If you’re looking to ask Kpopalypse questions, this post has all the trufax!

Do you have questions for Kpopalypse? You are probably not alone!  I understand that my content is different to much of the other k-pop content out there on the Internet, so I’ve always tried to give my readers maximum opportunity to ask questions to increase their understanding of what this site is about, and also just to help my readers in general, because I appreciate and care very much about each and every person who reads my writing (yes, really).

Be aware firstly that your question may already have an answer:

• The Kpopalypse FAQ is the best introduction for new readers, CLICK HERE for this.
• The Kpopalypse Lexicon explains a lot of the strange terms, memes, and in-jokes which are specific to this site, CLICK HERE to read.
• If you have a question about Kpopalypse roundup, the weekly song-review series, CLICK HERE for the roundup FAQ.
• Some other common questions and answers are below, scroll down further for these.

Here are the current best options for asking Kpopalypse questions:

• Kpopalypse has a weekly livestream.  You can ask questions either before the stream starts, using the stream webform, or you can ask questions during the stream in the live chat.  CLICK HERE to be directed to the streaming information page which contains all the information about when the streams go live.  Almost all questions are answered.
• Kpopalypse has a monthly question-and-answer series called QRIMOLE.  CLICK HERE to be taken to the QRIMOLE question box where you can ask a question completely anonymously, or CLICK HERE to read previous episodes of this series.  This is most suitable for long-form questions, where you don’t mind waiting for the month to tick over to receive an answer.  While I can’t guarantee a response, most questions are answered.  There are no limits to the type of questions you can ask, questions are usually only ignored if they are very low-effort, obvious trolling, or just general venting/ranting without a specific question in mind.
• Kpopalypse has a less frequent podcast series with AustralianSana, where readers can ask questions of either of us.  CLICK HERE to ask a question, or CLICK HERE to listen to previous podcasts.  AustralianSana tends to do the bulk of the answering in this series, and I’m often happy to just let her do that, so you may wish to specify if a question is for her, me or us both.  We answer as many questions as we can, but can’t make any promises due to the sheer volume of questions we receive.  Please be mindful that it’s an audio-only podcast and we have to be mindful of copyright – don’t send questions that rely on us watching visual content, listening to a song we haven’t heard, or other things that obviously don’t make sense in this type of format.
• If you would like to ask stuff privately, Kpopalypse’s Twitter DMs are usually open.  CLICK HERE for Kpopalypse on Twitter.
• Another option for private questions and also the preferred channel for business enquiries, interview requests, sneaky caonima tipoffs etc is Kpopalypse’s email address, CLICK HERE for the information.
• If you want to ask quick anonymous public questions and get a quick (and probably lazy) answer, you can use Retrospring, CLICK HERE for this.  It works very similar to ask.fm and Curious Cat, but is better than both because there’s no bots and no censorship, from what I can tell.

Places where it is not ideal to ask questions:

• Ask.fm – I no longer use this. Your question will be ignored.
• Curious Cat – I no longer use this. Your question will be ignored.
• Tellonym – I have an official account but I do not check it.  Your question will be ignored.
• Facebook – I still have a Facebook which survives from radio show days but I literally never use it, ever. Your question will be ignored.
• Patreon DMs – You can ask questions if you like and I’ll answer when I see them but I don’t check this very often. Twitter DM or email will always get a quicker response.
• Instagram – The Kpopalypse Instagram is still in use but I don’t check it except when I put a new picture up, so best not to use this, Twitter DM or email will always get a quicker response.

---

KPOPALYPSE’S COLLECTION OF THE MOST COMMON QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

(updated 29/11/2022)

Why did you quit Ask.fm/Curious Cat/Tellonym etc?

I was active on Ask.fm for years, it was a useful place to direct people who had questions for me but who wanted to remain anonymous, over time I became one of the most active users on the site in my country and I enjoyed using the site. That was, until Ask.fm decided to introduce a cryptocurrency, where users would be rewarded for questions answered. Ask.fm claimed that they did this to increase the quality of their questions, but this change actually had the opposite effect – people started writing Ask.fm robots that would spam-ask boring, generic low-quality questions just to farm the cryptocurrency. Clearly, whoever made this decision was an idiot. I started being bombarded by so many bots that it was impossible to determine which questions were from my readers and which were just bot-generated crypto spam. Trying to plow through the endless array of questions (literally hundreds per day) to determine legitimacy quickly became too much of a time-sink, so I stopped using my account.

