So, an article just came out about 2NE1′s Bom mailing drugs, and it reminded me that I’d been planning a post for a while now about drugs and the music business.  I’m not really that interested in commenting on the Bom situation specifically (after all it’s already been done here, here, and of course here and probably countless other places by the time you read this, and plus I don’t really give a shit about it anyway, if she’s getting fucked up on some good shit good luck to her) but I thought instead k-pop fans might appreciate a general demystification around drugs, the music business, and how likely it is that their bias is about to sell their bodies for a shot of heroin or take bath salts and eat their manager’s face off.

A few things about me:

1.  I don’t do or condone the use of any drugs whatsoever.  I also don’t drink alcohol, I don’t smoke tobacco, I don’t even drink coffee or tea in the mornings.  I’m also not on any prescribed drugs.  I’m glad I made that decision when I was about 10 years of age to never start doing drugs because most people that I know who are my own age who went down the other path when they were younger are now a complete drug-fucked wreck and on shitloads of medication just to keep their bodies and brains alive after all the damage they’ve done to them.  BUT…

2.  I’m not a high-moral-ground-claiming, “oh my god that’s so wrong”-yelping, grandiose-lecturing cunt about it – I don’t care what other people do, it’s their own business and in fact I think all drugs should be legal.  I think it’s a personal rights issue.  It’s your own body, you should be able to do whatever fucking stupid shit you want to it.  Drink raw sewerage, eat powdered charcoal, sniff petrol, inject battery acid… your body is yours, and if you don’t have the freedom to control your own body, what freedoms do you have?  Nobody should legally be allowed to stop you from doing whatever dumb crap you want to your own body – even if it kills you.  That doesn’t mean that I think you should do drugs (in fact I’d advise strongly against it), I just believe no-one should be able to put you in jail for something that you willingly do to yourself just because it’s none of their business  AND…

3.  I work in the music business.  Oh boy.

To get some perspective on what working in the music business means as far as drugs are concerned, let’s start with a taste of some western music industry tales, from me to you in Korean gossip site “entertainment radar” style format to protect the guilty innocent.  Of course I wasn’t involved in any of these situations personally or in any business capacity whatsoever because I’m a fine upstanding law-abiding citizen who doesn’t involve myself with or condone drug use.  Hell, I don’t even know who these people are, and since it’s well-documented that I have no journalistic integrity whatsoever I’m probably just making this all up for your entertainment (hey: to my lawyer – does this paragraph sufficiently cover my ass?).

1.  Large rock festival Z tours Australia and many famous bands play.  Headlining act on festival Z’s lineup and large ticket drawcard is group Q, well known around the world for their energetic rock style.  The promoters get the rider for Q’s singer (for those unfamilar with the jargon a “rider” is a list of backstage and technical requirements for an artist, for big acts these can be comically fastidious and overblown but believe it or not sometimes it’s for good reason) and notice that a certain form of very hard and very illegal drugs are actually requested on the rider as an essential backstage requirement!  They query it with Q’s management, and the response comes back: “no, we are not making this up, yes, this is requested, no, the band will not play the show unless this is guaranteed to be provided”.  The promoter says “fuck that, we’re not giving them these drugs!” but doesn’t tell Q’s management this, the promoters just sign off on the contract anyway saying “yeah we’ll do it” because Q is a headlining act which is going to bring a big audience to the festival, they don’t want to risk a cancellation as it would mean financial disaster.  The festival happens, Q play the show but their singer becomes very angry about the lack of promised hard drugs backstage (not to mention strung-out, hahaha), then the group’s management does something unprecedented and unexpected – they take the promoters to court for “breach of contract” for not providing the illegal substance… and win.  Festival Z has to pay a hefty breach of contract fee and learn their lesson – they resolve to always provide hard drugs in future to international touring artists who request them.

2.  In the early 1990s internationally famous band Y tours Australia but didn’t impose similar conditions on the local promoters to provide narcotics.  The two principal members of Y are notorious crack cocaine addicts and figure that they’ll just pick some crack up locally on the streets – little do they know that Australia at that time was not a big country for crack cocaine.  The group spend the entire tour chasing crack rocks in each city without success, they become sick as a dog from crack withdrawals and vow never to return.  The group are still active today and so far they haven’t been back!

3.  Group M were a popular girl group.  They had a rocking but super-cute image and lots of teenage and tween fans who have been drawn to them by their breakout hit single and squeaky-clean parent-friendly non-sexualised charms.  Each member of the group had a separate fan following , each member also had a cutesy Spice Girls style nickname, and “who is your fave out of the girls” was naturally always a busy hot topic on the band’s official fansite.  However, those fans (and their parents) would have been horrified to know that in private circles each member of the group had another nickname, each name related to which illegal drug they prefer to consume!

