AustralianSana returns with Kpopalypse with another podcast!

Timestamps and relevant links after the jump!

0:00 – Hannah Gadsby: who?
1:26 – It’s called “tomato sauce”
3:14 – AustralianSana’s Jar Jar Binks impersonation is here, please rate it out of 10 in the comments below, also bonus Gollum
4:43 – They’re really making a Space Jam 2, all hope for humanity is lost
8:15 – Yoongi’s scandal
14:39 – Jungkook’s ARMY tattoo
17:28 – BTS “self-producing”, fact or marketing?
21:28 – Dear AustralianSana, why are you so hot?
22:12 – Jungkook traffic accident and long term consequences of fandom shielding
24:34 – South Korean government using K-pop as a distraction to cover up other scandals?
28:05 – Kpopalypse gets a boring question about this lame article and turns it into a discussion about this much more interesting article
31:11 – BTS making a statement about Black Lives Matter, #2MforBLM and black ARMYs being bullied out of their own fandom
39:37 – AustralianSana – a bully?
40:01 – Tik-tok
40:56 – Yubin and Real Recognise Real
41:44 – Pledis
42:47 – Joe Biden
44:55 – Non-standard meal times?
45:21 – What would you change about MNet and Produce 101?
48:46 – Ever considered writing for Seoulbeats?
52:40 – a fairly crap question that we already had in the previous episode makes Kpopalypse wonder if we’ve reached the end – not a chance
53:00 – Racist book retailer?
55:00 – Australian man wrestles python to save kitten, also how is Australia handling COVID-19
59:01 – Nobody in Australia cares about Yahoo Serious anymore or even knows who he is
1:00:00 – Lame COVID-19 conspiracies, of course we don’t care about this, I mean sure we’re k-pop fans but even we’re not that retarded
1:00:28 – Personal experience with a “Karen”
1:03:38 – Jeb Bush’s real name
1:03:58 – Favourite and least favourite Tarantino films
1:07:11 – Favourite April song
1:09:27 – Do you know any furries IRL?
1:10:42 – Compatibility with the Big 3 CEOs according to the (incorrect) 12-sign zodiac
1:15:42 – AustralianSana and Kpopalypse both struggle with the sports ball shape
1:20:31 – You know it’s not an AustralianSana & Kpopalypse podcast if it doesn’t have…
1:21:59 – Sorn from CLC’s inspiring words
1:26:38 – Your regular rumination on how the American healthcare system is a joke
1:32:51 – Doctor Who
1:33:24 – AustralianSana’s thoughts on the entire Star Wars series
1:43:14 – Japanese Mayor: Only Men Should Go Shopping During Pandemic Because Women Take Too Long
1:44:16 – Rate Lee Sooman’s and Ed’s “90 day fiance” sexiness on a scale from 1-10
1:45:26 – “Superstar Woollim” vs “Superstar BTS” mobile games – which is best?
1:49:01 – How to reach AustralianSana on Twitter these days, in case you need reminding
1:49:34 – Does racism in the music industry hinder k-pop groups in the American market?
1:58:09 – Rich people need a hand because of COVID
1:58:51 – #BlackpinkLivesMatter
2:07:09 – conclusion

Note: podcast title and YouTube header images are chosen by Kpopalypse, not AustralianSana.

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Transcription courtesy of an anonymous caomina – thank you!  Note that I haven’t edited this in any way whatsoever due to time constraints so there may be errors etc.

KP: Well, let’s get started shall we?

AS: Yes, what stories do we have today?

KP: There’s a lot as usual. I don’t think there’s is quite as many as last one but…

AS:  I was gonna say hopefully I won’t go as off topic today and talk for like two hours.

KP: We’ll see, so here we go. Starting off, are you guys familiar with Hanna Gadsby? I love her Netflix special, Nanette. I watch it whenever I need to cry. So far, I’ve watched it four times. Recently her new Netflix special called, Douglas, was released and I love that too, so how about you guys? Since she’s from Australia, have you ever went to one of her shows or saw her on TV or have you never heard of her?

AS: Personally, never heard of her but I’m interested like what it’s about.

KP: I’ve never heard of her either. I don’t even watch Netflix. 

AS: Yeah, I don’t have Netflix. I mean why pay $10 a month when you can spend a VPN for $5. I’m not obviously going into details that are incriminating what I you said VPN for

KP: Yes, smart kids, listen to AustralianSana.  

AS: Listen – wink wink.

KP: And read between the lines but no, I don’t even know who this person so let’s just move on to the next question. Which is which do you prefer ketchup or mayonnaise?

AS:  Oh, interesting both important staples of white people cuisine. Well for me, I use mayonnaise when I have salmon because I make salmon sandwiches that’s basically what I’ve been like living off of since I’ve been in lockdown because I’m too lazy to cook so I just – like I order smoked salmon slices from Woolworths. You can get it pretty cheap so I’m not rich or anything stupid like that and then I just make salmon sandwiches and then I use mayonnaise on that and then if I’m feeling slightly MasterChef level in terms of preparing my dinner, I will cook fish fingers or chicken nuggets and I will use tomato sauce on those so both essential AustralianSana staple sauces.

KP:  I don’t really like either. We don’t even call it ketchup here.  

AS: Yeah, we call it tomato sauce 

KP: Tomato sauce, not ketchup. Ketchup’s –

 AS: American

KP: American term.  I don’t actually know all the staple white – stereotypical white cuisines are. Can someone make me a list?

AS: I don’t know. I think I’m kind of just roasting myself as a white person, but I do see like mayonnaise in a few jokes.

 KP:  I’ve seen mayonnaise mentioned. I only find that out a few months ago. I had no idea that it was supposedly a white person thing, so I don’t know why.

AS: Maybe it’s cause like it’s white, we’re white. 

KP: Yeah, but then why’s ketchup in there or tomato sauce? We’re not red.

AS: Oh, it’s not, it’s not. That’s just me making that one. 

KP: Oh okay, you were improvising. Sorry, I’m a bit slow over here.

AS: That’s alright, you’re only 45 minutes behind.

KP: You have a choice – you have to choose out of looking like Jar Jar Binks or sounding like Jar Jar Binks

AS: Mesa Jar Jar Binks.

KP: And you can’t kill yourself either. I think it’s obvious what you chose. I haven’t seen this – the first three Star Wars, not first three but the – 

AS: The prequel trilogies.

KP: The prequel three so I don’t even know what he sounds like – I don’t even know what 

he looks like so I can’t even answer that. 

AS: He’s definitely goofy looking.  I do voice impersonations for like shits and giggles, I mean, that one wasn’t really that good but I mean I kind of would just go with that for the fact that I can impersonate him. 

KP: Everyone listening to this you have to leave a comment you have to rate AustralianSana’s  Jar Jar Binks impersonation out of ten. 

AS: Okay, but that’s not like in my repertoire. I’ve got others that I’m actually good at.

KP: What’s your best one?

AS: Probably the cliched one that a lot of people do for vocal impersonations but Gollum from Lord of the Rings.

KP: Alright, can we hear some Gollum?

AS: Alright, gimme a sec – “My precious. We wants it. Who stoles it from us? —was it the fat hobbitses” How’s  that?

KP: Oh it was fantastic. Very good. that was awesome. Next, someone’s asking us for our

pics and he sent us the link…

 AS: Pics of what?

 KP: I’ll send it to ya. The cat’s in the way of the screen. 

AS: Oohh, we’ve got a link on the screen. Will my shitty computer let me click it? Ok, fandom on Twitter pick three you gotta. Let’s see if it’ll actually load now, that’s the next step. Come on you little shit. There we go, something’s loading…ah my most anticipated movie sequels, so I am definitely excited about Mission Impossible 7. Mission Impossible Fallout which was the one that came out last year is like one of my favorite movies I loved it so it’s definitely one I’m hype for although I’m also kinda at that point where it’s like you know you’re on to the seventh mission now so it’s like you know you might want to change the franchise name from Mission Impossible to Mission Highly Likely. What’s the other one I’m interested in? l mean, they’re all movies that I quite like so I’ll probably like see a whole bunch of them. Sherlock Holmes 3 – I liked the first one and second one and especially after how terrible the last season of the BBC Benedict Cumberbatch Sherlock Holmes was I’m kind of interested just watch a Sherlock Holmes that’s actually set in the time period that it was written and also without that whole shit that they went into of their Mary Sue character who is his younger sister for anybody who does watch the BBC version they’ll know what I’m talking about, so my first two are definitely MI7 and Sherlock Holmes. I think I might go Venom, Venom 2, although I do like Spiderman as well so it’s either Venom 2 or Spiderman 3.

KP: I haven’t even seen like hardly any of the originals so, but I can’t believe they got in the little link that I gave you they’ve got Space Jam – like they’re actually gonna make a sequel to Space Jam.

AS: Yeah, a very long time after the first one came out cause the first one came out when I was actually still a child. 

KP: Isn’t the first one consider one of the worst films of all time?

AS: Oh, possibly but you know how like there’s a whole nostalgia trip of anything from the 90s now because like everyone my age is depressed as fuck and trying to regress back into childhood so that’s probably a huge thing line and then just ‘90s nostalgia Space Jam. Is it actually a horrible movie? Oh, it’s got a 43% rating on Rotten Tomatoes so it’s not that bad and it was profitable it was an 80 million dollar budget and 230 million dollars that it made at the box office.

KP: Wow, people went out for Space Jam.

 AS:  Yeah, I guess they’ll go back out again depending on the corona situation but that’s the idea I’m guessing.

 KP: Yes I guess so. Let’s move on to the next question. I’m not an ARMY but because of AustralianSana whose opinions I value I became a little interested in the group not a fan just a curious observer, so I have a few BTS questions for her. There’s three questions, I’ll give ‘em to you individually. First one: What do you think about Yoongi’s scandal and his response?

 AS:  Ah well, I’ll try not to do a super long rant response because it is a long situation but the TLDR version is Yoongi sampled a serial killer and cult leader named Jim Jones on his mixtape and the fandom tried to bury the situation when it started to come out as a controversy saying like “no no no he didn’t know that was, he didn’t know that is who it was it was the producer whose fault it was” or spreading it originally saying that he was sampling the clip last year – there’s footage of him doing it in his hotel room and everyone was like “oh my god he’s such a genius and he’s gonna write about Jim Jones. He’s so smart – oh my god, genius Yoongi~”

 KP: And then he gets busted and then it’s like “oh, he had nothing to do with it.”

 AS: “Read this statement that BigHit put out, they said he had nothing to do with it and it was the producer who was responsible for selecting that clip” and I’m like who’s the said producer that was responsible in his hotel room in BigHit footage from last year? So yeah, I think that’s obviously a huge fuckup in regards to BigHit’s addressal of the situation because it’s like you know I understand you think your fanbase is dumb because for the most part they are, but for anybody on the outside looking in they’re like what the fuck and in terms of the actual sampling of its itself I think there’s like little context things that do add up to why he did it, so for example like he has referenced a lot of times in the past that he grew up listening to Eminem, so you know if you don’t have a lot of nuance or whatever – not that there’s all that much in Eminem’s music you know –  Eminem has a lot of crack songs like “Without me” is one of them, “I’m Slim Shady. I’m the real Shady” and Slim Shady references Tommy Lee beating Pamela Anderson’s ass like you know that’s referencing domestic violence so Eminem is very much a shock factor artist when he wants to be and Yoongi has very likely taken inspiration from that and used it in terms of his selection of sampling and samples being controversial is definitely not unheard of in rap music; although in a lot of cases it will be black musicians who are sampling quotes that are then used disparagingly against the black community and then they rap as a form of social commentary, so again that’s the nuance part that he’s missing out on and from what I believe, but in terms of him just doing what he sees other rappers doing it’s not exactly an unrealistically lead. I think what would have been smarter in terms of writing the statement addressing the issue would have been to just be honest about it and say something like, yes, I chose this sample, this is the reason I chose this sample, these are the artists who I’ve looked up to in America who have also chosen similar samples in their music and who I took inspiration from and then the song itself is called “What do you think?” and it’s basically a massive flex song and it’s like look how much money I have, my bank account has ten zeros in it, and that itself was a bit of it like oh you kind of shot yourself in the foot there because it’s like you know if you look at ten zeros in Korean money it’s about 10 million in USD or no, just around 10 million maybe a bit less so it’s like yeah it’s a flex but then you consider the fact that you supposedly a billion dollar boyband so if you’re only making 10 million out of a billion you’re kind of getting screwed over by your company but yeah, in general it’s like I’m famous, you’re not. I fly first-class, you don’t mind. I’m the best thing ever. Super flex song.