I then moved over to Curious Cat, which also had bots but gave the option to block bot questions, which was nice. I kept doing question-answer on that site for a while until their website was shut down for unknown reasons. I also made a Tellonym account just to check what that site was like, but it also is infested with bots that spam low-quality questions that aren’t relevant to my readership, and that can’t be blocked or switched off.

Seriously, I don’t have time for wading through this shit. I’ve now moved over to Retrospring, which is open-source and seems to be better than the other options, as it’s not profit based there doesn’t seem to be any fake engagement-driving. Here’s hoping it stays that way! CLICK HERE for the Retrospring form which, works very similar to ask.fm/Curious Cat, and seems to function better because I haven’t detected any censorship or filtering yet so you can ask those problematic questions that you’ve always wanted to ask.

Why did you quit the Kpopalypse radio show?

Answered here.

What are your favourite k-pop groups?

When it comes to k-pop I’m really more into songs than groups, because the groups generally don’t write the songs.  You could go through my favourites lists for each year to determine on average what groups have the best hit/miss ratios, but that’s more luck/coincidence than anything else.  The groups can’t really take the credit for that.

Girl groups with the best hit/miss ratios, in no specific order: T-ara, Orange Caramel, Crayon Pop, f(x) (before Sulli’s departure), (pre-debut) Loona, Gfriend, Dreamcatcher.

Boy groups with the best hit/miss ratios: (golden age era) BigBang, (early) 100%, SPEED, Infinite, History, Stray Kids.

What about in terms of prettiness of the members?

I used to track this in the bias compendium, but I stopped updating that as it became too much hassle to keep track of and it’s really hard for me to give a shit about new groups these days.  A group has to exist for a few years before I can even tell who is who, let alone start forming any preferences.

Who is your bias in [girl group that has recently debuted]?  What do you think of the attractiveness of [person X in a recently debuted girl group]?

As per above, I pretty much never have biases in new groups simply because it takes a very long time for me to get familiar with individual members. Also the members often look better to me as they age. There’s no point in asking this question.

What about male biases?

Flip a coin.  Heads = Wonho.  Tails = Shindong.

What about the voices? Who’s your favourite vocalist? Do you like [singer x]’s voice?

No vocalfagging questions, thank you. I don’t care about voice quality.

What’s vocalfagging?  Is that an anti-gay slur?

No. See the Kpopalypse Lexicon for this and any other definitions of any confusing terms used by Kpopalypse.

What’s this k-pop “Golden Age”?  When is it, and why is it a Golden Age?

2008-2011.  More info here.

What is your favourite k-pop song?

This city’s small as shit!

What is your least favourite k-pop song?

So far I haven’t found any k-pop song worse than the #1 in this list.

Do you like J-pop?

No. It’s all hideously twee nonsense aimed squarely at the raincoat market.

What… none of it?

Okay, here’s one good j-pop song.  That’s it.  Everything else sucks donkey dicks.

Worth nothing that Japan is often quite good at all sorts of other genres… just not pop music. Generally speaking the weirder, heavier, or more out-there the music style is, the better Japanese artists are at doing it… however Japan needs to stay as far the fuck away from commercial pop and rock music as humanly possible.

I do occasionally still listen to new j-pop and keep tabs on it just in case it stops sucking one day.  Hasn’t happened yet, I don’t hold out much hope.  In the meantime don’t link me any.

Note that k-pop agency artists entering the j-pop market, even if they’re singing in Japanese and even if they’re Japanese performers, I consider that stuff k-pop, not j-pop, because it’s being driven by the k-pop industry with a k-pop team behind everything, and as a result the quality is sometimes (but not always) a bit better.

Do you like Visual Kei?

I like X Japan. I also really like some other groups that are obviously musically inspired by X Japan. There’s one or two other Visual Kei artists that have an isolated good song or two. The rest is mostly nu-metal crap.

