It’s time for QRIMOLE!  Read on as Kpopalypse answers more questions from readers!

Hello Kpopalypse oppar, I’ve read your blog on and off for a couple years but never submitted any questions yet, but lately I’ve been wondering: why do you continue listening to Kpop and running Kpopalypse?? It seems like you generally don’t like most of the music, and you have a really good understanding of just how dark and nasty and fake the industry is and how toxic the fans are, so what has kept you hooked on it for so many years to the point of running a whole website? Not that I don’t appreciate your writing, it’s super educational/eye-opening/funny and always saves me from slipping into delusional fan mindset, but it doesn’t really seem like you enjoy k-pop that much so I don’t understand why you care enough to run this website

Of course I like the music – not all of the music, or even most, but the good pop song tracks are in fact really good and much better than their western equivalents.  The gold miner doesn’t lose his passion for finding gold just because he has to sift through 50 tons of rock to get to that precious gold nugget, if anything the arduous search makes hitting the rewards more worthwhile, not less.  Also the failures often give me something to write about.  Sometimes a song that fails is still interesting.

Other than the music, I just enjoy writing in general.  As readers know, I don’t just write about k-pop, but in fact use k-pop as a way to write about many other things, like music theory, artist advocacy, boobs, etc etc…

The people who wonder “why do you write when you seem to hate everything” are often the same people who complain about the site being “edgy” and want me to “fix my tone”, not realising that they don’t actually understand the tone in the first place.  I write because it’s FUN, I’m actually having fun when I’m writing – ALL the time.

i have aspergers and kpop has been my special interest/hyperfixation for the past five years (before that it was birds for four years). i’m trying really hard to move on to a different interest (even though that’s not how it works) because its a bit embarrassing and i would like an interest where i gain useful knowledge, like reading or wine tasting or something. i almost did, but then i found the kpopalypse blog, and i got back into the habit of finding new songs and groups to research etc etc. so on one hand, thank you for writing great stuff which is entertaining and has introduced me to some great music, but on the other hand, fuck you! i want to move on with my life!

ps. i read your article on how to stop loving kpop and unfortunately it didn’t help much, but it was interesting to read anyway

You can learn from the previous answer.  A lot of my writing about k-pop… isn’t really about k-pop.  Quite a large percentage of the people who reguarly read my writing don’t actually listen to k-pop at all, many of them used to but have musically moved on, and others never even started.

Here I was today blissfully doing my caonima things with my caonima life, when, wait what’s this?

[link to some j-shit garbage deleted for the good of humanity]

A J-shit that is actually not shit? This can’t be allowed. Therefore, I need the Ultimate Caonima Overlord himself, Kpopalypse Oppar, to shit all over it like Irene shitting all over Seulgi’s dressing room in the #46 fanfic, to restore the balance in the world of music where the unspoken rule is: K-pop rules, J-trash drools.

It sucks.  Next.

So I’m about to enter university as a pipe organ performance major. there aren’t very many people who play the organ, and especially people under the age of 60 who play the organ, and in my generation, most kids don’t know what it is or it seems to just be “boring church music” for them (of course, a lot of it is boring church music but sometimes it can be really fantastic). I think my peers’ attitudes towards organ music can also be extended towards classical music (by classical music I mean anything baroque, renaissance, classical, romantic mostly written by white dudes) and it’s quite obvious that most symphonies have no idea how to market and attract younger audiences to their shows. Since I’m planning on a career in classical music, and i just think sometimes classical is great and people should listen to it, I’d love to see more people my age listening to it and supporting classical musicians (or otherwise i will be professionally screwed and unable to make a living with my BM in pipe organ performance).
So I was wondering if you had any insights on why people don’t seem to listen to classical music much these days and what it might take for baroque counterpoint to enjoy a trendy comeback. How can classical musicians appeal to more people and break free of the “classical music is just boring music for rich people” stereotype? is classical music already halfway dead and in the grave, or could it experience any sort of revival? and why is it dying in the first place?
thank you for taking the time to answer all these questions!
–a young pipe organ nerd

I think it’s largely a problem of marketing.  There are in fact very popular classical musicians, they’re generally the ones who get the image-crafting aspect of it right, or find a unique visual angle to work.  I would say that it’s beneficial to realise that image and providing some kind of compelling visual experience is always at least as important as the actual music for many people.  Classical musicians can learn some lessons from pop musicians in this regard.

oh? i thought you would dislike god’s menu. what differs it from other noise boygroup songs?

It has a RIFF.

It’s entirely possible to make a great song with a bunch of tuneless yelling – heavy metal does it all the time.  However there’s always a really good riff driving the best metal songs, and it’s the same for “God’s Menu” – even though it’s not metal, it follows the same compositional principle of being mostly riff-driven.

I am an atheist or agnostic(I’m not really sure which one but I don’t believe in a religion) so I won’t get offended by opinions u have on this, but I was wondering what u think about this video. I just don’t really… understand it? They didn’t prove anything. Maybe the creators of this video were just desperate to prove that scientists can be religious so they just threw this video together but didn’t realise it doesn’t make any fucking sense.

Unfortunately your video didn’t work, so I can’t throw down on this.  I guess god himself realised that the video was full of shit too and got it wiped from YouTube.

Hi oppar. The rest of my friend group are quite angry at one of the people in the group. To not go into too much detail, she’s said some really hurtful things to them and doesn’t seem to be aware that her words are hurtful (I wasn’t aware of this until they just sat me down and told me. which is why I’m asking you this question now). I guess it’s relevant that she’s the only white person in our friend group and some of these things are racist. We’re all in boarding school, so we eat every meal together. During these meals, I’m the only person she talks to and my friends have said they don’t like this as they feel ignored by her and feel like they don’t have the chance to talk to me. Since it’s exam season now (important because we need to get certain grades to get into the universities we want to), everyone is quite highly strung in general and also I feel quite tired because I’m having 5 exams per week for 6 weeks and studying really hard for them. Even though they said I don’t have to, I feel obliged to talk to her about their grievances as the ‘go-between’ I guess. Also I’m kinda feeling tired out by her recently as she keeps asking me loads of questions, so I have to spend hours tutoring her on basic stuff instead of revising myself. Furthermore, it feels exhausting to have to be the only person she talks and complains to most of the time. And also she keeps trying to pressure me into doing things I don’t want to. I’ve been putting up with these things because I feel like it’s part of being a good friend, but hearing my friends talk about their experiences with her have made me realise that I’ve been kinda annoyed at her for these things, but I’ve been supressing these negative thought because I felt selfish every time I thought them. I’ve been trash-talking her for this whole qrimole so I’d like to just say that there is a reason we are friends, we’ve been friends for two years now and there is reason to salvage this relationship. Everything dodgy she’s been doing has just started since last week or so, when we came back to school after a long time being online due to covid. I understand she’s probably extremely stressed (she basically had a breakdown after one of our exams this week), but so are the rest of us! Basically I don’t know what to do oppar. I’d appreciate any advice honestly, and thank you for doing qrimole because I feel like this is the only neutral place I could ask for help. Anyway back to revision haha

If you ever want to check that you truly understand a concept, a great way to do so is to explain it to someone else.  If you can do this clearly, without stumbling across your words or getting confused, then you know that it’s sunk in.  So by teaching her, you’re also teaching yourself.  I can’t really give you an opinion on the “racism” or whatever as I don’t know what she said but if this is all recent it’s probably got more to do with her feeling the pressure and less to do with her wanting to join the KKK.  Just set some boundaries.

there are many times were you enjoyed the backing track of a song and was shitting on the vocals melody and many of your worst songs list made it to the list because of it so I wonder what vocals melody do you like kpop or not

You’ve seen all these examples and you still can’t tell?

Poor vocal writing is often vocal writing that doesn’t obey the principles laid down in this post and also this post, or obeys them poorly (by following the rules but without any variation or interest etc)

1:48 – couldn’t jay park have come up with a better rhyme? is he having sex with men?

Jay Park has always had terrible cringe raps.  I don’t think that says anything about his sexuality though.  Statistically, most poor rhymers are heterosexual.

do/did you listen to poets of the fall?

No, never heard of them.  Had a listen just now and… eh?  It’s okay I guess but I think Ghost do a similar sound way better.

i have an issue that i recently realized after my friend pointed it out. i cant like a song for myself and i need to have some kind of 3rd party to tell me that the song is good, then i’ll like it and allow myself to listen to it. idk why or how this started but im sure reading ur blog isnt helping with it lmao this isnt a question but more of a rant ig

I’m aware that people do this and part of the reason why I write the roundup reviews like I barely give a shit is because what I’m trying to foster in readers is the antidote to what you’re experiencing.  You really shouldn’t give a shit about what some asshole (whether it be me, or any other asshole) thinks of a song.  If I think a song sucks I don’t spend ages of time trying to convince everyone that they should agree, I just put in some quick comment about licking horse’s balls or whatever and then move on.  This hits home the most when it’s a song that is almost universally perceived differently by everyone else.  Sometimes people start following me and then agreeing with all MY opinions on songs… until I hit on one of their faves and completely shit on it, or praise to the sky a song that they hated, and then they take a step back, and often have that “ah hah” moment.   I’m setting the example that it’s okay to have your own opinion.  

Do you have any songs and/or practice recommendations to picking up 2 handed tapping like Covet?

It feels like such a giant leap compared to the basic (for lack of a better term) tapping sections in stuff like Beat It and Hot for Teacher.

Well, it feels that way because it is.  Yvette Young is pretty advanced.  Maybe a stepping stone would be learning Joe Satriani’s “Midnight” which uses similar techniques to Yvette, but in a more regimented way that is definitely easier to pick up, because you’re not also having to deal with odd time signatures, polyrhythm and irregular patterns.

Dear Kpopalypse Oppar,
Two questions:
I’ve been going through your “30 favorite kpop songs of ____” lists (because why not). On your 2017 list you have April’s Take My Hand, which you basically describe as music for music nerds. I really like the song, but there are about five million things going on at a time, and I can only focus on one of those things at any given moment. Can you do a bit of a breakdown of a) the different countermelodies and other things that pop in at different points in the verses and b) whatever’s going on harmonically in the chorus? (I’ve taken like one intro-level music theory class, so I pretty much know the things you’ve explained in your music theory posts but nothing more technical than that lol)

Also, when listening to Lovelyz Ah-Choo or Candy Jelly Love, why do I feel like the songs (esp. the choruses) have a slightly melancholic air? (Or maybe melancholy isn’t the right word, but I don’t feel like these songs are as saccharine-sweet as others make them out to be — there’s a little more complexity there.) Is that due to the actual music, or is my brain just wired weirdly?
~A Musically Confused Caonima

I might save the dissection of April for a music theory post.  Not sure if I’ll cover that song specifically but certainly a further dissection of layering is worth doing.

