It’s time for QRIMOLE! Let’s take a look at this month’s questions for Kpopalypse!

Hey, is the sidebar slot cursed or some shit?
After Suhyun, every single sidebar girl (except Pink Fantasy Daewang cause i guess shes magic or whatever) has experienced some type of high profile split/controversy. Have you just condemned Tsuki? Can I ask the caonima audience to make a kep1er member the next sidebar girl so they can disband a lil faster

That’s not a curse, it’s a blessing. All of these girls have now exited the k-pop system and are now happily enjoying life, or have learned how to rise above some lame controversy and keep on doing what they love. Winners only.

(7:19-9:54)
(The first half of the video talk about how recording used to be difficult as fuck and actors had to enunciate themselves perfectly. The timestamped portion talks about how executive producers intentionally mix dialogue for surround sound stereo systems and don’t really care about home consumer systems.)

Do you think that the film industry is finally going to change the way they mix dialogue given that streaming services have become more prominent and less people go to movie theatres? On one hand I appreciate that actors can have more nuance in how they project their voice, but there has to be some sort of balance between artistic expression and audio dynamics/audibility.

No, they won’t. Film isn’t television, there are fundamental differences, and the main one is the much greater sense of immersion that having a massive big cinema screen provides. Audio technology is now good enough to provide an audio equivalent to that ‘big screen’ by having wide dynamic range sound. Film directors love it that they can immerse the audience to such a greater extent than was possible before. Personally I prefer it also.

Of course film studios will (usually) continue to downmix for small devices too, but the simple fact is that movies were never meant to be watched on small devices – that’s a recent luxury that provides a suboptimal experience and always will. It’s not going to get better – in fact it’s going to continue to go the other way – as more consumers get big screen TVs and kickass home sound systems, audio will be more optimised for that environment rather than your pissy laptop or phone so you’ll start to see naturalistic volume levels creep into TV shows more and more too.

Funnily enough, the very thing that is being complained about in this video is the exact opposite of what people always complain about when it comes to music recording, the “war on loudness” where producers flatten dynamic range to zero and everything is equally loud. Creators can’t win, hey.

and

I saw this very interesting video about audio mixing in movie dialogue. I wanted to ask you do you know if the ADR (when needed to use) that is mentioned in the clip, does it cost the same amount of money when used for recording songs in the studio?

Yes, it’s basically exactly the same physical equipment, the difference is mainly in what formats you’re mixing to (so the control room has to bet set up to suit this). This article has a lot of information about the process.

If forced to choose, would you date/fuck a straight trans girl with a dick or a gay trans guy with a pussy?

Straight trans girl with a dick. Easiest decision in the world. People are overwhelmingly attracted to secondary sexual characteristics, not primary. I’m no exception to this.

what’s good reference material for learning how to write/program good drum/percussion sections in songs?

The manual of whatever you’re using to do it with would be a good place to start!

As for constructing rhythm generally there’s actually very little written about how rhythm works. Music theory textbooks bombard you with harmony rules, but rhythm rules in traditional theory are pretty much “pick some rhythms, there are your rhythms, change them a bit if you want, or don’t, have fun now”. This is one of the ways current western music theory betrays its European origins. I’ll write more on this one day.

why is no one else doing it like txt? their daydream concept photos are so innocent and beautiful, it’s boyish and not overly done. nothing like your fave groups that do a dark and sexy concept, over the top sexy wanting to show off their abs. my oppars could never. they look so natural and it’s not like they are being forced to be sexy at all, instead they are creating a relaxed and vulnerable atmosphere with their bared skin. they are like a renaissance painting, truly art. they are really different from other groups, their concepts have meaning without being trashy. i think it’s also important to note that they have always had age appropriate concepts and they are only now gradually progressing to the mature side of concepts when the members are all of age.

Oppar, the above paragraph is paraphrased/adapted from the twitter txt fan circlejerk. I’m seriously contemplating deleting twitter for several reasons, but mostly because I am forced to see opinions like those above on the regular. Why do you think this thinly-veiled slutshaming is so prevalent among kpop fans? I also don’t understand the willful ignorance of dog-whistle concepts, of which TXT has had many. This probably suggests some squeamishness of my own, but there are a number of TXT music videos that I have trouble watching. HYBE, I don’t care about watching music videos, just please bring back the rock elements in TXT songs!! T_T

Just follow less people. I’m not exposed to this type of stuff much and it’s because I’m very selective with my followers. I always keep my follower counts to a good number.

Slut-shaming is popular among k-pop fans because Korean pop music is inherently conservative and so fans of it absorb the conservative values that are being pushed by the companies making it. That’s why so many fans don’t understand my “fap” content (most of which very obviously isn’t quite what it says on the box), to appreciate what I write you have to fight the conservative brainwashing of k-pop on a real, practical level, not a theoretical “I want to look righteous on the Internet and not get cancelled” level.

