It’s time for QRIMOLE!  Let’s check out this month’s questions for Kpopalypse!

I know you have no interest in the show – I’m just here to tell you that I’ve absorbed your blog so much that my initial reaction to Fu Yaning on Girls Planet 999 was ‘huh, she has strong cao ni ma energy.’

and

So there’s this trending scene in the “new” mnet idol group survival show where Fu Yaning, a Chinese trainee is now under fire for shading CLC’s Yujin.

Stans proceed to bully her and now pushing to banish her from the KPop Industry due to this along with instances of Yaning saying the N Word a few times. I’m kind of the same boat because the animation community is now flaming me for old tweets of me dissing a certain anime.

What can you say about cancel culture’s tendency of calling out actions just to defend their idols/faves and not really for social justice?

If I were to be a celebrity and got this kind of backlash, how can I deal with rabid fans in order to protect my sanity and continue to be successful in the future?

What’s wrong with Nine Muses?  They had good songs.

I deliberately don’t watch the stupid Girls Planet show so I’m not in the loop at all about Fu Yaning.  Everyone kicked up a big stink about all the things they didn’t like about the predecesor Produce 101 (like the chart rigging, manipulative editing, ripping off fans, pedophile pandering etc) and now the new version is out and is exactly the same everyone just accepts it like nothing is wrong.  For such a bunch of wokescolders who are ultra-quck to leap on anyone who says a “problematic” word or wear a “culturally inappropriate” piece of clothing, k-pop fans sure are happy to swallow their moral pride and be hypocrites if it means the alternative is actually having to interrupt their TV watching schedule.  Gosh, we can’t have that.

I’ll keep an eye out for Fu Yaning if she ever does any content not directly associated with the TV show.

The best way to deal with rabid fans as a celebrity and protect your sanity is to do a Kpopalypse Interview, contact detail in “about” so get in touch, celebs.

do you think this years massive amount of idol scandals is going to have an effect on the future recruitment and management of idols? They already have strict conditions placed on them, but do you think companies will be finding a way to tighten their control? With the amount of people, and the type of people who are idols it’s logically no surprise these controversies have happened; but I really don’t see companies being complacent with these risks to their business constantly coming to light. Mainly I want to ask, or theorise I suppose on what impacts these might have on future idols lives. Or am I overthinking and is this kind of business as usual calculated risk?

Nothing will change.  There are already vetting processes in place to try and catch out people who might be deemed “too hot to handle” in the recruitment/training phase, but there’s also a lot of favouritism/nepotism which will always mean that there’ll be ways for certain individuals to short-circuit those processes.  I promise you that it’s going to keep happening.

greetings oppar, liked your 9muses of star empire article as it had been so long since i’d seen it and your analysis really jogged a lot of memories about it. 9muses are one of my favorite groups and there’s always been a lot of things that sort of strike me as just below the surface of that documentary and i’m wondering if you have any takes on any of it. There’s a sort of omnipresent bleakness but understanding star empire specifically and following some of the members sparse statements about their time with the company it feels like as much as the documentary attempts to be raw and real, there’s a lot that I can’t help but wonder about to this day.

1) the most major one i suppose, is sera’s more recent statements where she talks about the youngest members (presumably hyemi and minha) being minors during the filming of no playboy and how they and sera herself were deeply uncomfortable with the level of sexualization happening at the time. granted, hyemi and minha were only minors on a borderline technical level and not so much a cultural one so the line is thin, but from my recollection the documentary doesn’t acknowledge this aspect of the members’ struggles at all, despite focusing quite a lot on the shooting of no playboy promotional materials. it seems clear that the documentarians understood korean and i’d be surprised that none of this conversation between the members or potentially even the members and management was ever caught on camera. it seems especially odd to me that the bbc would present this footage with knowledge of it being questionable without also acknowledging that, as the documentary is making no attempts to paint the kpop industry in a good light.

2) continuing on the sort of darker aspects that go unsaid or are only understood in retrospect, it’s always struck me as particularly baffling that 9muses of all groups and star empire of all companies were the ones to do a candid no sugar coating documentary, since they are such a widely understood representation of a bad company with underworld ties so prominent they only do the bare minimum of denying it. i really can’t believe that there wasn’t a greater exploitation of the members that goes unseen in this documentary, especially considering this is the same company who just a couple years after this were sending the members of ze:a to underground boxing rings to get the shit beaten out of them for entertainment.

3) finally, it’s always struck me that while the documentary seems largely “what you see is what you get” with little attempts to craft a narrative, that the latter half of the film really culminates in framing ryu sera as an almost christ-like figure, where she endures and suffers for… something. musical aspiration? she’s certainly the only member highlighted as having any sort of musical ability at all. the end scene where she sings a heart breaking ballad sort of contextualizes the film as almost some sort of pr piece for what a self sacrificial, “good” person she is. when i watched it i came out of it no less a fan of 9muses than i was when i went in, but i certainly was a larger fan of sera herself after the fact. this is odd to me though, as it seems like a narrative that would be appealing to kpop fans or aspiring kpop idols themselves, yet the bulk of the film is generally unappealing to both of those parties and doesn’t really seem like it’s targeted to them in the first place. from a film making/documentary perspective these two pieces, one where kpop is portrayed as an exercise in misery and where ryu sera is an admirable figure seem discordant with each other.

All of your questions are essentially the same question, which is “how much of what we see in the documentary reflects “the real” reality?  The answer is that it’s obviously only a small slice.  Given that Nine Muses Of Star Empire is filmed in a reminiscent-of-reality-TV style, it has the same shortcomings and problems.  Condensing many months of experience into a short documentary and keeping the result well-rounded and fair to everyone present is literally impossible, it cannot be done, therefore the footage is edited, and obviously only the most interesting things will survive the editing process, and no doubt there would have been a bunch of things where somebody insisted “you can’t use that, that’s NOT going in your movie, delete that footage!”.  Then the creator has to build a narrative of some sort with whatever is left after the culling process, otherwise what’s the point of even having all that footage, just a bunch of rehearsal stuff with no underlying human interest element is boring to watch.  More on reality TV editing here, a video I’ve shared on QRIMOLE often as with k-pop’s endless fascination with terrible “reality” shows it keeps being relevant to remind people of this:

Sera may or may not have been the “best” person in the group, but she’s probably the one who had the strongest and most easily-understood narrative who (and this is the key) the creators were actually allowed to use enough footage of for it to be worthwhile and make sense in the final product.  Maybe the sexualisation conversations happened in front of the camera or maybe they didn’t, but if the team wasn’t allowed to use any of that, either because the company forbade it, or because of moral obligation to the idol (it’s possible idols approached the camera crew and said “we’re not comfortable having this angle in the film, can it be removed”) then it makes that aspect really hard to even cover at all.  Maybe the directors of the film did had some content on the “missing” elements, but not enough to really work with those angles to provide a way to make it make sense to the viewer.  Yes reality TV can be very manipulative, but you need to be allowed to use the content in the first place in order to manipulate it. 

Why would Star Empire have agreed to the documentary?  Probably because they were a smaller label who were a bit stupid and naive.  I’m sure that the company put a bunch of control on what the cameras were and weren’t allowed to show – the point is that even with those controls in place, even the things that the company thought were benign and harmless or reflected positively on the company were still incriminating.  It’s possible that the documentary makers approached them under false pretences, but that’s unlikely.  It’s much more likely that even the people making the film themselves had no idea what they were getting into exactly, and just went into the project “searching for an angle” and not really knowing exactly what they would find (keep in mind knowledge of the trainee process wasn’t that common in 2010).  But you can bet any money that a “big three” label would never have agreed to anyone shooting a documentary like this, even back then.

Hi oppar, I just recently found out that one of the people in my family (24 years old) is in a relationship with a 57 year old man. He’s rich, is in a common “powerful” career I suppose, and has apparently gotten her a house and some luxury items. He has kids, I don’t know if he’s currently married though. Am I jumping to conclusions if I assume that it’s a sugar baby kind of relationship? I mean, not that there’s anything wrong with that though, as long as it’s legal and it’s mutual and no one is getting taken advantage of it should be fine… I don’t know the details of their relationship so I can’t comment on what the case is or if this is even true.

I think other people in the family are vehemently disapproving of this though, which I can also understand. Probably part of it is that she apparently kept it a secret for a long time even though she was pretty close to the family. I can see why she would do that but at the same time that sounds pretty risky.

I’m finding this all pretty bizzare and I can’t really wrap my head around this being a real situation that is actually happening inside of my family, am I being weirdly conservative about this oppar, do you have any advice on how to get over this huge “what the fuck??????” feeling or just any other thoughts on the matter

I don’t know why people get so weirded out by age gaps, and automatically assume something is exploitative/not right about the situation just because there’s an age gap.  I mean, sure, there can be exploitative/not right things about those relationships, but then there can be exploitative/not right things about any relationship of any type.  Large age gaps – in both directions – have existed in human relationships since the dawn of time and until we institute some kind of Logan’s Run style dystopia (which k-pop fans would probably weirdly enjoy, as ageist as they are), they always will.  You kind of answer your own question in the last half of your first paragraph.  This doesn’t mean “throw caution to the wind” though, in fact the reverse – people should exercise caution in all relationships, simply because some humans whether they be male or female, straight or gay, young or old – are exploitative.  Being a cunt is an equal opportunity profession.

hey oppa. hope you’re having a good day.

how do I deal with lousy neighbours? I’m at my wits end. I just bought a house with much self sacrifice in a really small town. It was supposed to be the start of the best part of my life being fully independent but it’s become a living hell.

At first me and my next door neighbors (a young couple) were getting along super well. They have two small children who I LOVED to interact with (I moved to this town to work as a pre-school teacher) and they would often drop them off at my place when going out of town.

Well, it all went to shit a month ago. I always knew they were religious, but I didn’t really grasp how much. They invited me to the local church and I politely declined. They were really REALLY pushy about it and I brushed it off saying I go to church like twice a year on special occasions. That in itself made them clearly uneasy and even more pushy, so I really calmly told them I was catholic and only attended mass in my hometown during the holidays to see a few priests (I was raised in a monastery and they’re all personal friends of mine).