KP: 90% of rap songs basically.

AS: Yeah, assuming rap songs that aren’t social commentary, not to dismiss the genre but you get what I’m saying and the use of a cult leader being sampled in a song like that actually makes sense but the reason that they’re not going to actually put out an accurate statement is because he himself is comparing himself to a cult leader and the fact that he is now at a godlike status where he can do anything that he wants and ironically the fandom coming to his defensive at sampling he said cult leader is in fact proving the point of that song that he is now this godlike figure who cannot ever be touched or criticized because he has such a mass cult-like following that will do all his fighting for him, so I mean the whole situation is actually quite amusing and ironic really but the sad fact is that Jim Jones actually murdered over 900 people so I think he could have chosen a different cult leader maybe someone from Shincheonji and how relevant that is in Korea right now but yeah he could have chosen a different cult leader to make that same point.

KP: Does it really matter which cult? 

AS: One that killed 700 black people because there’s also that added racial issue that then happens to surface right now during the matter of Black Lives Matter and all that kind of stuff so yeah it’s just lots of layers, lots of things that went wrong but you get the idea what I’m saying hopefully. 

KP: Yeah, I do.

AS: They’re all pretty much as bad.

KP: Yeah, pick the nicest cult leader. It’s just a hard ask, you know what I mean?

AS: Talking about Mission Impossible 7 sample Scientology next time that’s a cult for you.  Anyway, question two.

KP: I’m not gonna go on the BTS ones much cause – 

AS: You’re welcome to chime in, I mean, it’s your show.

KP: Yeah yeah it is, I mean I kind of said what I wanted to say about BTS in in the post I made about it. 

AS: I thought it was funny I read it 

 KP: Yeah, I don’t need to go there really.  Next question did Jungkook really get an ARMY tattoo?

AS:  Ah, Jungkook. 

KP: Jungkook? Okay, whatever and why and does he hate himself? 

AS: Obviously he does because yeah that’s the only way you’re letting that get scrawled on your hand and yes, the tattoo is real and it says A R M Y on his hand and yeah he got it done by the  tattoo artist who supposedly rumored to be his girlfriend. I don’t really care much about the whole personal life situation he’s got a whole sleeve or sleeve, I use that term lightly, because rather than a sleeve it’s like patchy little tattoos that go all up and down his arm from what we’ve seen in like the pictures of his arms but BigHit either edit out the tattoos or he just has always wore long sleeves ever since he’s had the tattoos done which they were done last year, so yeah the tattoos aren’t really that well done but you know fandom is like “loves it so much” and I’ve talked about this in general on my Twitter and also in that blog that I wrote cause I got blasted once for saying that Jungkook is miracle for turning out to be a good person given the fact that he was raised from a very young age in a very toxic music industry and you know people thought that I was saying “she says that he’s a sociopath” I’m like no you dumb fuck I’m saying it’s a miracle that he’s not one cause, you know, you look at how people turn out when they start off as child entertainers especially with how toxic the situation in Korea is with sasaengs fans and fansites and how controlling the companies are and he was very young and impressionable and formative years of development all that shit, so first obviously I think there’s certain things I don’t like about that level of devotion to go out and get a tattoo of your fandom name on it because it’s just a really unhealthy level of devotion both ways. I don’t like the fact that he seems to think that his worth is determined on what ARMYs think of him which he tends to hint in a lot of his interview questions like he’s very dependent on other humans reaction to him as a person, so I think he deserves better than that and I’d like to see him – just have a bit of self-actualization but I think it’s very difficult industry for that to happen you because companies very much reinforce the fact that you’re only of value if your fans like you if anything. Yeah, all that kind of shenanigans. So, I do think that he’s a bit too deep in terms of how much people like him and how much – you know, is he insane for getting those tattoos – yes.

KP:  Does he hate himself? Possibly.

AS: Very likely, but you have to. You have to hate yourself to pander yourself to ARMYs.

KP: The last question from this person: it’s been said that BTS is next album is going to be self-produced or something do you think this is just marketing or did the members actually ask to be more involved this time so they can get more work experience?

AS: Definitely a bit of both. It is definitely a huge part of their marketing because BigHit has been heavily yelling about how their self-produced artists and you know the fans are always like “all other artists are fake and BigHit are the only one with a real message” so I think they’re definitely hammering that harm for this new album so that they can feed into what the fandom wants to hear. In terms of the album itself, my personal theory is that the album 7 that came out earlier this year Map of the Soul: 7 repackage from the previous album that was meant to be their final album before they went on tour for this year and then they were going to start enlistment towards the end of the year, who I’ve heard that from multiple different sources. Obviously the corona situation has screwed all of their plans over and it has also left BigHit up big shit creek without a paddle in terms of financials because they have a lot of money from the sold concert tickets but now they’re potentially having to refund them because the postponement and if you’ll go online you’ll find a lot of people who can’t refund their tickets because the concert is actually postponed not technically cancelled. BigHit refuses to give dates or anything so they want their concerts to go ahead but the problem then becomes the military enlistment for Seokjin who is like has to enlist by the end of the year compared to the others who they were going to likely send in all at once just to get it all over and done with, but yeah because of that it screwed up their source of profit source of revenue for the entire year and now they need some other form of income so that’s where it goes from 7 is our most personal album yet and this is going to be our final send-off and we put so much heart and soul into this album – shit guys we needa album quick before we like all go broke so BigHit are like – “get in that studio, churn some shit out and you need to like make it as quick as can” – well I like the idea that they’re actually going to be making it this time but we’ll have a look at the album credits when it comes out to see just how much of it they are making.

KP: Yeah it wasn’t, the ratio wasn’t high last time, was it it?

 

AS: It was higher than what it had been for the album before but even then there are still a lot of foreign names like the ratio if you look at in-house composers to Western composers it was a hell of a lot different back in 2014-2015 but that was also during a time when they weren’t 24/7 touring, so they obviously had more time to be in the studio and be more involved in their music as they have become more active and more popular in the overseas market they therefore have less time to actually still be involved in writing and yes, they are still involved. They will very likely write their own lyrics and I’m not slandering any of that because yeah that’s a skill that’s talent to be able to write lyrics and have some involvement in composition. You see them in their hotel rooms when they’re on tour actually like with keyboards and all that kind of stuff but it’s just not physically humanly possible to be putting out two or three releases a year and be off on world tours with like 50 stops. It’s just not humanly possible so that’s why they have to go and bring in Melanie Fontana and all of the others who they’ve been hiring but now that they’re not on tour and they’re not like constantly 24/7 busy from schedules, they actually do have more time to therefore be in a studio again so I am genuinely hoping that this album is in fact going to be a throwback to the earlier era where they were a lot more involved in the credits, so I’m hoping it is what they’re saying it is but obviously I don’t have blind faith in companies. 

KP: You’ll find out, won’t ya. Next question, very erudite question this next question this next one, prepare yourself. Dear AustralianSana, why you so hot?

AS: Subjective. 

KP: I just want to say I’m really offended here cause they didn’t send it to me at all.

AS: Yeah, where is the objectification of Kpopalypse oppa?

KP: Obviously I’m ugly, so you just go ahead and tell them why you’re attractive.

AS: Subjective opinion I’m sure there’s plenty of other people who think I’m absolutely hideous as I’m sure searching my name AustralianSana on Twitter will tell you, so personal opinion, I guess. 

KP: Cool, next question is…oh you’ve already talked about this, Suga sampling controversy and the other one’s Jungkook traffic violations situation which you’ve already spoken about as well.

AS: That’s Crash Bandikook.

KP: Mhmm, long-term consequences for fans always shielding their faves.

AS: Yeag, so Jungkook, the other thing that he was involved in was an accident with a taxi or something about earlier this year and it was very quickly buried, reached a settlement not sure exactly all the details about it but he was involved in a car accident and BigHit were very quick to shut it down and BigHit for the most part of seem to have had a relationship with Dispatch where it’s like they give Dispatch a lot of photo shoots, Dispatch covers up any unflattering narratives about the group so Dispatch where would have been involved in covering up the Jungkook taxi situation but since Dispatch were the one to leak that incident on Itaewon and Jungkook going out with the 97-line to go clubbing right around corona restrictions easing – they probably aren’t still with the deal apparently that deal’s off so we’ll see how that over the next couple of months. Kind of what I was already saying before constantly shielding by fans I think is extremely dangerous because it just leads to this cult-like status where they’re incapable of ever doing anything wrong and the fandom will defend them for anything even they will vehemently deny that like “no, we don’t think we’re doing that. We just think that he doesn’t just have to be criticized for this” and then how people then become like Seungri and obviously I’m not saying any members aren’t like that now and I genuinely hope they never grow up to become like that in the future but I think that fandoms just have no concept of the fact that such blind praise and devotion as how these people get the ideas in their heads that they can get away with anything and never be held accountable, like if you can’t hold them accountable but the times where they do make mistakes and I don’t want anyone kicked out at the group as I’m sure that you would note, I don’t want anyone kicked out of the group I don’t want anyone to be bullied relentlessly I just want them to be able to admit fault when there’s fault that happens address the situation acknowledge what was wrong, apologize, move on with our lives, but it’s like, no nothing can ever be wrong in ARMYLand. 

 KP: What do you think about South Korean government using K-pop scandals to cover up their corruption do you think that’s a real thing and how prevalent do you think it is?

 AS: Interesting I mean that’s a conspiracy theory that’s been going on for years and I would also like to think that the same thing kind of happens internationally as well so for example like the Kardashians getting up to some shenanigans while there’s some bill that’s getting passed through the Senate. I think it’s true to an extent but it also is quite insulting to the general populations’ intelligence to think that people will are likely to care more about 19 year old celebrities doing dumb shit than they are about government trying to pass essential reforms or potential corruption and all that kind of stuff but the entertainment industry and politics no matter which country that you are in are always going to be very heavily linked and then if you look at the relationship between the government and Hallyu and K-pop and how the government has a lot of times invested a shitload of money into exporting K-pop as part of the culture to get people to come and visit Korea and all of those kind of things so you know wouldn’t surprise me about how much the government is involved with releasing certain scandals or articles to try and deflect attention from them but at the same time I don’t necessarily think that that works because you know like what was it the Jungkook situation with Itaewon was happening at the same time that the guy from Nth Room was getting either arrested or tried or making some sort of public appearance with the case so of course all the Jungkook fans, all the 97 line fans, was spreading the conspiracy theory but you know “they’re only releasing this story to cover up attention from the fact that Nth Room is having some sort of trial today” and they run with that idea because politicians are supposedly involved in this Nth Room situation as well which I also believe they definitely would be because corruption, government.

KP: Well, weren’t there like a few couple hundred thousand people involved in that. The chances of politicians being involved is quite high. 

AS: Politicians very high, other celebrities very high. I think politicians are supposed to be involved in Seungri and Burning Sun scandal as well, so I think that yes, there is a level of government corruption that becomes involved, so like you know when the Seungri situation started happening and there were very likely politicians involved, they started throwing out all the celebrity names of who was involved in that situation so the public had someone to attack and then they were more focused on like all these idols or all these actors who were getting named to kind of keep demanding more names from people who a lesser known.

KP: I don’t know if these conspiracy theories about…I don’t know if it’s that specific but I’d say this certainly an element of what the Romans called bread and circuses I suppose where if you keep people happy and distracted they’re less likely to complain about things. I’m not saying there’s necessarily a specific relationship between certain scandals and certain other activities but I think you know I think governments realize the importance of entertainment in terms of keeping people content.

AS: Yeah, placated. What’s the old quote from Karl Marx as like “religion is the opioid of the masses” and these days we’re not as religious anymore so our religion is celebrities so keep us all opioid on celebrity culture and keep us all placated and hopefully we won’t have an uprising.

KP:  Next question: Do you think that that the replacement weapon is a good choice or no and this and this comes with a link which I’ll send to you.

AS: Gotta sit back up again for this…so they’ve got like new weapons from old Looney Tunes show. They took away the gun because of gun violence. How about you take away guns in America and then talk to me – it’s like when emojis took away the real gun and replaced it with a water pistol. Tackle the real problem instead of just media. Hey, look a distraction from the fact that we will never pass gun reform because our entire government is bought out by the NRA.