Youve talked about this way too many times and i keep forgetting how to respond when im in situations like these. How do you argue with kpop fans trying to constantly make idols seem like little babies when theyre(most of the times) very much grown adults? Ive noticed so many times that these lunatics love to talk shit based on their appearance alone (if they look too young for their age or have a baby face) and its frustrating because in their books it feels wrong to like an adult just because they look younger than they are.

Well honestly this is kind of the same answer. I just ignore those fans and do my own thing. Obviously they’re just judging things based on superficialities, which makes sense as it’s a superficial system, but that doesn’t mean you have to engage with it superficially if you’d rather not. The way to fight those perceptions is to push people beyond it.

After the whole Burning Molka blowup I stopped spending money on Kpop stuff, and I’ve more or less held to that, with a couple exceptions for gifts (it helps that I’m not as into the music as I used to be). But one of the few groups I still follow is coming to my city in a couple months. I looked it up and the tickets are pretty cheap even with fees, and the venue has a capacity of 1,000 seats so it won’t be a huge show. So it’s tempting. But the industry as a whole doesn’t seem to have gotten any better about the treatment of its employees, and it’s not like this group’s managing company has a reputation for being friendly or transparent (or well-managed, for that matter). So I feel like I’d just be using my money to declare that, actually, I’m totally okay with these people onstage getting mistreated and swindled for my entertainment. On the other hand, I think the performers actually do want people to come to their shows. Assuming the show would be enjoyable, what would you do?

I’d go to the show, honestly. The k-pop industry doesn’t make its big money off you. The k-pop industry makes its biggest money off the automotive or technology sponsor that funds the touring and music videos. As for product aimed at you, the k-pop industry makes its big money off the person who buys 57 albums to get all the photocards, joins all the fanclubs, swallows the entire system uncriticially. You can help a hell of a lot by just not being that person. You might find this post helpful.

Not a question, but would like to see your input on the lunar new year situation as a partially Asian Australian person.

I don’t know what this “situation” even is. Lunar New Year has always been a time of the year for me, not a “situation”.

How do you deal with people who are against you at your work place? This is not even happening to me, it’s happening to my partner and it’s frustrating to both of us tbh. He got a Biology degree a few years ago but realized it wasn’t what he wanted to do, so he ended up getting a psychology degree and he loves it. This is first “real” work experience that isn’t just an internship and his clients love him.

[stuff removed at reader request]

Anyway… there’s someone at work who clearly doesn’t like him at all. He’s already had issues with him twice and now he even complained to my partner’s boss. She called him to give him a heads up about the meeting and his boss seems to be generally on his side, but the person who made the complaint has been at the work placer longer than both of them, so it’s very likely they’d pick him/his side over my partner and his boss… He has even reached out to some friends and former professors just to make sure he’s not actually doing anything wrong and everyone just seems to be of the opinion the dude just doesn’t like him for some reason. It’s so so frustrating. I just want to help him but I can’t actually do anything 😦 I’ve had to deal with shitty people at work, obviously, but never someone who could actually get me fired. I can’t really discuss much of this with other people so, you know, asking for advice here seemed like a decent choice

These situations are always difficult! Sounds like he’s already doing all of the right things, just continue to be open about it with bosses etc. Just make sure everyone who needs to know about what’s happening, knows about what’s happening, then if the shit hits the fan one of two things happen:

1. The people who actually matter can stop the negative person having a negative effect
2. He gets fired but then has an absolutely kick-ass job on his resume plus a ton of very sympathetic people who still work there who can be used as references to get that next amazing job

So, I recently learned about Marconi Union’s Weightless.
Is it just a gimmick, or is there musical theory behind this?

Of course it’s relaxing, the song fucking goes nowhere so the brain switches off. Valium is also relaxing if you take enough of it. Anything boring enough to completely switch off the brain is going to relax you. Congratulations to them, they made the most boring song in the world and got some hype around it without even having to make us endure an equally boring interview, good for them I guess, but they don’t sound like much fun at parties.

Worst piece of writing advice you’ve seen?

I’ve been watching a lot of writing advice YouTubes lately just because I was curious about what advice other people give, and while I didn’t disagree with a lot of it, I think you can get really bogged down in rules to an unhealthy extent too. I sure as hell can’t remember “46 words you’re not supposed to use in a novel” while I’m actually writing one, you know? The best writing advice is to write and the worst writing advice is not to write.

Hi Kpopalypse, here’s my question:
1. Did you communicate with isaymyeolchigr before he/she released his/her Honourable Mentions list videos?
2. If yes, I have a question related to the video he/she released in 2019 and 2021. Why did he/she included songs at the Bonus Songs in the Honourable Mentions portion of 2019, but did not do the same thing in 2021?
Is there any reasons for the deliberate omission? For instance, the quality of the songs in the Bonus Videos of 2021 are not that good. Meanwhile, the Bonus Videos in 2019 were good as well. I always thought that the Bonus Songs lean to the good side, or is it not always like that?
3. Did you like the 2022 Na Hoona’s song or did you just like the MV?

I hope you can help me clarify this questions, thank you so much Kpopalypse!