They cut off all contact, started belittering me to other people, went as far as calling my school to say I was “not to be trusted”, and worst of all they blast christian hymns loudly THE ENTIRE WEEKEND. I tried calling the police, asking them to chill out but they’re adamant they don’t want a heretic living near their children.

As much as I would love to play Lucifer in the maximum volume and key their cars, I’m new in town (think less than 500 habitants), just started making friends AND I work with children. So I depend on parents trusting me. I love my house and everything else about my new life. No idea of what I can do.

It sounds to me like getting the law involved and also being open with the school about what’s going on are the right things to do, and it seems like you’ve already done those things, so there really isn’t much more I can say.  I agree that blasting Slayer at maximum volume and vandalising their property would be highly deserved but would probably backfire.  Good luck.

have you watched raise the red lantern? because i was watching it a few months ago and the second wife (the one who’s a bitch but is actually in the right) looked weirdly like IU. she had a different face shape, but when she speaks there is a very strong resemblance. do you see it?

Never seen it, but I found a copy on YouTube so I skimmed through bits of it.  One of the girls looks more like Irene to me, not sure if that’s the one you’re talking about though.  Mind you, Red Velvet members look so generic that pretty much everyone looks like Irene to me.

Jesus, kpopalypse-oppar master of cunt, why the instrumental of this song is soo good?  Do you know some k-pop music similar to it?

I don’t really like it but I agree the instrumental is better than the awful vocal part!  You’re probably liking the fairly busy bassline against the mid-tempo rhythm, which reminds me a bit of Pink Floyd, a good modern k-pop equivalent would be Oohyo’s “Butter Chicken”.

Hey oppar, I might be going to uni soon or some shit so do you have any good or “essential” cooking recipes so I don’t starve and die? Can you tell me where to start cooking and some trufax cooking tips for beginners and/or kpop fans who have the attention span of a frustratred chihuahua?
Also do I need to buy some fancy ass equipment?
Maybe I’ll just set my uni on fire like Gowon

My Korean fried chicken post was received well, so I’ll probably do more cooking stuff soon!

Hello! I hope you’re doing well. I have a music related question. I’ve been playing piano for about a decade now, but still struggle with some things. I’ve noticed through your blog posts that you’re able to tell what chords a song uses, plus whether it’s a, for example, I V7, IV, etc. I struggle to tell the difference in sound between, for example, I, V7, IV C chords (I hope I worded that right). The same is correct for every chord. I struggle to hear the differences in chords that are next to each other, for example, a C chord and D chord (especially between C major and D minor). Do you have tips on how to learn to hear the differences between the two? Because of this, I also struggle to tell what chord someone is playing and copying it. I don’t think I’m tone deaf because I can tell if among two notes, which one is higher or lower than the other with ease. I can tell the general area on a piano the notes are played, but not where exactly.

Another thing I struggle with is memorizing the music I’m playing. No matter how many times I play a piece of music, I always make a mistake or have to pause because it takes a moment for me to read the note. This doesn’t happen for every note, but at least a few times every song. Back when I had a piano teacher pre-pandemic, the teacher told me to look ahead when playing, but that requires multitasking in that I have to focus on making sure I’m playing the correct note now, and focus on playing the next note correctly at the same time. Do you have tips to help me with this as well?

Thank you for reading, and double thank you if you respond! I hope I worded this in a way that is easy to understand, and sorry for any English mistakes.

“Relative pitch” is the ability to hear two notes and work out which one is higher and which is lower.  An essential skill for musicians, it can be trained over time, only a select few are “tone deaf” (unable to hear pitch differences).  You already have this skill, so you’re good.  “Perfect pitch” is the ability to hear a note in isolation and know what that note is, without a pitch reference.  Honestly a pretty useless skill, as musicians pretty much never play notes without any sort of attached context.  There’s a few isolated cases where it might be useful such as if a vocalist singing the first note of a song before a backing comes in, but even then it’s possible to use a pitch reference to “cheat” the pitch.  Also perfect pitch comes with some other surprising downsides.  More info here:

Telling the difference between ‘major’ and minor’ regardless of the starting pitch is actually a relative pitch skill, not a perfect pitch skill, because you’re comparing the intervals inside the chord.  Telling that the minor is a D minor and the major is a C major however, is a perfect pitch skill if those chords are played one at a time, in complete isolation.  However if you hear one chord and you know or are told that it’s C major, and then a D minor is played straight after, with practice you’ll eventually be able to tell that the second chord is D minor.  Your level of skill here sounds pretty normal to me and to be honest it’s probably not that different to my own level.

Memorisation is hard, yes you do have to “read ahead” when playing straight off sheet music.  As you get more familiar with practising a piece of sheet music, you will eventually memorise some sections of the tune, but perhaps not all of it.  Then you can “selectively” read ahead, glossing over the parts you pretty much know anyway, and just focusing on the trickier passages, in this way sheet music transforms from a verbatim recitation to a memory aid that’s helping you to remind yourself of what you’ve already memorised.  Almost every piece of music has parts that are easier to remember than others, so you store those parts in your memory and then just use the pages to read the hard stuff.  Obviously this doesn’t apply to sight-reading but if you can already sight-read very well I’m jealous of you and you can stop making us feel inferior now.

Hi Mr. Kpopalyse. My question is kinda dumb but I don’t really have any I feel comfortable discussing this with irl so here goes. I’m 25 and I’ve never had a boyfriend or had sex. Now I can take care of myself in the latter department, but I feel like I’m missing out on something. It’s not just about sex but also just the experience of being in a relationship. I try not to let this affect me and I don’t spend all day dwelling on it, but lately I’ve been thinking about it more. When I was younger I would tell myself it’ll happen when you get older but I’m older now and there’s still no signs of it happening. All my friends are in relationships and I feel more and more left out.

I’ve tried dating apps but I don’t think they’re for me. I’m not super hot or anything so I’m not the kind of person guys will go for based on looks alone. I don’t have any guy friends either so no luck there. I don’t really go out much, at least not to the kinds of places you can meet guys (and also there’s a a pandemic). I know people say you should go out to meet people but I’m kind of insecure about my looks so I’m definitely not confident enough to just start talking to random guys I don’t know. I’m not saying I want to get married or anything, I just want to have the experience of having a boyfriend to see if it’s even something I would like. It’s such a big part of pop culture that in beginning to feel like I’m missing out on some crucial part of the human experience. I just want to have that experience of loving and being loved to see if it’s really all that. (In case you can’t tell, my parents are divorced lol.)

So I guess I have 2 questions. First, am I stupid for feeling this way? And second, what can I do about it?

Thanks Mr. Kpopalypse.

First question – no.  However be aware that our culture (and especially our pop culture) does tend to idealise relationships.  People have this idea that a relationship is a great, thing, and it can be, but for it to be great and to stay great requires the people involved to work at it, and sometimes that work is not pleasant.  That work also needs to come from both sides, and it doesn’t always in reality.  A lot of people in relationships are having a really great time, a lot of them are also having a really horrible time, because one or both people aren’t doing the work required.  If you’re not in a relationship, you’re in a “neutral state” which is just a good, stable level to be at, it’s neither really fantastic nor incredibly awful.  It’s okay to want to reach for the heights and see what you’re missing but don’t feel like you have to, and don’t be too surprised when you finally do get there and it doesn’t really live up to the hype, and also be prepared for the fact that even a good relationship where both people are doing their best can be a roller coaster ride of highs and lows! 

Second question – honestly the main work that people can do to get in relationships, if that’s what they want, is self-work.  Trust me, if you do the self-work, the opportunities for relationships will come to you eventually, you won’t even need to look that hard, it will just click into place randomly and you will be like “oh shit, this just fell into my lap”.  ( I can’t promise they’ll always be good opportunities, that’s another post.) This isn’t about appearance specifically.  Yes guys in particular do like it when partners are attractive, and women like it too, but attractiveness manifests in all sorts of different ways, your physical appearance is actually a really small part of that.  Most people’s bodies are actually not that interesting just in themselves – remove the body from everything else about a human and you’ve just got inert flesh, and everyone looks ugly on a morgue slab.  It’s the life that you give to that body which is interesting.  How people move, how they talk, how they smile, their mannerisms, their walk, the way they naturally hold themselves, how they use eye contact, etc… all of those things will improve exponentially if you do self-work, i.e work on your self-confidence and self-belief, because it will be reflected in those aspects and many more.  Think about how someone talks when they are excited about what they’re talking about, vs how they’re talking when they’re bored, and think about how much more alluring they are when they talk about the excited thing.  That’s the difference between you with self-belief vs without.

What do you think about audiophiles? Especially audiophiles with far less formal musical education that yours?

I’ve actually never met an audiophile who was very deeply into audiophilia, and who also had a large degree of formal music education in music technology that included real-world experience in applied music tech (live mixing, professional recording, stage setups, etc).  This is because audiophilia involves a lot of pseudoscience, and the real science of audio engineering contradicts a lot of this.  Some audiophiles will spend ridiculous amounts of money on solid gold conductors that don’t add anything to their stereo system’s sound because they’re convinced they can hear a difference which an audio engineer will know isn’t really there, but there’s no arguing with people like that, they insist they can “just tell”.  That’s just one example of many.  There’s not a lot of crossover with audio engineers and audiophiles for the same reason that there’s not a lot of crossover between astrophysicists and astrologers.

I know you find J-pop insipid and universally awful. I also know that you like most of Gfriend’s songs, especially those that follow Gfriend’s template. Gfriend’s songs were almost always considered to be reminiscent of J-pop, more specifically Anisong. What makes Gfriend’s songs good and J-pop bad? I’ll be honest, I do enjoy Gfriend’s songs a lot more than their similar J-pop songs, but I don’t know exactly why since I have no musical background to speak of. I was hoping you could articulate what I “instinctively” find better about some songs compared to others.

I’ve covered slight variations of this exact same question countless times in various QRIMOLEs.  It basically comes down to the quality of melody writing.