KP:  It’s funny that it’s Elmer Fudd getting the gun taken away. It reminds me of something that I saw recently, apparently it’s gone viral a couple years ago this trend of people who are gun owners in America pointing below their guns of their genitals and taking photos. 

AS: Here’s hoping there were was a few accidental discharges along the way.

KP: Yeah and apparently this came about because I was learning there’s apparently, in terms of people who own guns in America, and who are avid shooters or whatever, there’s two types. There’s the normies who just want to have their gun and they keep it locked in a safe or I don’t know, whatever the hell it is they do in America, and then there’s what they call the Fudds. The Fudds is a name for sort of like veterans or people who’ve grown up with guns all their life and all this sort of stuff and this whole trend of people pointing the gun at their balls is because, and stay with me on this because the logic of it’s not is really not very logical.

AS: Americans!

KP: Yeah we are talking about American gun owners here, so the logic’s pretty slim but it was apparently the Fudds’ opinion that normies were too concerned about gun safety and the Fudds’ position was “well, yes gun safety is important but with normies gun safety literally all they know about guns” and so it’s sort of the Fudds way of picking on normies by saying, “oh look, I can hold up a gun to my balls and that’s something -” 

AS: “Shooting your balls to earn the lips.”

KP: Yeah, pretty much. I’m not doing a very good job at explaining it but that’s only because –

AS: I kinda get what you’re saying – yeah.

KP: It’s only cause it doesn’t really make much sense anyway. 

AS: Yeah, trying to explain a logical theory where there is no logic in said theory.

 KP: I’m trying to look for the logical hook and then I’m like hang on, there isn’t one. What am I trying to explain here?

AS: Where’s the punchline?

 KP: Yes, next question: Given recent events, I was really thinking about why some idols don’t speak up about movements like BLM. I know that some companies may be cockblocking them into silence but what about the prime example, BTS, who are still incorrectly known to be faux political activists and “woke kings.” I understand that it’s all fake and just an image, but is it that hard to speak up about it? Is BTS or really BigHit worried they’ll lose part of the fanbase (i.e. Republicans, racists, immature fans) despite this being a universal issue pretty much everyone’s getting behind? Even a few girls from Momoland have posted their support and their company sucks. I know those boys don’t have as much autonomy as ARMYs love to brag about, but do you think this is a contractual issue or is it that they just can’t be bothered? Especially given the whole AgustD/Jim Jones situation, it would soften the blow a bit but at this point even if a statement is made by BigHit or the boys, it’ll come across as insincere or be seen as a marketing ploy that no doubt will be eaten up for more bragging rights by their delusional cult.

AS: How very funny that I can instantly tell this written before the fact that they did post their eventual tweet and that is the exact reaction that did happen when they posted their tweet, so yeah in terms of all that stuff about control by the company and all that stuff – absolutely would be company control because the fact that once they got the go-ahead and the company realized this could be a great PR strategy suddenly they’re all for it and yes I will also agree to the fact that they don’t want to alienate certain members of the fanbase by becoming political which is obviously why they had that Saudi concert last year and their whole response when asked about that Saudi concert was RM which really saying “BTS doesn’t speak on political issues anymore but we don’t speak on poverty and all that” like that’s a literal quote from him in The Hollywood Reporter article but everyone refuses to acknowledge it because they don’t like that article and just because they don’t like it doesn’t mean that’s not true, so pretty much exactly what that person said was going to happen at the end – yes it definitely does help rather than placate, I say it’s a distraction from that Jim James scenario because, what was it, literally just like a little bit before my Facebook feed I saw someone posting a link to how BTS have donated over a million dollars to Black Lives Matter and now ARMYs have also day need a million dollars – “Wow everyone’s so amazing and say great yeah everyone’s so amazing and so great.” Yeah, everyone’s so amazing and so great when they join a movement over a week after it’s gained traction and it’s now basically speak up about it or lose all credibility or your whole career but, what was I thinking about the distraction in that regard, it’s like, the fact that they’ve posted and obviously made their donations – to me, that’s not donations, that’s reparations because when it was starting to come out as a problem like as in the Black Lives Matter movement and the controversy behind it all that stuff fans, who are black, in the ARMY fandom were asking BTS to speak and mentioning things like how they took a lot of inspiration from black music and also their past history of working with black musicians and supposedly being end violence ambassadors for UNICEF so the fans wanted them to speak, but the fandom reaction to that for over a week, and I can provide screenshots eventually if anyone really wants it, was a mass harassing any of the black ARMYs who did speak up and basically saying, “It’s your fault for not trusting for not trusting them. You think that that they don’t want to speak, they do, but you don’t know them well enough to know that they want to.” So really toxic, literally abusive traits from abusive relationships were employed to silence or belittle for people who were just asking them to write a tweet and then they were also, like there was a fan who became so distressed and I remember seeing her video on my timeline I didn’t actually save it because you know it’s not the kind of thing I want to have on my phone because it’s very upsetting but she was a black fan who was reduced to tears and was essentially talking about the harassment that she had been receiving and the kind of threats that she had been receiving and the thread kind of went on and like you could see the replies under her tweet and like so many of them were kind of people say, “You were never an ARMY to begin with in the first place.” She had photos of her at concerts last year that kind of shit but you know no matter how much money you have spent on this group, no matter how many times you’ve seen them, no matter how many times you buy their albums, no matter how many positive things you have said about them in the history, the minute you actually start to even just question this group you will be harassed to shit by their fanbase and this is a black woman speaking on a black issue wanting a group who has supposedly built their career off activism to just write a tweet getting bullied to shit for it and there were replies on the official BTS Twitter account where a couple of people will be like, “Please post on Black Lives Matter” and at anytime someone posted that they got ratioed and there was a thing that was spread on Twitter and also on Weverse as well and it’s like a picture of like “Five reasons why BTS will not speak on Black Lives Matter.” It was like, they’re an apolitical group and they do not want to make controversy and then someone else…sorry, I lose my shit even just thinking about this week, it’s just so dumb it makes me laugh.  They were talking about like “BTS are actually political representatives now of South Korea and they are what we know as a soft power so if BTS speak then they are potentially influencing political relations between South Korea and the United States of America and they could possibly start a war.” 

KP: You gotta link that tweet later. 

AS:  I’ll see what if I can find it. I gotta find it. I’ll search for it –  I know one of my friends has to have the screenshot, but there was a tweet implying that if BTS spoke on the issue they would start a war between South Korea and America, so for over a week – over a week – we’ve seen the absolute dumbest shit possible coming out of this fandom but then all of a sudden BTS speaks and all of that is erased. “That never happened. We never bullied black fans. What are you talking about – we support black people. I mean, BTS told us we have to care about black people, so we’re going to match their 1 million dollar donation. Look at how great ARMYs are, let’s get all those articles written about ARMYs. Oh, K-pop fans are raising a million dollars for black lives –  NO, this is ARMYs. See when you do these things for BTS, you only do these things for BTS.” Nevermind that you’re actually doing this for black people and Black Lives Matter – “no no no, we’re only doing this for BTS and raise money for BTS so we can get articles written about BTS and ARMY about how great we are.”

KP: That’s true, they’re doing it for BTS. They don’t give a shit about other people.

AS: I’ve quoted it, I’ve quoted tweets literally from ARMYs themselves who are saying it and it’s just madness. They’re talking about it as if it’s something to be proud of. “We raised a million dollars in a day~” It’s like great, that means you all collectively had over a million dollars and you didn’t donate it when the cause was being talked about all week. Like, I don’t have that much money myself but I did donate to it and I didn’t wait for a boy band to tell me to. I knew to donate to it because it was the right thing to do and the donations I made were directly to those organizations and I provided receipts for them. Whereas these people who were donating, donating through a link of an established ARMY account, so that they can track all the donations that are coming in. If you actually gave a shit about anything that you’re donating to, you just donate to it. You don’t donate through someone, so you can get it recorded and then brag about it later and there have been so many obnoxious brags. They literally made themselves a hashtag that was trending earlier today, it was #2MForBLM. Great, so, look, my morals don’t mean shit in comparison to 2 million dollars and I’m not going to act Black Lives Matter would value one white person’s opinion over having 2 million in their fundraiser account – that is not what I’m saying. Donate that fucking money because it is the least that you can do after all the shit that you put the black fans in the fandom through over the last week. It’s not donations, it’s reparations and that’s what I have to say on that. 

KP: Next question: Were you one of the bullies when you’re in school?

AS: No, I was bullied. I mean, is that really a surprise? I was undiagnosed autism at the time so fitting in wasn’t exactly something that came to me, not that it’s even came to me after a diagnosis or the right medication it just means I cope better with it. 

 KP: Are you on Tik-Tok, is the next one.

 AS: I have one Tik-Tok video. I joined Tik-Tok when ITZY had that competition to dance to WANNABE and you could potentially win a signed album. Fun fact: they never announced a winner for it, so queens of scam, but I uploaded a video of myself dancing, as in ice skating, so I was ice skating in my video and I have 10 followers.

 KP: Cool, you should post a link to that, too. 

 AS: Yeah, I’ll send you a link to that.

 KP: I’m not on Tik-Tok. I probably should be because people keep asking me, but I don’t know what I’d post. Probably my cat. 

 AS:  My username is literally I the letter i dot, the letter see dot that dot i am dot ICY, so I see that I’m ICY, a reference to ITZY’s song, ICY, and I’ve uploaded my one video. 

 KP: In February 2020, Yubin opened her own entertainment called RRR meaning a Real Recognize Real does it sound engrishy to you? She’s fluent in english – do you think this is a case of self-aware cringe?

AS:  I think it’s a common phrase like maybe it’s not common colloquially in my everyday conversations but I know that I recognize that phrase before real recognizes real, so I mean –

KP: I’ve heard it in rap songs before. It’s not Engrish. 

 AS: Yeah, it’s definitely rap. It’s not Engrish, if anything it’s more AAVE which is African-American Vernacular English so I feel like it’s potentially that but yeah it’s not like embarrassing or cringe it’s you know something that I’ve heard used before – wouldn’t necessarily say in my own vocabulary but I do know of the phrase. 

 KP: Pledis has a notorious history of neglecting their girl groups do you think that they’re being shrewd about spending money promoting only what actually sells or do you think that they’re genuinely misogynistic do you think that they’ll improve it or now that had been bought by BigClit entertainment? 

 AS: I mean if you want to fix misogyny going to BigHit sure as hell isn’t the way to go about, I mean we all know what happened to GLAM – justice for GLAM – but you just went from one misogynistic company to the other if you look at how YG treats Blackpink, you look at how SM promotes Red Velvet versus how they promote their boy groups. It’s not necessarily a company thing I think it’s an ingrained in Korean society thing.

 KP: Yeah, but I guess the question is do you think PLEDIS is smart or not?

 AS: NOPE. No, next.

 KP: Next: What would you do if Joe Bidden sniffed you? Or Joe Biden – how do you say it? Bidden? Biden?

 AS: Biden. Yeah, presidential candidate for 2020 he’s basically like Trump-lite but Democratic vision so he’ll violate human rights but he’ll be nice to you in the process. American system’s fucked.

 KP: Democrats gotta pick the worst candidates, don’t they?

 AS: Literally! You have Bernie Sanders right there who people are showing out for. They rigged the primaries against Bernie to put in Hillary and look how well that turned out for them, so what do they do next time? They rigged the primaries against Bernie to put in a candidate no one fucking wants again. You wind up with Trump. We need the whole system to just fucking burn, I mean, we already need that to burn anyway but we just need to burn it down faster. 

 KP:  I mean, I would have said for sure, if you asked me in January if Trump’s gonna get in in November, I’d say absolutely without a doubt, but now it’s looking like it could go either way because the coronavirus has set in motion a whole series of events which have really just put his chances right down on the gutter and then you’ve got this other stuff over the top of it the Black Lives Matter stuff. 

 AS: Which is in fact related to coronavirus, like fun fact, not really it’s fun, but fact is George Floyd actually had coronavirus back in April so he survives the coronavirus and then just gets shot -oh no he doesn’t get shot, sorry, that’s offensive, he gets the knee on the neck, so it’s like you know racism is a pandemic in America, coronavirus is a pandemic in America, the jobs market is a pandemic in America, the health care system is a pandemic in America, everything is a fucking pandemic in America, and it’s like you can tell that there’s this split divide between anyone left with two brain cells to rub together versus people who think God is just going to fix everything. 