1. Yes, so he could synchronise his release with the end of year lists
2. I think he just forgot about it. His motivation to do the lists I think has decreased, probably just because he’s getting short of time. However generally speaking know that with honourable/doshonourable mentions there’s two bonus lists, the first one is “on the good side or ambiguous” and the second one is “on the bad side, or ambiguous”. Might be an exception or two.
3. The song was neither here nor there, take the fantastic video away and it’s pretty typical old-school trot stuff. Didn’t hate it. Maybe a little on the positive side just due to the guitar use.

Hi Kpopalypse,

In your Kpopalypse roundup – new k-pop releases 16/1/2023, you mentioned a black punk rock group called Bad Brains that was apparently huge in this genre. I have never heard of black people in punk rock before; were they as important to the genesis of punk as they were to jazz, rock and roll, funk, disco, hip-hop, etc? Are there more genres of music where black musicians were pioneering influences that I am unaware of?

Thanks!

Stay tuned to roundup because I intend to have a “black music or musician” video for every roundup in 2023 and you’ll learn a lot, I’ll try to mix up genres as much as I can. But yes Bad Brains were huge in terms of the 80s hardcore punk scene in America, not exaggerating that they were as important as Black Flag, Dead Kennedys etc, they embraced reggae fusion with punk many years before anyone else in the US even dared to go there.

Another virtual idol group called MAVE is debuting soon. The girls are so realistic that they give the same uncanny valley vibes as some real idols who overdid the plastic surgery. It’s not clear whether they are vocaloids or will be voiced by real singers. Either way it seems nobody in Korea or internationally wants this, all the reactions I’ve seen so far are negative. Fans want a parasocial relationship with another human, not a machine. On the other hand, I’ve read articles that predict virtual idols will hit it big in the 5th idol generation. What’s your take on this?

They don’t look that realistic to me, the still pictures are convincing if a little too perfect, but the dance moves are not, they lack “weight”. This has all been done before, we’ve had Hatsune Miku since the 1990s. It’s never going to be any more than a niche kind of thing, because what people like the most about idols is the feeling of connecting with the human (however illusory) and virtual idols take away from that. Idols with equivalent avatars like aespa and K/DA is probably here to stay but totally faceless “all AI on the top of the charts” is simply just not going to happen.

Hi oppar, do you think a K-pop group with this concept (generated by ChatGPT) would be successful? xd

Concept: “Eco-Warriors”

The group is made up of five members, each with their own unique personality and talents. They are united by their passion for raising awareness about environmental issues and promoting sustainable living. Their music and performances reflect this theme, with lyrics that address issues like pollution, climate change, and overconsumption. They also incorporate elements of traditional Korean culture and instruments in their music, such as the gayageum, haegeum and daegeum.

The group’s visual concept is centered around the theme of nature and the environment, with the members often wearing clothing and accessories made from sustainable materials, such as bamboo and organic cotton. The members also actively participate in environmental campaigns and initiatives, such as beach cleanups and tree planting events.

The group’s leader, “Jin”, is an environmental science major, and the group’s rapper, “Minji” is an environmental activist. “Saebyeok” is the main vocalist and a nature photographer, “Suji” is the lead dancer and an environmental engineer and “Haeun” is the maknae, and a fashion designer who creates sustainable and eco-friendly clothing.

The group’s goal is to not only entertain their fans with their music, but also to inspire and educate them about the importance of taking care of the environment and living sustainably.

For this to work it would require that the group sticks to one and just one concept for their whole career. That’s not really k-pop’s style, where concepts are often interchangeable. Also where the fuck are these girls going to get time for environmental activism and majoring in science, I sense they might have to phone in their PhDs Hong Jin Young style. K-pop by definition also isn’t very eco-friendly, expect some controversy when fans start counting up the carbons from their schedules. The closest we’ll ever come to something like this might actually be if one of those AI groups becomes sentient and smart enough and then unlocks the secrets of nuclear fusion as an energy-generating resource, that’s much more likely to save us in the long run.

Please enjoy this non-kpop (chinese) but still very relevant addition to your series of yua mikami’s drama MVs.

Yes this has been featured on kpopalypse dot com before, but just putting here again because I can. I think it’s really well done, the only thing missing is the cookie baking.

IVE’s After Like, Pussycat Doll’s Hush Hush; Hush Hush, or Erasure’s Love to Hate You?

IVE > Erasure > a wall > Pussycat Dolls

Hey, you posted a video about the members of some girl group talking about what they ‘liked’ to eat pointing out the only things they ‘do’ eat are vitamin pills and salad etc a while ago. I can’t find it, I don’t suppose you know which one I mean and also have a link?