I think the melancholy vibe of Lovelyz is to do with the visual presentation of the songs and the group, it’s not the completely “aegyo to 10” style that it first appears to be.  Also the songs are fairly melancholic lyrically anyway, the overall conceptual theme is more teen romantic angst than anything else.

I saw people do online video calls with one of my top bias’s Wendy. I felt so jealous it’s frustrating. I always felt like she was like my soulmate but I’, being delusional and I hate that feeling. It’s also because of the stupid kpop system! I just hope one day I can meet my faves in real life.

Be careful.

What makes bts distinct enough from other kpop groups to become the most successful kpop act ever? I can’t pinpoint on what made them different enough from others or even how they became so popular when they were just a nugu in the first place.

Good marketing.  I believe the CEO was an understudy of JYP and probably learned a lot from both his successes and his failings.

hi oppar! I wanna support this artist by buying their music digitally. I have a choice btw buying the version with “CD quality” (cheaper) or “Hi-res 48 kHz” (more expensive). Idk much abt music quality nor am I a purist. I use speakers, ear/headphones that aren’t of absurd price but still decent quality I guess. Will *I* see any difference btw the “CD quality” and the “Hi-res 48 kHz” one in my daily amateur music listening practice?

CD quality is 44.1kHz, the difference between this and 48kHz is simply not perceptible to the human ear.  Even I couldn’t tell in a blind test and I’ve been listening to both for decades as most of my old mastering equipment would use 48kHz (it was the standard for DAT machines).  If you want to spend more money then by all means go ahead, but you won’t hear a difference in audio quality (although you might think you do – and for many people, that’s enough).

In fact not only is 48kHz not superior to 44.1kHz, but even newer high quality options like 24-bit 192Khz and FLAC 256hKz are not superior to 44.1kHz.  More information about why is in the answer to question 8 in this post.

Oppar, what can I do if I hate my coworkers but changing my job isn’t possible at this moment and time? Like, I just can’t stand this people, even though I tried, they are so gossip-obssed, close minded but convinced about their self importance, boring and without anything interesting to say, that I just can’t like them. And I know it’s not me being “judgemental” or something because in my previous job people weren’t that insufferable lol. As a cherry on top, they are extremely homophobic (actually most of people in my country are, but still), and I’m closeted bi so meanwhile I don’t have any business coming out I still feel like shit. Idk, I know quoting my job would be the best and probably there’s no other option after all, but maybe you oppar as older and with more life experiences can tell me how to survive in a short term untill this covid mess will end (if even) and I will be able to quit

While the social side of work is important, you can probably ignore it if you know you’re going to leave soon anyway.  You don’t have to love your job, you just need to be able to tolerate it long enough to get one that you like more, and even then you probably are not necessarily going to like your job.  All jobs, no matter what they are, get old after a while, because the mind tires of routine no matter what it is.

I know you’ve already talked quite a bit about the 80s revival trend and how the Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights” was probably the most influential song for k-pop in the last year so please forgive me for bringing this up again… but I often hear people say that “Blinding Lights” was heavily inspired if not a blatant rip-off of A-ha’s “Take On Me.” But for me, the songs that you named in your greatest k-pop songs of the 2010s list actually sound more like “Take On Me,” and “Blinding Lights” actually sounds more similar to Sistar’s “I Like That” despite it not being particularly 80s-sounding. Do you have any idea why these songs sound so alike to me? Am I just deaf?

None of these songs sound anything like each other.  The only thing you can really say about Blinding Lights and Take On Me is that they use similar sounds, but that’s like saying a Metallica song and a Slayer song are the same song just because they both have distorted guitars and double-kick drums.  The Sistar song also sounds nothing like those two songs, maybe only in terms of tempo, nothing more.  I mean, all pop songs are similar to a broad extent (they generally all have verses, choruses, a vocal melody, chords, one of a few common structures etc) but people who don’t know about music will lead you down all sorts of incorrect garden paths.

I’ve seen in some of your qrimoles that journalism is kind of really bad and stuff, and that started to make me think a lot. To get a better grasp, i ended up looking at k-pop “””journalism””” and tried to overlap it with the non-scandal journalism, but then I noticed how it feels like they are almost the same after all: if kpop wants to show shitty things about idols that no one needs to know/cares about, journalists want to show you how terrible everything is in your city/state/country without ever daring showing the positives, because that doesn’t catch attention like infuriating or really sad news. They are basically the same scandal/catastrophe fishing system that’s always trying to get you to be as pissed off as possible and get you as invested as possible, but don’t ever even touch the whole systematic problem going on behind one single case. Am I onto something here or did I get it wrong?

Also, noting all that too, I remember that constantly watching the news induced me to be really paranoid when I was a literal kid, and I thought I’d get shot or so if I ever dared step out of my house without my mom or my family. I could barely walk out of my family’s sight by myself without having shudders. Make yourself a favor and don’t watch whatever the fuck scandal they’re trying to get you to pay attention to in the local news, trust me, it’s probably the best for your health. Important stuff will still sneak it’s way into your feed or whatever when it’s necessary, or at least I think so. Kpopalypse oppar, how do you get (actual) important info that is worth giving at least a fuck about? Do you really need to watch the news [ shudder ] or is it better to look things up and do all the boring work that journalism’s supposed to do for you?

Since you are Kpopalypse and not some journal professional, tips on being less hive-minded like about 89% of kpop’s fandom and have some more critical thinking? Do you need to be cynical about everything?

I get most of my news from social media nowadays, but I wish I could disable even that.  Twitter’s annoying “what’s happening” sidebar is irritating, it would be great to be able to remove it completely, but the clowns who redesigned Twitter don’t seem to like that idea.  The news that I get that is actually relevant usually comes from friends.  I find that there’s no point following news – the really important stuff will find you eventually.  If I want to know about a topic, I’ll search.  Search engines are the news version of “don’t call me, I’ll call you”.

All journalism is terrible, Frank Sinatra was right.  Just punch them.  How to think more critically?  Reading my blog is a good start.

oppar, do you think the blockberry ripped of this  video while filming vivi’s “everyday i love you” or is it just coincidence? idk about the rest of this video, but the beginning seems to be really similliar… they both were going for this “80’s theme” though, si i’m not sure. (songs aren’t similiar at all though.)

Yes.  They clearly used it as the starting-off point.  Why not?  Video concepts are not copyrightable – if they were, every rapper in the world owes a ton of money to the first guys who stood around in their own neighbourhood rapping on the street.

Now that G-Idle is down to five members, will Shuhua get more lines?

I guess her allotment will increase from somewhere under 16.6% to somewhere under 20%.

My extended family’s from Hong Kong, and as I’m sure you’ve heard, things have been rough. I’m especially worried about my cousins who are young adults and participated in the protests. They’re not ringleaders or anything, but the HK Police will arrest anyone for anything. My cousin really wants to move to Australia, but it seems that it’s hard to get the proper visas, and his job does not transfer well unfortunately. Do you have any advice for him and any other refugees hoping to move to Australia or other Commonwealth countries? Also, the stress is killing me. I can’t do anything for them, and I’m just left worrying since I live across the world away. Do you have any advice for me?

I wouldn’t know anything about moving countries but if I lived in HK and had the chance to leave, I would, as soon as I could.  It’s only going to get worse in Hong Kong.  It’s difficult to come to Australia though.  More info here.  I think it’s right to be worried about your cousins as they may be on a list somewhere.  Not really sure what to advise you other than that while the beauracracies around this stuff generally stinks, people in general are much the same all over the world and want much the same things out of life, there are many people who can relate to your position.  It may be worth networking to try and find support, there would surely have to be resources available that can help with both the immigration issue, as well as your own mental health dealing with family going through this.  Just watch out because some sites that may look like legit support networks may be CCP fronts.

In your recent Gfriend Retrospective, you mentioned that Gfriend had a mini-album that was “best indie release of the year” back in 2016. I’ve been looking for good album releases in Kpop (effort in futility, I know), but it’s been hard ever since F(x) died. Could you say which mini-album you’re talking about? Also, any other album releases you consider decent in recent years. Thanks 🙂

The mini-album was Snowflake, but I suggested it randomly just because it was k-pop and not something “indie”.  More on k-pop albums here.

What advice would you give to people who are inexperience in sex in order to get more proficient at it and quell their insecurities? Any which is specially relevant to men?

• Your first time will probably be shitty, this is normal
• Porn is fantasy performed by sexual athletes, forget trying to mimic what you see there, stick to the basics until you git gud (like, actually gud, not “I think I’m gud” gud)
• Don’t look down on people with experience – someone with experience to guide you through a new process can be beneficial
• If in doubt, more foreplay is rarely a bad option
• Don’t underestimate the value of sex workers

Which do you think are the ideal individual characteristics and traits and idol should have for the best chance to succed as a celebrity?
And, if you had to offer some guidelines to follow in these four situations which would they be (with any notable differences between sexes if necessary):
1. How to approach dating.
2. How to deal with intra-group conflict and competition.
3. How to deal with fans most effectively.
4. How to socialize/attain relevant contacts to help you further your career (I don’t know how feasible it’s to do this as an idol).

Well, that’s a lot of ground.  I think that I’m not the best one to speak on it however.  You might want to go through some of the interviews I’ve done with ex-idols and idol trainees, as they actually cover some of this stuff.

If I remember correctly, you mentioned that Kpop fans usually rely on Youtube views in order to ascertain how profitable (or popular maybe) a group is and that approach being inaccurate. What are the actual, or approximate, metrics an entertainment agency uses when measuring how a idol/group is profitable?

Well, they can actually see the money that the idol generates, and the profit/loss statements from their accountant.  If Blackpink sign a deal with Samsung and a million dollars changes hands, you don’t need any additional metrics to know how a million dollars was made.  There’s no reason for additional guesswork, your bank balance will tell you what’s profitable and what isn’t.  It’s only clueless fans who need metrics so they can obsess over their guesswork – the companies knows what makes money and what doesn’t.

I have a teacher who’s been getting on my nerves but I can’t seem to put my finger on why. I was hoping you could help me.