4.  Group G are superstars, a household name.  During the afternoon they are soundchecking, at a big outdoor arena concert, when suddenly they realise – where’s our guitarist?  A search party is conducted.  After about 15 minutes of looking (the arena is big), G’s guitar player is found aimlessly wandering through the stands in a complete drug haze.  The road crew ask him what’s going on.  “Sorry – I lost my way from my bed to the stage”, he says.  His bed is in one of the tour caravans, and the stage is right there in front of it and it’s HUGE, several stories tall, you step right out of his caravan and there it is right in front, you can’t miss it.  Nevertheless, the road crew oblige him and build a concrete ramp extending from his caravan to the stage side entrance, and tell him “when the time comes, all you’ve got to do is walk out of your caravan and follow the concrete ramp, okay?”.  He nods, completes his part of the soundcheck, and then wanders off in a drug-haze again.  Night falls, and the concert is about to begin… G are ready to rock, but… “where’s our guitarist?”.  He hasn’t shown up.  The search party is called out again, this time they find him quite quickly, in the first place they look – he’s passed out inside his caravan.  They wake him up, but he’s so drooling and wasted that he can’t even walk – still, the show must go on so anticipating total disaster the road crew resolve to drag him to the stage anyway just to see what happens.  Two road crew members slowly and carefully carry him shoulder-to-shoulder up the concrete ramp, a third roadie straps his guitar onto him… and suddenly G’s guitarist springs into action, fully alert, and plays the intro to the group’s first song – like nothing ever happened!

That’s just four examples out of a potentially much longer list.  What these examples are intended to do besides amuse you, is illustrate the following: firstly, in the world of music, drugs are everywhere.  If you work in the music business and don’t encounter them on a regular basis, you’re just not paying enough attention.  Secondly, the music business has its own culture, rules and tolerances, and it’s often completely at odds with the culture, rules and tolerances of the actual society that the music scene is in.  Aspects of life that are not generally condoned (at least on the surface) in wider society are often encouraged and even celebrated in the music business, and the higher up you go in the food chain of the music industry, the more prevalent this is.  Musical endeavours tend to draw in the more creative free-thinking type of individuals in society, and it’s that same free thought that drives innovations in music which also motivates other “behavioural and cultural innovations”, like snorting cocaine off the buttcracks of hookers – as a result, the music business and the world of organised crime have never been more than a stone’s throw away from each other.

“Rock Against Drugs, what a name. Somebody was high when they came up with that title. It’s like Christians Against Christ. Rock created drugs.” – Sam Kinison

Now let’s talk about Korea and k-pop for a little bit.  Korea’s idol music scene has a little bit in common with the western popular music scene (like overuse of dubstep and bad hair), but it also has some important differences.

• Korea is a bit more uptight about recreational drugs than most western countries (at least on the surface)
• Performers are generally held to a higher physical standard, not just for marketing reasons but also to help their ability to perform demanding routines
• Actual performances are rarer and thus each one carries with it more pressure to do well
• Performances are held up to a higher degree of technical scrutiny by fans
• Performers practice a lot

None of these aspects remind me overly of the western pop and rock music scenes, which people usually get into because they don’t like the idea of working hard for a living.  What they remind me of instead is the western world of classical and orchestral music.  And guess what?  The world of classical music is the world of some seriously drug-crazy motherfuckers.  Out of all the different music scenes that I’ve worked in, I’ve encountered drug use most commonly with classical musicians.

I know you probably don’t believe this, or think that perhaps it’s an exceptional case, so I’ll explain.

Many years ago I went to university and studied classical music at the conservatory.  I remember the day I went to auditions – there I was standing in the very large foyer, probably the only person in the history of the conservatory to audition with an acoustic guitar worth less than the price of the pen I had to sign the audition sheet with.  I got bored so I started reading the student community noticeboards, and the most common notice up on the pin-boards after advertisements for people seeking accommodation were phone numbers of folks you could call to buy cheap drugs.  These dealers weren’t selling recreational drugs, but performance-enhancing drugs normally available only on prescription for people with high blood pressure such as beta-blocker steroids Inderal and Propranolol, to relieve the symptoms of stage fright.  In the classical music world using performance-enhancing drugs isn’t considered “cheating” (because they only take away nervous shakes and sweating rather than directly improve performance) and there are no drug tests conducted on musicians.  Quite the contrary – the conservatory were happy for the ads to stay on the noticeboard, and the use of such drugs is generally encouraged and condoned.  If your tutor finds out you’re taking them, he isn’t going to ask to see if you have a prescription or not, he’s more likely to ask you which brand you find most effective and recommend!

That’s not all – of course it isn’t.  Classical musicians take all the other drugs the rock and pop musicians take too, on top of these.  Various musicians that I’ve met were quite partial to a bit of crystal meth to keep them up late at night practising those long hours, cocaine before a performance to give them extra confidence, and then of course there’s the heroin.  Just one example out of many that I could recount: during my time at the conservatory I once made the massive mistake of writing a piece of music for a chamber orchestra and then putting together an actual chamber orchestra to play it at a performance.  Looking back on it with the wisdom of hindsight I should have just fucked the chamber orchestra off and used a fucking computer, no shit.  There were only six people in this chamber ensemble but not one rehearsal that I organised had all six of them, these bitches were slacker than Hwayoung about showing up to practice (and in true Hwayoung style I had to organise a replacement for one of them mere minutes before the final performance).  In particular one of my violinists would almost never show up – one day after getting pissed off and cancelling the session I went down the street to get some food and found him busking in the street outside!  I thought to myself “how come you can play your fucking violin out here but not play at my rehearsal?” but then I thought about it and realised that it was the money factor – a great player, he could get decent money busking very quickly, so that was his go-to if he needed quick funds for a fix.  Maybe in retrospect I should have made the entire ensemble rehearse outdoors on the street with their money tins out, that could have worked, maybe.  Or perhaps I should have just gotten them all into Krokodil and then their arms would have fucking dropped off and they wouldn’t be able to play music anymore which would have made the performance a bit problematic but it would have been funny.