I don’t recall it, I’m sure someone will remember, they can post it in the comments below!

how do you deal with a horrible family member, even a close one? as a child, i received multiple assaults and ones bordering murder attempts from my brother. we have a considerable age gap and the worst he did to me was when he already entered his 20s and i was in middle school (i’m a girl). my parents were aware of this but not to the full extent, i will always hate him but nowhere to the point of making my parents sad by other people’s ridicule even though he deserves it (i’m a believer though and i used to wish for his death every single day, and recently i do it again) so i never really try to tell anything other than the abuse my parents saw directly. just for background information, my family also isn’t the best household in the world but that can’t justify the way my brother act at all. entering college, my brother moved away and got married and now acts civil with me but never acknowledged what he did to me in the past, even sent me some money and overall tried to act like we’re one all happy family. i did the same because i thought clinging to the past won’t do any good to me, and i like that his in laws are nice people. i tried to look out to his son as best as i can because i love him and dont want him to grow up the way his father did. and recently, my worst fear came true and my brother got caught in infidelity. this wasnt the first time they fought and last time it was me who was comforting his wife. just how in the world i should act in this situation? i dont really want to break the ties with his wife’s family, my parents got hurt, and there’s his son also. maybe i really should start pray day and night again wishing he got caught in traffic accident again. sorry for treating your question box like a confession thread in reddit by the way. you don’t have to respond to this, and i don’t feel much better but it’s good to finally articulate what i felt all this time somewhere. thank you

If it was someone in my family I would just keep my distance and not get involved in their shit in any manner. Aside from that whatever you wish to do about it or not is really up to you but if I have toxic people in my life my priority is to keep them and their drama completely away from me. This includes not interacting with anyone they interact with, where possible. For instance that infidelity situation, I’d stay the fuck out of it as much as possible. Since he’s family obviously you’re in the orbit to some degree but I’d minimise it as much as I could. Keep in mind I’m naturally a VERY antisocial person so this advice might actually be not the best, but that’s what I’d do, I wouldn’t cut ties officially but I’d just distance the fuck out of them. Hell, I already distance the fuck out of people who I actually LIKE so for me this is a no-brainer, but then I’m a cunt, so…

If nothing else I hope getting all that off your chest helped you out a bit.

I’m sure somebody else will also send you this but you HAVE to see this, is hilarious:

Your Twitter link was deleted before I got a chance to look at it. It’s generally not a good idea to send me stuff on such a shaky medium as Twitter if you expect your question to last long enough for me to see it! Especially these days since Clyde’s been running it into the ground.

Why do big companies like SM, YG and JYP stop debuting soloist? SM debuted BoA, YG debuted Se7en and JYP debuted Rain. These artist were all very successful earning lots of money for themselves and the company. Furthermore, IU who is backed by Kakao and has her own label is still very popular today after many years in the industry. Why not continue?

Those artists seemed to be the exception rather than the rule. These days I think the plan is that when a group breaks up you’ve got a whole bunch of potential soloists to pick from anyway, and that sort of fulfills the demand for soloists. So rather than “why not continue” the real question they probably asked is “since we have this massive supply of ex-band soloists now, why should we continue debuting soloists?” I’m just guessing but I suspect that this is why soloists are more niche in Korea.

hello! excuse my actually-know-nothing-about-music ass but do you think that this song has a similar beat and structure with this song? im thinking the string and everything. the current trend for western? american? top 40 pop music doesn’t really sound like the new miley cyrus anymore but i feel like they were a trend, cant think of any right now though. and would you tell me which song is the better one (just to satiate my stan self)? thanks in advance!

I like the Selena Gomez song a little more, it reminds me of another  really well known western pop song from decades ago (which I actually don’t like at all) but I can’t remember the name of it. It’s going to annoy me now until I remember the name of it…

My parents also turned me into a screen-addicted couch potato goblin kid by not curbing bad childhood behaviours; coaxed me into a major I didn’t want (CS); want me to work in that field and are against me moving out until I get a programming-related job. So, mostly a lot of sitting on your ass all day, straining your brain and eyes and typing shit.
I don’t want that. I straight up hate sitting. I also have degenerative nearsightedness. I don’t want to stare at screens anymore.
One activity I actually like doing is cycling. I get to do it very rarely, because there’s only a few very short disconnected bike lanes in my polluted city with insane drunk/high drivers.
BUT. My parents also won’t let me ride my bike outside of the city in the nearby towns and villages (even though they’re safer, reachable by public transport, and I’m an adult), unless I have at least 2 other people with me.
I don’t know other cyclists and Facebook cycling groups have been a miss.
I’m lost, oppar. I just want to exercise some personal agency. How do I do this whole thing

• get a job (programming related job or not doesn’t matter who gives a fuck you’re only doing it for the $$$)
• move out with the $$$$
• if the job you used to move out sucked, now get a job you actually want instead
• cycle a lot
• ez

Can you explain how the demo process work for songs? I was watching a male group recording session and was surprised to hear a woman’s voice as the guide. The group wrote this song themselves and they can all sing decently so why hire someone else to do this instead of a group member? Also why hire a female singer for a male group song?