My school rotates schedules every other day, so this week I only have two classes with her for the same subject. On the first lesson I was absent due to illness, and there was something everybody in the class had to each present (not a full scale presentation on a specific topic, just to start off a lesson, a little quip about something). Today it seems almost everyone but two girls and me have finished presenting. The first girl comes up and presents, everything goes fine. Then the second girl is about to present. She tells the teacher she has found a last minute correction she needs to make before she goes up. She is allowed to make it. I use that time to tell the teacher I will present on Thursday,and she gives me this extremely condescending look. Our class is lax, there are a max of 2 ppl who present each lesson, so its like i would have been able to present today im just informing in case she asks about later on in class. And she says, “Yeah. You need to catch up. Seriously, xx.” And then she calls off this other girls’ presentation telling her she’s “holding up the class”. Literally. And then adresses the class saying as students we have to keep up and work hard and be prepared for our lessons even though it was only a minor edit that girl had to do, much less my situation. What is it about her? I’m wondering if you could shed some light on this.

I feel like I’ve answered this question before – but have I?  Anyway I’m not sure why you care?  It’s a teacher, she’s there to do a job which is teach you.  She’s not your friend – or your enemy.  She probably just thinks the class is a bunch of slack fucks and is sick of hearing excuses all the time, so when people say stuff she’s kind of expecting an excuse.  So when you talk to her you gotta clarify what you really mean if you’re not just making up reasons why you don’t wanna do work, or her R. Lee Emery instincts will kick in and she’ll think you’re just being a slack bitch.  Being a teacher is tough – you get paid in beans, half your work is unpaid, and everyone is an asshole to you.  Cut her some slack and just try to get your shit done on schedule.

Hi Kpopalypse-seonsaengnim, I came across this link and wanted to share it with you. If you have any thoughts on it, feel free to share.
Basic Music Theory in about 200 Lines of Python

As someone who completely understands music theory, this taught me nothing about Python.

As someone who only really knows the very basics of Python, this taught me nothing about music theory – but maybe it would work for someone else who was more programatically inclined.  I think this is more aimed for programmers wanting to learn about music, rather than musicians wanting to learn about programming.

i wanna see something can you rank these songs from worst to best? and yes you have to listen to every single one(assuming you never listened to her work before) lol sorryyyy but who knows maybe youre bored enough to actually do this. and it’s pretty easy but maybe try to guess which decade each one of these came out

[list of shit j-songs that I didn’t even listen to deleted]

thats it! and now i will act like this was just a simple request and not me asking you to waste an hour of your day

I am not Jpopalypse.  Next.

what are your thoughts on brave girls’ sudden rise from nugudom to being a main kpop girl group? i feel like you would like yujeong because of her smile/her not being as skinny as other kpop female idols.

ALSO i tried to distinct myself as an elite caonima and made a chart of your decade-end list of 100 songs with some graphs! it’s here if you’re interested:

let me know if you’d be interested in a year-end 2020 chart!
keep educating us on amazing songs!

I don’t really care about whether k-pop groups are popular or not, so I haven’t written about Brave Girls’ rise because that’s about popularity and popularity doesn’t matter to me.  Popularity might matter to them, and that’s understandable, because it’s their careers – but it doesn’t affect how I feel about them.  I care about songs first and foremost, and I didn’t like Brave Girls’ songs when they were ultra nugu and I don’t like their songs now either.  Good for them finally getting some success I guess, but for each group that suddenly skyrockets up to fame there’s hundreds of others equally deserving who this will never happen to.  So making a big fuss about this one incident doesn’t change anything in the big picture.  The one with short hair at the moment looks best but not really gonna be in my bias list or anything.

Nice chart, good work!

If vocalfags were the majority of the kpop fandom, then Shannon Williams would be the most popular kpop artist by a country mile. Except she isn’t, and I don’t see vocalfags singing her praises as they should. Clearly, they’re just a bunch of hypocrites not willing to put their money where their mouths are.

Correct.  Shannon Williams is a “natural” singer with technical ability at the very top tier, but because she didn’t have a big agency behind her, nobody cared.  If she debuted on a label with more of an idea about how to promote her, it would be different, and it would be also different if fans who loved vocals actually sought out the best vocalists instead of the most popular vocalists (listen to them rave on about the vocals in groups like Girls’ Generation who cheat up and down the house, I mean please).  Hopefully Shannon will get a bit more fame and money through gaming, if I ran Riot games I would put her on the payroll as a playtester or a mascot or something.

If anyone asks about anime, just say you like Avatar the Last Airbender. It’ll shut them up at the fact that the best animated show of that style is a western one that manages to be fun, witty, and sophisticated without resorting to the pretentious faux-symbolic tripe of the likes of Evangelion.

Nah not gonna lie to people, I haven’t even seen either of these.  I don’t give enough of a fuck about what anime fans think to be bothered making up bullshit.

Hello Mr Kpopalypse, I’m going to ask a question about losing pets and the decision to have them euthanized. I had an 8 y/o cat named Nova whose health suddenly and rapidly declined over the past week. He had a temp of 106 and wouldn’t eat or drink anything so he was dehydrated and at risk of liver failure. My boyfriend & I took him to an urgent care last weekend, then noticed after we got him back that he was just trying to hide away and wouldn’t eat/drink so we took him to a different veterinary clinic where he was hospitalized for a week & got a feeding tube. We got him home a couple days ago and I was hopeful for his recovery with the feeding tube but his condition had deteriorated so much that he was laboring to breathe & just sat on his side drooling and having mucus pour out of his nose. We were still awaiting test results since the vets had been unable to diagnose him with anything other than fever of unknown origin, but at that point I decided to have him put down because I felt it was time for him to go and by not doing so I was selfishly prolonging his suffering. The euthanasia itself was hard & I can’t get the image of his last few moments out of my mind. He didn’t look peaceful or content – he looked exhausted, and pained, and confused. l feel so guilty & like I completely let my best friend down and allowed him to die. I can’t stop thinking that I didn’t try hard enough or give him enough time to recover. I’m worried that his weird breathing and behavior was just stress from being put through a battery of hospitalizations and medical tests and being away from home & I panicked and didn’t give him enough time to be cared for at home and calm himself down. I didn’t even wait to get all the test results back before deciding to go ahead with the euthanasia. Now I miss him so, so much and I don’t even feel like I deserve to because I’m the one that let him be killed. How do you ever get over this feeling of guilt mixed with grief mixed with regret mixed with longing? I feel like I’ll always feel the pain of his absence and hate myself for how I handled it.

I had to let go of previous cats in similar circumstances, and I felt similar, but the thing is, quality of life matters.  If your pet isn’t experiencing quality of life, then how is that different to a human hooked up to a machine spending his or her last days being miserable.  I’d advocate for euthanasia in both circumstances.  My father always used to say to my mother that if he was ever hooked up to a machine and being kept alive by that method, to just let him go as he would never want to live that way.  Then a few years later this actually did happen to him, so it was good to know how we felt so we could make the right decisions.

Also, nothing helps you get over an old cat like a new cat.

Hello. Please help me settle these insignificant issues I never cared about yet everyone around me insists I should care about because they are important and I am shameless uncultured swine.
1. I am generally always the first person to arrive at the workplace, in class, or in any room essentially because I have been indoctrinated by my upbringing into being very punctual. Because of this I am usually alone, the only person in a room until people start showing up. I have been accused of being rude and not saying hello to people. I don’t understand this accusation because I say hello to the people who say hello to me when entering the class/the store/my room/whatever, and I don’t give a damn or get upset about the people who don’t say hello to me at all. To me it never mattered. Honestly, instead of smiling and saying hello to me while wishing I got run over by a truck (as one usually does when dealing with bosses/teachers/cers for example), I much rather you say nothing at all. Who came up with rules for who has to say hello first? If you’re doing your job and I’m doing my job, and we’re civil when we have to work together, what difference does it make? And if it’s so important, if you’re the person entering a room, shouldn’t you be saying hello to the person who is already there? So what gives? What are the rules on who says the first hello and how many times do you have to say it in a day in order to be socially acceptable?
Full disclosure,
A. I own a slanted/upright toilet paper holder because that is the most efficient form. If I must deal with a horizontal holder, the roll goes under. I don’t know how people tear the paper or wipe themselves that they manage to touch the wall or the roll. That has never happened to me. I don’t understand how they managed it. Also, they must’ve never met cats in their lives.
B. I don’t clean the furniture/do the dusting with one cloth (which is inefficient, time-consuming, unsanitary and returns half the filth back from where you were supposedly cleaning it). I spray the surfaces with the correct cleaning solution as per the label and wipe them clean with 3-ply paper towel squares.
Am I a degenerate?
P.S. I am not trolling. To me these issues are ridiculous, but I haven’t succeeded in eliminating human interaction from my life, and so I am being judged by them for the most pointless things as you can see. Am I alone? Am I so impossibly weird?
At least these questions will be a break from the more serious/depressing questions you sometimes get.

Saying hello – once per day if you’re always in the same room together.  If you were also to meet again in unplanned circumstances (say you’re both randomly wandering the street on lunch break and run into each other, or find yourselves in the same lift), maybe another time then.  Sometimes doesn’t have to be a full hello but a wave or nod will do.

Toilet paper – given where it’s probably going once you take it off the roll, this seems like a trivial concern.

Cleaning – most people I know use paper towels.  I hope that my latest fanfiction met required sanitation procedural standards.

Hi. I was re-reading some of your worst-songs-of-the-year lists and I really enjoyed the funny (not-so-made-up?) dialogs and personal anecdotes interspersed between the song reviews.
I know this is a kpop blog so you want the content to be kpop related, but I like your stories about band members, engineers, producers, what happens in the studio/on stage/off-stage etc. That drumsticks story from the 2014 list (from Wind) had me in stitches. I am not interested in names or locations or any identifying details, I just like real stories like that that surprise you. The drumstick story was a funny example but serious stories are great too, like the one about the rigged battle-of-the-bands-type talent show. It would be cool if you could do something like a series where you could share more stories like those (and they’d be all in one place as opposed to a random one-off accidental tangent in a post I won’t be able to recall by next month). (you can warp or distort a kpop pic symbolic to your story and call it guess the kpop connection so that it doesn’t affect your overall goal of conceptual continuity). Would that be ok with you or are you already too busy writing for the series you currently have? Thankyou

The problem is that only so much crazy shit has happened in my life, I don’t want to exhaust the story supply.  New stories are always happening of course (because I do live that kind of a life) but they don’t happen every day and it’s not always easy to remember everything that’s happened until a certain thing reminds me of it.  I’d actually forgotten about the drumstick story for many years before I remembered that it happened and wrote that piece.  Also I don’t want to just share these things without any context that gives them meaning, and that’s where the k-pop content comes in.  If I was writing about something else besides k-pop, then maybe it’d come in that way instead.