Hello Kpopalypse Oppa, I hope you are doing fine in Australia. I would like to use this opportunity to express my opinion on a certain comment in the previous QRIMOLE.

At the July QRIMOLE, I saw someone describing his or her experience of aligning his or her music tastes based on your favorite song list. The same thing also happened to me. For instance, at first, I always felt that After School Red’s song Into The Night Sky was a better song compared to the After School Blue’s bland Wonder Boy. Eventually, I changed my mind after reading your review. I found both songs to be good, but Wonder Boy is simply the superior song of the two.

However, after exploring your blog for several years, I realized that there are certain bridges that I am not willing to cross. For example, no matter how hard I try, I cannot enjoy your favorite songs that has stronger metal elements in them, for example, Chillin Homie’s Wassup and the LA Galbi song.

In the end, I still consider my music taste to be heavily influenced by you, but I started to develop my personal style as the time goes by. I still like bland or coffee shop ballads no matter how often you trash it. Yet, I try to limit my consumption by only listening to ballad OSTs from my favorite Korean dramas. I hope my experience could provide a new perspective for the person who asked the QRIMOLE.

Your question isn’t really a question or anything, so this isn’t really an answer.  It’s fine to like or dislike whatever you want, for any reason.  I don’t look to anybody else to validate my taste and neither should you.

you’re so lucky that you’re old af. i was just born yesterday and gonna have to live on burning earth, a potential world riot, and the worst of all BTS keeps releasing shit music. why do the richest people on earth still need to be so greedy?

There’s not going to be any “world riot” whatever that even means.  Getting all the world to even agree on what to riot about – impossible.  Burning earth maybe will happen but don’t worry the air conditioners of the future will be super rad.  BTS will eventually fuck up somehow too, just wait and see.  If the richest people on earth weren’t so greedy, they wouldn’t be the richest people on earth, and then other people would be the richest on earth and they’d be greedy instead.

adding some questions since this is going in the qrimole.
question 1

not asking you to rate or care about the music, just the context. in the description the game notes that they hired the tokyo philhamonic and “japan’s top folk musicians” to play their video game soundtrack.
1) is this likely what happened for the actual game as well? like having a full orchestra, or did they create a similar effect electronically?
If they actually used an orchestra how do you record an orchestra? it seems like it’d be a lot of time and effort.

Quite possibly it was recorded this way for the game, Genshin Impact’s music (unlike their mouse inversion options) is actually quite good so it wouldn’t surprise me if they did this.

The traditional way to record a classical orchestra is a pair of very high quality condensor microphones suspended from the roof of the building, above where the conductor stands.  This is considered best microphone placement because the conductor is directing people so it sounds optimal from his position (for the same reason – when you’re at a live rock gig, to get the clearest sound, try to get a seat or a standing spot as close to the mixing desk as possible) and it recreates the most “natural” stereo sound.

Having said this, the song in the above video is not recorded this way, and you can see several microphones on stands close to the performers, focused on certain instruments, for instance the violinists all get a big microphone in front of them.  Having microphones to highlight certain instruments means the volumes of those instruments can be adjusted later in the final mix so it’s more practical even though it’s more effort.  Also the design of the room they’re in doesn’t really lend itself to hanging microphones from the ceiling!   Bigger recording setups tend to use a combination of the overhead microphones and also extra mics for certain instruments which may take a leading role or otherwise struggle to be heard.  Yes it’s a lot of time and effort to set all this kind of thing up, record it and mix it down.  None of what we see here would be cheap.

2) how does a video game developer convince a major philharmonic to play their video game music? i get it’s a pandemic but it seems like such a random assignment lol

They pay them.  Yes it costs a lot because you are essentially paying “wages” for however many individuals are in the orchestra.  With today’s AAA-gaming mega budgets they can afford it, but your indie dev probably can’t, which is why you only hear the kickass orchestral soundtracks on the big budget games.

3) what’s the difference between an orchestra and a philharmonic?

None, it’s just a classical wank term honestly.  The word sounds impressive so people still use it, but the literal definition is “music-loving”, and what orchestra hates playing music.  It’s similar in meaning and use to the word “symphony” which just really means “a harmonious group of instruments”, so a city with two big orchestras might have one calling themselves the “symphony orchestra” and the other calling themselves the “philharmonic orchestra” but they’re both orchestras and they both do the same shit.  Note both these terms are only ever used to describe full-size large orchestras, an orchestra that isn’t quite so large would be called a “chamber” orchestra.  There’s no exact point of membership numbers where a chamber orchestra becomes a symphony orchestra, but anything with over a couple dozen members approx probably wouldn’t be called “chamber” anymore (as they’d struggle to fit into most “chambers”).

question 2
i’ve been stumbling (and i mean literally, like only 2 clicks away from normal content sometimes)
onto pedo kpop fapper accounts, a lot of which use deepfakes or actors who have similar features to portray the girls. sometimes they’ll just not even care and just post gifs/vids of the girls
i always report the tweets and accounts when i can stomach it but i find it mind numbing that twitter doesn’t have any sort of team to prevent this stuff, meanwhile sex workers on onlyfans (and tumblr a few years ago) are getting fucked over because it’s not good for the investor’s family image

i guess another question is: is there a correlation between these kpopfap guys and pedophilia? these guys, the hentai guys, and pedos all seem to hate the modern western women and prefer women to be pure, submissive and innocent. are these people turning to children because of this?

it just seems like a very strange little conglomerate of people who never outgrew the fantasy of what they were taught about women.

No idea about any of this honestly, I’ve never seen content specifically like this.  I have no doubt that “fap communities” do attract some real creeps including people like Kris Wu with the “innocent” fetish, but then so does any sexual content online or offline.  Those kind of people are always going to be out there.  I don’t know if there’s a correlation between “innocent” fetish and pedophilia specifically, I’ll leave the actual science of any “gateway” theory to people who are paid to study it, but just going on gut feeling I think that while it’s possible someone might like both, it doesn’t seem likely to me that one directly leads to the other.  Here’s why: from my experience I think people’s sexual tastes, regardless of whatever they are, and regardless of how morally hygeinic/legal they are, are pretty hardwired.  Think about it – if you knew a pedophile personally, and that person got caught and went to jail, did their time in jail, then came out and said “I don’t do those kinds of things anymore”, would you let them around your children?  Of course you fucking wouldn’t.  That’s because people’s sexual preferences, whatever they are, are hardwired, and deep down we all know this.  For the same reason, the “gateway” theory doesn’t ring true to me – if someone is not into something, then they’re just not into it, and presenting something to them which is “sort of kind of like it but not really all the way” isn’t going to change how they feel.  At the end of the day either they’re into that shit or they’re not.  Just my opinion.

question 3
As a woman, how do I stay safe while attending a large city university? I try to stay away from the news, but our school alerts us whenever there’s any criminal activity near the campus. There’s armed robberies and normal robberies quite a lot nearby.
What makes me even more anxious is that a girl got killed and assaulted while going to the school’s parking garage a couple of years ago, and there was another case of a woman’s attempted abduction recently at like 11am, on a safe street.
People are like “oh you’ll be fine :)” but I just don’t want to be that unlucky girl who gets murdered for happening to exist while some weirdo walks by.

I don’t like to talk about my history doing martial arts because it sounds so wanky and everyone knows “that guy who thinks he does martial arts”, like ugh.  I still want to help though so here’s some basic safe advice.  The best way to stay out of danger is don’t be where the danger is, so – street smarts, be very aware of your surroundings etc.  Therefore if you happen to get unlucky and are where the danger is, getting to where it isn’t should be #1 priority – running is often a good option.  If you can’t run, you might have to fight, but given that you’re probably going to have a much stronger opponent in most cases, you’re generally not fighting to “win”, you’re fighting so you can then run/buy time/get help etc.  “Self-defence for women” classes are kind of bullshit, learn to actually fight.

Here’s a good video that debunks some common self-defense strategies.

Here’s another one that gets more into the practical aspects and the psychology of why you don’t want to rely on gimmicky shit:

question 4: I’m requesting that this whole question is private, again, because I’m paranoid.

Okay so they were pathetic and useless, that’s a shame.  Your next planned move sounds like the right one.  The next one after that is the police and/or legal action.

Do you hear a similarity? 1.02  – 1.26

Yes, it’s the same type of pitch movement.  I mean a LOT and I mean A VERY LARGE AMOUNT of pop songs are very similar.  There’s similarities like this all over the place if you care to look for them, but don’t, because you could just be enjoying music instead.

I’m kinda surprised Hayoung hasn’t been on a Kpop bias list yet. Any particular reason for that? (Same with Jihyo to a lesser extent)

If I expanded the list to maybe 30 or 40 (which won’t happen) Hayoung would get on.  Jihyo is not my type, obviously the curves are a plus but that alone isn’t enough.

Oppar, I wanted to ask you something that I feel is kind of critical at this point. I was the anon that talked about how they’re about to enroll to some scholarship called UWC, and.. the thing now is that I heavily feel that UWC isn’t me for me at all. I mean, 2 years, completely isolated in a campus full of teenagers that are either studying 52325 hours a day or getting minimally drunk? Immersed in a culture where extroverted people get around well and introverted people have to put in the extra mile? I’m sorry, but 2 years of that bullshit seems like a heavy no to me. I don’t think that it’s a question of “not feeling enough” or “being scared”, I do really want to have a experience outside of my country and probably will be applying to some other scholarships, but boarding high school just seems like too much to me. Yeah my country may be basically a toilet but there’s cool people around here, so I don’t mind it way too much.
However, I do still think that it’s a great learning opportunity and I keep trying to tell myself rationally that “you gotta take a leap of faith”, I mean, no one that applied to it actually knew that it was going to be a great experience or whatever and I do know that any experience that I apply to is going to have some downsides somehow. I’m only bothering with QRIMOLE because I feel like most if not everyone is going to say “oh but ur gonna meet new people and its like uwc so its like so amazing dude abaallalabalaakbfalbfakbfkabkabkaba you should go omgggggg!!!1111” and it feels alienating. The thing about boarding schools like UWC is that you’re constantly surrounded by people, which I guess isn’t that bad if you’re an extrovert, but when you’re pretty much introverted to the core (at least I think I’m introverted to the core, I love alone time although I don’t mind meeting new people and all) it is damn suffocating.
Honestly, the only factors that keep me “motivated” is going only so I can live through what sounds like some heavy ass bullshit, see this shit for myself and check if it’s genuinely something great and the bad experiences are just some incidents that happened, I don’t know. 2 years isn’t that much at all, but 1+ year of high school sounds exhausting, especially in this setting.
There’s a part of me that feels bad for not wanting this opportunity for some reason, I feel like maybe people are right, and I’d be missing out on one of the best times of my life… but 2 years? 2 damn fuckin years of high school and I don’t even get to be around my friends?
Oppar, it feels like my gut is telling me straight up “do not do it, apply for something shorter”, but I can’t shake the feeling that I’d be missing out on stuff off. Should I listen to my gut and drop the scholarship, or try to keep on going on?