While I don’t work in the k-pop scene (or the classical music scene anymore, thank fuck), I can reasonably guess that because k-pop has got a similar high-pressure environment to classical music, I would expect the same drugs to be in use that people take in the classical music world just to function consistently in that environment.  Korean society being conservative and having harsh penalties for drug use only makes this more likely in my eyes – when you’ve got an extremely obsessed-with-appearances morally upstanding society on the surface, an active seedy underbelly is a certainty.  I wouldn’t expect high marijuana use (because the last thing a k-pop idol wants is “the munchies”, plus the quality is crap – DMTN’s Daniel was probably telling the truth about not smoking his own stash), and I also think that heroin addictions are extremely unlikely, because being “on the nod” is fine for slack western performers who can get carried around by their road crew like in the example above (oh, and Hwayoung could probably sustain a heroin habit without it interfering with her bath time too much) but in the tough idol system this would directly relate to a lack of functionality.  Instead, I’d expect to see drugs that make k-pop idols lives easier rather than harder: beta-blockers to combat debut nerves, methamphetamine for its “go all night” properties, plus massive use of legal prescription or over-the-counter drugs and supplements to control and manage sleep, appetite and energy levels.  K-pop drug use wouldn’t be recreational, it would be about “brain management”.  Speaking of management, Korean idols are also micromanaged quite heavily and generally don’t have disposable income until the money starts coming in from CF work which can take several years if at all so I’d also expect in some cases for the labels themselves to be very much in on the game, controlling the supply.  Some labels would probably even have their own known preferred dealers just like the punk scene I worked in for many years who have special arrangements with label staff and know how to operate their business discreetly.

Some of you fucks are naturally going to say “how do you know all this?” and you’re right – I don’t.  I’m guessing just like you, it’s just that my guess is probably a lot more educated than most people’s thanks to decades of experience dealing with every flavour of drug-addled fuck-up you can imagine from all corners of the world and in several different music scenes.  My hot tip: expect an Open World Entertainment style scandal that goes right to the top of a company, but with the crime of choice being the supplying of drugs rather than sexual assault.  When some startup nugu agency’s CEO gets busted sometime down the track for drug trafficking meth, speed and/or crazy prescription shit without a prescription to his own trainees so they can pull longer hours in the gym remember that I told you this in July 2014 before it blew up.  In the meantime, enjoy everyone on all sides of the Bom drug smuggling debate losing their shit over something which isn’t even any concern of theirs.

p.s I might be anti-drugs at least as far as myself and my own life goes but I hate those “straight-edge” wankers.  Fucking dickheads turning the simple act of choosing not to do drugs into some kind of fucking religion and bashing everyone over the head with it (often literally).  Any of you reading this who are into that trendy crap and also think I’m in with that bullshit, no way.  What a bunch of absolute cockheads.  In my experience most of them secretly do drugs anyway when no-one’s looking – trufax.

That’s right cao ni mas, it’s time for another episode of:

You probably already know the rules, but here they are again:

• Less than 20,000 hits on YouTube
• Nobody outside Korea gives a shit

Let’s do it.

Everyone who likes k-pop likes to remind everyone else who likes k-pop that Korea’s entertainment business is a conservative arena steered by the moral quandaries of teenage girls with too much Internet access, especially when controversies constantly arise over situations that wouldn’t register a blip on the “care radar” of any free-thinking intelligent adult.  However, this observation is sharply at odds with a lot of Korean MV drama activity which continually descends into positively Lynchian territory even when tackling the most benign of subjects.  This time on Nugu Alert we’re highlighting videos that have ambitious yet inexplicably surreal Mills & Boon romance style drama videos.  Dramas videos are actually quite expensive to create even if the scenes themselves are relatively simple, and I’m not talking about paying the actors (who get paid very little and often don’t get paid at all) – it’s the technical requirements of drama-making that spin out the cost.  Therefore I ask you to please watch and appreciate these drama MVs because a lot of money was sunk into them for probably very little return and it would be a shame to see all that effort go to waste.

WARNING: these reviews necessarily have to contain plot spoilers, otherwise discussing them and meeting minimum snarky Kpopalypse observation requirements is impossible, so if like me you are deeply concerned about that sort of thing and want the maximum entertainment value out of this post, watch the videos first before reading the text.

Hong So Hee – Lemon

This video starts off normally enough with our protagonist driving in typical Korean style (changing lanes without indicating), wearing high heels at the airport (clearly masochistic tendencies) and having something creepy done to her ears (that I’d rather remain ignorant of so feel free to not enlighten me in the comments below).  A basket of lemons tip over, and being a starving Korean nugu in the entertainment business she naturally steals one for precious sustenance.  Then she spends the rest of the video mooning about, reminiscing, having flashbacks and being all miserable and shit presumably because she doesn’t have a partner, but what that’s got to do with stealing the lemon I’m not sure.  We don’t see what happened to the guy (maybe there wasn’t the budget for it) but I can only presume that he died in a car accident given the general reckless driving throughout with the couple continually not wearing seatbelts and poking their heads through the sunroof of a moving vehicle (both illegal activities in Australia) not to mention driving with shockingly low visibility.  What is it with Koreans and driving?  How did the people making this shit even survive to the end of the video shoot without becoming road casualties?  I know that if I ever found myself in a car in Korea I’d fucking wear double seatbelts and a crash helmet if I could.  Anyway whatever it’s all supposed to mean, it’s entertaining and puzzling enough to make the fairly unremarkable song sort of drift off into the background of your consciousness throughout, which I guess is probably the intention of the video director given how much Koreans seem to love their elevator music.