KP: Yeah, next question: what’s your opinion of non-standard mealtimes like brunch, afternoon tea, and supper? 

AS: Yummy. I love food and I love to eat, I just don’t love cooking because I’m lazy so I am down for brunch, lunch, breakfast, supper, dinner, second supper, dessert, afternoon tea, all that good shit. Love it.

KP: If Mnet put you in charge of producing a new season K-pop Survival show such as Produce 101, what are five things that you change?

AS: Ooh interesting, well, how do I say, it’s interesting because the things that I would want to change are on a moral level but with that actually equate to a good rating so like I want things that are fair but then that means it’s not fair  because Mnet malicious editing is what is the worst thing about them but then that’s what gets people tuning in to watch along with the fact that like certain companies like anytime JYP sends an idol onto a reality show they do very well so Somi on Produce 101 and Ryujin in Mix and Match that YG show not sure if it was Mix and Match but it was it was the show that YG did and she was like the top-ranked person as well so it’s like how much of that is JYP idols being super super talented than everyone else versus how much of that is a little under the table and I’m talking money under the table nothing sus especially not with minors thank you. I just have to clear that up because I quickly realize how badly that could have been interpreted.

KP: I’m sure nobody was thinking that. Anyway, go ahead. 

AS: I hope with your audience.

KP: Thanks.

AS: I mean, you literally write about boobs

KP: Boobs are over the table unless it’s a really high table. 

AS: So what would I change? If I’m writing the show, there are no meninists so there are no men, no men on my show. Only female producers, female idols, female scriptwriters, female judges, and female coaches. There are no men.

 KP: Sounds good to me. I’d watch it. 

 AS: No men – let’s see what else am I putting in there? Well, just for the hell – just for the sake of it, I’ll say that voting is accurately reflected in the show so the people have a voice so it’s the people’s choice. You vote and who you vote for is the one that gets picked – no bribery. If it’s a girl group show I would make mandatory weeks for KARA and I would have like a mandatory KARA week. Everyone has to appreciate KARA songs so everyone will have to perform a KARA song, that’ll be one of the challenges. I don’t know if I can fill out 5 things, I just know that they’re so far by top my top 3 things that I want. We’ve got a mandatory KARA week, no men, and the voting is accurately reflected on the show. 

 KP: All right, cool. I don’t even watch the shows, so I don’t have a horse in the race, so fuck, I don’t know. I’m just happy if I don’t have to hear “Pick Me” again. They can do anything they want; they just have to have something besides “Pick Me.”

AS: That was such a grating song. It’s so high pitched – “Why won’t you pick me up?” sounds like fucking chipmunks. 

KP: Reminds me of Eevee’s pikachu song, you know, it’s similar. It’s awful.

AS: What about the hamster dance, kinda goes – deebeedeedadibidodo didadidido didididibido~

 

KP: Have you ever considered applying to be a SeoulBeats contributor? 

AS:  No, I haven’t just because I had my experience in media, I use that in quotations, like I had an experience I got a few press passes out of it my had like one of the best moments of my life when I actually got to photograph a concert like a music festival in Korea literally right at the front of the stage in front of all of the fans like I had the best view of the house with that night – it was fantastic, but I’ve also experienced like the really shit parts about media workers as well where like everyone is super cutthroat and they present like your best friend to your face but then they’re off saying horrible things about you behind your back and that wasn’t just done about me, it was me witnessing it done by people who I thought were my friends to other people I also thought were my friends. 

KP: Seoulbeats is more like a blog though.  

AS: Yeah I know what Seoulbeats is like, it’s just more my media experience in itself, it’s quite tainted because of it so yeah it’s like the only interest that I had in media was the fact that I liked getting the press passes so I liked not having to pay for concerts – thank you BTS in 2015 – and I also liked photography. I’m much more interested in photography than I actually am in writing. Writing is exhausting! Photography is fun. I am a visual person I paint, I draw, I take photos, that is my thing – writing I can do but it’s a chore so not unless SeoulBeats wanna contact me and offer me press passes. 

KP: You hear that SeoulBeats? I don’t know if they’d be listening though, I don’t think they like me much. 

 AS: Asian Junkie call! I seen AJ getting a few press passes. Send them my way thank you.

 KP:  Yeah, I couldn’t write for SeoulBeats – I don’t think they’d have me. I don’t think I’d pass their standards. 

 AS: Yeah, me as well, I’m a bit too opinionated

 KP: I’d be a bit too problematic, I think. 

 AS: I think if I ever got hired by anyone there would be like a mass influx and a hashtag demanding I’d be fired with a whole bunch of my out-of-context screenshots, so I have to write under a pseudonym. 

 KP: Yeah, I’d have the same except my screenshots would be completely in context – they’d look just as bad probably.  I had to laugh when the ARMYs, last time I pissed off BTS ARMYs I can’t remember how I did it or what I wrote, I got no idea, I just don’t know but yes I wrote something bullshit and then they got all pissy at me and then they started doing what I do it everybody and they start screen capping bits and pieces and but they couldn’t really find anything that was all that out of context so it’s really funny. It’s just like they were trying to make me look bad but the context of it was actually not twisted because it was already just how I write anyway.

 AS: I remember how I used to kind of tell you about my situations of being doxxed and you’d be like “Oh yeah bring it on I’ll fight ‘em I’ll do it” and then then looks like hmm how’d that work for ya?

KP: Well, I did.

AS: Yeah, and then you ran a block list. 

 KP: Yeah, I was like “can I have your block list, thanks” It’s just a bit overwhelming. There’s too much to deal with. It just takes up too much of my time.

 AS: It’s literally is pointless because no matter what you say to anyone it will never matter because they do not argue with facts and logic they just argue with “Oppa! Dox! I know your IP address! I’ll find out where you work!” All that shit. 

KP: That’s it. 

AS: Any more questions or is that it? 

KP:  Yeah, hang on. I’ve got a question, but it was a link that we’ve already talked about before so I’m gonna move on. I’m just seeing if I’ve actually got to the end of them or not. Oh, here we go:  Do you think this book retailer was being racist?  Just tell me if we talked about this one already because I just have a feeling that we have. I’ll just stuck it up in there in the chat there. 

 AS: Give me a second and I’ll open that up. “Barnes & Noble pulls Black History Month campaign by TBWA/CHIAT/DAY after New York backlash. Project miss the point of elevating people of color critics say. Black History Month campaign for booksellers being canceled following social media backlash accusing company of ‘literary blackface’ after it release new covers featuring people of color for a dozen classic books written predominantly by white authors”. Yeah obviously this is me literally just reading something and very quickly forming an opinion about it. I at first glance just think that’s very performative so you know changing the covers to some black people on the front cover but if they really wanted to spotlight for Black History Month I think they could have put the focus on books that are actually written by black authors.

 KP: I think that was part of the criticism they experience said exactly that to them because I remember hearing that incident when it happened and people saying “oh you know there’s plenty of black authors that aren’t getting published why don’t you publish some of them instead.”

 AS: Yeah, that’s pretty much the thoughts. 

 KP: Instead of the old judging a book by it’s cover which you can’t really do obviously. Cool, moving on: Okay if this is an everyday occurrence in Australia, do people generally have a hard time adhering to COVID-19 quarantine government orders. If they aren’t afraid of the wildlife then they must not take the government’s authority seriously surely and this comes with another link.

 AS: All right well this will be interesting because we both have different state governments so fun fact for anyone listening it so far being the states that are organizing the restrictions of COVID because the federal government is fucking useless and it took the state labor governments who are the opposition to the liberal which is conservative in Australia having to lock shit down for us to do anything anyway so “Naked Australian man wrestles giant python to save his kitten”. Awww, well good for him because the cat in the picture is cute even if I don’t know whether that’s his actual cat or not. Well, that’s cute so he wrestles the python to save his kitten. Fun fact I just watched the movie Power Rangers Turbo today and there’s a scene where Tommy wrestles a python in it so maybe he just watched too much Power Rangers, but Australians,  if you want to know how Australians are handling the COVID situations they’re really fucking dumb and they’re not listening to anything especially in New South Wales. New South Wales is the conservative state unfortunately.

 KP: I think most people have been pretty good although where I am in South Australia pretty much almost got rid of it completely.

 AS: Yeah, you’re in South Australian states. Where I am, shit’s gonna hit the fan. We’re gonna get a second wave, like all our schools have reopened again even though cases are happening at schools, like what was it, schools reopened and within the first 24 hours there are already 3 cases and then they’re like “yeah, keep ‘em open” and people don’t even have the option to keep their kids home, if you try to keep your kids home from school then they get marked as truant. 

 KP: Really? How can they make you?

 AS: Well, it’s also to do with government support like centrelink and stuff so if you get like too many truancy notices then you can get your centrelink cut off if you’ve got like family payments, so yeah there’s a lot of that kind of shit going on over here. I’m not sure if you guys are still allowed to keep your kids at home but not that you have any to worry about. 

 KP: I think South Australia, I mean we’ve got a liberal government aka conservative but it’s more chill here like you don’t have to test, take your kid to school if you don’t want to. It’s actually been handled really down here to be honest. 

 AS: What was it, yeah, it’s also cause Gladys – Gladys Berejiklian is the state premier for New South Wales and she is directly under the thumb of Scott Morrison who is the Prime Minister and he’s supposedly working in ACT, Australian Capital Territory, but he lives in New South Wales so if anything New South Wales is gonna cop the brunt of all of the “We wanna open everything back up again” first because it’s his state really and he’s in control of it and he’s trying to force the rest of the country to do what his state is doing but all the other states are kind of like “yeah,fuck off.” New South Wales is the state that’s trying to bully everyone to opening back up their borders again because borders are currently closed between states for non-essential travel and the Queensland or was it either the Queensland or was it Western Australia, I think it might actually be Western Australia but they basically-  the Premier’s said like “Yeah, we might take advice from the people who let the Ruby Princess dock so we’ll be right. Thanks.” For anyone listening, the Ruby Princess was a cruise ship – international cruise ship -that docked in New South Wales and brought in like 750 cases of COVID into the state overnight.

 KP: Yeah, a large percentage of all of them. Next question: Is Yahoo Serious still a household name in Australia in the current year and what’s your favorite of his movies

 AS: Who? The fact that I said who probably isn’t a good sign. 

 KP: Ah okay, well, Yahoo Serious was – I never saw a single one of his movies – but he was an Australian movie celebrity in the late eighties, early nineties, he was in some films, I don’t know what they were like I never saw them. There’s one called Reckless Kelly, I think, but he was in a film or two and he just sort of vanished, so I don’t know what he’s doing now. 

 AS: Unfortunately for me, I do not know. 

 KP:  Yeah yeah I’d say it’s not really worth it, but who knows, I haven’t seen ‘em so maybe they’re the greatest films ever. Probably not though. Thoughts on the conspiracy theory that the COVID-19 epidemic was engineered by Bill Gates as an excuse to microchip everybody through vaccinations.

 AS: Ah, classic anti-vaxxers. I think it’s just anti-vaxxers anti-vaxxing really. 

 KP: Yeah, it’s what they. They just make up stuff

 AS: And then everyone believes it – it’s basically like ARMY Twitter. ARMY Twitter are the anti-vaxxers of K-pop!

 KP:  Next one: Please share a personal anecdote of a time when you dealt with the Karen. Thanks. 

 AS: Ooh Karen’s are like the middle-aged white women who asked to speak to the manager.

 KP: I’m glad you explained that to me cause this Karen –

 AS: Internet terminology. I got into an  argument with a woman on the train once and it was like she was occupying two seats with her bag and I wanted to sit down and then she was like, “oh do you want to sit here?” after I was like standing down I was like, yeah I’m not standing here for nothing lady, I shouldn’t have to ask this it down and then she was like super huffy and she had like kids from her school, so I could see she was a teacher so it was insane that she was allowed to be in charge of children cause like we got into like a back-and-forth argument of just like, I don’t know, she said something along the lines of like “your skin’s ugly” because I had a breakout and I was like yeah well you know a couple of days later my breakout will be over but you’re still gonna be an ugly bitch inside – you know that kind of shit when I just like talk back to people and she was like “uh, uh, UH!” and she eventually said something like “oh well go back to where you came from” and I was just like well where is that? For me, that doesn’t fuck with me much because you know I’m a cliché white Australian so colonial country that has no racist impact on me as a white person but what pissed me off about that is the fact that she would have felt emboldened to be saying that as if that’s something that she says on a regular occasion to other people particularly people who aren’t white so  I was 

 KP It was a reflect – a racist reflex. She didn’t realise she was talking to a white person. 