I know you must be tired of people saying “hey please check this tune”, however from the begining seems like the guitar is not in the usual tuning and im pretty sure you need to wait until the chorus to hear the tonic, maybe you enjoy this track even if it’s a bside

Someone already sent this to me last month and I didn’t like it then either.  Complicated does not always equal good.  Also the pitch flutter they’ve used on the guitar sounds fucking atrocious, they’re trying to do the same thing Eyedi did with “& New” but they definitely don’t pull it off.  What a waste of time like nearly all B-side trash.

Kpopalypse oppar, first off, good morning, evening or night to you because I don’t know what time it is in Australia
I really have no idea of what to even do online right now. It feels like almost everyone around me in social media expects me to care about everything political to ever exist, or else I’m such a bad and terrible person. It feels so hard to always apply extended and detailed critical thinking about a subject when there’s 10 new things going on everyday that you MUST catch up on, or else your morals are fucking ass.
Really, I’m not trying to invalidate these problems at all, I do think they’re important sometimes, but it feels so overwhelming… am I really supposed to have such a strong political positioning and all that stuff when I can barely even deal with school?
Is it normal to feel like social media is extremely demanding morally?
What am I even supposed to care about? Obviously, being aware of problems in society is always important, but at what point does it become too much for you to handle?

and

Kpopalypse oppar, how do you deal with oompah loompas that should be at school studying trying to be morally better than everyone and everything that has ever existed on the internet? I get on Instagram daily to keep up with some accounts that I really like (art, photography, etc), but I swear that every week, at least one of them is somehow cancelled or called out when they clearly didn’t do anything wrong, and said oompah loompas would rather put effort into lynching some random person (minors most of the time, btw) instead of being productive and doing something actually meaningful. I know I shouldn’t be too worried/mad about it, but I just can’t help it. I wanna know why people act the way they do so bad, and I want them to change so badly, too… but obviously, if a mere mortal dares to question such a moral god like them, they’ll explode and tell you to kill yourself or something.
Thank god eyedi’s & new is basically free musical therapy, or else I would’ve snapped like IU did when she made Twenty-three and basically gave out a middle finger to uncle fans.

Some young people are very idealistic and when they start to realise that the world has some “issues”, they naturally want to get activated to do stuff to change it.  Now that’s definitely a good thing, however there’s a real difference between performative activism and actually doing shit that matters, and most young people pick the former generally because they’ve got no idea about how to even get started with the latter, and when they do find out and realise that it’s often got a lot to do with them making personal sacrifices and giving up quite a lot of luxury, suddenly they’re less keen.  So that’s why there’s lots of yelling online – because it’s the easy option.  Also keep in mind that people making a noise are always going to be more visible than people not making a noise, for obvious reasons.  The calm folks who don’t really give a shit mostly won’t bother to provide a counter-voice to any of this, they will just ignore it and walk away.  If someone’s yelling a lot, yelling back doesn’t really work.  Tons of people I know who post about politics all the time and it’s really dull, I just don’t engage for the most part.  People are entitled to write whatever they want on social networks but I just don’t have the energy.

Hello Kpopalypse,
I’ve been reading your blog for a few months now, and I have to say that QRIMOLE is one of my favorite things.
Seriously, you give out so much advice that is better than self-help books, and, most importantly, doesn’t take 2320968 pages to get straight to the point. Maybe you should write a self-help book purely out of QRIMOLE answers and put unrelated pictures of k-pops that meet required standards throughout the book!
I am most definitely not mad that I wasted one week of my life reading a self-help book, only to find out about your blog and see that QRIMOLE has more useful advice than about 80% of that book. I will think about making a donation when I have the money!
As for the question, do you never, ever get burned out of writing k-pop blogs all the time? Do you ever run out of things to say, like, have little to absolutely no thoughts about certain thing, like the token “obligatory funeral tempo kpop ballad” in every roundup?

I run out of shit to say all the time, hence why roundup is so repetitious.  But then there’s the other posts where there’s always quite a lot to say.  I think I probably do repeat myself a bit though in terms of general themes and messages, but that’s actually a sign of consistently telling the truth.  If someone’s not full of shit, their message will stay reasonably consistently on point throughout many years of content.  You can see this with me, you can also see with with Asian Junkie who is quite consistent in what he believes, he has a firm ideological compass just like I do, he just has a different way of putting it out there.  Of course he’s wrong because he likes sport, but we can’t all be perfect.

So, while scrolling through some of your best of [ year x ] lists, I ended up seeing Orange Caramel for the first time, and the My Copycat music video just blew my mind right away. Not only the Orange Caramel girls are really pretty, but the music video itself is literally a minigame . This makes me wonder why there isn’t many interactive music videos like this. Pretty sure it isn’t woah-so-original-and-fun, I mean, it’s not like the minigame they showed was anything new (or maybe it is and Orange Caramel is planning to take down all these ‘find random things in wide scenarios’ games and rise again), but it definitely was a very nice surprise for me, since I am a big fan of spending time on things I should not be spending time on.
I wish this sort of concept or whatever it even is could pop up again. But maybe it won’t because hardcore stans hate logic, so they most probably hate puzzles or whatever.

Actually they’ll probably hate it because “Orange Caramel did that 6 years ago so you can’t do that – plagiarism, copycats, Pledis sue them!!!!1!1!1oneoneeleven”.  You know how k-pop fans always get whenever more than one person does something vaguely unique.  In the meantime there’s 62358 videos of boys dancing in a metal box with reflective walls and nobody cares.  Go figure.

did your music preferences changed at least a little after getting a degree in music ? Like have you ever jammed to something before leaning music in depth then you realized it’s utter shit or the other way around?

No.  Learning about music formally did help me to understand a little more about why I liked certain things, but it didn’t actually change whether I liked those things or not.

Hello oppar! I hope you’re doing well! I was originally going to write this as a comment on your 2021 survey results, but I wasn’t sure how often those get noticed, by you or by other readers. That being said, this might be the wrong place to post this, so apologies if that’s the case.

This is probably gonna be a bit of rambling, but I felt compelled to get these thoughts out.

I was thinking a lot about how unique your blog is, and the sort of audience that you have intentionally or unintentionally curated. This is somewhat hard for me to articulate, so let me use myself as an example.

I don’t think of myself as particularly intelligent or exceptional, in basically any regard. However, I do believe that I think about and process things somewhat differently than my peers. Again, I’m struggling to find a way to phrase this in a way that doesn’t accidentally make me sound arrogantly self-aggrandizing… though I suppose it doesn’t really matter if this is anonymous.

But I digress, I’m often on the search for new people who might share my same method of thought. Not necessarily someone that agrees with me, but simply others who can engage in healthy discussion, and whom I can learn from. Much to my dismay, this was harder than I thought it would be. It’s generally not even immediately apparent if someone might fit this type, let alone be someone who shares my interests. I’m sure there are plenty of interesting people like this who are into trains, rock climbing, mathematics, or whatever else. I however, am not, which unfortunately would limit us to small talk, negating the purpose of this search entirely.

I’ve rambled myself into a completely different topic, so if you’ll allow me to finish up this thought, I’ll try to return back to the initial topic.

I’d ask for advice here, but this seems so stupidly specific that it’ll probably be difficult to say anything that isn’t so generic that it becomes meaningless. Perhaps I’m just looking for validation that others also encounter this problem, as sad as that sounds. Regardless, I guess overall I’m just struggling with the time/emotional investment it takes to build a friendship with someone new. This is hard because it seems to me like you can’t even know if the relationship was worth the investment until you’ve already put in the time. Is this just one of the eternal and unsolvable struggles of mankind?

For reference, my current biggest interests are online gaming and, of course, kpop. Both of these interests are incredibly easy to find online communities for. That might be the issue, considering how quickly patterns in these communities show themselves. Gamers on the whole seem to be abrasive, bigoted pricks just by default. Kpop fandoms require little introduction, though specifically I dislike how little discussion is about the music itself, and the overall age/maturity of most kpop communities.

I said this would be hard to give any advice for because meeting people (especially online) is basically a dice roll. My options here would be to:
1) Keep trying, regardless of whether or not I meet anyone unpleasant along the way
2) Find new hobbies, which probably would be difficult, but not impossible after COVID
3) Become insanely charismatic and attractive overnight so that any and all social situations come as naturally to me as breathing

Maybe a more general question to ask here would be: when do you know whether or not to call it quits? If so, when? How are some of my friends so confident in quitting that job, starting that degree, and moving their life to a brand new place? The outcome is completely unknown, yet some seem to have this “intuition” when it comes to decision making. Is that simply not caring? Or is it the ability and mental fortitude to make the most out of what you have in that moment?

So, what does this have to do with Kpopalypse dot com? I started thinking about this because of how much I love not only reading your blog, but also reading the readers’ thoughts in the comments, QRIMOLE, or end of year surveys. I constantly find myself almost blown away by how much I relate to the personal stories other readers send in, and how interested I am in what many of them have to say. I truly feel like a lot of the people that read this blog are people that think about things in the same way that I do. That probably doesn’t mean anything to anyone, but to me, it’s a genuinely beautiful and inspiring feeling.

Occasionally when an older kpop song hits my youtube recommendation feed, I’ll search the song up on this site to see what you said about it. Sometimes it’s actually worrying how often I completely agree with what you have to say, or how perfectly you put into words something that I was already thinking. Other times it’s more like, “what the fuck does this cunt know about anything”, but ironically, those can often be times that reinforce what I love about that song.

Another reader mentioned this as your “teach a man to fish” style of writing, and I can’t help but think of this as the catalyst for your audience being the way that it is. This site may not be as big as this or that youtube channel that got shit through the algorithm on any given day, but the community that you do have here is a good one. One you should certainly be proud of, because it’s rarer than you might think.

I don’t know where else to ask that doesn’t look out of place in this ugly wall of text, but is there any sort of discord server or anything for readers of the site? I know finding likeable people is never a guarantee, but I thought this might be a good place to start looking.