Youtube hits at time of viewing: 5479

Notable attribute: entire cast and crew of this video probably still alive at time of writing

Nugu Alert rating – very high

Taibian – Pinocchio

There’s a saying in the music business – “don’t shit where you eat”.  What this saying really means is don’t mix your personal love affairs with work, because if things go badly it will cause you problems.  If you play in a band, don’t fuck your bandmates, if you teach, don’t fuck your students, if you work in an office, don’t fuck the cute guy or girl who comes to change the coffee machine filters etc.  Imagine being in a really successful group, having a fling with a band member, it doesn’t work out, you end up hating each other, but you gotta see each other every day anyway because your band has legions of fans and you don’t want to break it up because it’s now your bread and butter.  Welcome to the awkward zone.  I don’t know if the world of baristas has a similar creed but if not, they should consider it.  In this video for some godawful “Bone Thugs N Harmony meets k-pop” trash, the horny coffee attendant recognises an old friend at the counter, then makes a sneaky play for her literally 0.5 seconds after she broke it off with some dude.  It seems to work out even after the dude smacks him down… that is, until about 2:50 where everything goes sour for a reason that isn’t explained.  She gives him a letter which seems to have something to do with it… but what’s in it?  The cuntfaced video director doesn’t want to tell us, he wants to be all like Pulp Fiction and the fucking briefcase about it.  But maybe the letter has nothing to do with it, maybe the guy was just a bit over-keen straight out of the gate and she became cautious, I mean, he literally buys her a coffee and then a ring in the next scene – hold your horses there, that’s just a little quick off the mark, son.  Whatever happened to dinner and a movie first?

YouTube hits at time of writing: 1694

Notable attribute: smallest face scratch ever shown in a MV fight scene

Nugu Alert rating: very high

AB Avenue – Sad Story

I pity AB Avenue – they obviously had some money behind them, this is not some traditional nugu caper.  Looking at this video for the first time, I was expecting them to be huge, and maybe they were massive in Korea but from where I’m sitting, it sure doesn’t look like it.  They have a very high-budget and great-looking MV featuring a hot bitch-faced fappable actress which is hosted on 1theK(aka Loen)’s YouTube channel, one of the biggest distributors of Korean MVs out there, yet they still have managed to somehow fucking qualify for Nugu Alert.  Their official Facebook has only 383 followers at the time of writing (don’t rush to friend them and boost the numbers – their last update was in 2010) and their MP3′d pirated songs on YouTube actually have more hits than any of their MVs.  AB Avenue are a group that surely has the blood of the nugu flowing through their veins, even Gangkiz would be envious presuming such lack of success was actually something to envy.  Anyway the MV for this mediocre join-the-dots Davichi-esque snorefest starts with a guy waking up to find out a jilted ex-lover has handcuffed him to a chair and is going to make him pay for dumping her for some unspecified reason.  Perhaps he let her go because he got a hunch that she was a psycho killer and wanted nothing more to do with her, if it was me in his shoes I reckon that creepy stare at 1:56 would have tipped me off.  Then she decides to kill him (because that will make everything better, oh wait) and she either thinks better of it and turns the gun on herself for being such a bitch, or the guy just has the thickest skull known to man and is able to deflect the bullet back in her direction.  It’s pretty straightforward really, the only real mystery here is why nobody watched this back in the day – I guess with idol pop peaking in quality at around the time this song came out, it was enough to overshadow mediocre ballads like this completely.  Ahhh… those were the days.

YouTube hits at time of writing: 6569

Notable attribute: actual lips-on-lips visible during kissing scene did not cause the destruction of the Earth

Nugu Alert rating: extreme

That wraps it up for another episode!  Kpopalypse Nugu Alert will return at an unspecified future date to bring you more fresh (or stale) nugus!  Until then, drive safely!

I dropped a comment a while back stating that CL was the only female k-pop idol who displayed anything resembling stage presence.  This horrified nearly everyone – fans of 2NE1 were concerned that this praise for CL was uncharacteristic of my normal online behaviour and perhaps indicative of massive hard drug use or mental breakdown, whereas everyone else was like “b-b-b-but, what about MY bias?  I think they’re great!  Doesn’t [insert bias here] have stage presence?”

Oh the wailing and gnashing of teeth when you tell a k-pop fan that their bias doesn’t have stage presence…. but they really don’t.  This post will explain why they don’t have it, and also why you shouldn’t care.

As it happens, most people who inhabit the k-pop online-o-sphere misunderstand stage presence simply because they have no real idea about what the term “stage presence” actually means.  Let’s start off with a few things that stage presence is not.  Stage presence isn’t:

• being charming
• being pretty
• smiling and waving a lot
• being a “good singer” (in technical vocalfag terms, ugh)
• wearing a cool outfit
• not wearing a cool outfit (i.e stripping)
• doing little heart signs and aegyo and shit
• crying or showing other emotion
• stunning stage lighting
• loud volume
• great staging props
• being above a certain height (you’d be amazed how short a lot of well-known western rock stars are)

Of course, stage presence doesn’t exclude any of the above factors either.  You could have all of the above list working in your favour, or you could not have any of it, and you can still either have stage presence, or not have it.

So what is stage presence, then?  Well, as per usual all the people asking me about it could have just used Google:

However, your average one-eyed k-pop fan will look at this definition and go “b…b…b..but my bias is impressive!” – well yes, of course he/she is – to you.  You’re so deeply in love with them that they could be in an office building downtown trimming their fingernails like Hwayoung and you could be watching them through the window using a telescope from Sasaeng HQ five miles away and you’d still be ‘impressed’ by their ‘presence’.  The key words here to remember in the definition above are not “impressiveness” or “manner or appearance” but “theatre audience”.  Ahhh.