 AS: Schrodinger’s racism or something like that. That was my experience with fighting a Karen on the train. 

 KP: I’m just trying to think if I’ve had anything remotely like that. 

 AS: I mean I worked in retail so if anything picking one experience is gonna be a fucking nightmare because I had them every day, but the people who, what was it, buttons on a cardigan – they would deliberately pull the buttons to make them loose and then they’d ask for a discount like “excuse me this button is loose can you please give me a 10% discount or 20%” I’ll be like, no, I literally  just saw you pull the button. Fuck off.

 KP: I remember I was in town wandering around minding my business and some lady when I was just wearing what I normally wear which is like, you know,  black stuff and some random lady came up to me and just said something I can’t even remember exactly what she said but she gave me a hard time for wearing black she’s like –

 AS: She wouldn’t like me.

 KP: Yeah, she was like in sort of implying that because I was wearing black that I thought the world was gonna end or something like that  and why can’t I wear something more positive.

 AS: I’m like well it is gonna end. Have you seen the world lately? 

 KP: But I was just wearing black because I felt like it.

 AS: I mean, it’s a good staple color – it doesn’t get dirty.

 KP: Yeah, it goes with everything. Next question: Did you know that Jeb Bush his real name is John Ellis Bush Bush?

 AS: It’s like Moon Moon, the Tumblr werewolf. John Ellis Bush -ah, J E B, Jeb. I always thought that Jeb was a dumbass name so that I guess makes more sense.

 KP: I guess it does. What’s both your most favorite and least favorite movies directed by Quentin Tarantino and why?

AS: Interesting question so for me I guess my most famous would be the Kill Bill series – Kill Bill 1 and 2 but then ironically it would also be my least favorite as well because of the treatment that Uma Thurman was subjected to during her filming conditions. I know that she was like forced to do some really unsafe scenes like I’ve known she physically got injured during the course of making that film and then it’s like excused as director’s license or you know trying to make it more real but it’s like, that’s the point of acting, it’s not literally real so I have a love/hate relationship with the Kill Bill movies. I enjoy them because I like the plot and I like the strong heroine, I like the cinematography, I like for example the anime scene with Lucy Liu’s character who is Japanese at the time so I like a lot about that film but that I’m also very critical about the conditions that Tarantino forces his actors to work in.

 KP: Yeah, I don’t think he ever topped Pulp Fiction to be honest. 

 AS: I know that TWICE parodied Pulp Fiction in the “What is Love” music video and I know that it’s like regarded as a really super classic maybe, but I’ve never actually watched it.

 KP: Oh, you have to see it.

 AS: I will, I will, I got it on my watchlist. It is actually on there.

KP: Yeah, it is very good and worst one – I can’t remember the name of it um it’s a Western starring –

 AS:  Leonardo DiCaprio? Is it Django Unchained?

 KP: Yeah, Django Unchained, that’s it. I wasn’t real keen on that compared with – it was so good I still think it’s a much better western films than a lot of actual western films, but I think it wasn’t the best thing he ever did.

 AS:  I mean now watched Once Upon a Time in Hollywood recently and I thought that was a pretty interesting film.

 KP: I thought that was good, yeah.

 AS: I thought the creative license taken at the end to literally change history was an interesting take.

 KP: Well, much like in Inglorious Basterds and stuff like that cause I wasn’t expecting that.  I didn’t think he’d just flip it up completely but that’s cool, you know, it’s a film so why not?

 AS: Subvert the audience’s expectations so yeah.

 KP: And I liked the fact that he gave Bruce Lee shit – that’s funny. Whether that was supposed to be problematic or whatever but you know apparently he was an asshole. 

 AS: Oh really? 

 KP: Apparently.

 AS: I mean I guess if you subject all the racism that he put up with he would not be all that nice eith – I wouldn’t expect – I wouldn’t be all that nice either.  

 KP: Well, yeah, I mean there’s two sides to every story, of course. I never met a dude, maybe he wasn’t but just the fact that you know he’s always someone who’s completely idolized and there’s never bad word that’s ever said about him ever and to see portrayed like that is just very jarring. Next: what’s your favorite April song? This is April, the group. 

 AS: I love April. I’m so glad someone’s asking me about April, like yes, let me talk about April cause they were like you know created to be KARA’s successor and I love KARA but I pretty much love a lot of their discography. “Oh! my mistake” is probably the best song, it was the one that came out like last year, year before, semi-recent.

 KP: About a year ago.

AS: Yeah, it was comeback before this comeback like I love it I love anything 80s, I love the synth, I love the aesthetic, I love the video, I love the song, I love the dance routine, I love it. I also really liked their earlier stuff which was like you know super cutesy but I love cute shit, so I loved their debut album Dreaming Candy – “Dreaming Candy” is the song. I can listen to that entire mini album, there’s no skips on that for me. I can listen to all the b-sides on that album and then I also really really enjoyed their mini album Tinkerbell. That song’s a nice song but they have a banger of a b-side and it’s called “Jelly” like there is a dance routine that goes with it as well that’s like a super intense workout if you ever want to try that but yeah great b-side “Jelly.” There’s another b-side that I really like heard is called “Angel Song” and that’s like from I think it’s the Bluebird mini album that that one comes from – I’m terrible with remembering things off the top of my head in terms of names but I know the song. Yeah, April’s discography is fantastic, highly recommend it to anyone.

 KP: Cool, noted. Yeah, I generally agree on the feature tracks so yeah, I think “Oh, my mistake” the best song they did, but Bluebird’s really good, Dream Candy’s really good, Tinkerbell’s really good. 

 AS: And I like the fact that they’ve actually gotten listenable b-sides cause a lot, I won’t say anyone specific because I think nearly every group is guilty of doing this at some point in their career no matter who it is that like they’ll put out a great big great title track but then you listen to the b-sides and it just doesn’t live up to that amazing album like intro so I like that April is a very consistent group so they’ll put out a good song and then they’ll have equally good b-sides.

 KP: Next question: Do you know any furries in real life?

 AS: No – oh wait, no, I don’t know any but I know that my cousin is kind of like into it, but I just don’t think she’s got the money to be able to buy a whole fursuit or whatever.

KP: Quite expensive, aren’t they?

AS: Yeah, those things are fucking expensive as shit but I know she’s like drawing a lot of the characters and creating her own OCs and that kind of stuff so like I know she’s kind of going down that furry hole. I’m like, stay away, stay away. You know, I’m a grown adult carrying a stuffed doll everywhere so it’s not like I can really talk.

KP: Yeah, I don’t know any personally. I think my partner knows one or two, but I wouldn’t know, maybe some people I know are into that and I just don’t talk about it with them. It’s not not really a topic of conversation that comes up.

AS: Yeah, for all you know.

KP:  Yeah, I don’t know what – people – most people do in their private lives. I deal with a lot of people through work. The chances that they are into some weird shit, who knows? 

AS: I mean, for all we know we could potentially know serial killers. 

KP: What are your relationship compatibilities with the big 3 CEOs according to astrology and I’m just gonna link here the link they’ve given me for astrology signs and I’ll give you their astrology signs. Now, keep in mind we’re using the 12-zodiac astrology not the 13

AS: The 13 one is bullshit.

KP: But it’s correct.

AS: No, it’s not. No, it’s not.

KP: You’re impersonating ARMYs a little bit too well, but if we look at the actual movement of the stars there are 13 now but we’ll go for 12 just to save arguments cause, you know, there’s no arguing with you 12-month fangirls, so Lee Sooman is a Gemini, Yang Hyunsuk is Capricorn and JY Park is a Sagittarius. 

AS: All right, well my star sign is Gemini so it’s like Gemini is a bit of a mess. Let’s see, I gotta do – first of all – stupid computer….for anybody listening my computer’s on old hunk of shit that’s like 5 years old and I need to change it but I’m poor. Gemini/Gemini what’s the match for Gemini? It’s like the top one…Gemini/Gemini – where’s the overall? Okay, Gemini/Gemini matches is 83%.

KP: Hang on, I’m looking at this sign trying to figure out how the fuck I even work this shit out. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do…put in my date of birth…

AS: What? No, I just put in my star sign. Thing’s a thing that says love compatibility and you press Gemini or your star sign and the other one on the side so you can match it.

KP: Oh, here we are. 

AS: Yeah, so I’ve done Gemini and Gemini total compatibility percent 83% and then what’s Gemini and Capricorn? Ooft, ooft 1% trust. My overall ranking with a Capricorn 15% so I’m not going to YG entertainment it looks like – thank god. I was just reading the summary because Capricorn is also Taehyung’s star sign, that is my son who I adore. Good thing I’m not after a relationship with him because we would not be compatible. “Gemini and Capricorn partners are a very strange fit although they are both looking for things the other person has they don’t seem to recognize of it each other. While Gemini need someone to ground them and give them depth when they look at Capricorn they see someone old, unmovable, and boring. Capricorn needs joy and relaxation in their lives but Gemini seems like a bowl of uncontrollable superficial opinions heading nowhere” – which I am – “In truth, they could have a valuable experience being together sharing their different lives day after day. They might even find out that you actually work well together and have the ability to reach any goal they think of.”  Also reading that because my mum is a Gemini and my mom and I get along very very well so I was interested to say that it’s like you know 15%. I wouldn’t say very well my mom and I get along really well in comparison to my dad and I – not good. Let’s see what was the other one? Sagittarius?

KP: Yeah, that’s it. That’s JYP.  

AS: JYP – 92%, looks like I’m going to J Y P. There we go. Have you figured out yours yet?

KP: I’m struggling a bit, so Gemini, there’s not much going on there. 

AS: Well, what are you?

KP: Taurus. 

AS: Taurus. Interesting, one of my close friends is a Taurus. 

KP: So, Gemini is a dud. Sagittarius is looking alright so I’d do JYP as well apparently. Bring on the plastic pants. Well, actually it’s not that good.

AS: It’s the one at that bottom that’s the one that’s your summary.

KP: Yes, it’s a little bit better than Gemini but not that much and the other one is Capricorn.

AS: It should probably go well because we seem to have opposites.

KP: Oh my God, yeah, we’re fine so who is that? It’s YG, isn’t it -yay. Yeah, book me in for a room at Burning Sun with some passed out chick apparently. Me and YG get along just fine – that’s pretty horrible, isn’t it?  

AS: Don’t envy you.

KP: Let’s move on before I get arrested. Where you on any sports ball teams as a child and why did you retire from it in the end?

AS: Hollee doesn’t play well with others. I did netball for like one season, I think. I wasn’t really unlike team sports because my parents were like they hated the whole sport shit that you got to do with your kids. They ‘re like “We don’t want to get up at this morning and go to this place and watch these other kids we don’t care about and pretend to care.” I’m like thanks mom. Literally their own words I’m not even paraphrasing that. What else did I do? I’m trying to remember my sports. Yeah, a lot of the things that I did was individual, so like I did karate as a kid I also did like martial arts as a teenager, so I’ll kick anyone’s fucking ass who wants to try me in real life. Say you want to square up on Twitter – let’s go!  Surfing was my main one. My parents loved the beach so that was the thing that they took me to instead of sports as a kid so I taught myself to stand up on a body board and then they were like okay so I got me a foam board and then I eventually got them to get me a real fiberglass surfboard and I was not like super good but I used to do a few different competitions and the people who I competed against at like a kid level a couple of them are actually now in the pro-circuit. Yeah there’s like one person who I used to surf with very regularly, became friends, and like I used to go out surfing at 5:00 a.m. in the morning before school started as a kid and she’s now on like the big wave circuit so yeah she’s really cool her name is Felicity Palmateer. She probably wouldn’t recognize me now if you had my net – well I would be like a vague recognition because it was like before we were 12, 12 and before, I think. Surfing was probably the closest thing that I was ever like competitive in at a sports level I was quite good at it in school. I remember I was in grade 8, grade 8 in Western Australia where I used to live is the start of high school over there. I know in a lot of other states we start high school in year 7 but in grade 8 that was WA and my first year of high school, like many others, was a fucking nightmare and I just couldn’t fit in anywhere but I went in this school surfing competition and a surfing competition was school-wide it wasn’t just like year 8s, 9s etc so I was a year 8 competing against people from all different year levels and I came first so I was like fuck yes.