Anyways, that was much longer than I intended. My sincerest apologies to anyone who got fooled into reading all of this, but I love and appreciate anyone who did. Hopefully I didn’t go too off the rails, and that this is at least somewhat digestible. As a somewhat newer reader, I felt compelled to show my admiration for this blog, at least more than my measly patreon donation, haha. Hope you’re staying safe in these troubling times, and cheers.

It’s always best to put questions you want actual answers to in QRIMOLE.  I try to respond to most QRIMOLE question that aren’t completely fucktarded, or that aren’t completely pre-empting things that I want to write about specifically later.  Maybe QRIMOLE will get so popular that one day this won’t be possible anymore, but for now we’re good.

When getting involved in an interest, it’s the interest that drives you, and the connections you make from it, I see that as something that springs from the interest initially, before then taking on a life of its own.  What I’m trying to say here is that I don’t think it should be overthought – just get into what you’re doing, do it the way you want to, and as long as you’re enjoying it and personally getting something out of it, the friendships will form.  The only way for that to not happen is if you consistently push people away, and that in itself requires far more effort than just letting it happen – so just let it happen and don’t overthink it.

People who make big life decisions don’t do it because they’re convinced that their new path is a “sure thing” or because they have huge confidence – they often do it because the path they’re on is one that has become intolerable, or one where they can see themselves going down a dark path they’d rather avoid.  So it often feels like jumping the sinking ship in many cases.  Of course there’s uncertainty there – when to jump, and what if they’re wrong and the ship is fine etc – but that seems to be the main driver.

I’ve never really thought about my “community” of followers that much as something to “curate” or whatever, people who do this are usually trying to make money off it, and it’s too much energy for me.  I like it that people see each other’s input and get something out of it though – even if they might not agree with everything.  Someone set up a discord for me years ago but I don’t use it and may have even lost access to it.  I don’t even really remember how to get on it.  I don’t really use discord much, I’ve used it for interviews occasionally but I really prefer not to and honestly I find the entire program annoying, and I don’t like that style of conversation that much.  I’m down for talking to people but I like the idea of it being more structured or at least less random than discord.  If any of you folks want to get together and chat about whatever, by all means feel free and hopefully you have a good time – just don’t ask me to moderate your bullshit when you all start fighting you bunch of disagreeable cunts hahaha

Oppar, I honestly only read the first 3 to 5 songs (just the kpop mainstream groups) in your round ups and don’t bother with the rest.

Do you think most of your readers do it like that or are we (bcs I can’t be the only one) the minority?

I think most people don’t click every video but certainly read all the way through because it doesn’t take very long and they know that I’ll occasionally find the odd gem they really weren’t expecting, and possibly had little chance of even finding on their own.  Also they usually do want to get to the random video at the bottom because it might be VelvetTube and everybody loves VelvetTube.  Or maybe that’s just me who loves VelvetTube enough for everybody.  It’s probably something to do with her furniture assembly skills.

Hello kpopalypse hope you are doing alright I noticed a lot of female celebs you stan are the ones who are quite open to calling out the industry standards with an honest opinion but why do you stan chuu I don’t hate her but she is kind of the living embodiment of what we expect from idols always smiling and happy I haven’t seen any idol who genuinely laughed and smile like her in a long time neither do I want her to be get jaded as she gets older

I stan Chuu because Elon Musk saved South Australia from electricity blackouts.

hmmm. in your weekly roundup, you described hoshi’s spider as a ‘taemin-by-numbers’. while you say that we readers shouldn’t take what you write in roundups too seriously, i thought a lot about what you wrote. of course, the taemin influence is very much there in the song. but people say that can kinda be explained with the fact that hoshi is a huge fan of shinee, and of taemin and key in particular. since you’re a musician, how often is it that YOU are influenced by musicians you look up to?

also, this song confirmed what you said about kpop songwriters writing to order – as per the credits, the song was written by hoshi’s bandmate woozi (the dwarf of seventeen, whose body apparently impressed the man wonho himself) and park kitae of prisimfilter, both of whom write stuff for seventeen regularly. hoshi could have just told them – look guys, idk shit about music (since he’s primarily a dancer), write me something like taemin

and

It’s likely my bias showing, but I agree with your statement about groups trying to do what SHINee did five years ago- although these days I’m even seeing stuff that looks like it came straight out of the Everybody EP (see Mirae’s debut). It really feels like that kind of (usually melody-driven) “sound” is finally making a reappearance after years of bg industrial beat drop hell, thank god. I only hope the groups can put their own spin on it; I enjoyed Hoshi’s spider but it’s to the point that some of the top comments on the video were remarking on his “Taeminification”. Do you think the influences we’re seeing are a glimpse of kpop’s future, or just a blip inbetween trends?

Nothing wrong with being influenced by other musicians – we’re all influenced by what we see and hear.  Influence of a certain thing doesn’t make something good or bad by default – it’s what you do with that influence that matters.  For instance I’d say that Wonho’s “Open Mind” is very influenced by Taemin as well.  However I think Wonho does a much better job than Hoshi of a similar type of idea.  I think that this type of sound in some variation will probably be in k-pop for a while, because it’s pretty suitable to showcase male dancing, but everything eventually changes so we’ll see.  I’m not really too concerned about whether it’s a trend or not, I think that any sound can be good or bad if done the right or the wrong way.  We even had a few good tropical house songs.  Anything is possible.

RE: your use of the word faggot… I don’t think that you (as a straight man) using the word faggot as a derogatory term, does anything to reclaim the word. You talked about removing it from its original context, but using it to refer to people who obsess over vocal technique to an annoying, pretentious degree (‘vocal-faggot’) just reinforces the negative connotations.

Sure, queer has been reclaimed. But now it’s just a label, it’s not an insult ain’t any way. Even if in your mind, you’re not associating it with the LGBTQ community, it IS. Faggot is actually in the process of being reclaimed, it’s sort of a defiant badge of honour – for /some/ of us. It’s not something that can be rushed.

Anyway, I’m a fan of your blog and I appreciate your refreshing honesty, but I’d implore you to think more closely about why you want to use a word that has nothing to do with you. I hope we can have a dialogue about this, I’d be curious to hear your thoughts. Sincerely, a gay guy.

I disagree.  “Queer” was reclaimed successfully not just because gays started using it more, but because they also somehow managed the crucial second step – they stopped making a fuss when other people also used the word, no matter how negatively.  Obviously that hasn’t happened with “faggot”, and it’s not going to happen while people remain precious about language.  Every time you lay down a rule about what someone else can or cannot say, what you really are doing is giving other people who want to abuse and hurt you an extra weapon to damage you with: “oh, you don’t like being called X?  Now I know what I need to say if I ever want to really piss you off!”.  Whereas if your reaction is “well I don’t actually consider faggot an insult, no matter how you use it, I mean, I AM a faggot, so…” then you’ve just disarmed your opponent.  If they want to continue to attack you, they need to find another weapon.  A fair and equal society won’t be created when everyone stops insulting each other, because that utopia won’t ever exist, it’ll happen when everyone is able to greet each other like these two people do at the start of this video:

“I’d implore you to think more closely about why you want to use a word that has nothing to do with you” – okay, I thought closely about that, and here’s what I got: “faggot” was the most common term that people used to address me with at school, much more common than my actual name (which was rarely used at all by anyone except teachers), I was literally the “class faggot” in some of my classes, I’m not even joking 1% about this.  People would say “hey faggot” and I would instantly turn around, knowing that I was the only person in class that they could possibly be talking to (and yes there were gay guys in my classes), I still reflexively react like my name is being called when I hear that word (those who know me personally reading this, try it – the reaction won’t disappoint).  I presented very non-masculine when I was younger and as a result I’ve been called “fag” and “fag-bashed” and much more, more than any homosexual person I have ever met.  You don’t have to actually be gay to experience anti-gay violence.  My main thought when I finished my final school year besides “what the fuck do I do with my life now” and “how do people meet girls when they don’t go to school anymore” was a huge sense of relief that I got out of school alive and without permanent physical injury (the psychological injuries on the other hand, let’s not go there, this response is already too long).  The word “faggot” has everything to do with me.  Why do you think that I use that word so much, AND there’s so much pro-gay content on my site?

Tips to overcome social anxiety and not give a fuck on what others think about you. I see Kpopalypse is very good at giving 0 fucks.

Method 1: Spend your entire school life having the shit bullied out of you in just about every conceivable way until the point where you realise that you’ll always be an outsider and never be part of anybody’s peer group.  Find out that it doesn’t matter what you do because you won’t ever be broadly accepted, and nothing you can do will ever make others think of you the way you would like to be thought of, giving you the total freedom to be and do whatever you think is the right thing. 

Method 2: read the writing of someone who has been through Method 1 above.  You’re in the right place.

Hello Oppar!

I’m a new (Feb 2021) but now-regular reader of your blog.

I also happen to be a Sober Orbit(TM) aware of the realities of the Kpop idol industry and I don’t shy away from the Harsh Truths(TM) about supposedly wholesome images and companies.

On that note, I’ve always wondered about the deleted entry for Choerry in your Big Boobs in KPop list. Do you think you can share it here for other Sober Orbits(TM) who also happen to be cao ni mas? I’ve long argued that Choerry was sexualized af, incomparable to even Olivia Hye being sexualized (largely by fans, it seems), but most Orbits seem to focus primarily on Yeojin’s song.

I feel like we’ve lost the major battles in the Orbit Civil War in YouTube comments sections and Twitter. your post, oppar, might be our final hope.

I don’t have the original text anymore, sorry.  However I’ve written extensively about Choerry in past QRIMOLEs as this question keeps coming up, so sharing some of that content might be what you’re looking for.  Although to be honest it’s probably not worth your time – fandoms are legit crazy and probably will still hate you anyway – don’t worry, no matter how much logic you throw at them, they’ll find a reason.  For them it’s not really about truth and facts, it’s about being part of the club.

I might be too late for this, but oppar, how do I choose a graduation that I won’t regret? Is it really all about following your passion and the rest is not important at all? Sorry for asking such a broad question, but I really don’t know what to do, and I thought you’d have one thing or two to say about it. My mom keeps pushing her “I wanna have a super rich doctor kid” agenda onto me but I really couldn’t care less about that part, I’ve been through peer pressure for so long that it doesn’t even knock me down like it once did.
But, really, I’m completely lost here. I like psychology, but I also like science and chemistry, even being a doctor doesn’t sound that bad since I do like helping other people out, but I feel like that’d burn me out pretty quick. There’s so many damn options, it feels overwhelming. Not only that, but it feels like my whole family wants me to have my goddamn life figured out right now.
Does it all really depend on “knowing yourself” and considering every single thing?
Everytime I ask anyone else, they just say “do what you love” and completely ignore the financial part or “do something that gives you money” and completely ignore if I actually give a fuck about that job or not…

Any degree is better than no degree.  Pick what you’re actually going to enjoy the most – not because you’ll necessarily love it for life or anything (trust me, you won’t) but because studying is hard and enjoying the studying will make it easier to pass exams, and actually getting a degree is always going to be better than trying to get a harder degree and dropping out.

