathers and it turned you off men for life.  Any further comments from there on are pretty much just inviting you to list the ways that the guys in the class disgust you, tear down the guys making anti-gay comments etc.  If it were me I’d have so much fun with this.  If you do it with a good sense of humour and fun (rather than just bitterness) it might even surprise you to see at least some of the people respecting you for your position.  Gamers do often have annoying incel tendencies but the smarter ones also appreciate wit and people who go against the grain.

I realise “coming out” is a big step but honestly, I couldn’t think of a better environment to do it in.  You WANT to get that “bad” reaction to it, because it’s going to prepare you for all the other reactions you’re going to get to it during your lifetime.  Then one day on your gravestone it can read “I came out to a room full of incels and didn’t give a fuck”.

Hi Kpopalypse,

As far as I know, all the old masters from the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic eras all knew how to improvise on the spot after being given a theme. I had studied piano and theory for over a decade as a child but my curriculum has never included any teachings on how to play impromptu. Isn’t it ridiculous that my instructors worship the old masters but don’t teach us how to play like them? Would you have any advice on learning how to improvise on my own? Is it a skill that can be won through practice or is it an innate talent?

Thanks!

When you’re first shat out of the womb, your only innate talent is crying a lot, pissing and shitting.  Anything else, you learn as you go, so yes practising will help immensely.  Most teachers of piano don’t teach improvisation, because they don’t know how to teach it – teaching “play anything, try not to suck” is very antithetical to all the strict rules that they have to teach the rest of the time.  Classical piano teachers are teaching a fossil, creativity isn’t part of the curriculum.  The best advise I can give if you can’t figure it out yourself, is to actually go to a rock or jazz teacher, just to learn the basic principles, and then apply that to classical.  Eventually my music theory post will talk about this stuff but it’ll be a while.

Do you think TS entertainment is actually playing a genius game? People seem to be relishing how all their idols are leaving and suing them, but don’t seem to realise who’s profitting here. The agency was headed by a guy who killed himself, and a different organised crime group took over, who people call ‘loan sharks’.
If TS were legal sharks before taking over the company, why not cause enough problems so that people sue, using the company you already had to sue yourself with. It creates money as the people will be owed money that company doesn’t have, which legally counts as positive balance for things like investments at least. Then someone can be paid off to take the fall and be in huge debt for the rest of their life, being paid off the books by the same company. The whole thing stands to make them an insane amount which only grows the more people they conviced to sue them.

I think you’ve thought about this way too hard and you probably need to take a breather.  Also, I have a girl group that you might like to fund.

Hi hyung! (Is there any male counterpart to ‘oppar’? If not, there should be)

There’s this Jpop song called [link removed] and, even though it’s a song that makes me kinda sad (especially the intro), most of it gives me a bit of a dancing vibe, like if I’m on some kind of party drug (but not that intense as it may sound). Is there anything on the song (I don’t really know music theory) that’s purposedly put/written to give this kind of energy or just my brain being weird?

Also, I just finished a acting class, and I had this awful teacher/director who was shitty at her job and basically focused on bragging about herself while being kinda bully to any student that didn’t lick her feet (me being one. It got to the point when people I knew before her made clear that I was seen as dumb and stuff). My question is: since I want to keep on this industry, is there a way to avoid or surpass this kind of mean influence? Also, how to keep some integrity while dealing with this kind of shitty people (and not end on some kind of black list)? I know there’s plenty of those on entertainment business.

Wow that song was hideous, why do people link me j-shits, fucking disgraceful music.  I had to remove your link and any reference to the specific song for the good of humanity.  The song has a beat that comes in 1:57 so that’s probably what’s doing it.  No j-shit questions for QRIMOLE thank you.

There’s plenty of people who teach acting, just change classes.  It’s only once you actually get work in the industry that you have to be nice to people.  Teachers are generally quite far removed from where the wheels are actually turning, and these sort of industries are huge, so just one teacher can’t “ruin you” or anything.  There’s plenty of people in the music business where I live who don’t like me any more than the average online hater does, and in fact some of my most intense hate-questions have come from people I know in real life who can’t believe that I also write about k-pop.  It doesn’t affect me though, I work the patch I’m interested in, and not their turf, so if they don’t like what I do they can get fucked.  No-one says they have to like it.  Sucks to be them and be so bitter I guess.

Sorry if you’ve answered this before!
Where do you get news on comebacks? Is it just on twitter? I’ve been following the kpop subreddit to get info but the comment sections make me want to time travel back 50 years where I’d be lobotomized and none the wiser.

Thanks!
Nai

These days people just send me the links and beg me to cover it hahaha!  Actually one really nice person sends me a ton of stuff each week just before livestream, if you watch those streams you’ll see me go through it all.  Before that I used to subscribe to a ton of YouTube channels, and in fact I still do, just to catch stuff I might miss otherwise.

Hi, oppar. I have two questions:
1. What is difference between a “normal” track in an album and a bonus one?
2. I’ve been trying to figure out which genre this song is, but I simply couldn’t. Sounds a bit jazzy to me, but I’m not sure. Could you help me?

1. A bonus track is a track which isn’t on the original version of the album, or is considered “extra”.  So for instance an album might have ten songs but then they might put a remix at the end of one of the songs on the album so that’s like the “bonus”.  Obviously definitions like these aren’t very strict.

2. J-shit.  Well actually J-rock.  J-rock-shit perhaps.  I also removed this link for the good of our planet.  Absolutely not jazzy whatsoever, not a trace of jazz there.  It might be the decoupled snare drum wire that is making you think you’re hearing jazz but definitely not.

Why your Fanfiction has Gowon for that ending? There’s a reason for it?

There’s 13 endings and I just named them in Loona girls’ debut order depending on when they appear in the story flow.  Ending 13 is Grimes of course.  There’s no other specific meaning behind why any particular girl got a certain ending, it’s just a fun way to encourage people to find all the endings.

Oppar where is australian sana? Did the armys kill her

Answered here.