KP: That’s good. I didn’t do much sports. My brother, he had all sorts of sports medals and trophies and shit. I only had one which was for T-ball which is being like the shit –

AS: Ball on a stick.

KP: Yeah, the shit version of baseball, the baseball you play when you’re too scared to have someone throw a ball at you and my medal I got wasn’t even for winning anything, it was just for participation. Everyone on the team got one and it’s the only one I’ve got. 

AS: I’ve got a couple of surfing trophies like the one from school and fun fact I used to actually be pretty athletic just because I used to do like surfing and then I used to do sometimes karate and then at one point I was doing gymnastics and was never good at gymnastics -.I could never really really do a backflip. I could do it on like a softer surface, but I like never really took it beyond that which was sad because I always wanted to do a backflip -still do, still can’t do it. I can flip off bridges and surfaces now like I did one at the start of the year. I’ve got footage of that and I look really cool in my videos when I do my flips, anyway I was champion girl at the Athletics carnival in year 9 at my school. I won the – it was funny – I won the 800 meter race and then I won a high jump, like I ran the 800 meter race and then I won it and then I went straight from that to lining up in the high jump because that was happening straight after so I like ran from the finish line into the line at the high job and then won that and like again I was not popular in school so it was really fun for me to kind of just show up all these people who like made my life a living hell I was like fuck you. They had like a school-wide ceremony a couple of weeks later or whatever to announce who the official winners were and give them trophies and like when my – whoever came like runner-up – had this massive round of applause for year 9 and then like they announced me as the winner and everyone’s just kinda like silent and then like a small group of my friends in the crowd were like “Yaaass!” Always being the kind of person who has the masses against them but a small circle of real friends in my corner so that’s why the internet don’t faze me, I lived it in real life, bitch.

KP: Next question and now you know it’s not an AustralianSana and Kpopalypse session – podcast session – unless there’s a

AS: Fuck, marry, kill?

KP: That’s right, so someone’s put in a fuck, marry, kill this week. This time it’s Ronald McDonald, Colonel Sanders or the King of Burger King.

AS: Well, that doesn’t work for us because we’re Australian and we don’t have a Burger King.

KP: We don’t, we have Hungry Jack’s instead

AS: Yeah and then there’s no mascot

KP: Yeah, there is no mascot.

AS: So, I’ll have to say kill the King because the king is dead and then I guess I’ll fuck the clown and then I’ll marry the chicken for the – the KFC guy because I would love that lifetime supply of that secret recipe chicken.

KP: Wasn’t he in that KKK though or something?

AS: Ohh, well cancel that – we’re just killing everyone now. I’ll marry the McDonald’s – but no, we can’t, we can’t go to McDonald’s because McDonald’s directly funds Donald Trump’s campaign so we’re just killing everyone. Fun fact: the CEO of McDonalds like one of the billionaire owners will fund Donald – he funded Trump’s election campaign so I’m boycotting McDonald’s in protest not that it’s gonna really do shit all but I try. Yeah, we’re killing everyone. I did not know he was in the KKK, now I know and I’m killing him, too. 

KP: Next question is: Do her words inspire you at all and I’ll send you a link, but I might also read this out. Just cause it’s –

AS: For context for anyone listening.

KP: Yeah, it’s a bit more entertaining of a podcast if I read stuff. This is Sorn from CLC and she says, “Good morning, I’ve decided to start exercising and eating healthy again starting from today. The reason why I’m doing this is not because I want to lose weight but because I want to live a healthier lifestyle and also be physically and mentally stronger I want to feel good about myself so I have more confidence and the motivation to do other things in my life. I thought that I would share with you guys because I think it would be great for you to do the same, too. It’s very important to take care of yourself and love yourself because it allows you to show your confidence to the world have a happy life and give it a positive energy to everyone around you.”

AS:  I mean it’s a nice vibe, a nice sentiment. Very positive.

KP: Yeah and I also help old ladies across the street and I also give 10% of my money to charity and I also you know and yeah, c’mon woman, just admit you have a drink with your friends behind the bar shed and sniff all the drugs and you know have oral sex or whatever – we’re not gonna tell anyone.

AS: Yeah, “so because the reason I want to lose” – sorry reading it, “the reason why I’m doing this is up because I want to lose weight but because I want to live a healthier lifestyle and also be physically mentally stronger” – I mean, I can relate to that I think that like you know this basically speaks on how privileged my existence is for the fact that one of the worst parts to come out of the coronavirus situation for me is my gym closing and not feeling safe going to the gym so I’ve gained quite a bit of weight back I’ve also like lost a lot of the progress that I was making in the gym because prior to the corona situation I was becoming quite regular hitting up the gym I was mentally telling myself I’m training to go on Survivor because that’s the show I actually wants to be cast on.

KP: Here in South Australia the gyms opened here last week.

AS: Yeah, our gyms are opening back up again June 13th, but I’d still don’t trust going to any of them so I was actually getting really fit from that, like not really, but quite fit like I was doing back flips and stuff off bridges into water in summer and I was starting to see like muscle tone and the number on the scale wasn’t really dropping that much but I was gaining muscle so I was feeling really good about seeing the numbers going up in terms of like when I started doing a leg press so for context I am 177 centimetres and at the time I think I was like in the – well, I’m around like 70 kilos let’s say, you know weight fluctuates so I’m around 70 kilos and that number kinda makes me feel a bit ehhh. I’d rather be in the mid-60s so like I don’t want to drastically lose weight but having a seven at the front makes me feel a bit uncomfortable but anyway…

KP: No sympathy from me but go on.

AS:  I was doing the leg press and when I started doing leg presses, I was kind of just even starting below my body weight so it was like 50 kilos and then I went out to my body weight I went up to 60 went up to 70 and by summer when I was like you know maybe like January, February actually doing 100 kilos on the leg breasts so that felt really cool to be seeing that kind of progress and then with the squats, was using the bar to do squats with and I was doing over 50 kilos on that by the time that I was progressing so I mean reading someone’s caption, I can definitely understand living a healthier lifestyle physically/mentally stronger, feeling good about yourself, and confidence and motivation because you know I’m clinically depressed and I’m also autistic and I take meds and a lot of the time I can be in a pretty dark hole if I’m just left alone to myself and my own devices so getting to the gym gets me out of the house and then seeing actual progress when applying my mind and my body to something was really a benefit because as an adult you don’t necessarily have like a structured curriculum like you do in school that you get grades from so it was actually a way of having something to work towards and having maintenance and that kind of shit so I can relate to that caption that she wrote on certain aspects so hopefully I’ll be able to join a gym soonish but I do not trust New South Wales right now. I know we’re heading for a second wave so my ass is staying home. Y’all can go back to the gym and y’all can go back to work in school, I’ll let you guys go test it out first.

KP: Next question: When American healthcare is scamming nonsense like this why do they put up with it and I’m gonna send you a link.

AS: Oh, I mean, I can imagine what is sending because America’s healthcare system is fucking atrocious. 

KP: There’s like a thousand different things I could potentially send you probably.

AS: I know that their costs for surgeries, I know their costs for medicine…yeah, my hospital bill went up from $4,000 to 950 all because I asked them for a receipt and list of everything I was being charged for they lowered my bill by 76%. Our healthcare system is a scam. The fact that they just slap you with charges and then magically vanish some of them if you even asked for receipts and I’ve seen actual receipts from people who’ve like uploaded pictures that they’ve sent to their insurance and it’s like $100,000 and then they’ll charge you like $7000 dollars for one night in the room and the anesthetist is like $150 per hour and just like a whole bunch of insane shit and yeah that’s the exact question that I’ve been asking for literally years but one of the things that we’re seeing with the riots that are happening now in the Black Lives Matter protests is I saw on Twitter someone uploaded like, “Oh why are you guys robbing the pharmacy? You’re supposed to be protesting about people’s lives but all you really want is drugs” and it’s like have you fucking seen how much US pharmacy companies charge for insulin like people shouldn’t have to rely on a GoFundMe going viral to not die every month and insulin can cost like $400 or $900 – it’s something insane like I know there’s literal busses that people will organize to travel as a group to then go over the border to Canada to bulk buy  insulin over in Canada to certain amounts that are legal and then bring it back into America again because it is cheaper to literally organize travel outside of the country and bulk buy  than it is to buy like one amount in America. It is insane. I’ve talked to you before about my lung issues and my hospital stint because lungs collapsed four times also had to have two surgeries. There were emergency trips that I had to deal with where they would have jam a tube into my fucking chest in the emergency room. Fun fact: you’re not allowed to be knocked out in emergency literally most painful experience of my life. I also needed two surgeries one on each lung and I have like looked at American hospital bills for surgeries and I have just liked – I’m never stepping foot in that country. It terrifies the shit out of me. 

KP: I’m amazed people there have the balls to even go to protests cause if you get injured even if you survive, you’re fucked. 

AS: Oh, it’s awful, it’s awful. If I had have the issues that I have had in Australia that for all the shit I give my government, and I give my government a fucking lot of shit because I know the government that is in power now is in favor of privatization and they want the American healthcare system. The fact that we don’t have it is because of the labor government so anytime that you are voting at an election remember Medicare and fucking thank labor for that because of Medicare I didn’t have to pay for my surgeries. I didn’t have to pay for the follow-up doctor’s visits. I had to pay for a few X-rays at a subsidized cost and that’s also because of the Liberals and they brought in something about X-rays not being covered to a certain amount so I had to pay for a few X-rays, I had to pay for a few painkillers, but you compare that to America – my family would have had to have remortgaged the house to cover what I needed. Surgeries for my thing would have been like you know $50,000. It just scares me – it frightens, I don’t know how people live in that country. There’s a tweet I saw that was semi-viral and it said, “America is a first world -” sorry, “a third world country that wears a Gucci belt” and that just sums up that country so much. It is a nightmare, their college system is a nightmare like you have to start saving up from childhood to send your kids to higher education yet somehow college is seen as like an essential thing that everyone has to go to in their country as well – it’s just batshit insane and then people wonder why they have riots. The rights that are going on there obviously are very much focused on Black Lives Matter so I don’t want to hijack and take away anything from that protest but there is just so many things below the surface that have been boiling for so long and the black community is disproportionately affected by them as in terms that they have less access to insurance, they have less wages at the jobs and it’s the white people who control the government so it’s you know hashtag not all white people but when we talk about white people being bad it’s not necessarily one individual but it’s the fact that if you look at the percentages of people who make up all of the major institutions in terms of CEOs, billionaires, government officials, Senate, lower house, politicians, and mayors and all that shit – the figures are like 90% if not higher, like 98-99%  and who are the ones who are voting for these people to keep them in their position obviously masses of white people because it sure as fuck isn’t the people of color and the black people who are being victimized by the policies that they are enacting so when we say things like fuck white people – obviously, people who go either way like I’m obviously a white person who is very left-leaning so I’m in support of the Black Lives Matter protest but that’s not you know a pat on the back thing, that’s just common sense to me. Whereas you also sometimes see people who are people of color or black people who go to the right wing and I think a lot of the time that people do that is so they but can become the tokenized black voice that the Republicans will then boost and then they get money out of becoming that voice so they see it as for-profit or anything but you got to throw your entire community under the bus and have no soul to be able to do that so when people say fuck white people, it’s fuck the system, it’s fuck the white people who are in favor of maintaining the system so I could rant about that for hours from my own personal experiences of the healthcare system from studying sociology at university to being a person who just has a conscience and hates the status quo.

KP: Next question: Who do you think is the best Doctor Who and who do you think is the worst Doctor Who? 

AS: I’m the worst person to ask this. I’ve literally never seen an episode.

KP: I’ve maybe seen one when I was 10. Let’s just skip it, I’ve got no fucking idea.

AS: All I know is that the people who wrote Game of Thrones apparently were also involved in one of the seasons of death of Doctor Who and apparently they had a really shit ending as well so after all that heart that I put into Game of Thrones I’m not about to sign myself up for that again.

KP: Next one: Please give quick Kpopalypse- style reviews of every Star Wars movie from 1 to 9.

AS: Okay, well, you haven’t seen all of them.

KP: I haven’t seen the first 3, I haven’t seen the last one. 