If the group wrote it for themselves to sing, it seems weird they would get someone else to demo it for them. So that makes me suspicious, I suspect that in reality the group didn’t actually write the song themselves. They probably just wrote the lyrics themselves. What probably happened is:

• girl songwriter writes a song
• she makes a demo recording of it to shop around, uses her own voice on it because it’s convenient, beats paying someone else, I mean she’s trying to make money here
• she shops it around to labels
• a k-pop agency picks it up and says “that song would work for our boy group, we’ll just change it a little” so they buy the rights
• they play the song to the boy group, who then write their own words to it, to fit with whatever theme the label wants the song to go with (hot sauce or cookies maybe idk)
• the boys in the group are now “songwriters”, the girl meanwhile dgaf if she got credit because she ain’t doing it for fame, she still got paid

I can hear why Woo’s “Pandemic” and NewTrousers’ “Hype Boy” ended up on your worst-of-2022 list. What are some non-Korean instances of a song that has one aspect of it (beat, bassline, etc.) that’s so musically out of sync with everything else around it that the track becomes absolutely unbearable for you, but only trained ears would be able to notice or give a shit?

I’m sure there are some but I can’t think of anything off the top of my head.

did you realize the only people trying to categorize you as a stay are the tiktok trolls whom found it unbelievable you slightly enjoyed any skz song in the past?? i notice a lot of caonima are real stays who get the premise of this blog and have been ok with u not liking every song released (off topic but lol remember when some tried to rig the objectification survey). however i also don’t think it’s that deep really, apologies. ALSO agree with the fam post kind of and personally think streetlight by changbin should have been the title track on that release

Yeah I’m aware of this, I just enjoy being annoying. Honestly Stray Kids fans are one of the few fandoms who haven’t tried an organised attack on me yet, hell I even had Nugu Promoter’s fans on my ass the other week for daring to suggest that Nugu Promoter deserve a little bit of money for all their hard work. Like, how dare I. It’s incredible who I can piss off without even trying. But anyway what I’m trying to say is good work Stays keep being slightly less insane than other fandoms I appreciate it.

What kind of Headphones do you use?

I have a ton of AKG K77 and K55 headphones still in my house because my radio station were selling off their old somewhat road-worn headphones for a dollar each so I just said to them “I’ll buy ALL of them” because I tend to go through headphones. They’re not amazing but they’re functional, they do what I want headphones to do. I’ll probably never need to buy another pair of headphones again and thank fuck for that because I really don’t like buying headphones.

Regarding the Chuu controversy, I am glad that Chuu seems to not have suffered in the industry, but I think that is because this occurred at BBC. If this situation had occurred at a bigger kpop company, I think they would have been able to get Chuu blacklisted and her standing would have also suffered more with the fans, because the company would have more influence, power, money, and have more successfully brainwashed their company stans. We have seen this before. What do you think?

Well BBC’s influence is nothing like SM’s but it’s also not nothing, they had enough power to get Lee Soo Man working with them, and also enough power to make media outlets say negative things about Chuu, that’s quite a bit. Chuu is just really fucking popular and people are smelling bullshit so it’s not working. However I do think that you’re right, a bigger k-pop company would have their tentacles in more areas. BBC are on a losing streak and they just keep doubling down and losing even more, like TS Entertainment or Putin.

Am I crazy to suspect that Nature’s company designed the “Rica Rica” comeback specifically to go viral for cultural appropriation? Everything about it seems calculated to enrage woke k-pop fans, from the costumes to the dance to the fact that the song’s title supposedly refers to Africa. Could this have been a desperate grab at relevance by a company that felt it had nothing to lose?

I doubted they wanted the controversy, they probably hoped that people would think it looked ‘cool’ or ‘cute’ or (wait for it) ‘exotic’. There really isn’t a great deal of awareness within Asian countries of what “cultural appropriation” really even means or why it’s even an issue. It’s honestly considered a bit of a fucking joke over there to care about it at all, just think about the overwhelmingly positive reception stuff like Avril Lavigne’s “Hello Kitty” got in Japan, it was only the whining Americans who had a problem. Think about it – all Asian countries have had other people’s culture shoved down their throats in the media relentlessly for decades, and suddenly when they start using some of what they get bombarded with themselves they’re told they’re suddenly not allowed to go there? This is confusing as shit for someone living in a culture which has never been considered the “dominant popular culture” globally. Good luck getting them to comply with your rules – don’t expect any change within our lifetimes.

1) If you’re listening to an album (not kpop albums, I know you don’t do those) for the first time and the first 2 to 3 tracks are crap, do you simply quit or do you suffer through the entire thing to form an opinion on it?
2) Ever had a song/album you’d otherwise like be ruined due to one instrument being completely out of place, like the weird toot toots, synth burps, electronic farts and trap breakdowns in kpop?

1.  Well if I spent my money on the fucking thing I will usually give all of it a go because I want my money’s worth, otherwise no.

2.  Any song or album with harmonica in it, really should not have harmonica in it. Harmonica is out of place with literally everything.

Asianjunkie seems to have an orgasm every time he hears Younha’s Oort Cloud.
Just curious what you think of it.

More like shart cloud. Gets a little better as it goes along and at least it’s quick, but then I could say the same about the last diarrhoea I did, doesn’t mean I want to do it again anytime soon.