Hi, I love your blog and have been reading for years now. I use your roundup to check out new weekly kpop releases. One thing I’ve noticed is that a lot of the times the roundups are bloated with heaps of slow ballads. I appreciate that they are mostly sorted towards the bottom (or maybe I’m imagining this haha).. Is there any chance you could put the ballads in the weekly roundup within a “spoiler” section.. that you have to click to open? I’m sure I’m not the only one who skips over the ballads but I also don’t want to accidentally scroll past a regular song. If not, would you consider putting some kind of icon or “symbol” next to the title of the ballads so we know to scroll past it? Like a ‘zzz’ emoji next to the title or something. I’m glad that they are included in the roundups but I’m sure there are others who also want to skip over them. Just a random suggestion. Anyway, thanks for maintaining the blog 🙂 Checking here has been a stable thing in my life for a long time and I appreciate your work

Thanks for your continued reading!  I used to have “normal” and “bonus” songs which indicated whether I considered a song worth of radio airplay or not, but I scrapped that a while back because the amount of songs I was sent was increasing and it was just too much overhead to think about and carefully categorise everything as played or not.  The entire point of roundup is that I’m trying to do it as quickly as I can, so I try not to get slowed down with anything in particular.  I’d sooner just remove all ballads completely rather than signify them in some way, given how shit most of it is.  Honestly anything that makes roundup less work rather than more is going to be better for me, given that the post still takes way too long to create, even with the help of caonimas.

Have you ever seen The Good Doctor (the US one, not the korean)? It talks about the life of an autistic savant surgeon resident and it’s quite interesting.
Just a disclaimer, that shit has deep emotional moments all over it, so prepare to cry a lot if you ain’t a psychopath!

No.  I’ll add it to the list of things to look at one day!

Oppar, how do you manage to be so productive? You put out a lot of stuff, from long written posts to streams and you keep up with the latest news. It is a lot of work and it makes me wonder about your work ethic. Could you tell us more about how you plan and how you manage all this?

Also, this work seems to need a great deal of focus. Were you always such a focused and driven person?

I can’t believe the words I’m using, I must be reading too much self help improve your mindset crap.

T-ara taught me high determination levels!  My mother (Boram) instilled in me a great work ethic.  However I also cut a lot of corners.  The livestream sort of dovetails into roundup because I partially build it during the stream to save time.  I don’t keep up with news that closely, it’s pretty much just Asian Junkie and OH_mes2 on Twitter that keeps me up to speed.  I save time wherever else I can because I also have work plus a relationship and those take time too, but fortunately I don’t have children so I do have SOME time left after all that, if I had to look after some greasy vomiting hellspawn I could never also do blogging.  Long posts do take time as well, there’s no shortcuts for some of it.  The end of year lists take forever and I actually have written a few of the reviews already just to save time.  The boobs lists also take days of solid work.  Also QRIMOLE takes two days usually!

I’ve always been really into whatever I’m doing, whatever it is.  I think that comes from when I was young and having diverse interests that were different to others plus no peers.  There’s nowhere to go but “further in”.

I am a pretty awkward person who tends to say wrong things at wrong time. Because of that, I don’t know how to handle office politics. I just failed probation and it kinda hit me hard because I lost income and I don’t know how to explain to my mother. Now, I need to look for another job. Do you have tips to handle office politics? Also, how to be careful on what to say? Thanks oppars, I’m pretty desperate here 😦

Saying the wrong things at the wrong time, I can relate to that.  In fact that’s pretty much all I do online.  As far as office politics go, all I’d say is don’t neglect the social side of work.  It helps to get to know people.  You don’t have to kiss ass or anything but it’s good to be friendly and to get along with people.  Also if you have extreme opinions or points of view, the (traditional) workplace is not the place for those, so if you’re not sure then always err on the side of “don’t”.

just wondering, did kpop-related news translators like oh_mes and balloon_wanted gain profit or anything from twitter? i think theres no way to gain profit on twitter if you dont have products/services.

I honestly have no idea, you’d be better off asking them about it.  I don’t see how though, not unless they’re linking to something that has ads attached.

I am wondering, what is with the sudden use of pitch change around the verses?

I guess they’re trying to make it sound “robotic” or something.  Wow this is crap even by Jamiroquai standards.

i) First I wanna thank you from the bottom of my heart for your post about Sulli’s departure abuse by heartless people. I also want to thank you for choosing Yves (there’s always a good motive to show Yves) to be your tweet sidebar girl and found amusing your choosing for Han Sohee for your pic on Twitter (even if she kinda made me lose interest after her talk about T.O.P.’s penis).
ii) My question is quite simple. I noticed that your changed Chuu in your sidebar and now it says “Chick Chuu for Chuu+!”. The Chick was intentional? If it was, I’m not sure if I catched the joke.
iii) Oh, I have another one too. Did you understood what the heck was supposed to be LOONA / YYXY’s concept of neantropic whatever?

Have a great month!

The “chick” was just a typo and has since been corrected.

Han Seo Hee’s comments about T.O.P were widely misreported.  Check her Instagram for the trufax.  I chose Han Seo Hee for the Twitter picture because she’s so often hated, and I can kind of relate to that.  I always like girls who are rude cunty problematic bitches, as long as they’re cunts to everyone else except me I’m fine with it and I’ll take them home (more on her below).  In fact this is probably how I met my partner.

Fuck knows about Loona yyxy concept, I really think they’re just fucking with their fans and being esoteric for the hell of it.  Build up a mystery that nobody can decode and sit back while everyone creates “theories”.  Let’s not think about it too hard and watch this video.

When did you born? I’m curious, so share your birthday date including the year, like kpop idol. Thanks oppar

I’m old enough to know better than to give out my birthdate on the Internet, but too young to care if that bothers you.

Hi Oppar!

This is not Kpop related question, since I just curious about this song from my country

I quite like the chorus but I think it sounds too flat, aside of knowing that this is supposed to be a dance music. What do you think?

Trying to expand the question here, I remember the first time I heard Gfriend’s Fever I was like “Oh God, is this really the chorus?” because their songs usually have distinct and standout choruses apart from the other parts as how chorus intended to be. Do you think it’s a thing when making a song?