Every choice you make is always going to be at the expense of some other choice that you could have made.  I realised this when I was in about five different bands in my 20s plus doing audio tech college at the same time and then realised “oh shit, I don’t actually have time to be in more bands, if I join a new one I’m actually going to also have to quit one”.  I’m the most introverted person I know and I would have hated boarding school intensely, I was also bullied a lot and a boarding school environment would have just made it so much easier for bullies to rule every aspect of my life, at least at the horrible school I went to, I got to go home from it.  An overnight stay at a “summer” camp was enough, god that was pure hell, I can’t even imagine two years of that shit.  I can’t tell you what decision to make but I think passing on an opportunity that might not be right for you is fine, there’ll be other opportunities to do other things perhaps that you’re more into, that you might want to make yourself available for instead of locking yourself into something you’re not into.  Okay, sure it may turn out amazing, but so might not doing it?  You’ve just got to weigh it up.

just to clarify: I’m not one of those “stop sexualizing oppar/unnir!!!1!!1!!” people. however, I was thinking about this recently (mainly cause I was debating about this with a good friend of mine who leans more towards the “stop sexualizing oppar” crowd), and wanted to ask you a few things:
(1) do you think there’s any adult idol out there who isn’t very comfortable with being sexualized/objectified by anyone other than their partner? Like, there was this time Nayeon was wearing a dress showing a bit of her cleavage (no, not the ‘wrap it softly’ one), and she seemed rather uncomfortable, until some fan gave her a stuffed toy as a gift or something, which she kept in front of her chest.
(2) is there a difference between sexualizing someone and objectifying them?
(3) in a similar vein to (2), do you think there’s a difference between something sexual and something being sexualized? My friend brought this up in our argument – he thinks that while your points about how cute concepts are just as sexual as sexy concepts are correct, he mentioned that some people may ‘sexualize things that weren’t sexual in the first place.’ For example, he said that something sexual would be Taemin performing Move, while something sexualized would be people fapping to Taemin when he’s livestreaming and talking about chicken nuggets or his cat or whatever.

1. Probably a whole lot of them.  Remember that most of them have been lied to (mainly by “everything in k-pop is wonderful” k-pop fans and the shitty sites they visit) before they even entered the industry about what it entails and how much sexualisation is involved.  That’s why it’s important to always highlight sexual suggestion in media like k-pop that seeks to often bury or deny that it’s happening.  Sexualisation isn’t bad by default, but it’s bad if people are involved in it when they didn’t feel they signed up for it, so shining a light on the different ways that sexualisation happens in k-pop, so people are aware before they get involved that k-pop IS inherently sexual, is very important.  That way people can make informed decisions about how involved they want to be, and then the people who ARE cool with sexualisation get to do that, and the other ones who are not cool with it don’t feel that they have to.
2. The reason why the term “objectification” is a thing is because people tend to equate “sexuality” with “reducing a person to an object”.  If you ask me that’s the wrong way to look at sexuality, I think only conservatives look at it that way.  There’s nothing inherently “less person-like” about being sexual or about being an object of desire, and people who think that appreciation of sexuality is somehow “lower” or “denigrating” probably have a poor relationship with their own sexual selves – it says more about them than about anything else.
3. Making a distinction between “being sexual” and “sexualisation” is kind of splitting hairs.  The person who decides what is sexual/sexualised is actually in the end always the consumer.  Sure, people creating media can add content commonly (or uncommonly) understood as sexual and try to suggest sex in various ways, but if the person who is consuming the content doesn’t see anything sexual, then sexualisation isn’t actually happening.  That’s why one person can look at various “dog-whistle friendly” k-pop videos and see sex whereas it might sail right over someone else’s head.  Neither of them are “incorrect”, they’re just interpreting the same content within different sexual frameworks.  Sometimes a thing will fall outside the frame, sometimes it will fall inside.  Someone who feels very connected to Taemin on a personality level (whether a true perception of his personality or not) might be more sexually turned on by his livestreaming because it feels more “real” and “intimate” than a video which is staged and has lots of money spent on effects, lighting, makeup etc and where he might supposedly be “being more sexual” or whatever than the supposedly “non sexual” livestream.

Why don’t you like Sheena Ringo? All the metalheads I know are crazy for her, saying she’s a musical genius or something. I don’t know shit about music but some of her songs sound like noise to me so I am surprised you don’t like it.

Just boring, bland melodies like a lot of j-pop.  Nice sounds but extremely poor melody writing across the board.

I was listening to Crayon Pop’s “Dancing Queen” after reading your article on them being punk, and after the song ended, my 5-year-old sister said “aww, I liked that one.”

She’s also playing Animal Crossing. Do you know anyone who plays that game?

No.

Do you like coffee, tea, or neither?

Neither.

Hello Oppar! Just a little update on the bulimic person hehehe. It’s been months, and I actually had a big problem. However you were kinda right, my stomach cannot handle as much fast food as before however I had a lot of stress too. Is kinda a shock when you can’t eat as much as before or how your body tells you to stop. I want to thank the fellow caonima who posted their experience, it always makes you feel less alone. My bulimic behavior slowed a lot when I stopped caring that much, and learned it’s a journey of making habits rather than making a 180º change. Now I have other problems as my teeth and my throat lol, but one step at a time. Thanks oppar, take care!

Cheers, glad that QRIMOLE helped you out!

Oppar, so I have short and fat fingers. I really want to be able to play guitar, but when I tried to learn, it was difficult for me to hold the keys due to my short fingers. Is it the fate of me short and fat finger owner that I can’t play guitar, or do you think I still have hope?

Still hope.

Hello oppar!
I think you mentioned that you teached singing lessons, right? If so, do you have any tips on how to start singing well for a dumb k-pop fan that knows absolutely nothing about singing? And do you have any channel reccomendations or so? I’ve been thinking about singing quite a while, but I don’t think I take it seriously enough to actually get singing lessons, do you think it’s possible for a person to learn singing all by himself?

It’s possible to learn anything on your own these days without lessons, but a teacher always helps!  The most valuable thing a teacher does is give you direction and steer your own learning appropriately – you can start by yourself but it’s hard to know what to tackle in what order, and even harder to know if you’re getting the fundamentals wrong.  However I don’t talk about singing teaching much because there’s far too much emphasis on the wrong aspects of singing in almost all k-pop related content and far too many self-appointed “vocal experts” and I think people need to get the hell away from all of that.  But really – everyone teaches themselves, the teacher is a guide to help you do that.

The first thing you need to know as a singer is how to breathe, as singing is your instrument so you need to know how to work the muscles that control breathing.  For someone brand new to singing I teach just breathing and using the breathing muscles properly!  The second thing once you’ve got breathing is confidence in projecting your voice, and using the right breathing techniques to do this.  This is BEFORE I even get started on anything to do with music or singing at all.  I don’t follow any online tuition but if they start with breathing and confidence as #1 and #2 then I endorse that.

Hey kpppppposlpclxpalyse
I enrolled in some scholarship thing for some prestigious high school shit, I have no idea if I’ll pass or not, I honestly only signed up cause it seemed better than what I have in my country and I do believe in some cool education, although since it’s high school I do expect for it to have some gobsmacking fuckery. Here’s me praying that maybe there will be less bullshit going on there if I do get the scholarship somehow. Please send Umji images to bless me, and pet your cat. I’ll be there in spirit. If possible please give me tips on how to stop being a stereotypical douchebag teenager, although I might just end up being a douchebag either way for reasons. Yknow kind of like these reddit posts where they want to sound super wise in a “Heres What I Learned In My 30s” fashion
Oh yeah, thanks for your uni post! I might not be in university but I’m pretty sure your post still applies either way.

Also, have you ever associated any songs to something that felt very personal to you? I don’t know how the hell it happened, but Loona’s Hi High has a very strong effect on me, it just fills me up with hope for the future and the “woOoOoOah” makes me want to not give many fucks and do the shit I know I was meant to do, fuck yeah! Just kind of makes me want to do the stuff I really want to do and makes me happy everytime I listen to it. This is clearly a mental trap made by BBC to make me stan Loona even harder, but I don’t mind it.

obligatory Hi High loona posting to make me forget about paint the town)

The best way to stop being a stereotypical douchebag teenager is to stan Gfriend.

I often associate songs with the first time I got to really get to know that song well.  For instance when I hear songs off Darkthrone’s “A Blaze In The Northern Sky” I remember playing a particular computer game a lot, that I used to like to play when I put the album on, I can’t even remember the name of the game now, I just have vague memories of what it looked like.

Hey oppar, what do you think about people calling gen z “snowflake generation”? I mean, yeah, some shit we do is stupid and sometimes we get butthurt over little stuff, but so what? Doesn’t everyone do dumb shit and get pissy at small stuff when they’re young too? Stop with the boring “omg but OUR generation is SO MUCH BETTER!!!!ASGAJSKFJKAGJKKJZXVHKJANLZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” talk and lets stop being cunts to eachother for a little bit please
Yeah, I guess I do get “offended” at your stuff every now and then but that is my business (and at this point I am completely desensitized to your way of writing and I can tell that you’re actually a nice person)
At this point, politics is more like sports where you cheer on your stupid ball kicking team or whatever they do and yell at the other side when they get a point instead of being a resource meant to motivate critical thinking and progress in society

I think the old people are the real snowflakes.  “I don’t want to wear a mask, I want my freedoms why can’t I have them”, we’re in a global pandemic, shut up snowflake!  Conservatives are the biggest snowflakes around, they can’t stop whining about these fictional “rights” that they don’t really have.  Nobody has rights, all of us have ever had is temporary privileges that can be rescinded at any time.  Just ask Gfriend about that one.