Do you like One OK Rock?

No. Boy do they suck! Japan’s Nickelback.

Do you like Babymetal?

I like the concept but I’m less keen on the actual music. Exception – I though “Iine!” was cool.

Do you like anime? What are some of your favourite animes?

There’s two types of anime that are worth bothering with:

• Miyazaki/Studio Ghibi stuff, which is generally acceptable
• Hentai (porn)

Everything else is rubbish. Anime always has the laziest-possible animation quality with every corner cut that can possibly be cut, universally horrible and always creepily misogynist characterisation and portrayal of any female characters, stupid plots that make no sense and always with lame “esoteric” endings, and poor writing all round. And yes I have seen all the supposed “classics” of the genre like Akira, Ghost In The Shell, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Perfect Blue, and many others… all absolute shit so don’t recommend me any more of it as I’ve wasted enough of my life watching the garbage and won’t waste any more. Miyazaki gets over the line because they actually put some effort into animating it, and sometimes the stories are sensible. Hentai also gets over the line because unlike regular anime at least hentai is honest about what it is when it’s portraying women. Honesty goes a long way.

I’ve also never understood why western k-pop fans like anime. They are two things with absolutely nothing in common other than that Asians are making them, so I can only assume that this preference comes from simple racist fetishism, or maybe it’s just a desire to get away from the usual overload of western culture on mainstream TV and experience something different. Perhaps a combination of these, or maybe something else.

Do you like Korean dramas?  What are some of your favourite Korean dramas?

I’ve tried watching a few of them but I always give up, they’re generally insipid and the Korean sense of humour is something that I can’t get along with – they have to make every joke completely obvious like you’re a fucking idiot and won’t get the joke unless it’s repeated and/or massively exaggerated. The more serious dramas on the other hand I just find lame and boring. Even having a k-pop girl in them that I like doesn’t create enough motivation for me to watch Korean dramas. Exception – I did recently watch Squid Game because I wanted to understand all the Squid Game references other people were making, and I did quite enjoy that as it was directed more like the Korean movies I like than what k-drama usually is like.

What about Korean movies, then?

Koreans are quite good at making horror and action films, almost as good as Japan and definitely better than Hollywood (most places are). Oldboy is the classic Korean film of course and combines both action and horror elements, but there are many others, too many to list.

Also, Lies is a bizarre favourite and shows that Korea could have a great porn industry one day if they ever loosen the government restrictions a little (sadly unlikely).

What are your favourite Korean actors and actresses?

I don’t really pay much attention to who is in which film. I’m sure there are other websites out there that focus on this. My writing has almost no actor/actress content because I don’t really care about the specific people, just if I enjoy the film or not.

What do you think about [insert shitty western pop/rock artist here]?‎

I don’t think about [insert shitty western pop/rock artist here]. You can usually safely assume this. I have my hands full covering k-pop!

So what western artists DO you like?

When I was really young (pre-teen) the first music that I really liked was actually not pop music, but music that accompanied computer games on the Commodore 64, and also classical pieces that I’d play on the piano. I was oblivious to the fact that a lot of the time the computer game songs were actually reconfigured instrumental versions of western pop songs, but hearing these probably gave me the ear for listening to melody/harmony/rhythm/texture first rather than lyrics first. Later on I found actual pop music via Saturday morning TV where the weekly Top 40 would be broadcast, my first pop faves were Australian groups Icehouse and INXS, and later on in high school I discovered classic rock like Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, and then later heavy metal and rap, and then other styles from there such as experimental and industrial music. Becoming a DJ at a radio station also broadened my musical horizons considerably, because once that happened people would send me music all the time (this was before the Internet meant that anybody could access just about any music at any time).

If there’s a common thread between all the different music I listen to and like it’s probably some form of “extremity” – consistently applied sound in a particular direction. K-pop appeals to me more if it’s extremely poppy just like metal appeals more if it’s extremely heavy – tapping that vein of “what makes something more of what it is, and less of what it is not” is part of the appeal. K-pop is at its worst when it’s a bland haphazard genre mush. Metal is at its worst when it’s soft and limp, or so messy and distorted that nothing solid can be discerned. Rap is at its worst when it’s smooth, nice and offensive to nobody. Industrial music is at its worst when it tries to incorporate pop or metal elements to the extent that the core industrial sound is diluted. Etc.