AS: Okay, you go for the ones you’ve seen then I’ll go afterwards cause I’ve seen them all.

KP: Yeah, starting with number 4…

AS: A New Hope.

KP: Yeah, they’re never gonna top 4 in my opinion just because…

AS: It’s the one that started it.  

 KP: I think partly because 4 is relatively low budget so part of it is the appeal of seeing what they’re able to do with a relatively low budget and some very very clever effects and when you watch the original, you really get the feel for that especially when you’re watching the one that hasn’t been CGIed. The rest of them is pretty much the same in my opinion. They’re quite entertaining, I guess, so I don’t know – cowboys in space or whatever, but I don’t know, I’m not a huge fanboy. 

AS: I’d say, I’m pretty passionate, like it’s not on my passion level like Power Rangers who I love. The original trilogy is definitely something that’s really out there for me. I just didn’t get into the other side of fan culture of the TV shows or the books, but the original trilogy we had as VHS tapes in my house when I grew up and I would rewatch the shit out of those so I love the original trilogy and then the prequel series came out again when I was a kid but it was at the movies so it was an experience to go to the movies and see the Star Wars in a cinema. So I’ll just go in chronological order, not release order so number 1: Phantom Menace, daft Jar Jar Binks fan theories where everyone thinks Jar Jar Binks is a member of the sith which is quite hilarious. I was 8 years old when that came out so I had the Jar Jar Binks plush toy, so I am the nightmare demographic that was responsible for Jar Jar Binks in the fact that I loved that character as a child. Every Star Wars fan that’s an adult absolutely hates him. Chronological number 1: Hollee likes Jar Jar Binks as a child.

KP: You’re gonna get cancelled now by everyone.

AS:  Yeah, bring on the Star Wars fanboys, I’ve dealt with ARMY, you can’t phase me. There’s baby Dath Vader as Anakin when he’s a little kid. The second Anakin gets recast as Hayden Christensen and there is horrific dialogue and you know romance scenes   between him and Padme with like all the chemistry of a cardboard cutout of each other so very stiff and awkward but you get Samuel L. Jackson with a purple lightsaber so almost worth the entire film just to see. Number three is Darth Vader becomes Darth Vader and if Padme dies but it also breaks the canon that was set in the original trilogy because because Padme dies during childbirth and I’ll come back to  this when I do my little hot take on the sixth film but that Padme dies during childbirth because she dies of a broken heart because Anakin has turned to the dark side and he like kills a whole bunch of innocent people even the Jedi younglings so bad Anakin, bad Darth Vader and “Anakin it’s over. I’ve got the high ground. You can’t -” He tries to jump over him. They’re fighting on a planet made of lava and that’s where the quote, “I’ve got the high ground” comes from if you’ve seen that on the internet but it’s there somewhere. Fourth one pretty much you just summed it up as it’s the original, it’s the best, it’s the lowest budget but it also means that they have to use all of their ounces of creativity and it clearly paid off for them. I enjoyed the cast do not enjoy the kissing scene between Luke and Leia cause they are related so that’s a bit traumatic. Next film where they go to Cloud City and they have like clouds and party in the sky with, what’s his name, Lando Calrissian  so Star Wars in space, in clouds and then Darth Vader,  “Luke, I am your father” “He told me enough, he told me you killed!” “No, I am your father” so it’s not “Luke, I am your father” it’s “No, I am your father.”  One of the most misquoted lines in history, I’m pretty sure. Yes, and then Han Solo gets frozen into, it’s a specific material that just totally has blanked my mind, it’s not kryptonite but it’s carbonite. Kryptonite is Superman. See, I know it wasn’t kryptonite, it’s carbonite, so he gets frozen. Luke loses his hand  when he fights Darth Vader and everyone’s  sad but then third movie they go free Han Solo gets freed from the carbonite Luke had his training because that was in the fifth one so Luke’s had his Jedi training with Yoda – Yoda dies – spoiler alert and they you know go on to defeat Vader, blow up the Death Star, Empire bad, good guys win – yay! Speaking of the  sixth one as I mentioned I was going to be coming back to there is a specific thing where Luke and Leia are talking to each other and Leia tells him that she – like they know that they’re related now – and she’s like, Luke says, “Tell me about your mother, your real mother” and Leia says, “ I don’t remember she died when I was very young” but “ So I don’t remember very much of her, she died when I was very young” but then she goes onto at least describe somethings, “Shhe was very kind, but sad” so she has memories of her mother whereas as we have previously mentioned in the third film she died  during childbirth. Canon – it has ruined the canon!  So yeah, I was furious when I saw that movie, I was like wait a minute, what do you mean she’s dying in childbirth I saw this movie! I  know that she talked about remembering her as a child so that was my take on that and then you have the new trilogy and I loved the first one I was so excited when I saw it like I liked the character of Finn who was played by John Boyega and he’s the stormtrooper who is black who escapes from the captivity and joins the resistance and you know like there’s a hell of a lot of symbolism that could be taken from that of like escaping slavery to then fight against the system so you know in that movie he’s great and he’s force sensitive and you get Rey who’s a character who I enjoyed at the time and there’s clearly a hint of her backstory that’s going on there as well you get Poe Dameron whom I am enjoying and then there’s also BB-8  who’s the really cute little roundball robot who’s this generations version of R2D2. I quite literally have on my bedside table like a remote control BB2 doll, so I clearly did enjoy this movie – I saw it like three times in the cinema I loved it – super hyped for the franchise. Eighth movie comes out, what the fuck was that abomination?! It was awful, absolutely ruined all of the character progress that was going on   Rey just instantly just becomes this Mary Sue character who has instantly gained all the control of her force powers even though it took Luke an entire movie training with Yoda to even come to grips with his whereas she goes and finds Luke Skywalker and then like he’s not behaving like Luke Skywalker in that planet he’s just not him. He fucking burns like a whole Jedi Library and just a whole bunch of really weird out of character shit and like Poe gets a really shit character arc Finn gets a really really shit character arc where they just send him off to like a casino planet that then ends up having no bearing to the plot at all. Yeah it’s  just like a really really awful movie which I’m so disappointed by because I was so excited about it and I just came out of the cinema like what the fuck just happened and I just went to see the last one for the sake of seeing what the fuck they could possibly do with it.

KP: Well, you can’t tell me because I haven’t seen it. 

AS: Are you planning to see it?

KP: Yeah, one day I’ll get around to it. What’s it called again?

AS: Return of the – it’s Rise of Skywalker 

KP: I’ll see it eventually.

AS: Yeah, there was the Last Jedi which was the really what the fuck one and then there was the Rise of Skywalker. Without spoiling it I think it does a good attempt to redeem the second one. It brought back a lot of things from the  first one that I was interested in and some of the cinematography and the special effects are very visually pleasing to watch it does a good attempt  but it’s just too much was ruined by that eighth movie to really be able to properly redeem it but I’ll give it points for trying. That’s my thoughts on the entire Star Wars series. 

KP: Mine was like meh.

AS: Breaking canon!

KP: Next: What are your thoughts on this mayor ‘s words? Japanese mayor only men should go shopping during the pandemic because women take too long.

AS:  Well we all know Japan’s like misogynistic as fuck.

KP: “A Japanese mayor’s come under fire from the international media for suggesting that men should go grocery shopping instead of women.”

AS: Well. I mean, Japan is still politically incorrect in a lot of ways and I know that they’ve got a pretty right authoritarian, not authoritarian, but going towards that government I mean it’s a country that you know refuses to admit they did bad things during World War II so am I surprised that some of their political figures are dickheads – no.

KP: Let’s move on. Lee Sooman and Ed’s “90 Day Fiancé” sexiness on a scale from 1-10. I don’t know what this means.

AS: 90 Day Fiancé is like, I haven’t watched the show, but I ‘ve seen clips get retweeted in my timeline.  

KP: So this isn’t real thing, it’s a show? 

AS: Yeah, but I think it’s a reality show so it’s like – I don’t even really know what it is about. I assume it’s people who are engaged for 90 days and maybe at the end of it, they decide if they get married or not. I just know there was a really iconic couple that happened out of it  and it was like an Asian lady and a really short white guy who has like a really weird looking neck and I’m  pretty sure he’s like 5 foot nothing if not even shorter and something about like he lied to her and she dumps him so that’s all I know about the show so otherwise I don’t have much of an opinion sorry I can’t really rank Lee Sooman in regards to it but I know that I’d marry him instantly and then annul the marriage to get some divorce settlement money out of him if I have to.

 KP: Let’s move on.  Have you downloaded and played Superstar Woolim? How’s your experience. What are the comparisons between this and Superstar BTS? 

AS: Yeah, that’s definitely a me question. The comparisons definitely come from the cards and how you power them up so whether you have a good deck of cards   determines how many points you get for a correct tap because it’ s a tap rhythm game so in terms of Superstar BTS getting the right cards is insanely difficult because they have what is called prism and signed cards versus just the normal cards so prism cards are very difficult to find and if you have prism cards you get even higher  scores and then if you manage to successfully get all of the prism cards of a specific theme so there’s usually two or three different themes per album, sometimes four or five quite a lot, so you want to have all members cards of one consistent theme because then you get a bonus for that and then you have cards that start up from C to B to A to S to R, C going up to R, C is the lowest R is the highest, and you power them up to different numbers, if you get an R50, R50 is the highest amount you can power a card up to so what literally destroyed me was Superstar BTS closing because BigHit Entertainment has signed some other deal with another company but it’s like their own company Netmarble or something like that but they basically want to make their own tap rhythm game instead of paying royalties to the Superstar franchise so they are now canceling Superstar BTS after I have literally been playing this game for 2 years and I finally managed to get an R card prism deck powered up to 50 for   the context of that as I just explained this has literally taken me years to do and I finally do it and they cancel the fucking game. Kills me. I mean this is such a thing that is like one of those things you have to know about the fandom or the experience to really relate at how painful that kind of like that was this viral story of a little kid who built a Minecraft world kid who – the Minecraft kid built the world and the mom was like, “You didn’t get up in time, so I’m just gonna destroy it as punishment.” Turned out that he was a year’s worth of effort that the mother had instantly ruined over a petty thing. It was on Reddit Am I the Asshole and everyone just unanimously, “Holy fuck, you’re a cunt” so BigHIt is a cunt who ruined my deck – I’m devastated. As for Superstar Woollim, it’s a lot easy. There is no prism decks, no signed decks, they are just normal playing decks. I’ve already got an R card deck for infinite I’ve got an R card deck for Lovelys and I’ve got an R card deck for Su -Sujeong’s solo album, so I’ve already got 3 R card decks when that literally took me a year to get in Superstar BTS. Much easy to get the R cards but it’s alternatively harder to power them up for some reason. Once you get the card to an R so that’s the comparison really. No prism, no signed, but on the flip side, harder to get the card powered up to R50.

KP: This person also mentions that they hoping that you’ll accept their follow request on Twitter. 

AS: Okay, if you tell me who you are very likely.

KP: But they didn’t say who they are so I can’t help you there. 

AS: Send another message to Kpopalypse and I will very likely approve it. Also, going off Superstar Woollim, I gotta take my moment to brag and say that I’ve literally 3-starred every single song on hard mode. I am very good at tap rhythm games I’d like to think. Probably the autism or something like that, but yeah, very good at it. 

KP: Next question: Do you think that racism in the music industry is something that would or did or does hinder the advancement of a K-pop group in the American market. Are the challenges Korean artists face in a foreign music market comparable to those of local artists would face and in what aspects do those challenges differ?