I’ve been recently trying to fill out my album collection,

Big mistake as k-pop albums are trash but go on

and when it came to AOA, (ignoring all of the other shit) I wondered: do you think a band concept for kpop is inherently unworkable? Or did FNC just fuck it up (or the timing wasn’t right)?

I think there’s nothing wrong with a band concept, CNBlue proved it can work for idols, Busker Busker were huge and proved it can work even without idols, some other groups have had good songs with band concepts recently, etc.  AOA’s band concept wasn’t a colossal failure and might have been alright in the end had they stuck with it (most groups don’t hit gold with their first song or two regardless of what concept it is), but “market research” obviously proved that they had a more profitable angle they could exploit, so that’s what they did. 

A lot of people in Youtube have been commenting about the unique sound of the 2021 title tracks (Beautiful Beautiful and Popping). However, I find that the perception to be rather inaccurate because I think the ONF’s recent title tracks are using the “audios”, “tones”, and “styles” that are often utilized in writing girl group title tracks. Well, it’s unique in the sense that ONF is using the “girl group tone” as the foundation of their titles. This is just my theory as a person with limited skills in differentiating the musical tones. I am simply curious: Is my analysis accurate enough? If it is inaccurate, is there any boy group songs in KPop that utilized the “girl group tone” in their title tracks? Thank you very much Kpopalypse Hyung.

I don’t know if it’s that simple, I mean ONF’s “Popping” and BTS’s “Dynamite” are actually quite similar songs, in terms of texture and arrangement.  Yes ONF’s song is obviously a hell of a lot better but that’s not really the point.  Something with real “girl group sound” to my ear is probably something like this:

Or this:

You don’t hear boy groups do songs like these, ever.

This is a piece of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, places or organizations is purely coincidental.

K-pop superstar N-yeon wants to break her contract to move to Germany in a couple months and raise pink bunnies with some german guy she met not so long ago through messaging apps. She really wants to because she’s tired of the lack of security in Korea, gosh, there’s stalkers everywhere. N-yeon, just like any k-pop idol, struggles with severe depression and wants to quit being a kpop on a daily basis, but with the release of her group THRICE’s farewell album, out in a year or two, she could easily retire from kpop entirely and live in Germany for as long as she wants. However, she won’t be able to retrieve any money and fame she’d earned ever since she became an idol if she breaks her contract before the release of said album, and will very probably become dependent of the not so thriving pink bunny market.

We, her friends, are really worried for her given how fickle the pink bunny market is and how dangerous German guys showing up out of nowhere can be. But whenever we try to question her decision with a lot of rational arguments, including one bad experience she’s had with German stalkers before, she takes it as a personal offense and becomes mad at them to the point of not talking to us anymore. She thinks we’re not happy for her and only want her to fail, even though it’s the actual opposite, but she’s too delusional right now to get it, probably because of what depression is doing to her brain. She distorts everything we say to put us on a bad light so it’s not a matter of making our feelings of love and support towards her clear as she will become skeptical of our words anyway. She’s also possibly overconfident on a slight possibility of becoming an idol or a singer in Germany as a safety net in case her pink bunny raising business goes wrong, since it’s something she’s done before. However, without all the money and reputation she’d have earned from THRICE activities (since by breaking her contract she’ll probably become blacklisted everywhere), I don’t know if becoming an idol/singer in Germany will actually work as a safety net, maybe if she has the right connections but I’m kinda skeptical towards this. She’s a woman, asian and foreigner who only know really basic German (not even conversational level), Native Korean and a decent amount of English. Even though once you become well-stablished German idols/singers earn a decent income, I don’t know if German standards would actually welcome her for her to reach that stage.

As a faithful caonima I’m very aware that when people are alienated from otheres they tend to go further into whatever they’re into so I don’t wish to drive her away from me, but it’s really painful for me to keep watching her sink into a possibly very dark future so my gut tells me to keep some distance from her. She’s already spent a month there with the German guy during her vacations so there might have no need for such a worry, but it’s amazing how she doesn’t realize that it would be better for everyone, including her, if she would just stay in the group until it’s over and then and only then move to her bunny raising paradise. There’s no need for her to go there in such a hurry, besides the German guy who might be pressuring her a little into it. There’s also an extra layer of worriness since she comes from a very vulnerable and not much present household and her mother went through a similar situation before. She doesn’t really have a support network besides her friends.

What should I do from now on? For now I’m avoiding conflict and basically agreeing with everything she says, hoping for a chance I have to subtly give my actual opinions on the matter, but it’s a really tough job, not to say a bit ineffective given the time limit. Her personality is also getting worse and worse and she tends to only keep people who are “supportive” (meaning not worrying or worrying to a compliant degree and not talking the real talk) of her close. I’m pretty sure if this goes wrong she won’t have anyone but their real friends (not the “supportive” ones) to help her but I don’t think neither I or the others are mentally ready to pick her up. I mean, one could always let her live her life the way she wants, have a bad experience, learn from it and move on, but the way she’s putting everything on the table I really fear she’ll suffer more permanent damage.

Don’t passively agree, but don’t try and be persuasive either, and try not to get drawn into conversations about any of it, just let it be what it is, in the background.  Your best bet in this situation is just to keep it simple and say “N-yeon, I’m here for you if you need me” and leave it at that, but make it clear that you’re leaving the doors open.  Most important is to not lose touch because if you’re wrong you’ll feel like less of a twit and have more chance of preserving the relationship, but more importantly if you’re right you could be her lifeline back to sanity/stability.

By the way it was super not necessary to write this entire thing out twice, both with a metaphorical overlay for privacy and without, these questions are long enough as they are.  Just give me the “with” version and leave it at that, I don’t need the private “without” version if you’ve utilised your substitutes in a way that makes narrative sense (and you have).

Hello Mr. Kpop Alice
I’ve been wondering for a long time, why is it that complete nugu music from Korea is so much better than other countries?
When I find unknown music from my country (unfortunately mostly trap, but I’m talking strictly about production quality) it all sounds like this or this so empty sounding, like they only used 2 instruments and a hi-hat, and the terrible autotune.

Meanwhile when I find nugu music from Korea, so much of it sounds like THIS or THIS  like it was recorded in an actual studio, mixed incredibly well, with only 500 views?? that’s even less than the 2 I just showed you.

So do you know why there is this huge difference between Korea and other countries in terms of production quality? Thank you sir

The Korean scene is highly competitive and more competition in an industry attracts a higher production standard.  Even if the music is still weak, everybody is trying to learn their craft as well as they can, a lot of the songs that I heavily criticise often do have really good musicianship and production whether the song sucks or not.  Mind you perhaps there’s really good stuff in your country too and you’re not finding it, remember that Korea is pretty YouTube friendly compared to most places.

Heyo, which of these two songs is considered heavier, in terms of rock music (as in the scale from snorefest ballads to headsplitting metal)? I love their instrumentals but I feel like the two songs both become softer because of the vocals. I’d love to get an explanation why, too! Anyway, have a nice day!

1 – 2

A competition between a boring album track and a j-turd, oh boy.  Obviously both suck.  The first song is soft because it’s very very melodic and that kind of counters the effect of the guitars regardless of how chunky they are, the second song is soft because the guitars and drums are relatively low in the mix, the twee pedo-friendly vocals all these shit j-turd groups love dominates the mix and kills any possible heaviness dead very quickly.

Nice to see that your opinion on Enchanted Propaganda has changed to be a bit more positive. It’s exactly the type of sound that appeals to me on first listen, but I can understand why some people think it sounds like garbage.

You’ve mentioned the experiment of imagining a song as sung by a different group to get your “real” thoughts on it. This struck me as an interesting idea, as I wouldn’t really consider my reaction to a song independent of the artist singing it to be my “real” reaction. Many songs I listen are only liked by me because I like the artist. It’s also very hard to imagine the songs without the artist, as any other artist would have a different voice, and I am very sensitive to voices in songs. How did you come to value this practice and why do you continue to do so?

Well it’s especially relevant in k-pop where nearly everyone literally sounds the same, and I mean really does sound the fucking same.  They sound the same because they are specifically trained to sound the same, just like charm-school actresses were in the old Hollywood system days.  Why do you think “King Of Masked Singer” is even a show in the first place, if Korean singers had actual character in their voices, there would be no point in that show even existing.

“Liking the artist” means nothing on a musical level for top-tier k-pop performers when:

• they all sound the same vocally (pretty much) so there’s no sonic difference that you can associate with that specific idol
• any song can be written by any songwriter or songwriting team so there’s no compositional difference that you can associate with that specific idol
• all songs at the higher tiers get the same top-shelf engineering so there’s no production difference that you can associate with that specific idol
• the idol has no say in any of the above – at all – so there’s no artistic difference that you can associate with that specific idol

So that just leave the visual and conceptual differences.  Sometimes even they can be slight, but even at their slightest, they’re more pronounced than anything else about the package.  Obviously as we go down the chain towards more independent artists the above doesn’t apply as much, and in those case yes it does make more sense to “like the artist” and less sense to do an “artist swap” inside your own head.

People keep sending you Jpop songs despite your vehement dislike of the genre. Have you ever liked or had a slightly positive opinion of a Jpop song?

The first sentence showed promise that you might have been building to an interesting question that I hadn’t answered 2642357635+e14 times before but then you ruined it with the second sentence.  The answer is… I’m not jpopalypse.

As a jeongyeon fan, what is your favorite look of hers? And do you prefer long haired or short haired jeongyeon?