Here’s Bruce Dickinson, from well-known heavy metal group Iron Maiden, and probably one of the world’s best practitioners of “stage presence”, explaining perfectly how it works.  Relevant parts at 0:16 and 1:21, and also observe his stage manner, where he completely dominates the (huge) stage and audience.  Ignore the statement from the vocalfag in between who has been brought into the documentary purely for academic “metal should be taken as seriously as opera yes it should” brownie points and misses the point a little.

Contrast that to the following performance from k-pop nugus Bob Girls.  Look at the girls, from 8:45, carefully adjusting their costumes and making sure they’re in the right spot to start the choreo.  Their strictly choreographed routine that they’re not allowed to deviate from means that they have to play strictly by the stage’s rules.  They don’t own the stage, the stage owns them.  It’s not their fault, nor does it reflect badly on them as performers – they simply have no choice in the matter.  The tight format of idol pop that most groups have to work with simply doesn’t allow traditional stage presence to exist.

Speaking of vocalfags (and this is relevant), a while ago I wrote a post explaining how the vocalfaggotry that Korean fans as well as western vocal thread creators use is all just personal taste and obsessive-compulsive-disorder because the techniques singers use for projection simply aren’t needed in the 21st century when you’ve got a microphone right up to your lips and a team of audio technicians armed with the latest toys in vocal tweaking at your beck and call.  Vocal techniques were developed in pre-modern days when getting that voice to the back of the hall without microphones was important, but nowadays it doesn’t matter because the technology does it for you.  Yes, you can make a subjective determination “I like singer X because they’re using techniques that singer Y doesn’t have any idea about, and that sounds nicer to my ear” or you can say “because singer X is using better techniques they won’t hurt their throat or lose their voice as much as singer Y, and gosh that would be a shame if Y had to quit singing for this reason” but there’s no objective reason why X is better than Y sonically from a listener’s point of view.  You could write a whole thesis about vocal techniques and how Mariah Carey has better technique than Bob Dylan and it’d all be correct but if the listener likes listening to Bob Dylan’s voice more, why does it even matter?  In the 19th century yes it would have mattered because Bob wouldn’t have been able to be heard beyond the first two rows of audience whereas Mariah could be heard to the back of the room, but in the 21st century where everyone’s all amplified and shit, it does not matter a bit.  This is why I refuse to get drawn into arguments with vocalfags – the mere act of discussing these points is giving their perspective a relevance that it objectively doesn’t have.  Nothing that they are saying is technically wrong or untrue by default, it just simply doesn’t matter to the hyper-technology world of modern music in any way other than subjective taste.  That’s why the new girl selected for KARA was the prettiest one, not the best singer… as if it was ever going to turn out any other way.

It’s relevant to the stage presence discussion because there’s a similar kind of analogy that can be made with stage presence.  In the old days of theatre performance, stage presence was a vital determining factor as to how effective a performance would be.  If you’ve ever seen anyone with “theatre makeup” in any other environment than on an actual stage, you’ll know that theatre makeup often looks fucking disgusting up close, and that’s because such makeup is meant to make an impression from far away.  Correspondingly, theatrical performers also tend to exaggerate their movements, speech and gestures, to make their stage presence as large as possible, so they can make an impact across the entire hall.  Just like there’s no point in a 19th century opera singer affecting a fey, whispery vocal tone, there’s no point in a theatrical performer making a small subtle movement that only the first two rows are close enough to see if they’re performing in front of an audience of 500.

Once again however, just like with vocal performance, modern technology changes everything.  Actors for TV don’t ham it up as much as theatrical performers because cameras can zoom in and capture those small details that will be missed by a live audience, making the old exaggerated techniques for presence projection irrelevant (not to mention often silly-looking).  Makeup for televised performances is also more subtle than the old-style theatre makeup, and is designed to enhance and/or cover small details rather than make a bold impression at range.  Likewise, the k-pop performer doesn’t actually need stage presence to reach the back of a room because there are a bunch of compensatory factors:

• Performances for TV only really need to be played to the cameras, not the live audience
• A large group of people dancing together in synchronised fashion makes a bigger impression and can be seen from further away, which is one reason for those big boy groups and also why even solo performers have backing dancers for upbeat songs
• On live stages camera feeds can be shown to the audience on projected screens to make the idols’ image more up close and personal
• Modern arena concert stages often have gangways so the performers can walk out into the audience and get closer, reducing the need to project as far
• Emotional attachment to the idols will make the idol seem larger than life in the eyes of the audience regardless

The last one is important in k-pop.  Watch a fancam for someone you really like, and then watch another similar fancam for some idol you really don’t give a fuck about, and see if you can detect any difference in stage presence.  If you’re as biased as the average one-eyed k-pop fan you’ll probably detect a ton, but in reality there isn’t any difference at all.  Both performers are working within the same kind of strictly regimented system and displaying equal stage presence (motherfuckin’ zero), it’s your aching libido and mental attachment to the idol fantasy that is doing the rest.