Thank you for your opinion, Oppar! Have a great day!

Well nobody’s trying to make a song that sucks.  It’s just actually a really hard thing to do, to write good pop music.  That’s why so many people fuck it up all the time.

The reason why the song from your country feels a bit underwhelming when the chorus kicks in is probably because the instrumentation doesn’t change very dramatically from the verse to the chorus.  You’ll notice in most k-pop songs there’s a very distinct difference between choruses and verses, whereas in the song you’ve linked all they’ve really added is one extra bit of keys and the rest is the same.  I’d say that “Fever” is a bit like that too – apart from the vocals dropping out not much really changes.

im trying to ditch both my best friends at the moment because i nearly got sent into suspension for losing control and slapping one of them. she gets on my nerves so fucking bad and the other one is clingy as shit and suicidal. if either of them try and talk to me im just gonna make the excuse that im too busy with exams and revision and work to talk to them but i dont know if it will work

help me oppar

Why not just say “I don’t want to be your friend anymore”.  Sounds radical but it actually works.  Beats fucking around with this stupid games and bullshit.

Hey oppar. This is just happening and I feel so confused about it that I guess writing it down is as much for my benefit as for an answer… In summary, since a school trip to Disneyland Paris, one of my best friends hasn’t talked to me or 5 if our other shared friends since. 2 if our shared friends went off with her but have been talking normally to us when they can. It was two weeks ago. She gets in weird moods like this sometimes, and we had all but given up on her, except today another girl came up and accused us all of giving them (her and ex best friend) looks all the time and chatting shit about them behind their backs. She was really aggressive about it because that’s the type of person she is, but it just shocked us all so much that we just walked away. We’ve been so confused for the past few hours and we’ve cried so much, and it’s affecting all of us. I have no idea where the other 2 friends stand, but all 3 of them are acting like this is no big deal, when I trusted them with my life and now they seem like they hate me. It’s a bitchy thing to shut off your best friends completely, though we should have known with how flaky they’ve been. I want to die, but I also feel like I’m overreacting. We’re all trying to work this out in a group chat but it seems like it’s just confusing the situation more. They don’t seem to know why we’re upset. I don’t know how to express my feeling into text quick enough. They’ve been stewing over this for 2 weeks but I’ve known about it for exactly 3 hours. I’m not trying to fix anything, I just want to work out what’s happening. I’m angry and sad, I want to scream at them but I also never want to see any of their faces again. please help!!!

Could it be that you’re caring about this issue too much.  It was hard to even really grasp what was wrong in your situation here because your grammar is a bit odd, but it definitely feels to me like you’re way too emotionally invested in this situation.  Relationships of any type are always controlled by the people who care about them the least, so why not care a little less and retake some control.

From the same person the next day:

Hi again! I had a bit of a meltdown about my friends leaving us yesterday. I’m not sure if that helps because I think you get a lot of these. Gosh, I have no idea how you do it, having so many of these stories and never finding out the ending… anyway, I feel a lot better today. Everyone had a big talk in the library which I did not hear because I was working… I heard something about our personalities not suiting each other which I get but apparently it solves all our problems which I don’t get. Oh well, nothing I can really do about it now. I’m sure that I’m better off without them. Maybe I’ll feel a little sad sometimes but for now I’m good. I hope this brings you closure.

Seems like the right decision.

Hey oppar, I have a question. Actually, it’s not really a question, I just want some advice.
I went thrifting this saturday and it was really nice and wholesome until this guy started talking to me. I saw him on the bus to the thrift shop and when he always seemed to be really close to me and following me around the thrift shop I started getting paranoid and thought he was following me. The rational part of my brain obviously brushed that thought away because why would he be following me but turns out he was. I was just looking at a picture and he asked me if it was cool and I thought it was really weird that he just started talking to me because I come from a country where people usually don’t talk to strangers and if they do it’s usually just to pass time rather than to make friends, therefore it’s always really awkward and weird talking to strangers here. Because of that, I intially thought he was just pointing out that the painting was cool and I didn’t think much of it until he said he saw me on the bus and thought I was really beautiful. I didn’t really feel flattered from that because the fact that he followed me from the bus made me uncomfortable so I just said thanks, hoping that he’d stop talking if I tried walking away but he followed me. He asked for my name and phone number and what school I go to and so on. I just tried answering everything politely despite how uncomfortable I was. He kept asking me out while I was looking at old VHS tapes and I just said maybe because I was too… scared? I don’t know if that’s the right word but I just didn’t feel comfortable enough to say no. I took the chance to get out without him following me when I spotted my mom so I just walked to her quickly and asked her if she had found something. We left a while after that and I didn’t see him again throughout the day. He started sending me messages, asking if I had found something and maybe it wasn’t the smartest to give out my phone number but I just felt scared that I might make him angry if I refuse to talk to him. I told him I’m going to look for some pants and he told me to buy some “tight fitting pants that show off all my beautiful curves”. I honestly think it’s weird that he’s even interested in me because even though I’m over the age of consent in my country (15 and I’m 16), I’m visibly a lot younger than him and in a completely different stage of life. He keeps messaging me everyday just asking what I’m doing and how my day has been and I always give really vague, short answers to show that I don’t really want to talk to him. Obviously this is not working because today on my way to school he sat down next to me on the bus even though there were plenty of empty seats. He didn’t even say anything or try talking to me, he just looked at me really awkwardly throughout the ride. After he got off he sent me a message saying it was nice seeing me and even though it isn’t a particularly creepy message it still made me uncomfortable reading it. I really could just block his number but we live in the same really small town so I’m scared that we’re going to run into each other and that he’ll confront me about it. Ever since meeting him I’ve felt anxious about going outside because I might see him somewhere and I’d rather not feel discomfort about going outside since I’m already depressed and it’s hard as it is getting out of bed everyday. I don’t know if he has ill intentions with talking to me but I still feel really uncomfortable seeing him and I’d really like for him to stop messaging me. I know I’m probably overreacting and being really paranoid but if you have any tips on how I can make him stop talking to me then please tell me oppar.