I don’t have one specific appearance that I like more than the rest, but – short hair.  Jeongyeon on stage kind of has a Deborah Harry vibe, and she looks best when the stylists move her in that direction with a look that has a bit of toughness to it but also isn’t completely form-killing.  Here from 1:53 is a good example.

Is there any reason for kpop artists to care about vocal ability? It seems that some fans “care” about it, but these fans certainly don’t care nearly enough to make a difference. Shannon Williams could attest to that; she’d be 10,000x more popular if people actually cared about vocal skills. It also doesn’t help in singing competition shows since the judges and audience are equally ignorant in what actually good vocal skills are. You recently mentioned that only someone like Ailee could actually sing entire kpop songs without severely damaging her vocal cords because they’re pitched at the absolute limits of most people’s range. Is the only use to save themselves during concerts where they cannot lipsync?

Sorry if I come across as a vocalfag. I really cannot imagine why a company would invest in vocal skills when it’s clear from the sales numbers that it’s far more useful to invest in aesthetics and social skills. To me, vocal skills are something to brag about once one already has the image and fan base necessary to make it big. They’re the cherry on top that only matter to the asinine fans to drag other kpop artists in the mud.

You kind of answered all your own questions correctly all throughout this which is great because doing QRIMOLE takes a long time and you saved me some typing.

Hi Kpopalypse, this is a mere suggestion as a fun little game to play in line with the existing kpop prediction threads that pop up every new year, I don’t really expect a reply or anything to this in the qrimolethingy, unless you feel like it. How about making a kpop bingo chart for the readers in which you mention various predictions (ex: Idol X gets into a bully scandal, label X and label Y merge, group X disbands unexpectedly), let the readers mark which predictions they think will come true (each giving 1 point per correct guess), give at the end of each row a more risky prediction that will triple the amount of points received only if the prediction actually happens AND if the reader marked that they believed it was going to happen. Then, after a year, score the bingo charts and release a ranking of the readers of who got the most predictions right. (and maybe allow the reader to submit one bonus prediction themselves and give an special shoutout for most ridiculous prediction that turned out to be correct, although that’s probably a truckload of effort). I hope that you also like the idea as much as I do, but it’s ok if not. In any case, thanks for taking it into consideration!

This is a cool idea for some fun but it’s also way more effort than I’m prepared to put into some events that I probably don’t give that much of a fuck about, so I’m just putting this here so maybe someone else could pick this one up if they wanted.

Hey~~ Kpopalypseyy oppaar ❤ I got a few questions that need some answers plz ;3 sexyboi

1. Do (((they))) have much influence over kpop directly, or is korea blindly following suicidal, degenerative Western trends for shits, giggles, Wojcicki noona’s money like the catamites they are and will always be? ~*~~# :O oopsie I pooted oppa

2. Any thoughts on sissy hypno porn addled retard troon chris chan raping his senile mother? oetteokhe neomu choahaeyo oppa like chris lubs his mommy ❤ <3<3<3

3. I was watching jordan peterson sunbaenim interviewing yeonmi park. And she said she would have to collect feces for money or whatever. How many lumpy dumps of feces does it take to screw the lightbulb of my heart? you smarty pants XD 🙂 :-*

1. Questions in English, please
2. The only thing creepier than Chris Chan is the 4chan incel loser-at-life tribe’s obsession with Chris Chan
3. 623

I think this is the world’s most ridiculous noob question, but what is that squeaky/scratchy noise that all artists seem to do with their acoustic guitars? I don’t know why but I can never listen to much acoustic guitar stuff because that sound literally hurts my ears, and I don’t understand why it’s always done.

It’s the strings squeaking as they rub across the player’s fingers.  It’s a natural characteristic of any guitar playing but is usually more pronounced with acoustic guitars than electric.  There are ways to increase or decrease the amount of string-squeak which is audible on a recording, but it’s extremely rare that people try to remove it entirely, because it’s considered part of the “natural sound” of playing the instrument and removing it altogether tends to make recordings sound robotic and lifeless (like those early Juniel recordings where they just gate the whole fucking guitar).

Any favourites from Korea in the olympics? I didn’t look at the team but some of the men from the high jump were sooooo attractive. Also, how’s your home country doing on the olympics? My country, Canada, has actually got a couple medals so far.

I do not do the sport ball shape.

Hello KP-sunbaenim!! I’ve been working on writing songs recently using a bare-bones but functional DAW, and I’ve had a lot of fun working on them in my spare time, even if most of them are only currently composed of one cool synth riff with a few chords thrown underneath. What I’ve been having trouble with recently is coming up with ‘original’ material. Most all of the partial songs I have just sound like other kpop songs, not to the point of being soundalikes like In for the Kill and Like the First Time are, but they’re all very derivative. Of course, kpop as a genre is very derivative, but I want to start making songs that don’t just copy the basic template of an existing one (ex. Love Bomb’s template being a pop song with abrasive instrumental and driving sub-bass, one I have used in the past). Do you have any idea how I can find inspiration for writing less derivative music? Thank you, and sorry if this was too vague of a question.

I wouldn’t worry about it.  Almost all pop songs are highly derivative.  I don’t see any massive amounts of innovation coming from anywhere else in particular in pop music, so I don’t see why you need to have any.  Just get really good at copying things and changing them a bit, as you get better at that you’ll eventually start to increase your confidence to change more things.  That’s how most people learn.

Good morning Kpopalypse oppar! Hope you’re doing well! I’ve been listening to a little bit of kpop recently, and I noticed a very strange trend. I am utterly bewildered by why this is happening. Perhaps you could fish out some sort of semblance of an answer for my lost soul?

I won’t link these in fear of doubling the page length of this Qrimole with embeds, but here’s a list of tracks, in no particular order:

Everglow – Adios
Red Velvet – Red Flavor
Loona – Paint the Town
Blackpink – Kill this Love
Secret Number – Got That Boom
Big Bang – Bang Bang Bang
Somi – What You Waiting For (Teddy does this a lot so I’m just gonna stop listing his songs)
fromis_9 – Fun
Loona – Why Not
Taeyeon – I Got Love

You’ve written about many of these songs, so I’m sure you’ve already got a rough idea of where this is going. Some of these songs I like more than others, but they all roughly have the same structure.

To me, these songs all feel somewhat… unfinished? Some of them are just *alright* for most of the run time (Got That Boom), usually disappointing (Paint the Town), or at worst, grating (Fun). Generally these songs are going for some sort of EDM-styled drop in the chorus, which falls flat and ruins the momentum from the pre-chorus.

Now, if the songs ended there, I wouldn’t care. Just another boring or bad song that never should have made it out the producers’ rough drafts. That’d be that, and I’d move on with my life. However, they don’t just end there. All of these songs have anything from a small section changed at the end, to an entire chorus which is almost completely different from the rest of the song. The thing that confuses me is: most of it is actually very good?

If this was just one or two tracks, I’d pass it off as the songwriter accidentally jury rigging a good sound together in an effort to make a climactic ending. Which, no doubt, some of these probably are. There’s just so many songs like this, it’s honestly hard to ignore. These were just the 10 songs I could think of off the top of my head, I’m sure there would be way more if I actually searched for them!

Is this some sort of secret plot by songwriters and corporations to minimize the total amount of work needed to write a complete song? I mean, surely if these songs sounded like this from the start, you’d need to put together an even bigger chorus for the end, no? But that can’t be right! ITZY’s Mafia sounds like the rest of these songs, but the chorus is completely unchanged all 3 times it comes on. You don’t even get any compensation for sitting through that shit like you do for the rest of these songs!

I am simply perplexed by the existence of these songs. Red Flavor is such a “whatever” song. I hate the sound of every member singing in unison in the chorus, and it happens in every fucking SM song. The vocal sample is ugly and distracting. The verses just sound like they’re there to fill for time.

For whatever reason, I found myself watching a video of Red Velvet performing this song live, at a concert. Even after all I said about this song, and how unpleasant it makes me feel, I started… crying? Listening to that song felt like a terrible day at work. Coming home, tired and unhappy. Then the bridge plays. It’s as if someone close to you asked you if you’re doing okay. You respond honestly, “no, I’m not doing okay”. Cue Wendy’s high note. Red Flavor is the musical equivalent to hearing shitty holiday music all goddamn day, then finally coming home to nice headphones and listening to whatever the hell I want.

I just want to understand the method behind the madness. Is the emotional dissonance part of the charm? Why is kpop like this?

This might sound odd, but everybody who writes songs is actually trying very hard to make every part of every song they release completely awesome.  It’s just really hard to actually do that, so a lot of the time the songs suck, rarely they are great, and often they’re somewhere in between at different points.  Songs also aren’t often uniformly good or bad – every now and again you get songs where they really nailed down one section of the song but then messed up another part.  Despite all those parody “here’s how to write a song like x in ten easy steps herp derp” videos, the fact is that writing a pop song is incredibly difficult.  Sure, anybody can follow a template, but making the results something that people really want to listen to (before outside cultural factors come into play, like who is performing it and how popular they already are, etc) is hard.

The structural quirk where the song basically goes verse-chorus-verse-chorus-break-jumptheshark is very much a Teddy thing but it’s also done by other songwriters (like SMs) from time to time.  It’s just a different way of structuring a pop song, sometimes it works better than other times just depending on the quality of the parts and how they fit together.  Also keep in mind k-pop often seems unfinished because on average songs are much shorter than pop in other countries. 

I was just recently diagnosed with dyslexia (as a young adult) and I don’t know how to feel about it. I always just thought I was dumb or incredibly careless when reading/doing math. A lot of people can’t tell because a) autocorrect exists and b) I can still read, just super slowly. Is it weird that I kind of want to keep this under wraps? I told my mom and she was super excited, saying that now I’m unique and “different” and she’s so relieved that it explained all my bad test scores in secondary school. I just kind of want it to fade away into the background.

Better to know than not know.  If you’re aware that you have an issue you can work around it and work with it.