Companies know all this, so they don’t bother to train idols in stage presence… instead they train them to interact with cameras, and only the first few rows of audience – that smiling-waving shit we all know about.  Companies know that the combination of their technology and your deludu brain will fill in the mental blanks required and you’ll have the false impression that they have stage presence anyway (as well as moral virtue, riches, a clean-living lifestyle, intelligence, emotional maturity, etc).  CL probably has stage presence by accident by virtue of having a highly aggressive alpha personality that’s usually whipped mercilessly out of idols long before they debut so they can be more “charming” (it’s easily visible on their “Nolza” live DVD, she stands apart from the other members massively in this area whenever she gets the chance to break from the choreo) and she is the only idol who has it, and don’t waste your time linking me examples of other idols who you think might have it because:

• I’ll tell you right now in advance that they don’t and
• If you’re still even thinking that this question is even important, you’ve just missed the point of this entire post.

CL’s stage presence, like Ailee’s voice, while nice, doesn’t really have any meaningful function – it’s wasted in a genre which doesn’t require it, it may as well be absent.  Other performers in Korea who occasionally exhibit stage presence (PSY and Tiger JK are good examples) are not part of the idol system.  No coincidence.

Glad that’s settled, then.

Sport.  I’m against it generally, and I’m even more against it in k-pop.  This post is about why sport and k-pop need to remain separate, and I’ve made it because it’s one of those things that people are always asking me about.  Usually I just say “I’m a musician – sport is against my religion” when people ask but since you blog readers are so lovely I feel like I owe you a little more detail and entertainment than that.  Also I’m not seeing anyone else blogging about this shit and it’s a Kpopalypse specialty to brazenly wander into topics that other bloggers won’t touch with a ten foot T-ara lightstick for fear of being cyber-stoned to death by the Internet hordes.

WARNING: this post may contain Australian cultural trufax, including gratuitous references to Drop Bears.

I don’t know what it’s like in other countries, but in Australia, sport is a big thing down here and probably the biggest cultural pastime that we have besides getting incredibly drunk and having outdoor barbeques every month of the year.  (I know what you people from other countries are thinking, especially those of you who had to endure Paul Hogan’s horrid tourism advertising, but “shrimp on the barbie” is an advertising line for foreign consumption only – in Australia we don’t even call them “shrimp” and most barbeque is sausages and kebabs because shrimp prawns that are big enough to not fall through the metal cracks in the barbeque grill are just too fucking expensive.  Oh look at me getting all sidetracked and it’s only the opening paragraph.  I can already tell that this is going to be a weird post.)  No matter where you go in Australia, you can’t avoid sport, it’s fucking impossible because that shit is everywhere.  Believe me, I’ve tried – it can’t be done.

Growing up I noticed that only my school’s total fuckheads were good at sport so I drew the sensible conclusion early on in life that sport sucked a bag of dicks and I didn’t want any part of it so I logically took refuge in the world of music.  Music is sport’s natural arch-nemesis, the Yin to sport’s Yang.  Key contrasts between the worlds of sport and music include but are not limited to the following:

• Sport has cooperative elements but is fundamentally about competition, while music has competitive elements but is fundamentally about cooperation
• Sport injuries keep musicians from practising their instruments, while listening to music prevents sport players from hearing their teammates warn them about the hockey puck that is flying toward their head and about to slice their eye in half
• Many sport players aren’t allowed to excel at their craft when on drugs, while many musicians aren’t allowed to excel at their craft when off drugs

It’s obvious to me that sport and music exist on opposite ends of some kind of “leisure spectrum”.  You’re either really good at music, or you’re really good at sport, but if you try to be good at both your interest and participation in one activity will always be compromised by the other activity in some way.  Want some relevant k-pop examples?  Sure you do.

Sport and k-pop should not mix example 1:  Wassup’s “Fire”

We can see the negative mix of sport and music here in two ways.

1.  It negatively affects the music.  The song is shit.  There is sport in the music video.  Wassup aren’t usually quite this bad, so therefore, it’s sport’s fault.

2.  It negatively affects the sport.  Wassup are apparently one of the biggest k-pop groups in Brazil. and their song was made to cheer on Brazil (not Korea, because Wassup troll k-netz for laughs just like me) in the World Cup.  Gosh, that didn’t work out so well, did it.  Coincidence?  I doubt it.  Brazil’s unusually poor sporting performance in the 2014 World Cup is obviously related to the Brazilian team jerking it too much to Wassup’s video – and who can blame them?

Clearly, it would be best if music and sport were kept far apart.

Sport and k-pop should not mix example 2:  Idol Star Athletics

My guitar students are always getting injuries from stupid fucking compulsory school sport and having to take time off from my lessons to heal their broken arms and hands.  I keep telling their parents “tell the kid to not attend sport at all, sport is Mickey Mouse bullshit, it won’t help their career – write the little shits a note to give to their Phys Ed teacher saying that the kid has got terminal ass cancer and is exempt from all sports games on doctor’s orders” but it never works.  The parents always just mutter something about “needing exercise” as if sport is the only source of exercise that exists and refuse to heed my advice… then the kid just breaks another arm a few weeks later.  So much for the supposed health benefits, I must have missed the memo on how it’s so fucking healthy to break a new bone in your body every two months.  Likewise, stupid Idol Star Athletics in Korea injures fappable k-pop performers like AOA’s Seolhyun, preventing their appearance in comebacks.

This is obviously not acceptable.  Seolhyun isn’t even my fave but AOA is a rare group where every member meets required standards and we really need all hands (and boobs, and asses, and legs, and…) on deck to maximise fap music appreciation.