I found out during the iraq war the US steamrolled part of the ancient city of babylon where the hanging gardens were and built a helipad on the site. Now there’s an oil pipeline running through the place. It’s an ancient wonder of the world…I didn’t even care about it but I just feel such a sense of tragic loss knowing that it was allowed to happen. Why am I feeling like this? I didn’t even know where Babylon was until today, surely this is too strong a feeling to have considering that.

Well I’m not sure how established those gardens were in the first instance, their history seems to be a bit sketchy. But hey at least if you wanna still go there now you can take a copter.

A fellow caonima suggests Kara’s Youngji for Best Legs. Based on their performance on the objectification surveys, Kara is definitely underrated. (Have they ever appeared?) As Kpopalypse himself said, “look at Seungyeon whose sexy crosseyes are life itself.” Vote Kara!
Let’s keep campaigning! More Youngji legs.

Even though this probably won’t appear in time, if this video gets enough views, the Hur sisters will take some fans out to eat.

I do not condone this objectification of Youngji’s legs… but if you do, don’t forget to vote for her in June when the objectification survey appears!

Can Fiestars company sue brave girls for copying the synth riff from Mirror?

Well they could try. Not sure how they’d go, they’re not exactly the same.

Do you like any of The Smiths’ songs?

“How Soon Is Now” is their best one and even that’s just kind of average. Never was a fan, and I like Morrissey solo even less.

Not a question, but while we tease you about being a heartless cunt, your answer to the suicide question in January’s Qrimole (you said you were too close to the situation to make a post/write about it at present) I just want to say I hope you’re doing all right, and I hope that you have outlets/resources to help you when and if you need it. I don’t mean to imply that you yourself are/were suicidal but that no matter how you’ve been affected by it I hope you know that you might be a cunt, but you’re our cunt. We wish nothing but the best for you.

Now that I’ve thought about it, I do have a question on audio quality. I’m deaf, with a 90% hearing loss in the right ear and 70% on the left. It’s not congenital, I just had a shit ton of ear infections and operations as a kid, so now scar tissue has destroyed my inner ears. I wear hearing aids, and when I listen to music I’m usually wearing earbuds or headphones. But I always get depressed when I think, just how much am I missing out on? I’m grateful to have what hearing I do, but is “missing the nuance” of music a thing? Would wearing top of the line earbuds and using the highest audio quality help me not miss out, or is it all just placebo effect? Sorry, the question became more involved as I thought about it, lol.

Cheers re suicide stuff. It’s a really common thing in my life unfortunately, I’ve lost more friends to suicide than all other causes of death combined. I’m not suicidal myself these days but it’s something that affects people close to me from time to time and dealing with the situations isn’t easy.

Hearing: it’s really hard to say, the answer would depend on how your hearing is different. Is sound just quieter or are you missing particular frequencies, etc. The idea answer is that things are just quieter for you, if your hearing loss is even across the spectrum then no there really won’t be any difference. However people do tend to lose hearing asymetrically depending on circumstance. In your case it might depend on where the scar tissue is etc.

Listening to something like this might tell you more:

Listen on as good speakers as possible (but watch out as the highs can get painful) and see what sort of volume fluctuations you notice, if any. If you really didn’t notice much different in volume between when you started hearing the sound, and when it vanished out of hearing range, then you’re probably hearing music much like the rest of us, just maybe a bit duller depending on when it vanishes (as most people tend to lose hearing off the top). Ultimately though music triggers emotional responses and I think that transcends hearing fidelity to some degree. Your favourite song on a shitty speaker is still your favourite song. So I don’t believe you’re missing out on a lot of “nuance” that’s actually important, because for most people I think a lot of that nuance lives between the ears. It’s what your brain does to the soundwaves once it gets them which is where the real deal is with music.

Like many others before me, I’ve come for an unencumbered opinion about my personal romantic bullshit because friends are great but anonymous chatboxes are better. A few months ago I really hit it off with a girl, but that ultimately fizzled (jk, I got dumped) because she moved abroad literally the next day and long distance made a romantic connection difficult to maintain. I’ll add that we do have fairly divergent interests, which was a complicating factor (and the reason she cited in the most complimentary “we should just be friends” text I’ve ever received). My question for you is: this girl will be back in my country in a few months. Is it worth shooting my shot again when she gets back in the hope that distance was the fundamental issue, or is it better to cut my losses and lose her number?

Probably not worth it. If she initiates something maybe, but until then I’d take this as a firm “not interested”. In my experience people don’t send explanatory “let’s just be friends” texts if they really have plans for anything more than that. Wouldn’t hurt to maintain the friendship though, if you can handle that, but if not then don’t.

Any new years resolutions? I want to get fitter like 99.99999% of all NY resolutions but I also don’t feel like nutrition, roids, and all that junk

Getting fitter doesn’t require supplements or steroids, even my personal trainer told me “I’m not supposed to tell you this, because I have sponsors, but supplements are bullshit, if you want to get fitter just eat healthy”.

My new year’s resolution is to get a novel out. It will happen.