Ten favourite non k-pop albums from the 80s and 90s in no particular order (because you guys like lists), with tracks linked from each one:

Celtic Frost – Into The Pandemonium
Mobb Deep – Hell On Earth
Swans – White Light From The Mouth Of Infinity
Ministry – Psalm 69
Current 93 – Soft Black Stars
This Mortal Coil – It’ll End In Tears
Darkthrone – A Blaze In The Northern Sky
Anti-Nowhere League – We Are … The League
Front Line Assembly – Caustic Grip
Lolita Storm – Girls Fucking Shit Up

Far from a complete list, I could have made this a lot longer.

That list isn’t very pop though.  What is some more pop type stuff that you like?

Some more albums in my collection, this time pop (sort of):

La Roux – La Roux
CSS – Cansei De Ser Sexy
Belly – Star
Alizee – Gourmandises
Miss Kittin & The Hacker – The First Album
Cocteau Twins – Head Over Heels
Throwing Muses – Limbo

Also, all Australians like Queen and ABBA, this is a mandatory requirement for all Australian citizens.

What do you think about Sia Furler?

Sia gets a special mention because she’s a famous pop performer who comes from my town (there’s even a street named after her here) and presumably for this reason I get asked about her a lot. I saw her old band Crisp in the 90s a few times (not by choice, they just happened to be on bills I was on etc), they were popular locally and had a couple albums out which sucked. They were fucking boring as shit. Nothing she’s done since has changed my opinion of her music since, none of which is as horrible as Crisp was, but none of which I’d exactly call “good” or listen to by choice. Also I never saw any of this supposed “public anxiety” business from her back when I used to see her around, in fact quite the opposite. She was always quite outgoing on stage in Crisp days and wouldn’t perform live with her back turned like she does now, so either something really fucked with her head between then and now or that’s just some quirky marketing bullshit.

What do you think about Beyonce/Mariah Carey/Whitney Houston/[insert western singer known for their vocal prowess here]?

Absolute dogshit, some of the worst music on earth. Oh, except Mariah’s “Without You”, which is okay. Everything else is awful.

What do you think about Madonna?

Her music is very hit-and-miss but conceptually she’s a very important influence on k-pop (read more here).  Best albums would be Like A Prayer, Bedtime Stories, Ray Of Light, rest of her albums have too many dud songs to be worth bothering with.  In fact even those albums I just listed have quite a few dud songs.

What do you think about Taylor Swift?

I like “Love Story”, all her other songs are meh at best.

What rappers do you like?

Aside from the Mobb Deep album above which hasn’t been topped in the genre I like Necro, Ill Bill, (early) Wu-Tang, (early) Public Enemy, Ice-T, lots of others. Anything that has hard beats is a good start – I got into rap through my interest in metal and the styles share a common thread (the primacy of rhythm over melody). Rap doesn’t need soft weak pop/p-funk/R&B concessions and lame singsongy choruses, rap needs to go hard or go home. Lyrics that are extremely violent or insane or overtly sexual or “problematic” in some other way are also a bonus, “socially conscious” rap is mostly a total waste of time.

What do you think about Eminem?

An undeniably skilled MC but I find him annoying to listen to just because of the sound of his voice and the way he emphasises rhyming words.

Do you rap?

Not currently. I made a promise to my current girlfriend that I would never rap. It’s bad enough that she has to put up with me liking k-pop.

What do you think about The Beatles?

I thought they were okay in their early days when they were basically a pop group. Later on when they grew their hair and got into transcendental meditation I thought the music went completely to shit, I think “Sgt. Peppers” album and everything after it is total crap. One of the only things I ever agreed with my mother about regarding music.

Is it true that your mother looks like Boram?  Can I see a picture?

Yes, it is true.  Of course you can see a picture!  Here it is:

As you can see the resemblance is very close.