Sport and k-pop should not mix example 3: Super Junior’s “Victory”

Here’s Super Junior back in 2010 milking the success of “Sorry Sorry” for the 153rd time, using the same dances and rhythms that we’ve heard from them ad nauseam with minor variations, I guess even SM realised that some shitty soccer game wasn’t worth the effort of writing a whole new song or coming up with any new ideas.  No need to mention how much motivation to perform this shitty song gave the Korean team of course, we already know.  Shit tossed-off song, shitty team performance – everybody loses when sport and k-pop mix.

Sport and k-pop should not mix example 4:  Hyomin fap

This…

…or this?

Case closed.  Sport, leave Hyomin alone.

Sport and k-pop should not mix example 5:  Ailee’s “Fighting Spirit”

So between creating web traffic for 6Theory and singing dicksucking western pop ballads Ailee recorded a World Cup song this year and it’s more listenable than the last couple of feature tracks she’s done but then so is just about anything. Of course because it’s for a sport thing she has to dress as unflatteringly as possible so she doesn’t make ugly fat couch-potato TV sport addicts feel bad, which is reason enough to add this song to the list of reasons why k-pop and sport shouldn’t be together.

Sport and k-pop should not mix example 6:  Orange Caramel fap

I find the soccer ball patterns on the front of the costumes confusing to the eye, it makes it hard to make out the contours of the Orange Caramel member’s boobs underneath the clothing.  Obviously if they weren’t performing for some World Cup bullshit the patterns would be different and the opportunity for fap wouldn’t have been squandered.

Sport and k-pop should not mix example 7: Music Fucking Core

Does anyone with a life actually give a fuck who wins and loses what on a music TV show?  Of course not, if you have half a brain in your head you only care about if you like the song or not and you’re just happy that your favourite group was able to get on the show at all to perform the song so you could watch them.  However to the world’s fuckwits, winning and losing on shows like this is terribly important, and that mentality comes from applying a sport-based competitive attitude to music.  I’ve blogged before about why music competitions are all bullshit and nothing has changed since then… as if EXO’s “Growl” beating out Crayon Pop’s “Bar Bar Bar” wasn’t enough of a tipoff that something’s amiss.

Sport and k-pop should not mix example 8: Akdong Musician’s “Give Love”

See what bullshit music we have to endure because people win music competitions?  Moving right along.

Sport and k-pop should not mix example 9: Shindong in a karate uniform

Scarier than a drop bear, and possibly twice as hungry.

So that oughta do it.  If these nine points haven’t convinced you of the strength of my argument, nothing will.  Of course if you love sport then all is well and good just keep it the fuck away from music because those two things shouldn’t be mixed.  It’s like crossing the streams in Ghostbusters – you just don’t do it.  This has been a Kpopalypse Community Service Anouncement.

I spend a lot of time debunking the bullshit surrounding k-pop and helping people to see the reality behind the curtain of fairy floss, but what I haven’t ever really done is helped anyone deal with the emotional fallout from having those rose-coloured glasses taken off.  I also don’t want to be blamed for a spate of fangirl suicides so I feel that it’s time that I stepped up to the plate with some assistance.  Help for you deludus is here, Kpopalypse style!

Imagine being a fangirl* living in a dreamworld and discovering some of my writing, or perhaps someone else’s writing on a blogsite like Anti Kpop-Fangirl or Asian Junkie, or maybe just stumbling across some other factlet out there that doesn’t please your fangirly predilections.  You’re driven by a sense of righteous indignation – “this can’t be happening to your fave!” your friends say, so damned if you’re not going to go straight to the comments section to stick up for your precious bias.  Once you arrive, you start checking out the content and something very unexpected happens – some of what you’re seeing actually makes sense.  Cogs inside your mind start turning – uh oh.  How is your fragile fangirl psyche going to cope with these new revelations?  Could medical intervention be the only solution?

Sadly it’s not that simple.  The stripping away of fangirl delusion is a loss, and losing a psychological crutch can (depending on severity) be just as painful as any other type of loss, and involves grief.  It’s said by psychologists that grieving happens over seven stages, and helping to understand these seven stages may assist recovering fangirls to expedite the healing process.  Let’s look at each stage in turn so we can better understand the impact and emotional fallout from finding out that Seungri spunks on Japanese’s girls’ tits or whatever the problem is with hormonal fangirls this week.

1.  DENIAL and DISBELIEF

When confronted with facts that you may not be ready for as a fan, disbelief cushions the initial impact, allowing you to absorb the new revelations gradually rather than all at once.  See the following comments from when a (legitimate) rough demo of EXO’s “Wolf” was leaked:

A layer of doubt softens the blow while your brain absorbs the shock and adjusts to the new information.  These people could have experienced serious psychological fallout from EXO’s atrocious “Wolf” without the layer of protection that denial provided.

2.  PAIN and ANGUISH

Once the initial shock wears off, pain sinks in as the truth hits home.  Here’s a comment on the video “Quit Playing” by U-KISS, which cast the boys in a much more sexualised light than their fandom was used to:

The pain experienced here is palpable.  Sorry honey, but your precious angels have money to make so they’re doing what’s necessary.  Diablo 3′s new expansion pack won’t pay for itself, you know.

3.  ANGER

Frustration at inability to change the situation at hand may cause you to lash out in anger.  See the following response to an Anti K-pop Fangirl article that used new information to cast Taeyeon’s cleavage in a disturbing new light:

Sones didn’t like the Taeyeon cleavage, and powerless to change the situation, they directed their frustrations outward at the perceived “enemy” – the bloggers and GIF posters highlighting the issue.  Their rage blinded them to the fact that those making inquiry into Taeyeon’s “pearly volume” were not idle haters casting dispersions on their bias, but scientific truth-seekers attempting to save humanity from the cleavage portal of darkness.