Hello oppar! Hope you’re having a nice day. So, I wanted to ask something, but I think I have to give it the context it deserves first:

A few months ago, I’ve left a circle of friends I had on a social media app abruptly without giving them much context or anything. The truth is, I was just done with people’s shit in general. I mean, holy fuck, one day we’d all be laughing, and in the other day we’d be stuck in some high school level drama that could be solved with a simple conversation, but noooooo, that’s way too hard to happen since trying to sort things out in a rational and unbiased manner is too uncomfy. Not only that, but I was getting gradually sadder and sadder and more needy as days went by since my closest friend in that app dropped me out of association with some gal (even though I didn’t do shit, and they knew that – that’s what hurt the most). I felt very confused, sad and angry at the time. I wanted everyone to talk to me all the time to own up to the lack of that strong connection I had with said friend (with all honesty, I needed something to be busy with. I was very needy, thank the lord I found some stuff to worry myself with now).

I remember quitting said social media app and then going to Instagram to chill my head out while still mantaining contact with some friends. They were nice and stuff, and all was good for a while until I came back to said social media app, and due to me not being able to resist the demonic temptation of checking all my servers, I was pretty much pushed over the edge when I saw an old friend of mine and said close friend that dropped me talking shit behind the back of one of my other friends: They were quite literally accusing said person to be a pedophile, homophobic and some other things (and, even if said friend of mine was, in fact, a pedophile, they clearly did not give a fuck since, y’know, some minors were interacting with said person. I wonder sometimes if they’d be proud of themselves if they were actually right and did not warn anyone about it.) I just couldn’t handle how they were fucking tossing around these terms that could get someone literally ARRESTED easily like that once they turned their backs to our friend group. I could not handle how they dared to make such heavy accusations about someone without daring to talk to them about it or anyone related to said person. I quit after that, and I did so definitely – I did not come back to Instagram and did it all silently without anyone noticing. I basically shutdown completely .

After that, I obviously felt pretty bad and anxious in the first days: I convinced myself that once they found out, they’d all hate me if I ever came back, I was worrying that some of my friends could be in danger and I just left them w/out being able to protect them, etc.
But then, I started to feel weird when I realized that after some weeks, I was thinking about them less and less. I was focused on my own hobbies and responsibilities, and only remember about them every now and then, and it just makes me think: Am I an asshole for doing what I did, and then not feeling bad about it after a while? Should I have kept on being around them since, I mean, they were my friends, and that’s what friends are supposed to do even if we’re constantly going through some bullshit, right?
I don’t know. I feel like, even if I try to ignore it, I’m in a moral dillema that’s been bugging me in the back of my head, even when I swear I forgot about it. Sometimes, I even think about coming back yet trying to distance myself from all that toxicity and drama properly, even if that means coming online only 1 day per month. But, either way, I can’t say that I don’t enjoy being off of that damn thing. My social circle in real life really hasn’t changed much, I still talk to the same people I did before, but now way more consistently, and got some of them to open up in a way I did not think I had the power to before.

I am very sorry for the big rant, but please tell me, oppar: What should I do? Am I a bad person/a selfish asshole for making the choices I made? (i left a lot of small details off of this but I think it’s fine)

What should you do?  Congratulate yourself on making a good decision and improving the quality of your life!  I don’t get into stuff like forum drama and social networking drama for these type of reasons.  My Twitter is pretty much only there to help people connect with my blog, I don’t get too drawn into people’s political/personal chats or whatever.  Most other social networks I maintain a presence on but don’t post.  A lot of shit is just a waste of time, and social networking can really fuel arguments and discord (pun intended) easily because context is so hard to deliver accurately.

Hey so I have been a core fan of this group for the past 3 years and I just kinda lost my interest other than for their music and the occasional laugh over their shows. Going through all my pics, content, comeback prep and apps used for voting etc and deleting them all felt exhilarating then a bit sad for some reason and idk why really. I’ve kept myself relatively sane by not engaging the craziness but the delusion of the fandom became too much and it kinda seeped negatively into the whole experience. Also this might be highly speculative but being fluent in Korean gave me a lot of insight and perspective on how little do we know as foreign fans about these dudes in both good and bad way. My question is why isn’t it possible for kpop fans to just sit back and enjoy things without making it into a personal crusade to support their faves? I’ve seen ppl get into debt for a fansign dropping 50k for an ad, forsaking health safety friendships and loved ones over dudes who wouldn’t spit at them if they were on fire. I mean how is this different from being in a cult? There’s gotta be a middle ground somewhere and I wonder if you ever experienced it or have thoughts on it?

Your favorite ciaonima,

I’ve never gone deeply into fandoms for this kind of reason.  The closest I’ve ever been to a “fan” in the k-pop sense of the word is probably for T-ara and that stopped pretty much at buying a couple signed albums for like maybe $5 more than retail.  I’ve always kept fan communities at arm’s length – I don’t need the drama, and as I’m really just here for the music there’s not much a fan community (that doesn’t want to talk about actual music beyond “unnie sing so good”) can really offer me.  I think AustralianSana is a good example of a “middle ground” fan who is happy to spend a bit of money on the things she likes and support her faves where she can but isn’t going to compromise her ideals for a bunch of bullshit either.  That’s one of the reasons why I think the podcasts we do work so well.

How do i get used to something bad happening to me every five minutes ??

Think of the cool stories you can tell people later about how you survived it.  Like me, you’ll never be short of blog ideas and stories.

I’d also like to thank you for your immensely interesting and informative music posts, roundups, yearly rankings, helpful advice and aussie attitude. Appreciate ya, cunt.

Thanks cunt!

I used to have a friend who was a bit of an airhead, sorta obsessed with one direction, but overall pleasant. I introduced her to kpop and she became unhinged. Went from fetishizing asians, to stalking asian tourists on the street, to flirting with korean expats older than her while hiding her age from them (we were both minors at the time). I have no idea what she’s up to now – my multiple attempts to talk some sense into her were futile, so I ditched her.
Here’s my question – what is it about kpop that turns seemingly sane people into…whatever happened to this girl? It’s scary.

Very, very good marketing.  These companies know how to make this shit addictive like crack.  That’s not to say that everyone who tries crack gets addicted, but if you’ve got that kind of personality where you latch onto things, k-pop provides a whole lot to latch onto.

Hi Kpopalypse oppar, I’m not sure if this is something common or not, but do you ever feel like you’re not getting anywhere in life at all and that you really don’t have much interest in any specific hobby or discipline? I mean, I do have some interest in drawing and all, but I never really thought of it as something that I want to be doing all my life. Are you supposed to just be struck with an intense passion for some random profession/hobby out of nowhere (like everyone else seems to be hit with), or is finding passion for a job/hobby supposed to be something that you should be actively looking for? Am I worrying about something reasonable when I say I’m scared of not having something that I am passionate about, or am I just overthinking it way too much?

I’ve always been very passionate about specific things so I don’t really know how to advise you here.  I think it’s just okay to be you and enjoy life and not worry about it.  Maybe something will come up one day, or maybe it won’t and you’ll just be a regular normal happy person living a regular normal happy life without the obsessive need to collect all 1582 Pokemon or whatever.  I think that’s okay.

Have you ever considered doing less or more than 30 songs in your year-end best/worst songs lists?

The first one I ever did was the 2012 one and I think I originally stopped at 22 or 23, can’t quite remember where.  I changed it to 30 for following years, because by then I had decided to broadcast the lists and 15 songs fit into a radio show, so 30 was enough for exactly two shows worth of countdowns.  I no longer do the radio show but I think 30 is a good number as any less feels too short like I’m missing out too much cool stuff, and any longer would take far too long to write, so it’s definitely going to stay at 30 per year plus honourables/dishonourables (which is usually about another 16 each side plus a few bonus).

A 19 year old boy DMed me on Instagram yesterday (I am a 23 year old woman) and his game was so terrible it reminded me of why I avoid teenagers as much as possible. Do you think some poor naive classmate of his will inevitably fall for his BS and give him pussy (despite him saying he doesn’t eat it himself)?

If they do it’ll be in spite of his DMs, not because of them!

I watched the LIKE OOH-AHH MV for TWICE recently, and I wanted to know if you thought the outfits in the video were a little more “on the nose” than usual. Yes I am aware all girl groups have some level of “beneficial marketing” within their image, but this particularly sent the red flag of jism much higher for me. Anyways, in the MV, Tzuyu’s wearing an Apink-style schoolgirl outfit (kind of scary considering she could be underage depending on your country’s standards), Sana (I think) is wearing a cheerleader outfit straight from an adult superstore (with safety shorts exposure to match), and at the end, Momo’s wearing some fishnet thing that was apparently revealed to be some legit fetishwear. Was TWICE secretly planned to be the omnifap group of their time, peddling to all kinds of kinks and preferences under the guise of a girl group, before JYP chickened out and put them into a more traditional cute concept?

and

When I was 13, I played dress up games and knew like 2 things about sex. Point is, myself and my peers looked and behaved like kids. How did Wonyoung manage to win Produce at that age? I know the show was rigged but she really was popular during the series. She only turned 14 on the day of the last episode. I know producers have “an eye” for scouting kids because they know which features kids have to have to be pretty in the future, but I assume the average member of the public doesn’t. She’s beautiful now, but she was a kid back then and we all know Produce operates on the premise of “look at all these boys and girls, wouldn’t you want them to be your girlfriend/boyfriend?”.
I didn’t even notice her back then but during a poll between the girls during the show, they picked her as one of the top visuals of the competition (but they could also be told to say that by the producers of the show to make the viewers notice her too, as they probably already picked her to win at that stage).

I’d like to think your run of the mill middle school asswipe isn’t the standard of female beauty (not saying Wonyoung in particular is an asswipe, just generally people her age) but am I being too optimistic? Maybe the incels are right, maybe at 20 women really do becomes post wall roasties.