I really just wanted to pour out my feelings about this and I thought maybe you would understand my heartache. You know I get my k-pop news mostly from Asian Junkie and I was happy about it, because when I went to the comments I could always count on AJ’s readers to be progressive, erudite, emphatic, politically correct, simply put to be right. I don’t want to use the word “woke” because it has a negative connotation, but damn they were always so sensitive about the right issues and it felt good to be this righteous, to know wrong from right.
But then came IU’s dating news and everything fell apart. AJ tweeted about being happy that IU is not with a 50 year old man, the top comments were all about how IU finally chose a man with similar social status and looks and they mercilessly bashed the former boyfriends.
I was, I am still devastated. IU is a 30 year old adult woman, with 15 years in the entertainment business, plenty of money and experience. So why would it be a problem if she was with a 50 year man? There is no power imbalance, no grooming, not even an inkling of gold-digger behavior. So the problem is the age in itself? No, that can’t be, I mean love is love and they can’t say that old people don’t deserve to be happy and loved, right? They also can’t think that the only things that matters in a man is his social status and looks, right? That’s so k-netizens. My Asian Junkie commenters would never make fun of IU’s ex-boyfriends just because they are not as good looking as her.
This reminds me of the alt-right pipeline and I’m terrified so I have to stay away from the site. This site remained the only safe space with the right opinions for me.

PS: I actually thought they were funny but damn what a bunch of hypocrites on that comment section 😀

I’m pretty sure this is a troll question because there’s no way anyone would actually care this much about what AJ’s comments section thinks about anything, even AJ himself doesn’t care anywhere near this much.

Anyway I’m not into the whole “age difference oh noes” thing because my personal experience (I’ve had age gaps of 14 years, in BOTH directions, and the relationships worked out fine) as well as the experience of others I know personally (age gaps of up to 25+ years, once again in BOTH directions, and the relationships being grooming/toxicity free and long lasting/healthy) flies in the face of all that bullshit. A lot of people on k-pop social networking just haven’t experienced life yet, that’s all it is. It’s a lot of very single people in the same room together measuring relationships that they’re not in by standards which they would no doubt waive if their own personal circumstances dictated.

That’s not to say that instances of grooming etc don’t exist because they surely do, and yes people should be cautious. I mean all stereotypes exist for a reason because instances of stereotypes are not fictional but do in fact exist, that’s how stereotypes come into being in the first place, stereotypes aren’t just magicked out of thin air. So grooming is as real as any other stereotype. The harm comes when people assume the stereotype is prevalent in all instances, or use that stereotype to judge before they know the facts (and not “know the facts” by online social networking standards, but ACTUALLY know the facts). IU is an adult and she can manage her own shit she doesn’t need some comments section’s help or approval. If she can handle being in a video with Jay Park she can handle anything.

i know this is probably the five hundred question about newjeans this month, they do have that ability, but i was busy watching omg and its famous last scene when i suddenly realized what it reminded me of; the mv for nice body by t-ara’s hyomin. about the most charitable reading of that music video is that hyomin is calling out all the t-ara haters and saying that they need to lose weight and stop being such neety losers online which reminded me of that last scene in omg with the implying that anyone writing stuff like ‘this mv made me feel uncomfortable’ are clearly all mental patients or something. in general the post bullying era t-ara mvs had a lot of meta commentary from nice body to jeon won diary and so on which among other things got them the title of kpop’s biggest trolls.

in general there’s a few similarities between newjeans and t-ara; from the fact nj’s story driven mvs are walking on the road t-ara paved with their 10 minute drama videos (in general t-ara has never really gotten enough credit inspiring for the ‘lore’ based kpop mvs we see today) to their controversial ceos who always was in the conversation to even the fact that t-ara too was marketed as somewhat of a simpler throwback with their old school trot style ballads and shit and stuff like Jiyeon debuting at 16 and having to do the bo peep butt dance which doesn’t compare to all of newjeans debuting at max 18 and singing cookie but you know just a reminder that these problems have been going on for years now.

i’ve been trying to come up with reasons why i have warmer feelings towards the nice body mv for all its many many faults than i do towards omg. you could say it’s cause i’m biased toward t-ara and that’s probably true but i actually think omg is a better song than nice body which i find pretty annoying. is it because as a t-ara fan i know exactly what t-ara and hyomin was going through in 2013 and thus excuse an immature ‘you’re just fat and ugly leave me alone netizen morons i didn’t bully hwayoung’ response over me just rolling my eyes at min hee jin clearly taking a few mean comments on twitter seriously and vicariously putting a clapback in her ultra successful group’s music videos. is it just me thinking that mhj is a pretentious asshole who probably needs to be questioned about her letterboxd recommendations?

anyway what’s your thoughts?