Also, completely unrelated to the rest, but I have a school project where I need to write about Australia so can you tell me some interesting things about Australia so I don’t need to do as much research?

HOLY FUCK what is it with the creepy guys you readers are running into this month?  Is it because it’s Halloween?  People always accuse me of creepiness but god fucking damn I got nothing on these weirdos, even when I was younger and stupider at my absolute worst and most incel-ish, I was never anything like this.  If anything I think you’re under-reacting.  It’s always a mistake to “go along to get along” with people like this, you need to risk making him angry and just tell him that he needs to leave you alone.  Guys don’t do subtlety well, and creepy guys are especially bad at it.  Another option if you want to let him down gently and are worried about causing issues is you could tell him that you’re flattered by the attention but you already have a guy.  If he asks more because it’s a small town and hasn’t seen you with anyone, tell him it’s a long-distance relationship.

Tsk tsk, slacking on your studies by getting an Australian blogger to do your homework for you!  However I will comply.  Here’s some facts about Australia:

• Fosters Lager is promoted as “Australia’s beer” in other countries, but it’s actually made in England and Australians don’t even drink it.
• Australia had an Emu War, and lost to the emus.
• Australia has a national anthem but most Australians don’t know the words to the second verse, and a folk song about an animal thief who drowns himself in a lake when caught by the police is a widely preferred choice as the national song.
• Ned Kelly is considered a national hero, even though he was a criminal gang leader who killed several police officers.  He was captured during a gun battle with 30 police where he wore a homemade suit of armour to protect himself from bullets, the police shot him in the legs to eventually bring him down, he survived the battle but was later hanged.  After he died his skull was stolen – twice.
• Australia has 21 of the 25 world’s most venomous snakes, the second most deadly is the Eastern Brown Snake, also known as the “common brown snake” because it is literally so damn common and causes 60% of all Australian snake deaths.  These snakes love urban areas and there are businesses in Australia that specialise in snake removal.

Hi oppar, I’m the one who asked about the hobbies question last month. Just read your answer and thank you for opening my eyes to a new perspective. I always just thought I was wasting money, but you’re right, I’m having a lot of fun and I’m learning lot so it’s not a waste!

Just one more question, regarding my new hobby, music – in writing pop songs, what’s the most important thing to consider?

Awesome!

In pop music, rhythm is king.  Nothing else is as important.  Always start by writing rhythm and make sure your song makes sense rhythmically.

Would it be possible for you to upload the AustralianSana podcast on Spotify? It’s a lot more comfortable than YouTube but I understand if it’s not possible/you don’t want to lol

I’m very reluctant to do this, I despise Spotify and do not want to encourage its use in any way.  I don’t mind if people rip the audio from the YouTube though.

Hi! I read somewhere that you don’t like J-pop and J-rock but I was wondering if I could get your opinion on BAND-MAID? I know you like Dreamcatcher (or at least their slightly older stuff) and BAND-MAID seems pretty similar (though I prefer BAND-MAID personally).

I play the violin but never properly learned music theory and I just have poor music taste in general. Was hoping you could educate me on why you dislike J-rock (or the linked songs, if you didn’t like them as well) Sorry for the long request!

Band-Maid aren’t the worst j-shit out there simply because they’re more edging towards metal and honestly the Japanese are PURE FUCKING CRAP at making any kind of pop music so the more they edge toward completely different styles, the better for everyone.  However while I really do like their image, I’ve always found their music very weak.  They don’t really have the melodic songwriting smarts to cut it as a pop act (most of their melody is lazily blues-based), and they’re not heavy enough or with good enough guitar riffs or drums to really appeal to me as metal either.

Favourite track by Queen?

I really don’t know.  They have a lot of good songs of about equal quality.  However I always have time for “Princes Of The Universe“.

From Curiouscat: Was asking what other reasons why Startpage has much better results than google.

I actually did apply for SEO jobs before, and indeed the whole premise is to push out your sites as the first page, therefore, pushing other legit pages down.

I wouldn’t know.  This is the first I’ve ever heard of Startpage.

I’m very familiar with SEO though because I get emails every day from people pushing me their optimisation tools, however I’ve never had a problem ranking high on search engines without any help (and even with many sites actively blacklisting me!).  I think that as long as your content is unique, good, and reasonably popular, you’ll always rank well and the SEO stuff is just a gimmick.  Site owners, don’t work on your SEO, work on your content!

Is Wonder Woman by Davici/T-ara/Seeya in 3/4 or is it a triplet inside of 4/4?

Furthermore, is there any current Trot in Kpop or has it completely died? I feel this kind of sub genre doesn’t actually die.

It’s 4/4.  Although one could argue that the triplet accordion-sound makes it technically 12/8.  There’s a bit of subjectivity here, but personally I’d go with 4/4 simply because the swinging accordions isn’t really reinforced by anything else in the song, it’s not strong enough of a 12/8 pulse to really define the song in my opinion.  If there was a swinging drumbeat and vocals as well, then yeah maybe.

There’s tons of trot still in k-pop.  It’s a style that’s probably never going to completely go away, just like how country music never dies but just gradually modernises itself.  Here’s some.

Hi oppar, I have some questions:

1. I’ve been struggling with my sexual preferences: the thing is, I am romantically atracted to men, and I feel sexual attraction to women. I feel guilty because I don’t know how to label myself, nor I think I belong to the LGBT+ community given that I don’t feel 100% bisexual. As a woman, I would feel bad to use another woman’s body for my sole pleasure without having to commit to a relationship. Should I just experiment?

2. Related to the question above: I tend to like a lot of media (videogames, anime, Wonho approved PC games, etc) that are supposedly catered to male fantasies, and somehow I feel it’s such a taboo being a woman enjoying such content. Is it wrong? I sympathize a lot with feminist ideals but I don’t want to be accused of internalized misogyny and objectifying women for watching hentai/porn.