What’s your ancestry?

German on my father’s side, Chinese, English and Irish on my mother’s side.

Your name is really clever. How did you come up with it?

While joking around with a friend at the radio station, I referred to my sudden addition of several k-pop releases into the station record library at once as a “kpopalypse”, in reference to the idea that other DJs would be generally unhappy about it (as my station doesn’t focus on pop music generally – many of the DJs there hate commercial pop and are more interested in other styles). A few months later when I started the radio show I remembered the name and used it, I’m not sure exactly where I got the idea from, but I was probably thinking of the film “Apocalypse Now“.

How old are you?

Old enough to know better than to give out my age on the Internet, but too young to care if that bothers you.

Are you married?

No, but I’ve been in a long-term relationship with the same person for the entire time I’ve been writing for this site. Get in the queue.

Do you have children?

No. I don’t think the world will ever be ready for the kind of children that I would produce. There’s enough people on the planet anyway fucking things up, I feel that it would be selfish for me to create more of them to fuck things up further.

I know everything about you!  [insert links to scandalous doxx here]

Believe it or not, I don’t have a secret identity. All of my personal details are public and easily accessible by anyone who knows how to use Google. I’ve never understood why people bother to “doxx” me, there’s really nothing to see that my own writing plus a Google search won’t tell you.

Why don’t you ever post links about your own music or other activities that you’re involved in?

I don’t want to use my writing as a vehicle for self-promotion, I like to keep the writing and the music and other work stuff that I do completely separated. Nothing to do with secrecy, it’s more out of respect for my readers. I’ve seen too much content out there where the content creators make really interesting points and then piss in the bathwater by finishing up with “oh and by the way I’m a recording artist and here’s what I do and here’s some other stuff that I also do and here’s where you can buy my stuff and here’s how you can help me make money, please support me”. A good example of this was YouTuber MRJKPOP back when he was active, I didn’t like how he’d use his own self-written songs to demonstrate recording concepts to k-pop fans, for me that was crossing a line, it was obvious that he was using his v-logging about k-pop as self-promotion for his own songs. His audience was there for the k-pop stuff, not for his own songs, so I thought that was so rude, his behaviour on that point raised a red flag with me long before the whole controversy with him appeared years later. When I saw that happening I decided I would never bait-and-switch my audience like that.

If you’re against making money, why do you have a Patreon?

I’m not against making money, I’m just against making money using the clickbait-and-switch tactics described above. I do definitely appreciate the people who support Kpopalypse by giving money and I’ve used this money to remove advertising and make the site more entertaining and caonimaish.

Are you an alpaca?

I am if you want me to be – however the alpacas that turn up in various posts are actually symbolic of freedom of expression. No it is not a reference to Amber of f(x), she may call herself a llama or whatever sometimes but I don’t really understand why and I don’t care about that, the real alpaca in f(x) wasn’t her.

Are you really a sad old man with no life?

No because this would make it impossible for me to also be an alpaca.

Why are you such a cunt?

To annoy you.

I think the word “cunt” is offensive, why do you use it all the time?

It’s a lower-class Australian thing. Us cunts like the word “cunt” a lot.

How can you claim to know stuff about the music industry when you’re just a guitar teacher?

I’ve worked and continue to work in many different music industry related fields! Yes I teach guitar but it’s not my only gig. It’s possible – and in fact exceptionally common – for people in the music business to generate income through more than one method.

Do you like sport?

I’m a musician – sport is against my religion. I do not make the sport ball shape.

What headphones do you recommend?

For listening and general purpose, my radio station used the AKG K-77 which are nice and lightweight, sound okay, and were cheap. It doesn’t really matter that much what headphones you use though. I’m not an audiophile. For mixing – don’t mix on headphones, get studio monitors. I don’t recommend any specific brand of studio monitors, there are many good ones.

What do you think about illegal downloading?

I don’t really like it, but you kids will insist on doing it to the point where now the horse has well and truly bolted on this issue and it’s pointless even caring about it. We can’t put the technology genie back in the box, you might as well just download whatever you want. I wouldn’t feel too bad about it, in k-pop the actual music really isn’t where the money is made anyway, k-pop companies have pretty much just accepted that you will either pirate the music or stream it for a tiny fraction of what they used to be able to sell it for. That’s why k-pop is so interested in selling the idols, not the music.  More info here.