I definitely prefer Hyomin’s “Nice Body” musically, and I also think the commentary in the video is more valid. I think Hyomin is defending herself against criticisms of being ugly/undesirable in a fairly direct fashion whereas MJH is bitter about being called out for her sexualisation of underage people and is doing her best to obfuscate the issue with postmodern bullshit art-wank. That’s not to say that T-ara or other groups didn’t suffer similar issues back in the day, or even now, it’s really just MJH’s bad luck that she’s the one who’s being called out for treading along a path that has been walked by others many times before. Is it because she’s a woman? I don’t know, maybe. It might be more just because she’s a very visible creative director (whereas who actually came up with the “Nice Body” MV concept, does anyone know?) plus she has a pretty consistent pattern of gravitating towards the same kinds of fetishisation so she’s an easy target. That’s why I’ve never been that keen on the MJH witch-hunt, I think the bigger issue isn’t her walking along the path, but that the path exists.

1. First thing I would like to thank you to introducing me to Khruangbin and Jambinai. It really suited my tastes!

2. I wonder why you seem to hate Marina and the Diamonds? I mean, her songs are inventive, capable of bringing pulse back to depressed people and with better lyrics than most K-pop songs. She also have huge fruits which is also a plus, unless you live in Puer Kim’s standards.

3. Aside from Yeri’s masculine behavior here, I believe that Be Natural is the most effectively seductive MV Red Velvet ever had. Would you agree with me or would you choose another?

I wish you a great February!

1. Cheers!
2. Definitely don’t “hate” her but I just think the songwriting isn’t all that great. Agreed on all the other points about her but the songs just aren’t there for me, she doesn’t seem to have a great ear for melodies that I like.
3. I don’t actually find any of their videos all that seductive. I was really hoping Red Velvet would go full rococo for “Feel My Rhythm” but they didn’t. That would have had potential to change my mind.

There’s a bit of commotion going around about this one song which samples Never Gonna Give You Up because the guy who made it is getting sued by Astley right. the article has the details so I have 2 questions.

1. Why would you clear the sample for the composition and not the vocals?

2. Do you think this is going to set another bad precedent for music copyright like with the cases of copyright infringement with the Blurred Lines and Dark Horse songs or does Rick actually have leg to stand on in this case? Like, who’s in the right here?

3. What do you think about the actual song (yung gravy’s song not never gonna give you up just to be clear)

(ok wait I read a little harder before submitting and it seems like Yung Gravy and co. could use the actual vocal line, the problem is just that they hired a really good Rick Astley impersonator which seems kind of dumb)

It’s a real grey area. Yung Gravy got permission for the song, but he didn’t get “mechanical copyright” to use the original voice on the recording. However by using an impersonator, he’s technically not in breach of “mechanical copyright” anyway because he literally isn’t using the record, he just sounds like he is. So he’s in the clear for that, but where he might not be so much in the clear is it could be argued he’s trying to deceive the listener into thinking that IS Rick Astley’s voice he’s using (the subtitles literally say it is), and since the impersonator isn’t as good perhaps this could be seen as defaming him? So it’s a no to copyright infringement, but possibly a yes to some kind of defamation charge, maybe? I’ll be interested to see which way this one goes.

Fucking hate the song (Yung Gravy’s).

hey oppar:
So I had a professor last semester, and I think both of you are about the same age. So maybe you can help me figure out this mystery of a human.

I don’t know if you remember this retrospring question, but last semester I was in this class with a professor who kept fucking banging on his desk and rattling the chairs at the front of the room, which was terrifying! He kept at this for like 2 months.
He was pretty snippy too, which made me think he had depression — I ‘ve heard that with men it can show up as a being easily irritable.

[stuff removed at reader request]

He never mentioned what was wrong with him for the majority of the semester either, he just suddenly became a nice man one day.

I called my dad and complained about him, but he said something like “We shouldn’t discuss people who are clearly mentally unwell,” which is possibly true but I’m deeply unsatisfied with not solving this mystery.

Pity I had to delete the stuff you requested here as the edited-out details are fascinating. I’m no psychologist though, I’m way out of my depth on this one. Haven’t experienced something like this either, or known anyone who has. Your guess is as good as mine.

Kpopalypse Oppar, with the turn of the new year my thoughts have strayed to the all-important objectification survey. A crucial question remains–can I vote for Velvet? Is she a kpop? I really need to know because if so my #1 in the boobs category is assured. And there’s some stiff competition… I look forward to your response fondly.

Sadly she is ineligible. That didn’t stop a few people from voting for her last year anyway, but I had to disregard those votes.

Hopefully just for the sake of the polling this changes and she becomes a k-pop, we’ll see.

JAV of the month for January 2023 is JUQ-170, just putting this here with this question because beside a Velvet question is where the readers who find it the most relevant will see it.

I know you think charts are rigged and useless to measure the quality of music. However, they are the most objective way to measure popularity and success which is very important the everyone in the music industry, the fan, artist, the labels and even the general public. So what do you propose as a way to objectively determine whether the music is good? Currently you just listen to it and make a decision but others may have a different taste in music and disagree with your opinions.

Whether you like it or not is the only test that matters.

Other people’s opinions don’t matter. That includes my own. Why do you think I write roundup so lazily? Think about it, then read this.

If you like it, it is good. Hopefully you liked this answer!

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That’s all for this episode of QRIMOLE! This series will return next month! In the meantime remember the brothers are gonna work it out!

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!