I know you can’t stand J-pop, but

That’s enough of that question let’s move on

Hi hyung,

I’ve been very interested in music theory for several years, but one think I can’t ever get a grasp of is harmony (I guess specifically functional harmony). Whenever I try to write piano arrangements of songs (specifically with video game music), I can usually get the melody down with enough time, but trying to nail down the harmony of a piece by ear feels like an uphill battle. So I figured if I could understand how chords and such generally function in a piece, I could at least have some footing with transcribing music since I could guess what the next logical chord in the progression could be.

My question to you is: Do you have any advice or recommended resources on learning functional harmony?

Yes, when I post about it in the music theory series (soon).

I came across this video by a band that consists of two bassists and a drummer, and they only do instrumental songs that are usually over 5 minutes long. I admit, they have more talent in their left pinky than I do in my body, but I just ended up really bored by the 2nd or 3rd minute which made me feel kind of bad. Similar to your post I read about jazz, at a certain point I felt it was less about creating an enjoyable experience for the listener and more about showing off how good at bass these guys are. It makes me realize that skill doesn’t necessarily translate into entertainment value for me. I thought about your posts about vocal or jazz wanking. I know it must take at least some skill to create good music, but at what point does virtuosity have diminishing returns? Obviously, everyone’s preferences are different, but for you, what are some indicators that an artist or song is less about creating music worth listening to and more about flexing their skills? Do you sometimes get bored even listening to very skilled musicians?

Just like good vocals don’t make a k-pop song worth listening to, skilled vocalists or musicians in any other field don’t make any other type of song worth listening to either.  I can certainly appreciate good playing for its own sake but that’s a very different thing to actually liking the piece of music.  I agree that I find the above piece boring, they play very well but it’s not an engaging piece of music to listen to, by about two minutes in I had lost interest.  Not sure if I would put it like “diminishing returns”, that feels like the wrong type of concept to use, because virtuoso playing can sometimes really fit well with a song.  I think the point is the technique should serve the needs of the song, the song shouldn’t just be a vehicle for the technique.  If the song really needs virtuosity then fine, but if it doesn’t then don’t do it.

My cat is having multiple ongoing flea infestations. He’s losing fur around his mouth because of flea poop there apparently. I took him to the vet three weeks back and they gave a spot on treatment. It doesn’t seem to have worked I don’t know what to do. He is losing copious amounts of fur and scratching himself a lot. Since you have a cat I thought you’d have some kind of advice. Send my love to him, thanks!

I’ve never had a cat with fleas, probably because my cats stay indoor, so I have no experience in this area and don’t really know how to advise you here.  I am not a vet!  I would suggest get a pro to look at this, and maybe also think about what the source of the fleas might be and eliminate that.

3 questions:
1.T-ara’s Tiic Tic Toc, the post chorus(i think) starts at 1:08 and then i dont know if im tripping but does the beat “double” in a way at 1:15?
2.Is Red Velvet’s Peek A Boo considered tropical house?
3.In f(x)’s Butterfly at 1:50 what the fuck is that sound in the back like its shouting “WHAT”?

1. There’s a subtle change with the hi-hats but that’s about all
2. No, not the right rhythm
3. No idea to be honest, probably just some weird-ass noise from a keyboard!  Modern keyboard workstations are amazing and can make all sorts of sounds you’ve never heard before that don’t really have any category.  I use one to make the sound effects in my computer games for instance.

Oppar, I know that you say that High School Is For Obedience And Not Critical Thinking like a broken record, but what the hell am I supposed to do about that? Should I just focus on some other subjects that I think are important, like philosophy or whatever, and focus on building some cool habits instead of the average high school dying bullshit they try to push down your throat? Arrrrrrrrrghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Just do what you have to do in high school – check the boxes, get the grades, pass it, get into college if you want, or don’t, whatever.  But it’s not about the subjects you pick, it’s about the school system in general being very much about control.  So by all means do well in school if you can, but get your actual “life teaching” and “life meaning” elsewhere.  If you want to know how to do something, then learn how to do it, don’t wait for school to show you the way.

i found this meme on reddit (it’s in four parts though, in the four different links i’ve sent here) which is about the Lucas situation. It reminded me of you (idk what exactly though, your positive posts, or your fanfictions???), so I’m sending them here lol. Hopefully you laugh as much as I did…

It started off okay but the humour got weaker as it went.  This isn’t really my type of humour, I guess the common thread is taking k-pop not too seriously, I guess the closest thing I do to it would be something like this, but the writer’s jokes just end up being too random to enjoy.  Sorry, it’s a miss for me.

Hi oppar! I have an online friend who lives in another country. He has confessed to having feelings for me in the past, but I rejected him for various reasons, number one being that I don’t want a long distance relationship. However, my responses have almost always been wishy-washy, not because I was lying (some of the reasons were true at the time but not necessarily anymore, or they were about things I was unsure about), but because I was afraid of giving him a resolute “no” – because I do have feelings, but I’m worried they may just be infatuation due to feeling lonely. Also, I’m pretty sure I’m afraid of commitment, for reasons I will explain below.
My parents are pretty overprotective, and they didn’t react too well to finding out I have online friends in the past. Granted, it was quite a few years ago and they’ve been relaxing now that I’m older, but I’m still worried. Plus, it would seem like an awkward situation I feel responsible for, and that makes me stressed. I also haven’t had good experiences with crushes in the past, and pretty much have never been in a relationship. All these things make me reluctant to accept feelings for someone.
Despite this, he has accepted my reasons and just treats me as a friend now. Anyways, he wants to come over to visit sometime, and I’m even more worried now – besides all of the things above, being a “host” makes me anxious, and I’m afraid I might fall in love with him for real and be inevitably heartbroken when he has to leave. One time he wondered if, had it not been for the distance, we could have been together, and I still refused with a nebulous answer, but deep down I just didn’t want him to be hung up on the possibility, because I was afraid of considering it seriously (and also because of the long distance thing – I know I’d never be truly happy like that, no matter my feelings).
I feel like I’ve been disrespectful towards him with my overall evading of the subject, but it’s been a while since we’ve last touched it and I really don’t want to do that, plus he seems to have accepted that we’re just friends. I want to just forget about my feelings but I’m having a hard time, and moving on also makes me feel like I’m being unfair towards him. I just don’t know what to do. What do you think?
Sorry if this sounds incoherent, I have conflicting feelings and it was hard to put my thoughts into words.

I think you should embrace being a “host” and having him over.  The reason why is you’re feeling mixed up right now and the experience will probably put your feelings into context more.  Sometimes things get twisted up when you think about them a lot in isolation, but then when you do something practical the path seems clearer.  I think meeting him will give you some clarity – maybe you will fall in love, or maybe you won’t, both of these are good outcomes precisely because they are outcomes.  Then maybe if appropriate and if all goes well enough you can have a very honest and open discussion about things and what you both want to do, or not do, together.  You’ll feel less like you’re being unfair if you open up and have a real conversation without holding anything back that really should be out there.

i’ve been retrospective on myself recently and realized i’ve developed some degree of trust issues with my friends and peers the same age as me. i’ve been super gullible since elementary, prolly cause i had no friends then and anyone appearing helpful or kind to me i would place on a big pedestal and take them at their word for anything (this desperation carries on today to an extent), but now super minor things make me unreasonably mad. what recently sparked this was when an acquaintance i was playing online with played the old alt-f4 trick on me when i asked how to go to third person in a game we were playin, and while i suppose shame on me for falling for such a fooking retarded trick, i’m still feelin really vulnerable right now, even after i mugged the fucker (in-game) while he was vulnerable. i wanted to know if you had any advice on how i can behave movin forwards about trust and shit, or how i might let bygones be bygones and get a fuckin grip on meself.

danke schoen kpopalypse, loved youer stuff ever since i found this blog lookin for a review of “shake that brass” of all things, and hope this blog can continue to mrs

Not trusting people is just fucking smart, honestly.  The fact that you’re even thinking about this at all shows that you’ve learned a lot.  Be proud, not ashamed.

My “Shake That Brass” review, that’s one hell of an initiation.  Thanks for continuing to read!

How on earth do you deal with Australian spiders? I’m scared shitless of the ones in my country, and they’re a) tiny and b) harmless. I’m not even good at killing them, they always manage to run away from me. Australia seems cool but honestly I feel like I’d need someone to defend me against those spiders at all times if I went there.

Depends on the spider. 

In Australia, any spider that is very large is usually pretty friendly.  The “scary spider” videos that you see online are usually the Hunstman, which are not aggressive to humans and they even catch and kill other spiders and pests.

As you can see, pretty harmless really.  It’s the smaller darker coloured spiders that are the most dangerous, like these:

Anything small and black, squish it immediately if it poses a threat or enters your house, but don’t go into their habitat or provoke them unnecessarily because that’s a fight you will lose.  Any other type of spider, you can either leave them in your house, or you can trap them under glass and then just throw them into your garden.  Or someone else’s garden…

1 – Oppar I’m some random ass teenager and I don’t know what the fuck am I reading your blog so very often, but can you give me some trufaxual streetwise tips for life as a teenager in general? Thanks

2 – How can a cunty teenager appear to be more polite? I really don’t want to be *that* guy who’s a douchebag (or at least appears to be so), but apparently I come off as very timid and that generally hates people and life like IU, but I don’t actually feel that way. I remember when my mom told me her boyfriend thought I hated him and people find me very serious (although I am very much the opposite around my friends, I’m probably one of the most airheaded people you’ll meet), and it just… kind of got me offguard. I don’t know how to be really very friendly cause I’m a very introverted and kind of antisocial fuck, maybe I’m just a weird teenager like about everyone else, but can you tell me one thing or two about actually looking friendly and moderately approachable? Sorry if this question is hard to understand, I’m not that great at english at all since I’m not a native speaker, but I hope you can understand it!

3 – You spent all your high school time invested in music, right? How did that work out to you back then? This may be too much of a personal question so feel free to delete it, but didn’t you ever feel extremely frustrated or whatever? It just sounded kind of dangerous to me, after all, did you put all your self-worth onto music, or did you kind of have a separation there (I’m good at music, but that’s not all there is to me)? I know some developers and some students that have put ALL their worth into a certain game/art/studies/whatever, and it would always get them fucked up, although they were very passionate and dedicated, they’d be hurt way more than most people when they got things wrong, or when it didn’t go well for them. I guess you can be very dedicated and very passionate about something, but how much passion and dedication can you put into something before it becomes THE thing that your life and all your worth revolves around?