I hope I made myself clear D:

1. Yes you should experiment.  You’re not going to know what you like if you don’t try.  Also you might find that meeting certain people and trying certain things makes your preferences more clearly defined for you.  Or maybe it won’t, but that’s okay as long as you enjoy yourself and stay safe along the way!
2. There’s different kinds of feminists, and the word “feminist” is such a weird thing because it can mean so many different things to different people.  There definitely is not any kind of broadly-accepted consensus on what constitutes feminism, even the very basics such as “women being equal to men” which just seems like commonsense is actually controversial because the true nature of “equality” has several different interpretations (literal equality, equality of opportunity, equality of outcome, etc).  There’s the type of feminist who feels like wearing a short skirt is exploitation, and another type who feels that it’s empowerment.  Some feminists love sex workers, some feminists think sex workers are degrading the struggles of womankind.  Rest assured that you probably will be accused of “internalised misogyny” no matter what you believe feminism is or isn’t.  Don’t worry about objectification, there’s nothing wrong with objectifying women (or men), it’s just reality that we all are sexual objects.  This doesn’t preclude us from also being people.  To me, the people who seem to think that you can only be a person or a sex object, and that portrayals of women as sex objects somehow “reduces” them, that’s the real misogyny.

Hi Kpopalypse,

I was just wondering about the exclusive use of certain specific words by kpop fans. Why is that? Is it some sort of elitism? Is it indicative of how international the community is, as some non English speakers may using certain vocabulary without being aware that certain words are rarely used outside of kpop?
Case in point: “Stan”
The only origin of this word that I’m aware of is the Eminem song, in which it is used as an amalgamate of “stalker” and “fan”.
Is there another word origin that I’m not aware of?
Do fans intentionally use it to self-reflect on their own obsessiveness?
Is it just a lack of knowledge combined with hive mentality?
Why are we so weird?

And should I waste more time thinking about this or go and pet a cat?
Anyways, have a nice day!

I’ve heard that word used before I encountered k-pop fans using it.  Pet a cat.

There is an open access academic article about the evolution of pop music in USA:

It is a bit technical in terms of signal processing but the main idea and the results are accessible. Basically, the biggest variety in terms of styles was reached in early 2000’s after the “rap revolution” around 1990; and the variety somewhat constantly decreased in the interval 2000-2010.

First, since I’m not knowledgeable to decide, I want to ask whether the features they selected to evaluate the variation are reasonable, and meaningful. If not, what else would you choose?

Second, do you think the contraction still continue? If so, will we see a major revolution (like rock in 60’s, disco in 80’s, or hip-hop in 90’s) in the near future? Or, as many believe, it is unlikely since music industry plays much safer than it used to?

Third, would a similar analysis for kpop be meaningful, or it would just reflect American trends with a few years’ lag? In which year do you think we have witnessed the biggest variety in terms of music styles in kpop?

I agree with the essay writer in that these things fluctuate over time.  We won’t see a steady decline but continual variance with peaks and troughs as more “revolutions” (in other words, trends) transform music into the future, and then those revolutions gradually lose steam and become stale.

I think that k-pop has always tried to follow the west, and has become better at it over time.  However k-pop also is less afraid than the west’s commercial pop to also be radically divergent from current trends to make a mark.  I think there’s probably more variety over the last few years than there ever has been, because as new styles get added, the old styles don’t stop existing and being plundered from time to time.

Ok just reposting this because you asked so we can explore this subject more ;D
——-Thanks Silence and low level “white noise” cont: So before bed, I turned off all my electronics/pc and shut the door. No cars or traffic nearby. I measured with my sound analyser the volume and dead quiet was still 45DB of constant sound. So I suppose I’m not hearing imaginary things or tinnitus?
——-You said:
KPOPALYPSE
Correct, sounds about right. Seeing as how you didn’t put it in the stream questions, why not put this into QRIMOLE and I’ll answer it there.

Okay, so.  Sound is just vibration of molecules, and everything vibrates.  Right now, I’m in my room, typing out this answer.  There’s a lot of sounds that I know I can definitely hear:

• My keys on the computer keyboard clicking as I type this
• The planes outside (I live fairly near the airport)
• Some rain dripping from the gutters outside after recent rainfall
• My cat purring occasionally (I just shot the “What Is Love” video with her below and she’s still a bit excited)
• The hum of my computer’s fan
• The occasional loud car outside

There’s also quite a lot of other sounds that are close by, that I can’t quite hear, but I’d probably be able to hear them if they were just a little bit louder, or if I deliberately paid really close attention to trying to hear them:

• The Charles Manson documentary my girlfriend is watching downstairs
• The wind outside
• The hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen
• My dickhead neighbours with the tennis court who are actually being relatively quiet for once
• Quieter traffic from the nearby roads

Then there’s a whole bunch of other noises, which are still there, but they are super-quiet I’d only be able to pick them out if I had bionic super-hearing:

• The pigeons nesting in the carport
• Various insects crawling around outside (and occasionally inside) my house
• Individual trees and blades of grass blowing in the breeze
• The conversation of my neighbours three houses away
• Electrical hum from my house’s meter box
• Etc

All these noises in the second and third category combine into what’s called the “noise floor”, which is the sum of all that crap that you’re not consciously hearing, but the vibrations are still there somewhere in the mix of stuff.  45dB sounds about right for that mixture.  Because white noise is literally “every single possible sound audible by humans, distributed equally” then the sum of these other noises does tend to sound a lot like white noise, because it’s similarly random by nature given the sheer amount of sounds that exist at once.  You can usually only “hear” the noise floor when it’s very quiet and most of the obvious sounds have gone away, for instance it’s much easier to hear the noise floor in the country than in the city where there’s almost always lots of just-under-the-radar sound.  If you’re hearing that noise floor a lot, what that actually means is that you have very good hearing, probably better than most.  Yes there are other noises that can indicate hearing damage but that’s usually high ringing that doesn’t go away or fade in time, because it’s damage to your ear’s ability to hear specific frequencies.