AS: Okay, I’m not really someone with the authority to speak on the differences that happen because the way I obviously would not experience them both being: A: a white person, B. Not someone who works in the music industry. in terms of the racism that any K-pop artists will face in America you’re obviously going to have a lot of Asian fetishists who are like you know only interested in the visual – only see them as eye candy, only see them as like puppets. You obviously see a lot of those “Dark side of K-pop” articles. Nevermind all the shit the Western music industry has put through virtually every major pop star as well.  like you obviously see a lot of. Look at what happened to Britney Spears and how she was driven to her breaking point look at how Michael Jackson’s entire life was. I mean, it’s not a unique to K-pop experience but the way that it is spoken about is often spoken like, “Oh, look  at all those weird Koreans and what they’re doing to their idols” as if like Lou Pearlman didn’t exist and what he did to the Backstreet Boys etc etc so  yeah the racism is – that it’s like, “Oh, look at them they’re doing bad things with their pop industry as if they are saints. People who speak about K-pop like, “Oh, why are you listening to this chingchong music?” and just not willing to even listen to it. Very dismissive of it. Obviously dismissive of the artistry – “Everything is robotic. Nothing is real. They are all just factory-produced” – very dismissive and you know it’s very, I don’t know if irony is the right word to use, but irony or it’s hypocritical – it’s definitely hypocritical because of all the people who would understand the racism in this industry and the fact that it has been addressed by the group and the face that it is being inflicted upon their own favorite group in terms of ARMYs and BTS. BTS have obviously been subject to some really shit racism that goes on in the Western music industry in regards to their coverage. They often treated as a token group even though they are selling more albums than some of the really popular Western artists that they are sharing the sages with but then they’re not given a performance. It took a very long time for BTS to actually be invited to perform these shows rather than just be invited to walk on the red carpet to get given a trophy to get a ratings boost by that fandom. I talk a lot of shit about ARMYs and talk a lot of shit about BigHit as a company but in terms of the actual racism that BTS has been subjected to, make no mistake that I am very much aware of it and vocally critical about it, but for all the shit that has happened to them, what frustrates me a lot is witnessing these people then be the ones to repeat a lot of the racist rhetoric against a lot of the other K-pop groups. For example, “BTS is the only group who is musically involved. Everyone else is capitalist robot -” like NCT have members who are credited. 

KP: They’re different from everyone else, yeah.

AS: Yeah, it’s very much like the token Asian. They’re turning their own group into the acceptable token Asian. Like the model minority whereas it’s like they talk about BTS paving the way for everyone but they don’t let anyone walk on the path so if so many people from this fandom and I see it because I know and I’ve identified Republican members of the fandom – Ms.Beatrice_81, who is a registered Republican of 19 years only changed her political affiliation to Libertarian last year when people started calling her out on it and she likes to claim she didn’t vote Donald Trump, but we have the voting records, we know you did, sweetie and her sister as well, Crumbles4Kookie. Both two Americans who voted for Trump and we know it, and they are white women and they are evangelical Christians and they are the biggest perpetrators of the “BTS only, no other K-pop. No free rights, no free promos. Only BTS, no other K-pop” so if you’re sharing the racist rhetoric of someone who voted Republican and for Trump, might wanna think about why these are the people you are uplifting in the fandom to speak on your behalf and to represent you and why you’re parroting what they say. What is this influence that you’re taking on and allowing to become commonplace in your fandom because they only want success for BTS. BigHit would love this because it means ARMYs are only spending money on BTS. Less money going to other groups and other groups at competition. I’m not against seeing other groups at competition, I don’t personally engage with that mindset myself because it’s entertainment for me – it’s really not that deep. I’ll listen to everyone. I don’t give a shit about the album sells or the competition but for the people who become so invested in it – “I wanna see my favorite chart number one. I wanna see my favorites win daesangs.” Fine, have your competition but don’t fucking frame it like it’s literal superiority for album credits when your faves have been outsourcing a fucking shitload of their discography over the last few years as much as any other group and you have other groups who are also self-involved in producing their music as well and there is no inherent flaw with being a pop artists who doesn’t write their own music. Britney Spears has been very involved in her music career even if she doesn’t have her name as a lyricist on her albums. She had the creative concept of the “Baby, One More Time” video and that is one of the most iconic debut music videos or pop music videos of all time. Originally, that music video was meant to be a superhero-themed video and she spoke to the producer and the director about it and was like “Nah, I’m not feeling this. Here’s what I want – I want it in a school. I want to be wearing this.” She’s had a lot of influence in her career for years. She picked the catsuit that she wore in “Oops..I Did It Again” music video. She picked “Toxic” becoming the next title track on her album, In the Zone. I’m a huge Britney fan and because I love and value and respect everything Britney has done for pop music, I hold the same standard to all the other artists I see in different countries and different genres as well, so I can appreciate members of EXO, specifically Baekhyun, who has said, “I don’t write songs because it’s not something I’m good at it” but what is he good at? He’s good at performing the songs that are give to him. He has a good voice, he’s got good emotion, he sells it on stage so being a good performer is not always about having to write your own music, but seeing the racist rhetoric that the fandom at large uses to diminish the artistry of any other competitive group whilst also simultaneously refusing to even admit that they’re competition because they’re so “below us.” A lot of fucking shit I can say on that, so yes, racism very much prevalent but it is now the K-pop fans themselves who are the ones responsible for reiterating it. Whereas before it did seem to be a more K-pop vs everyone else agenda so like back in 2013 when EXO was competing against One Direction for some Twitter video and I know that Big Bang won some Nickelodeon award, it used to seem very K-pop against the world, now it’s K-pop vs BTS vs the world. When it’s like, you’ve done so much work to split yourselves off from a genre that no matter what you say, you’ll always be a part of and they like to talk about paving the way, but a lot of the people who fought against the racists in the One Direction fandom and fought against the racists when Tiffany won that award on behalf of SNSD, these were the people who paved the way for BTS to then start being nominated in the future as well but because they “weren’t number 1 on the Billboard Albums Chart, it doesn’t count” – fucking morons.

KP: Next question…and there’s not much to go.

AS: I was going to say, it’s going to be long again.

KP: Are you surprised that there’s s more people who go through life not knowing such basic life skills and I’ll send you a link.

AS: I can tell you that I’m pretty unskilled in a lot of things. “Rich asking for advice on how to make beds.” That’s definitely like really privileged. I’m thankfully not that incompetent at life. Fuck rich people. Pay me to tell you how to make a bed.

KP: There’s a few more questions that have dropped in while we’ve been talking so let’s quickly do those. First one’s, I kinda already know what you’re going to say here. Do you think YG is actually as misogynist as BLINKS depict him?

AS: Ah, yes, I’ve been spreading that agenda long before Blackpink even debuted just from the treatment of his wife. For anyone who doesn’t know this story, literally go Google this and look it up – it is fact. YG recruited his wife when she was still in middle school to join his company. He is obviously very predatory to be doing this to a child. He then debuted her in a girl group and then proceeded to deliberately fail this group’s success because he didn’t want her becoming successful. After which, he then propositioned her as her boss to start dating him which she really wouldn’t exactly have had much of a way to say no to given how locked in these contracts are, how abusive the industry is as a whole, etc. and then they dated in secret for something like 9 or 10 years until she become pregnant and then he married her, so he is an abusive piece of shit and you can read all about this. Just Google it, it’s there, so he is misogynistic to the bone. He has also bailed out ex-members of his group, Seo Taiji and the Boys, so he has bailed out members of that group from jail. I’m pretty sure on a sexual assault charge or something like that and his treatment of 2NE1. He has called them ugly to their faces on camera, he has mocked them, and when their contracts were up for negotiating, there was thing that came out on a YG record saying that they were discussing during one more release with just the 3 of them after Minzy was the one to leave then he scraped it and said no, and then proceeding to debut Blackpink. This is something that was very widely misinterpreted when I tweeted about it in 2016. A lot of people thought I was a bitter ugly hag and jealous of Rose’s success because we came from YG audition obviously she passing, me not and I’m very glad I did not pass for obvious reasons. Like I said, I just went along for the experience. With Rose and the group, I love Rose, i want her to do amazingly well because anybody who successfully passes that audtion of hundreds and then proceeds to survive training under YG which would’ve been a fucking nightmare, is an icon who I want mega success for. She’s an Australian icon, an Australian legend and I want nothing but success for her. What I had a lot of issues with was YG’s own words. In his own words, he literally said that there was criticism against him saying like, “Oh you haven’t done anything to make Blackpink any different from 2NE1” and then he replied that he wasn’t trying to. He said that he didn’t care if people just compared the two of them because that’s basically what he was doing anyway. So for him to go out and admit that on record was like what the fuck? He also has a – but also the company – has a routine habit of leeching off the success of other popular groups, notably Girls’ Generation. He made a lot of comparisons between SNSD and 2NE1 back in their prime and there was the whole incident where SNSD announces their comeback with “Mr.Mr.” and YG conveniently announces 2NE1 and their Crush album but he announces it 3 days later after “Mr.Mr.” which would therefore give them a direct advantage if they were ever going to go head to head because they would have that extra few days where the SNSD song would be a little bit older. The 2NE1 song would therefore be the newer one which would therefore get more listeners on the first day of release so it was a strategic way to have direct competition but also with an advantage and then SM were like, “Well, oops we accidentally did something wrong with our music video so we’ve – oops – so we’ve delayed the music release – oops – the same day that YG announced their comeback.” You want us to have a competition? We’ll give you a head-to-head competition and then YG came out the most lamest excuse in history saying, “Actually we’re going to delay the release of ‘Come Back Home’ because it is CL’s birthday and we would like it to be more meaningful for her.” Literally the excuse that the used for that so that happened then, back in 2014, I’m pretty sure, and then 2016, that’s TWICE and Blackpink. Blackpink had a successful debut by all standards. I’m pretty sure they had top of the charts like a perfect all kill, but YG then thinks, let me put this group that has one digital single against arguably the new nation’s girl group at the time and I was living in Korea. I saw this firsthand – they were insane and they still are, but living there it was just like holy shit. It’s just such a different thing that you don’t see on the internet, they were huge, and for YG to put them – to put Blackpink – up against TWICE at the height of their success was career sabotage so that’s what he did and he did the same tactic that he did with Girls’ Generation and the “Mr.Mr.” comeback. He was like, alright, we’re going to have a comeback and it’s going to be a head-to-head battle but it’s technically a few days later which gives them a direct advantage on the charts and I criticized that and then of course fans took that as, “She’s bullying Blackpink. She thinks Blackpink is going to fail against TWICE” and I was like no, I’m not talking about Blackpink in this situation, I’m talking about YG’s management of them and how misogynistic it is that he tries to build their career off of a manipulated rivalry with another girl group – there was no need for that, and it was very unfortunate in regards to the song content because “Playing with Fire” is one of their best songs and it would have been insanely successful on the charts and it was long-term. It was a long-term success story. it got really high streams for the end of the year, for Gaon awards and all that kinda stuff but compared to “TT” at the time? TWICE just fucking swept the floor with them because they were the new – everyone was waiting for that comeback. They’d been doing music promotions at festivals. They’d just come off the success “Cheer Up” and “Cheer Up” went on to become song of the year at all the end of year shows so this was peak TWICE-era fame and YG set them up against that. I was just like what the fuck is this? This is sabotage against your own group. Do you not even want them to be successful? Obviously not because they went from having “we’re going to release 8 music videos this year for Blackpink and they’ve already done all this recording and they’re all ready to go” so all of that was scrapped so he essentially punished them for not beating TWICE when it was his own company’s decision that was the whole reason they didn’t and –

KP: This is getting away a bit from misogyny though and just getting more towards YG being a shitty person in general.

AS: Well, it’s both because the reasons for doing that is misogyny. He didn’t do this to WINNER, he didn’t do it to ikon when they’ve both have flops in their careers. They still get to continuously release music but when Blackpink gets sabotaged by YG for something that is entirely out of their control, they’re then put on the backburner and in 2017, they literally released one song which was “As if it’s Your Last.” So, they had one digital single the entire of 2017 kinda as punishment because they didn’t become the next TWICE. So yeah, I could go on forever about how much I hate YG as a company so whoever sent that question in, that’s your answer. Yes, YG is a misogynistic fuck against virtually every woman he has encountered in his life including Blackpink, so do not discredit the misogyny that Blackpink has experienced just because you do not like BLINKS.

KP: Cool, look, that wraps our questions, so we’ll leave it there. Thanks for –

AS: Did anybody end up actually doing the transcription of last time?

KP: Yeah, yeah, if you go look it up, you’ll see it.

AS: I mean, I know that we went for such a long time last time. I was just like holy shit is anybody that dedicated, and they are so to whoever does these, I highly value your effort even though I don’t know who you are and why you possibly would be interested anything I have to say. 

KP: We’re very grateful. Thanks for the chat. This will go up at some point and –

AS: I’ll tell all the BLINKS that I have – even though that’s barely any because they all hate me – but I’ll tell them that I used my platform to shit on YG.

KP: I’m sure they’ll appreciate that.

AS: They should.

KP: Alright, cool. I’ll let you go. Have a good one and we’ll talk to you again sometime soon.

AS: Yeah, see you in another month or so. Bye.

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