Do you think this culture specific to places like Korea or Japan, or is it just more socially acceptable there?

These question both touch on something very interesting that will actually be in a future post, kind of a semi-sequel to the “dog whistle” posts which has been planned for a while.  I think Korea and Japan have a weird obsession with youth… but then maybe so does the west now, I don’t know really.  I’m not so plugged into the media machine that I really care about what others like anyway, but I think being obsessed with something as fleeting as youth is really just making a rod for your own back.  Incels don’t know shit anyway.  Tiffany is about 50 times more attractive now than she ever was in Girls’ Generation.  Watch this and just try to doubt me.

My family and I watch TV together every night because “family time is important” and shit ig. Recently I was browsing Twitter while we were together when my mum asks “hey, what are you on?” She then preceded to look at my entire Twitter account, who I follow, etc., and forced me into a long boring conversation about setting boundaries about this shit. While I played the role of the obedient child like I always fucking do with her and gave her access to my phone because she “wants to keep me safe”, it made me outrageously mad that I, a person who definitely isn’t a 5 year old on YouTube kids, have to censor myself just to avoid her having a fucking breakdown in front of me. We’ve had talks about improving her parenting and “setting boundaries” ironically, but nothing seems to fucking stick. Does she not realize I’ll just unfollow some people on YouTube, clear my search history and continue to do the exact same things as before?
On a more serious note, I had come out to her as a person who is some flavor of LGBT (just defo not straight is all I know right now, as a guy who likes other guys at a minimum), and during our talk, she had the nerve to mention how “If I filtered your social media and stopped you from following some random trans dude on Twitter, maybe things would be ‘different’”. Is my sexuality a disease to you? Am I supposed to just follow your Christian bullshit and not think for myself for the sake of looking pure to you?
I’m sorry if that got a bit ranty, but my question is, how can I calmly explain to her my viewpoint on media policing, sexuality, and my general feelings towards her parenting without blowing a fucking gasket? Thank you!

It’s good to know that I’m not the most problematic person you follow on Twitter.  She probably saw my profile pic and just assumed I was Han Seo Hee, for once a female DP pays off!

I find the best way to break things down to people is with humour.  If you can find a way to make it funny rather than ranty, the message might get across better somehow.  It’s the same type of tactics that I use when I write posts, I’ll deliver a serious topic in a funny way – or at least a way that I think is funny.

If that doesn’t work for you, I’m not sure.  But waiting until the next time things “blow up” is probably not the right move.  Try and get her in a calm moment if she has them.  Other than this, I dunno… ultimately she can’t change you any more than you can change her.  I’d aim for a “making peace” situation rather than a “please see things my way” one.

I was reading your May 3 roundup and as per usual, my eyes started glazing over after reading the top third (not because of anything to do with you but because of how uninteresting all the Youtube thumbnails looked). Then I just hit ctrl+f and searched for the word “good” and noticed that SGO’s “you are so beautiful” is the only song with seeming approval from you and…I have it on repeat now and I’m trying to figure out why it is so damn re-listenable. Like damn why is this song so good??? It also made me want to go back and listen to Loona’s Voice for the first time since January 2021. Shoutout to SGO for coming out of nowhere and knocking the wind out of me I was completely not ready.

SGO’s song actually has similar keyboard syncopation in the chorus to that particular Loona song, that’s why you’re connecting the two.  Apart from that the two songs aren’t that similar other than being pop songs with a fairly steady beat and some really good melody writing.

Do you think this cat is talented enough to be kpop idol?  thanks

Yes

I noticed in a few recaps you mentioned something along the lines of not liking the blues scale. Can you go into more detail about that or do a technical post as to why that’s so? As a guitar player, blues scales were one of the first things I’ve learned and always that it was important

I agree that they’re useful but when they’re all that people do it gets boring fast.  I’ll add it to the list.

A random question I guess? But anyways, how many hours do you spend on the screen a day? I assume a shit ton, considering how much you write. Or I don’t know.

You assume correctly.  This is why I hate my phone and rarely look at the AWESOME SCREEN AWESOME CAMERA LONG LASTING BATTERY LIFE any more than i have to because I spend so much of my day looking at screens.  I swear I’m the only person at my gym who keeps my phone in my fucking bag the whole time.

Hi, kpopalypse. You seem to be good at giving advice so i’m speaking to you now because… i need some advice. [lots of stuff deleted]

and

I was the person who sent you that thing about [stuff], I was just wondering if you could take out everything after the first two sentences in case you post it in the next qrimole. I hope you understand what I mean. thanks!

I can’t listen to Tom Waits because although I don’t mind him he brings up memories of an old abusive ex who was a real cunt and who loved that dude.  So I understand the pain.  I also have a friend who feels the same way about The Ramones, because a dipshit ex was into them he can’t stand them now.  I think the solution is to maybe just carve out new experiences with [idol x] that supercede the old, then you’ll think about those new things and not that douche.  Good luck, hopefully you’ll do better, me and my friend both had limited success with this.

Would you be interested in doing a fashion class for business attire? Some clarity would be appreciated on why Eunjung/Moonbyul/any kpop girl in a suit and Yooa in a business-style sheer white top looks so damn good…

Yes.  It’s on the list.

Hi Kpopalypse,

I’m back living with my parents because COVID, but the walls are so thin that when I talk to my friends they can hear everything that I say. Our neighbors are nosy assholes so I can’t go out either. What do?

Now is a good time to expand your musical horizons into genres that easily penetrate thin walls.

In the modern AAA movie industry, because films are so expensive, they are essentially made in a boardroom with a committee of executives and marketers, while the creatives do the technical work. Is this the case for the high-end music industry as well?

How much money would you reckon it takes for a AAA media company to release a high budget kpop single with all the works (production, music video, physical/digital distribution, marketing, promotions, etc) from scratch?

Yes.

My sources tell me that every high-budget k-pop music production costs exactly $816,800.85

hi! i know genres are marketing tools to an extent, but they happen to be marketing tools i enjoy caring about, so my question is – what exactly is pop rock/pop punk? recently ive been listening to an embarrassing amount of old fall out boy and while i have a bad ear for music, a lot of it seems to skew more rock than anything pop adjacent (which is probably most blatant in the very dumb and very unnecessary outros that plague folie a deux in particular, but i digress). do you have any examples of what, like, “real” rock and/or punk is supposed to sound like? or is early fall out boy mostly categorized like that because it also happened to appeal to teenage girls and thus wasn’t marketed to be “real” rock? thank you!

You would probably be better served just going to a music history website or something for this.  I guess if I give you some extreme examples perhaps you can make your own judgement.

Very punk

Very rock

Not very either

You’ll probably get spammed with similar questions, but some irrelevant shits from my country (where most of them come from) released a diss track on kpop stans, and may or may not have disrespected the memories of the kpop idols that passed away due to suicide (specifically Jonghyun in the MV). When asked about it the guy said it was something along the lines of “a greater commentary on the pressures of the kpop industry”, the whole track was clearly made just to get internet attention for being so outrageously bad, so his grandiose claims of social speculation fall flat on their arse pretty heavily.
My question is, do you think this “trend” of people manipulating the cancel-happy public will ever die out, or will eventually reach a point where the informed public has grown past this as a means of removing a person’s platform in the first place? Or do you think there are situations where using such a thing might be justified?

I think as long as people are going to over-react, there’s going to be other people who will line up to manipulate them.  I haven’t heard this song, or at least I don’t think so, but I don’t care about it anyway.  Who cares if they joked about Jonghyun, really?  People are allowed to say what they want… and other people are allowed to like it or not, but if you run around going “please don’t ever mention X because that would really upset me a whole lot” then you can bet your ass someone is going to be rubbing their hands to gether and saying “thanks for the free weapon”.  This is why taboos and slur words need to be used freely – the more you make it “unacceptable”, the more power you give others to use it to hurt you.  The correct approach is the opposite – normalise it until it’s no longer a big deal.

Whenever a new reggae/ska influenced kpop track comes out, you always like to mention how the track is produced. While I also can appreciate the production of something like Primary-produced track Don’t be Shy, I’m interested in what exactly you appreciate in the production of the better songs that set them aside from less good ones (like Pluhmm by HA:TFELT, for example).

Primary is specifically copying the Jamaican dub reggae style, which uses a lot of filtering and analog echo, and he absolutely nails the way that those effects are used in that style to create a really deep, spacious sound.  Whereas the HA:TFELT song, ignoring that it’s a crappier song in general plus not really reggae anyway, has a much drier, more crisp kind of production style which is more in keeping with a typical modern k-pop track’s production style.  Nothing really “wrong” with that, but since that’s what 99% of k-pop is, Primary’s song really sticks out as fresh when it’s put alongside my usual listening diet!

oppar what is your asteroids high score

I wish I knew.

Hi thank you for changing all sidebar chicks to Wonho, this really improved the quality of my life today.

No problem!  Anybody who missed the April 1st 2021 site redesign can see an archived version here.

I find myself quite stressed these days with people around me being in the hospital and pressure from school, other then yanking it how do you relieve stress? Or just get your mind out of the gutter mate

Did your dad take over writing this question halfway through because it certainly reads like it.  Maybe he can help you relieve some of your stress.

I find myself liking girls generations Japanese releases more then their Korean ones, do you think that same. And also do you think nct has any actual good songs if they do tell me a few.

My year-end lists will tell you what I think about various Girls’ Generation releases.  My roundups will tell you what I think of various NCT releases.  The search bar on my site’s sidebar is actually pretty powerful, I recommend it.

I’m in a weird position. I’ve had 12+ years of training in classical piano. Recently, however, with school and new activities, the amount of time I’ve had for piano has lessened. Instead, I’ve developed other artistic interests, like singing, dancing, and writing. Singing in particular – I’ve been practicing singing almost every day of my own accord, which is weird as a person who tends to require external motivation in order to do something. But I still feel the urge to play piano every so often. The pieces I used to play are hard enough that I can’t just sit down and play them for fun – they require weeks of practice to get to a smooth level and still require a lot of concentration – so I don’t really know WHAT to do on piano anymore (curse my rigid classical training!) Should I try to learn how to improvise? I don’t really have the urge to do that either – I just want to play something fun again.