Hi kpopalypse! I’ve been a long time reader of kpopalypse, asianjunkie, and AKFG and one thing I really enjoy is that each and every one of these writers have their own writing style that displays their own individual charm. I really enjoy your individual ‘voices’ and I’m planning on starting my own blog to explore my own writing potential and style. (It won’t be about kpop since I don’t think I care that much to write about it, I wanna write about horror flicks) Do you have any tips for me on my future blogging endeavors (if I actually get to it)? Also would you recommend Blogger or WordPress, and if it’s the latter, then which hosting company should I get? (I seem to remember you had wordpress in your url but idk)

I use WordPress for my blog but there’s nothing wrong with Blogger.  WordPress is definitely prettier but it comes at a cost which is less flexibility and more money.  I’d still prefer to use WordPress personally.

Hello kpopalypse im aware this could lead you to an annoying amount of work but still i think is worth asking it, will you do a list/compilation of the best kpop of the decade since 2019 finishing? What t-ara songs would be featured? I would guess sugar free.

If there’s a way that I could do it which would be A. fair and B. not just a rehash of content I already have, then I’d do it. However I’ve already got rankings for every year so I don’t see any valid reason to produce a list like this except for clickbait. I know a lot of people always ask “how would you rank song X from year Y against song A from year B” but answering that question is just rehashing content. Creating lists and more lists just to exploit people’s OCD and people’s on-the-spectrum list-fetishising is Koreaboo tactics.  If I can think of a really good, unique way to do such a list, I might, because it has been asked for frequently.

What are your feelings on gudetama?

Hello Kitty outsold

Oppar do u ever make music you don’t like listening to just ‘cos it pays? I’m approached by someone who’ll be paying me to write and produce for them a mariah carey-ish rnb vocal shitfest song. The pay is great tbh, at $2k++, around double of my normal asking price, but I hate those kinda songs lol but yeah I should just remove my head up my ass and take all the money I can get?

Second question oppar, any tips on writing/producing a good song at major pentatonic scale? Also, how would vocalwanking make artistic sense in songs like these? I was thinking of having the parts where the singer will wank (prolly the choruses or bridge sections) to be in like one-note only so it’d contrast, is that a good idea?

Thank you!!

First question – yes, all the time!  The music industry is hard to get work in, I strongly suggest that you go where the money is.  You bet I’d help someone make a R&B piece of shit for 2k, why the hell not?  There are worse jobs!

The second question is really hard to answer without actually hearing anything specific, but as a general rule it’s fine to have a big display of vocals but it needs to make sense in some kind of context.  You need to build up to it sensibly.  The scale isn’t as important as the overall musical approach.  Here’s a good example where that type of vocal really works, and gives a few different examples of how it can work.

(also it’s in a major key too, to answer your second question which I didn’t reproduce here)

If the year ended today, would you have a top 30 best song list as good as any other year or it’s still a bit thin? I myself have 40-45 I really liked so if I were to make a list, I’d have top 30 plus honorable mentions. Although aside from a clear top three (“Dream About U”, “Fifth Season”, and “Over The Sky), I don’t really have a ranking yet.

Maybe a little thin but we’ve still got November to go so it’s unfair to judge right now.  I’ll give you a better answer in two months.

I have asked many kpop related questions using your qrimole in the past. But this time I want to share a real life problem, it’s bothering me and I want your advice if you have any.
So we had to do this lab project in our uni, but my group made a mistake. Actually 80% of the class made the same mistake but they all lied to the professor while me and my group mates just told him the truth. (We can’t snitch on them because that’s the unspoken rule) So he was angry at us, said he’s going to deduct our marks, and he kept throwing jabs at us like ‘we wasted his resources’ (we didn’t, the mistake wasn’t that serious and the rest of the experiment/project was successful anyway). Then he started talking about all the issues with our class .He was especially bothered by the students who are not very active (read:being buffoons) in class. He said that some of us look like we know witchcraft and that we are going to curse him. Later he pointed me out to be one of those ‘witch’ students (I have resting bitch face).
The next day he targeted me again! Probably because of my rbf and that I don’t laugh at his shitty jokes. He told the class he’s going to make me cry in 5 minutes. (btw in my country I have seen several male teachers bragging about how they can make female students cry- they treat it like an achievement) He then asked me to cry already so that he can start the lecture. I didn’t cry even though I wanted to but how could I give that rat power over me? Then he said that he’s just joking and why would he even make me cry! Whatever I did he mocked me for it. Like whether you say yes or no, nod or shake your head, stay silent or say something, he would humiliate you. And everyone will laugh, they don’t want to piss off the teachers. You just never win with him. I was confused af. I couldn’t answer back because I don’t want bad grades. I feel like I’m bullied. He targets other students too for different reasons, for example a girl eating something in class, a girl not wearing her glasses, a girl sitting this or that way, a boy being too silent etc. but I don’t think they got targeted the way I am. I’m also scared because he’s going to keep mocking me for the rest of the semester. I hate him, do not want to see his face, even the subject he teaches us disgusts me.
You have advised several caonimas about dealing with bullies. What would you suggest a caonima that’s being bullied by a teacher?
Anyways thanks for reading this (if you do). I hope you’re doing well.

I had a bully of a teacher in my art class in high school.  I was actually good at art normally, but I failed his class because he was such a dick.  I used to get told off hardcore by my dad if I brought home a shit report card, so I was terrified the day that I had to present it to him.  To my surprise, my dad wasn’t upset, or at least he wasn’t upset at me.  He said “If I see you get a F in phys ed, I know it’s because you’re just bad at it, so I can’t be mad.  If I see you get an F in English or Maths, then you’re being slack, you have to try harder, and yes I’ll be pissed off.  If I see you get an F in art, I know you’re good at art, and you love art because you find it fun, it’s not even a serious subject really – so I know something’s actually wrong.  You must have a shit teacher who can’t teach.  Who is your fucking teacher?  I’ll tell him how to do his job.”  I really wasn’t able to articulate the bullying I experienced at the hands of that teacher very well to my dad, but I didn’t have to.  The next parent-teacher night my dad went over there and rained down fire and brimstone on the school about it.  I didn’t see that teacher the following year, I think my dad scared him off, or he got fired, possibly after multiple reports just like my dad’s.  So my suggestion is, make a noise to parents, or if your parents aren’t sympathetic, to those in authority.  Teachers have bosses, and unlike student bullies who don’t respect authority, teachers have no choice as they’re empolyees, they HAVE to respect authority from higher than them, so go to that authority.  Maybe ask to see the principal and explain to him what you’ve explained to me, in the same level of detail.