How come you recently said [statement x] when in a previous post you also said [statement y which contradicts statement x]?

It could be that my opinion has changed over time – my opinions have a way of doing that.  Or perhaps statements X and Y aren’t as contradictory as they appear and contain subtleties that you haven’t perceived.  Or perhaps I was trolling you or taking the piss with statement X but serious with statement Y, or vice versa.  Or perhaps I’m a massive hypocrite.  Pick one.

Do you play video games?  Which ones?

Yes.  The list of games I play is always changing, although I rarely play anything that would be considered a “triple A” game these days, the closest would be PUBG Battlegrounds which I still enjoy sometimes just for the atmosphere even though I’m comically bad at it. I grew up with the Commodore 64 so I have an affinity with gaming, although I lack skill due to being old as fuck and having shit reflexes plus colour-blindness. I also have a Steam group called Caonimas, join if you want!

Are you really colour blind? What’s that like?

It’s just like being not colour blind except you can’t see colour properly. More info and answers to your further colour blindness questions here.

Are you really bald?

Almost completely, yes. I have alopecia which is a medical condition where hair randomly falls out. It’s not like the pattern baldness that old men get, it looks very different. Feel free to punch someone on my behalf because of it.

Why do Reddit hate you?

I don’t know, but a lot of them they definitely do!

Would you ever consider v-logging?

I do have a YouTube channel, which holds the AustralianSana podcasts as well as a bunch of videos that are relevant to various different posts on this site. However I don’t think I would ever do traditional style v-logging, I prefer to express myself in writing. I do however have a weekly Twitch livestream.

Do you think [idol X] has “gotten prettier”?

I don’t care whether people get surgery really. It would be nice if we lived in a world where everyone was happy enough with their appearance where they didn’t feel the need to get surgery, but at the same time it’s their body so I’m not going to tell people what they can and can’t do with it.

Are you looking forward to or excited by the news of [upcoming debut or comeback by X]?

No, I don’t look forward to anything. I wait until it happens before I decide if I’m excited about it or not. I suggest that all readers do the same so they are not held hostage by the hype machine. Live in the moment!

Are there any k-pop remixes that you like?

No! They are all garbage, every single one. No exceptions, now or ever. Horrible k-pop remixes generally fall into two categories:

• Remixes that are scarcely different from the original except for a different few bars in a small section of the song (T-ara repackages were always particularly guilty of this).
• Remixes that butcher the harmony and backing of the original song to such and extent that the appeal of the original is lost (i.e the always-disgusting Aeria remixes and others).

What do you think about the teaser video by [X]?

I don’t watch teaser videos. Information on why is at this post.

What’s your opinion about [k-pop scandal X]?

I don’t care about scandals.

What do you think about [album/album track] by [k-pop group X]?

Even though I own many k-pop albums, I very rarely get to listen to albums all the way through, so the answer is probably “I don’t know I haven’t heard it yet”. More about how I feel about k-pop albums here.

What does [phrase, term or statement that Kpopalypse doesn’t use but someone else does] mean?

I don’t know, ask [the person who uses that statement].

What does [phrase, term or statement that Kpopalypse DOES use] mean?

Check the Kpopalypse Lexicon for the meaning of unusual terminology used by Kpopalypse.

[a question or statement about the motivation of the actions, statements or behaviour of a person who is not Kpopalypse]

Ask/tell them, not me.

Thoughts? [insert link here]

Please be more specific.

What’s the Jiyeon webcam scandal?

Jiyeon once took her laptop into a repair shop because the webcam didn’t work and the nice repairman fixed it as a warranty repair because he was a T-ara fan even though the laptop was outside the warranty period. This caused accusations of unfair treatment of celebrities, but the guy did the same thing for Onew from SHINee the week before and nobody complained, which just shows the double standard that people have about girl groups. Hope that clears things up.

---

Thanks for reading!  Kpopalypse appreciates your support!