4 – And also, how did you know that music was for sure the job that you wanted to pursue? Weren’t you scared that you were going to make any money, or is music actually kind of a decent place to find jobs (obviously if you ignore that the music industry sucks absolute ass)? I find myself being passionate about art, but I don’t know shit about the art industry and how it goes around, neither if I’d be absolutely satisfied by pursuing it as a job, I could always pursue it as a side hobby and maybe (if I got huge or some reason) transition to having art as a job, but then, I don’t wanna taint my passion in life with nasty job deadlines… argh, how did you deal with this, oppar? Didn’t it feel restricting or whatever to have to put your passion in life under deadlines and have your financial life literally depend on it? I know that everyone says “do what you love”, but wouldn’t it be risky from a financial point of view to do that? Surely that quote is inspiring and all, but I don’t wanna live on life support and then hate the thing I loved to do because my rent depends on it, and end up losing that… yknow, spark.

5 – (Obligatory Jpop question to annoy Kpopalypse) What’s wrong with j-pop/j-rock melodies? They feel so predictable and weirdly samey all the time even when they’re not trying to, and it’s just so weird to me… mainly if you compare it to K-pop when the melodies are normally pretty different and singular (at least to me)?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7VZxg9pxkg Here’s one example that I find very samey, same with most vocaloid songs that I came to hate because they all have that annoying clearly-trying-to-appeal-uncle-fans robotic voices that make me want to punch their faces, and it always feels weird cause it feels like I’m listening to the same song over and over again but with a few melodic tweaks and harmony changes (but always with the same fucking instruments holy shit do they only have that ONE SINGULAR type of GUITAR NOISE THING IN JAPAN? I dont even know if its a guitar but whatever)
This might just get deleted by you so here’s fromis_9’s love bomb instead if you want to put it instead of the j-whatever thing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SK6cvkK4c0

6 – Talking about fromis_9’s love bomb, do you know any good songs that are similar to it? It’s really annoying but I love the instrumental so much to the point I can stand the lo-lo-love bomb chorus over and over again, and it’s probably one of the best songs in general (to me at least), that’s how much I like the song. Pretty sad that they didn’t let the instrumental shine not even for a bit.

7 – Do you know anything about habits or whatever? If I start drawing for like 15 mins or some other amount of time that may not be a lot but is very easily doable everyday, will I “form a habit”? I’ve heard that habit-forming is a skill like any other, but I don’t know for sure, so I might just ask to some old cunt on the internet about it. Note that this is not a negative thing because I wish I had half the knowledge about life that you do, but hey, at least I can ask you shit! Do you know any extra tips to form a habit if you do know some stuff about it?

8 – I have been mercilessly manipulated both by Kpopalypse and K-pop to be a faithful instrumental enjoyer, so I’ve been thinking about making shitty ass music on some DAW, do you have any tips? Should I try to understand music theory or just do my thing and figure that shit out later? Reading your music theory posts require too much brain power from me!
Can you mention the “essential” building blocks

9 – How does one deal with their feelings? No idea if you can actually reply to this or not, but you did mention that you were able to manage your emotions better, so I thought that you could know a thing or two about processing them properly and stuff! I also saw that meditation and art were great stuff for that too, so I’ve been drawing and meditating. Also reading!
Sorry for the long post, maybe this will make things a little bit interesting, or maybe this’ll be shoved into a future qrimole, either way, have a nice day oppar! And your cat too. Make sure to pet it for me

1. Being a teenager sucks massively, but the one good thing about it is you have lots of time that you may not have later on.  Use that time wisely to explore and get good at something you love.  You will reap the rewards later in life.
2. I’m pretty introverted and antisocial too, but I can be friendly when I have to be.  I don’t know if I really look friendly but I can certainly be nice to people.  It’s less energy to be nice than to be a dick I guess.  It’ll never be in my comfort zone to do the social graces that come easier to others but I can grin and swallow it if I have to!
3. Music worked out great for me because I was trained at it from a super-young age and honestly it just came easy, I never struggled with it.  Also because music isn’t really competitive but more creative, there isn’t that pressure to “be the best” anyway.  I mean yeah you do want to pass you school grades or whatever, but I just found a lot of creative freedom with music.
4. I actually went from school into admin jobs and did my music on the side at first, before then branching out into tertiary study etc, also having a “straight job” gave me the startup money to get recording equipment and start a label up.  I still do “straight jobs” along with music touring, teaching, contracted shows etc and I see nothing wrong with it, music industry income is great when you can get it but it’s sketchy and things don’t always go according to plan.  I do the things that I have to do, so I can do the things that I want to do.  Also there’s a really interesting crossover between the skills needed to work in a band and the skills needed to work in a workplace team.
5. Skipping this one
6. Similar how?  This question needs more specificity.
7. Don’t overthink things like this – “habit” is just a classification, it’s judgemental and not necessary.  Picking your toenails is a “habit”.  Drawing is a “hobby” or a “leisure activity” or maybe it’s “creativity” or maybe even “work” depending, certainly not a “habit”.
8. The building block you need is to just do it.  Yes your first song will suck – so make another, and another.  Keep going.
9. You kind of answered your own question here.  Creativity allows a safe outlet for feelings so you don’t do something silly like punch some cunt.

Hello oppar. I know you don’t like it when people vent in Qrimole/CC instead of asking proper questions, but this is something serious that I need to let out.

I’ve always been aware of not being particularly smart: I often find myself with my head up in the clouds, trust people too easily, forget things, have trouble staying focused, and do other dumb shit; however, I feel like I reached my lowest yesterday.
I went to a birthday party and, since we ate a lot, I suffered from an indigestion and had to throw up; however, since my brain is practically nonexistent, I didn’t empty my stomach in the WC, but rather in the sink, thus clogging it and forcing my brother to call a plumber (it happened at his place).
And that’s not all – before leaving for the birthday party, I asked my cousin to take care of my cat, but I forgot to throw some soon-to-get-moldy figs and, as a result, the fig juice melt with the paint of the basket that contained them and created a toxic liquid that my cousin had to wash away. (To be fair, my cousin is a bit exaggerated when it comes to illnesses and dirt, but I still feel guilty for having her take care of it)

This made me think how my entire family consists of people who graduated with excellent scores and/or managed to find a respectable occupation, while I’m here:
* not understanding the difference between vomiting in a toilet cubicle and in a sink,
* forgetting to throw rotten fruit and nearly killing my cat in the process
* having the life outlook of a unicorn and constantly getting disappointed in people/things even though I should have seen it coming miles away
* using my mother as a free therapist (I told her some of what I wrote here just today)
* having zero, and I do mean ZERO conversation topics and social skills
* having achieved absolutely no good in real life (my grades are above average but I’m sure I just get them out of pity, especially the driving license, like WTF???)
* and having brought nothing useful to the people around me.

Basically, I’m a parasite – I bring nothing but damage. I never realise when my friends need help (or I do but I never make the right decisions), I can’t realise when a situation is serious either, I often forget details about tmy acquaintances (e.g. name, birth date, occupation/studying field), I get anxious for the dumbest shit and confide on other people expecting empathy while not being able to handle their own bad moments (though I do my best to listen and give advice), and so on. I’m sure there are dozens of other examples but I think these will suffice.

In other words, I don’t deserve to live.
I always think of all those poor people who cannot enjoy a comfy house and tasty meals while I’m here getting showered with unconditional love and favours from my parents and friends despite deserving absolutely nothing. I just don’t get how they can put up with my existence – any rational human being would kick me out of home and let me starve under a bridge.
I also think of similar people who might be brighter than me but cannot access school/uni while I’m here taking up space and robbing them of their dreams and workplaces, which will not be used at their best because I have no intellect whatsoever and I’ll end up causing the new Chernobyl at this rate.

I know this is just a pointless ramble and there’s nothing you can do, but I just wanted to jot this down because I’ve been thinking this for ages, albeit without realising how serious things could get. I seriously wish I didn’t exist. The world would be a better place without me.

You are correct – I do not like it when people do this.  Firstly, Kpopalypse readers are not allowed to kill themselves, that’s the rules.  You lose all your caonima points if you do this.  I know what you’re thinking: “what about Sulli and Goo Hara?  They still have theirs!” – well they weren’t Kpopalypse readers.  You are, so you have no excuse.

Secondly, you are again right that you shouldn’t be venting here.  There will be a suicide hotline in your area with people who are trained to speak to you about these things, you should talk to them, they can give you immediate advice which is probably useful, rather than having to wait a month for some asshole blogger with zero crisis training who probably won’t tell you the right thing anyway.  That doesn’t mean that I don’t care though, it just means that I may not be able to say anything useful.

I guess just know that your predicament is common, I mean stuff like: “head up in the clouds, trust people too easily, forget things, have trouble staying focused, and do other dumb shit” – do you think it’s not like that for any of us?!?  “Forget details about my acquaintances” – fuuuuck, you’re being pretty hard on yourself here for no reason over some pretty common shit.  I know three people’s birthdates, my own, my girlfriend, my brother.  Getting grades out of pity?  Holy shit if you’ve cracked that secret tell us all how that works so all my readers can also pass their courses… but I promise you haven’t cracked that secret, trust me it doesn’t work like that.  Of course none of this is news to you really.  You knew all of this anyway.  The fact that you knew all of this anyway proves that you’re a lot more socially perceptive and intelligent than you’re giving yourself credit for.  So why not stop giving yourself such a hard time.  Other motherfuckers are not perfect and deep down they have the same self-doubt that you have in some greater or lesser form, we all struggle with it, but don’t let it beat you.  This might help, it gave me some strength when I was younger and struggling with some of the same issues:

Live long and strong.

 

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That’s all for this month’s QRIMOLE!  This series will return next month!  In the meantime remember to stan Gfriend!

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!