This one’s a no-brainer – the songs you like to sing, learn them on piano too.  Most pop songs are dead easy to play on piano, it’ll be easy to do both, if you’re classically trained it’ll be a big step downward.  Also if you like writing try and write your own songs.  Do it by firstly stealing bits of other songs and changing them slightly – that’s how most people start.  Not only will this connect all the dots and make everything way more fun, who knows where else it could lead…

Somewhat inspired by the person who compiled your favorite songs from each group, I created a list approximately ranking Kpopalypse’s opinion of fappability of idol breasts, with divisions between 9-10, 8-9 etc. being ===. I don’t know if anyone will find this interesting, but it was fun to make.

Kpopalypse boobs ranked
===
Martina (Eat Your Kimchi) – 10
Shannon Williams – 10 DO NOT THINK THE BAD THOUGHTS
Yua Mikami (Honey Popcorn) – 9.5
Puer Kim – 9.5
===
Bomi (Girl Crush) – 9
Hyeme (Rania) – 9
Eunsol (Bambino) – 9
Jace (Miss $) – 9
Soyoon (Pocket Girls) – 9
Suyeon (Pocket Girls) – 9
Hong Jin Young – 9
Sunny (SNSD) – 9
Soojung (Sunny Days) – 9
Ayeon (Bebop) – 8.5
Hayoung (Apink) – 8.5
Min (miss A) – 8.5
Choa (AOA) – 8.5
Yezi (Fiestar) – 8.5
Haein (Gangkiz) – 8.5
G.NA – 8.5
Minkyung (Davichi) – 8.5
===
Jihyo (Twice) – 8
Grace (TMDKPGTEE AKA CSJH The Grace) – 8
Gilgun – 8
Bomi (Apink) – 8
Sujeong (Lovelyz) – 8
Mijoo (Lovelyz) – 8
Haein (LaBoum) – 8
Yulhee (LaBoum) – 8
Ari (Tahiti) – 8
Qri (T-ara) – 8
Kyungri (9 Muses) – 8
Moon Hyuna (9 Muses) – 8
Jei (Fiestar) – 8
Nicole (Kara) – 8
Clara – 8
Ivy – 8
Minhee (Stellar) – 8
Lee Hyori – 8
Nada (Wassup) – 8
Dain (Wassup) – 8

Yewon (Jewelry) – 8
Gain (Brown Eyed Girls) – 8
Kota (Sunny Hill) – 8
Soyou (Sistar) – 8
Jiwon (Spica) – 8
Ailee – 8
Kim Sori – 8
NS Yoon-G – 8
Cheng Xiao (WJSN) – 7.5
Ahin (Momoland) – 7.5
Ash-B – 7.5
Hadam (Bambino) – 7.5
Nara (Hello Venus) – 7.5
KittiB – 7.5
Hyoeun (Stellar) – 7.5
Woori (Rainbow) – 7.5
Hyunyoung (Rainbow) – 7.5
Hyomin (T-ara) – 7.5
Nam Gyuri (Seeya) – 7.5
Back Ji Young – 7.5
Eunjung (T-ara) – 7.5
Kwon Eunbi (Iz*one) – 7.494442
===
Rui (H.U.B) – 7
Jiyoung (Kara) – 7
Yooa (Oh My Girl) – 7
Jessi – 7
Minah (Girl’s Day) – 7
Jimin (AOA) – 7
Seolhyun (AOA) – 7
Sungah (9 Muses) – 7
Momo (Twice) – 7
Alexandra (Rania) – 7
Yubin (Wonder Girl) – 7
Jeonyul (Stellar) – 7
Narsha (Brown Eyed Girls) – 7
Jaekyung (Rainbow) – 7
Hyerin (EXID) – 7
Hyosung (Secret) – 7
Hyuna (4minute) – 7
Jihyun (4minute) – 7
Gahyeon (Dreamcatcher) – 6.66
Nayeon (Twice) – 6.5
Junghwa (EXID) – 6.5
Yuna (AOA) – 6.5
Hyejeong (AOA) – 6.5
Hwasa (Mamamoo) – 6.5
Solar (Mamamoo) – 6.5
Hyoyoung (F-VE DOLLS) – 6.5
Hani (EXID) – 6.5
Wendy (Red Velvet) – 6.5
IU – 6.5
Sojin (Girl’s Day) – 6.5
Hyeri (Girl’s Day) – 6.5
Hyolyn (Sistar) – 6.5
===
Joy (Red Velvet) – 6
Jennie (Blackpink) – 6
Seoyoung (Hello Venus) – 6
Yenny (Wonder Girls) – 6
Newsun (Sonamoo) – 6
Wohee (Dal Shabet) – 6
Viki (Dal Shabet) – 6
CL (2NE1) – 6
Jiyeon (T-ara) – 6
Eunha (Gfriend) – 5.47
===
Haseul (Loona) – 5
Seohyun (SNSD) – 5
Seungyeon (CLC) – 5
Irene (Red Velvet) – 5
Nahyun (Sonamoo) – 5
Dahye (BESTIE) – 5
Raina (Orange Caramel) – 5
Bom (2NE1) – 5
=== (all scores under 5) ===
Yeri (Red Velvet) – 4
Nam Young Joo – 3
Yura (Girl’s Day) – 2 bc of threats (technically 8)
Hwayoung (ex T-ara) – 0
=== (???) ===
Ellin (Crayon Pop) – \0/
Taeyeon (Girls’ Generation) – ???
See In Young – ???
Choerry – sexualisation of minors/10

In addition, this might sound kind of weird, but I appreciate how you find fanservice unequivocally a good thing. A lot of guys I know seem to dislike when women want to be perceived as sexy or take on jobs that involve fanservice, which makes me sad. Sometimes I purposefully want to show a sexier side of myself without people thinking that it makes me less dateable or a less interesting person or whatever.

As a complete list this would need some revision.  Bom is really looking like a 10 these days and quite a few others have had some pretty obvious enhancement and so would rate differently now (not necessarily higher, either).  However the lists are “products of the time in which they were written” and should be taken as such, so compiling a bunch of stuff I wrote where the data is scattered over a 7 year span is going to have a lot of inaccuracies.  Not that this is even really the point of course.  Also we should not think the bad thoughts about Shannon Williams so I had to edit your compilation slightly.

A lot of the “how dare you sexualise idols” concern from people who don’t like my writing, is coming from people who are working from a presumption that displaying sexuality, and appreciating displays of sexuality, are both inherently bad things in a k-pop context.  This is a point of view that has been snuck into the k-pop fan realm but ultra-right wing conservative Christians and I’m against this and always have been.  Sexuality and appreciating sexuality is just part of life – and it’s not a net positive or negative, it CAN be either of these things, but it doesn’t have to be.  It’s a reality that doesn’t go away just because you don’t want to think about it, or because you might be asexual, or because you don’t like the idea of men looking at young women or whatever.  The fact is that whether people know it or not, and whether they like it or not, a lot of the presentations in k-pop and across many other music styles too ARE specifically designed to be sexual.  Denying this is dangerous – it gives the impression to young k-pop hopefuls that they won’t be perceived sexually or put in situations where they’ll have to portray sexuality or be marketed in a sexual way (whether overtly or subtly) – and we all know how untrue that is.  If Stellar were given honest information about what was actually potentially on the table for them before they debuted, perhaps their lives would have gone differently.  Perhaps a lot more lives will be improved if people just say “this is sexual content, sure it’s pretending to be something else to appeal to a young/naive audience, but recognise it for what it is”.  Then people can make an informed decision about how they want to be involved, and on what level.  I’m a massive pervert and all for overt sexuality – but I don’t approve of deception, coercion, or exploiting ignorance and forcing people into uncomfortable or dangerous situations.  Those things often go hand-in-hand because of the way the k-pop system works – but they shouldn’t and don’t have to.  In an entertainment system that constantly lies to everyone about what’s going on underneath the surface in order to reel in kudos from sponsors, fans and other ultra-conservative circles, there’s a real net positive value in highlighting the presentations and saying “it is what it is”.

What do you think about this My good friend

Pretty much just female idols acting like little sluts

As far as the women involved in these things, they all deserve total respect and admiration as well as appreciation.  The emotional labour of being a performer, especially one with sexual presentations, isn’t an easy thing to do, and many people are not paid their fair dues for this work, plus they then have to deal with character-assassination as people falsely assume “dances like a slut” equals “must be a slut” and then make the second false assumption that “must be a slut” equals “I can be rude to this person and it’s okay because it’s not like they’re human or anything”.  Whether idols in a group, or any other type of sexualised performer, from the most benign to the most extreme, these people aren’t your friends or enemies – they’re employees doing a job, and should be treated the same as any other employee doing any other job that you might benefit from the services of.  This means that of course, we should appreciate it when they do a good job, and we should treat them politely and respectfully and also advocate for fair and safe working conditions!

I’m the one who sent you something about school bullying, to be more specific, i mentioned taeyeon & jimin, i no longer need advice. so please don’t post it.

Okay then.  I’m still going to give you advice anyway though, whether you need it or not, as it may help someone out there.

Firstly, read this.

Secondly, I’m not sure how big she is internationally and who reading this will know her these days, but Elle Macpherson was – and still is – a very famous fashion model and a household name in Australia when I was growing up, she was nicknamed by the press “the body” as she was considered to be literally the perfect representation of Australian beauty.  Literally everybody my age, male, female or other, knows exactly who Elle MacPherson is and knows exactly what she looks like.  She was also relentlessly bullied in high school, often called “ugly duckling” and especially was bullied for the very same body that made her so famous and sought-after (she’s quite tall, with very broad shoulders).  Obviously those people who bullied her felt like clowns later when she was on the front cover of magazines nationwide etc. but it just goes to show that schoolyard perceptions of beauty don’t really mean shit in the real world.  However even if you didn’t win the genetic lottery like Elle, just remember that there’s no reason to drag on yourself because beauty is a very subjective determination.  This is one of the reasons why I do those post about “idols who I don’t happen to like very much” like this and this.  People think I’m just dragging on idols to be an asshole but the subtext of a post like that is that everybody has their own beauty standards, and it’s your own personal beauty standards that matter, not whatever the media is pushing.  Honestly, I’d be far happier if all idols looked less like Orange Caramel’s Nana (or Elle for that matter, who isn’t my type) and more like Umi Mitoma (who is a great drummer by the way).  But the lesson is that 1. it’s fine to like whatever and 2. people’s real tastes are way more diverse and interesting than what you would think from media and what people say in peer groups. 

This means that technically, all my readers mrs.

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That’s all for this month’s QRIMOLE!  This series will return next month!  In the meantime don’t forget to stop sexualising Jennie!

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