I’m looking for a job right now. But it seems like I have serious trouble with confidence and speaking in general. In an interview, if it was something I already prepared then I can answer ( with a shaky and small voice ) properly. If it not, then I start to freak out and don’t know what I’m even saying. And I also feel like my prepared answer is not what the recruiting office wants to hear. People also say to me that it’s okay if I fail and I should do more interviews to get better. But every time I get rejected, I lose my confidence little by little. What do you think I should do to have a successful interview? What’s your interview experience be like?

Practice with friends, preferably someone who, like me, has interviewed people for jobs before.  When you’re an employer, interviewing people is tough.  You’re looking for the right person for the job, but how do you know that the candidate that you see is the one?  A lot of people bullshit in interviews, so it can be really hard to tell.  Some people have a good con.  But here’s what employers always care about:

• timeliness, reliability
• mentally switched on, not someone who would make stupid mistakes that would cost the business money
• looks presentable for the role
• can work fast and not slack off
• can actually do the job presented
• can be trusted without constant supervision

They’re the main things that apply to pretty much every job ever.  Any degree or qualification that you possess is only useful insofar as it proves that you have the above.  However what you need to really ask yourself is – how can I prove to someone who doesn’t know me, that I have the listed qualities?  Think about that and have those things in the back of your mind during the interview process.  Also practice, with friends.  If you don’t have confidence just try and fake it a little, that’s what most people who appear to have confidence are actually doing!

Can you please tell me what kind of genre is this? And is there anything similar like this in kpop?

Pop.  Just kinda weird pop heh.  Nothing k-pop-ish springs to mind but I’ll leave this here for others to comment on.  I’m sure there’s a song I’m forgetting.

I’d always wondered why you didn’t like Jazz and despite being a dedicated caonima I find myself almost taking offense lol (I’m a gypsy swing lead guitarist that’s why) . Then I came up your kpopalypse dislikes post about Jazz and realized that you disliked Jazz from 50s onward (technique-fagging boring jazz) and now I understand. And I share the sentiment lol and I had also read up on your opinions of IU’s jazz album (which I thought recaptured the best eras of jazz from 20s-40s) and now ur my ultimate bias lmao

Anyways my question will be – do you know why jazz went to shit when it went to prog and fusion and techniquewanking when other instruments-heavy genres got better when players got technical, like classic rock got better when it went hard and/or progressive (of course it did come to a point that they went to shit too that’s why punk took place but yeah) and heavy metal got better as it went faster (thrash, death) (of course slower tempo like doom is also great but yeah)?

I think that jazz in its early days suffered a lot of the same stigma that rock and roll, heavy metal and rap all suffered when they first appeared – it was seen as a tuneless music style, “just noise, not real music” etc.  I think the increasing focus on technique was partially a way to combat that stigma “look how hard this is to play, it MUST be real music”.  Keep in mind that many of the performers were black Americans and there was also that racial stigma on top of that, so I think in a lot of cases people were REALLY keen to show that they in fact had an artform there at their hands and that they could play.  Of course they did eventually convince everyone that it was real music – real boring music.  In the early jazz days, it was good-time party music, people would dance to it – nowadays you get told off by the performers if you’re watching a jazz show and you cough too loud.  But that’s my opinion on the root of why things gradually changed.  There may have also been a competitive element among musicians too, and also drugs probably played a role!  It’s honestly thesis-worthy stuff and if I was doing jazz uni I’d probably look into it more.

Something is bothering me about MonstaX’s scandals in this last week of October. They seemed to be about shit that happened quite some time ago and were just released to the public exactly in the week of their comeback. Wonho even released a statement declaring he’s no longer part of the group.
Taking into consideration another cases with some similarities to Wonho’s, like NCT Taeyong for example, that actually has been managed to another possible outcomes aside member removal, doesn’t seem a little odd the way things have escalated with MonstaX? I don’t know, I must only had my memory tickled with all the T-ARA’s shit in 2012.

they appeared on some Halloween TV’s show special and they all seemed quite revolted about everything. Here are some links if you want to see for yourself:

Yes it’s interesting.  There’s various motivations that people have to look for dirt.  Could even be another company.  However I think the “revolted” thing is probably just your perception, I mean if those scandals didn’t happen you probably would have just thought they were good actors.

Do you think Wonho stole all that money to buy all these Wonho-friendly games you suggested him in this blog?

He should have waited for a Steam sale!  A lot of them frequently get massively discounted.

Isn’t it funny that Monsta X debuted with a song called “Trespass”, acting like criminals and playing with (fake) guns, but LORD HELP US if a member may have commited a crime in the past? Shouldn’t we be thankful to hentai game king Wonho for not faking anything?

He’s “keeping it real”.  If he was a western hip-hop artist he’d be swimming in credibility right now.  But because he’s k-pop nobody can handle it.  People are soft.

Do you still support Han Seo Hee, even with her exposing idols, and even causing some (B.I and Wonho, recently) to leave the public eye?

Is she faking all this drama for clicks, or is she really telling the truth, knowing lots of idols’ past?

So here’s something I left on an Asian Junkie article:

Of course Asian Junkie’s largely humourless readers didn’t really appreciate this comment much (the site’s community has sure gone downhill lately, even AJ himself often notices), but that’s too bad, because it’s true.  Han Seo Hee has been a trainee at several agencies, and knows a lot of people’s dirty laundry.  She’s a lot of things, but a liar isn’t one of them – all the tea she’s had on idols has consistently checked out.  People can argue that they don’t like her because she’s a TERF (although she actually renounced a lot of that after a while, something people conveniently forget when they want to find extra reasons to hate on her), or because she doesn’t care about ruining careers, or just because they see her as an unpleasant person, and honestly I think it’s fine to not like her for those things if that’s how people feel about it.  However what is bashing her really going to achieve?  It’s quite clear that she doesn’t give the slightest of fucks, and she isn’t going to shut up no matter how much people want her to – if anything she’ll probably just revel in the attention and become even louder.  Maybe she’ll get her own variety show if people keep on carrying on like pork chops, because someone will detect all that increased web traffic whenever her name is mentioned and see dollar signs in harvesting the outrage-clicks.  So while it’s fair to not like her, I mean she is really unpleasant I guess (in other words just the type of girl I like), but it won’t actually achieve anything except to make yourself look good to your peers if you criticise her, and gives her message free traffic.  It’s a cheap shot that deploys a little morale boost but is counterproductive in the long term.  That’s the point of my Asian Junkie comment.  Anyone taking shots at her is banging their heads against a brick wall – she doesn’t care, she’s happy to just burn it all down, and burn you along with it.  I’m not saying (as several people have since strawmanned, including several in replies to the above comment) that I think she’s the fucking saviour of k-pop or some shit – no.  She’s just a woman who has been through some shit and is especially cunty.  She’s not the real enemy.  Starship could have stuck by Monsta X’s members but they didn’t because they have no balls, if I were a Wonho fan that’s where I’d focus my outrage.  So what if Wonho is a criminal, plenty of western celebrities have criminal records and they still get to be in public so why not Wonho too?  Why can’t the Korean industry mature enough to stop dealing in fake bullshit and start being real with people across the board, and just come clean about things instead of trying to bury everything with sackings, non-disclosure agreements and gangs of thugs running around trying to silence people (hi guys if you’re reading).  Imagine how much better shit could be.  Yes some artists have criminal records, we hope you don’t find out, but now that you have – oh well, there it is.  Yes trainees starve themselves because skinny people look better on camera to most consumers these days, but the fat people’s stuff if you want it to sell, and we’ll make more of that instead, because we like money.  Yes our contracts control every movement of our trainees because they’re just young kids and we don’t want them saying some dumb shit and blowing their whole career before it starts especially after we invested this mountain of money in their product.  Yes we’re a bit ignorant about what might go over well (or not so well) in other countries, we’re trying our best but we don’t know really so we just guess – lol.  The entire industry has a lot to gain by just being honest and saying what everyone else already knows that they’re thinking.  I’m sure that’s a no-no in Korean culture, and that’s probably why things are still as fucked up as they are and probably not ever going to change.  However, I can decide to be against that anyway, so I am, because unlike all the commentors on Asian Junkie, Twitter and other sites who like to appear to be moral by bashing some girl they don’t even know, I actually am moral because I work in the music business and I see how fucked up things can be and how many lives are thrown away (lost a friend just the other month actually, found out while I was in the hotel room in Melbourne not seeing Dreamcatcher, as if my trip wasn’t fucked up enough), and that’s why I focus on the big targets, not the easy targets.

2019 has been my shittiest year so far. Tinnitus, failed an internship, fucked up my plans for a masters degree. My second internship is failing aswell. My interactional abilities suck, which is (believe it or not) the sole reason they’re considering failing me. I work in fucking consultancy. Im not dumb it’s genuinly my social skills that are so subpar that it weights down the rest. Developed an eating disorder somewhere along the road aswell, which fucking sucks bc i don’t have the energy to cope with things and i have to divide my attention between finding myself fat and disgusting, looking for ways i can lose more weight and also flipping my shit cause my fucking life is doomed. If i fail this internship i won’t get my degree at all and i won’t be able to get into a job in which i can use my talents. In order to get my dream job, within research (which has nothing to do with human interaction or consultancy at all) i need a masters degree. Now as im taking a holiday due to having a complete fucking meltdown, im going to need some recommendations on things i can watch to make me feel better about my life. Movies, series, variety all the same. No sad stuff.

No no no, you’re going about this all wrong.  You don’t need to shut out the sadness.  You need to watch, listen to and experience some really dark, ugly stuff.  The reason why a lot of people gravitate towards the darker end of popular culture is because their lives often suck and seeing stuff that isn’t just sweetness and light but has some gritty realness or at least some acknowledgement of the darkness of the human condition, is more relateable.  Listening to happy songs will only help you be happy as long as the song lasts, after that you’re back to just being you and feeling disconnected.  Listening to something about how fucked everything is will empower you, because you’ll realise that your life, while not perfect, is far from a lost cause, and there are other people out there who can relate to your condition and speak directly to your experience, it’ll make you feel more connected to the world around you, and to your eventual destiny as someone who is going to go out in the world and kick ass, masters degree or not, less weight or not, dream job or not.  When I was a miserable depressed teen, discovering heavy metal and punk really helped me through the tough times, because it told me that there were thousands of other people halfway across the world who felt like I did, and that if these people could find a way to express their demons and get through it, so could I.  I couldn’t have listened to k-pop back then, I wouldn’t have liked it and it probably would have even done me some mental damage to be a fan of it, because I wasn’t mature enough to handle my own problems at the time, I needed a little help, so a world where everyone pretends that everything is sweetness and light wouldn’t have done me any favours at all.  However I hope that with the writing that I do, that deliberately separates out the value of the music from the perils of k-pop’s paper-thin ideology, it might empower some people who find the candy-coated world of pop ridiculousness as disgusting as I would have back then, a way to still enjoy music for what it is, and not what it isn’t.  Here’s hoping!

However if you disagree with the above take and you still feel like you need only happy things, here’s my cat chasing shadows and lounging on the floor of my room while Twice’s “What Is Love” plays in the background, which is the happiest thing I can think of right now.

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That’s all for QRIMOLE!  This series will return in a month, in the meantime don’t forget to play some Wonho games in honour of our fallen hero!

Oh, and do you have a question that you’d like to see answered in the next episode of QRIMOLE?  If so, use the question box below, or if no box appears, click the Qri on the sidebar to open the box as a separate webpage!  Kpopalypse will return!