4.  BARGAINING WITH A HIGHER POWER

Enterprising fangirls may try to bargain with those that they perceive to be in control of the situation for a way out.  From the same post as step 3:

Sones tried to start a cyber campaign against deity-like HQ GIF provider fiddle.se to remove the Taeyeon cleavage but even if it were successful it wouldn’t have helped change the truth.  Information, like Taeyeon’s boobies, wants to be free.

5.  GUILT and FRUSTRATION

Without an effective outlet, anger turns inward, firstly in the form of guilt.  People coming to terms with a delusion being shattered may ask themselves “Was there anything I could have done?  Is it somehow my fault?”

Yes it probably is, for being such a fucking deludu in the first place (you dumb whore).  However it’s never too late to get onto the path to redemption and rational thinking.  Let’s hope this random netizen makes it through all the grief stages!

6.  DEPRESSION

Anger eventually completely settles into depression.  Fangirls may become listless, lose interest in their favourite idols and usual fangirly activities, and succumb to lethargy while crying and ripping up Baekhyun posters.  Someone asked me this today:

Like 95% of the questions that come through my ask.fm it’s not even an actual fucking question, but whatever.  Actually I like to think I’ve enhanced her life, she’s already jumped straight through to stage 6!  Sure it sucks to be her right now but it’s all uphill from here, baby!  Just don’t lose patience because depression can be the longest stage of the process, depending on the extremity of the loss.

7.  HOPE

Eventually depression subsides and you learn to accept and deal with reality.  You can never go back to the way you were before you tragically found out about how shit really was, but there is hope for the future!  After all, tomorrow is another day!

If on the other hand it’s someone you personally know who is affected with irrational fangirl stupid disease, knowing is forewarning, and being forewarned is being forearmed.  Now that you know about these seven stages, it won’t be long before you can act and respond to crazy fangirls appropriately!

*  Or a fanboy.  I could have written “fangirl/fanboy” instead of just “fangirl” every time I used it in this post, but being politically correct is just too much fucking typing and it looks messy.  Every fanboy is a fangirl in spirit anyway.

In my eternal quest to shut up those people asking me to review shit all the time, here’s a review… of a book.  Unlike song reviews, I figure that a book review might actually be vaguely useful to some of you.  Sure, reviewing the latest written-while-taking-a-shit song from SM or YG might be good for web traffic and ego-stroking but what’s the point of me throwing down my worthless, annoying opinion on a song when you can just go to YouTube, listen to it yourself and make up your own mind?  On the other hand, books are less of a try-before-you-buy proposition so you might actually want to know a bit about what’s in these fucks before you buy them, so in my mission to get k-pop fans to occasionally put down their iMaxipads and read a fucking book (those things with the pages, you’ve seen them, right?) I now bring to you this review.  Please enjoy it.  Or not.

Kpop Now – The Korean Music Revolution

Author: Mark James Russell

Tuttle Publishing, 128 pages, softback, 254mm x 191mm, colour

ISBN: 978-4-8053-1300-8

RRP: US $15.95 – AUS $17.99

Amazon link so the author doesn’t hate me for this negative snarky review and can still make a buck

I told myself quite firmly that I wasn’t going to buy this book when I first heard about it, because I read a particularly shitty review of it on Beyond Hallyu before it came out which seemed fairly legit, but then it turned up in my local bookstore so I thought “fuck it, I like to make up my own mind about shit anyway” and I figured you guys could use the entertainment so here it is.

The first thing I noticed about this book when I picked it up is the picture of f(x) in the bottom right corner of the front page – taken from f(x)’s “Rum Pum Pum Pum” promotions, it means that this book is less than a year old (late 2013).  This is relevant because any book about k-pop is obviously fighting a battle of cultural relevancy as soon as it appears – the genre is just beyond its first major quality peak, and moving and developing so fast right now that anything written about it in printed format is going to be out of date almost the minute it leaves the printing press.  The story of k-pop is a story that is very much still being written, and for the same reason that nobody could have ever penned the definitive book about heavy metal or rap in 1990, we’ll have to wait at least two decades before the definitive text of k-pop history and development appears.  In the meantime, we’ll have to make do with fairly lightweight snapshots, which is basically what this book is, and that’s not really the fault of the author – a snapshot is all that this can be, by definition.  “K-pop Now” is therefore light on text, heavy on pictures, and someone reasonably literate will plow through it all in about an hour.

The book splits itself into several small chapters, here’s what they contain:

Introduction: The State of K-pop

Some general musings about the current state of play in k-pop.  H.O.T. and S.E.S. are mentioned along with newer acts, the increasing amount of debuts, PSY (of course), online polling, the overseas activities of various groups and even the k-pop writing of Popdust rates a mention – but not Allkpop.  Feel the burn, all those people on Allkpop who thought my interview with Popdust’s k-pop contributor Jacques wasn’t “relevant”.

Chapter 1: The Land Of K-pop

A boring tourist-focused travelogue style chapter which no k-pop fan will be able to read without their eyes glazing over and which completely fails to draw a convincing analogy between the development and cultural mix of South Korea and the city of Seoul and k-pop generally.  Some crap about “constant reinvention” is the key analogy the author is trying to draw here but you’ll long for the author to stop wasting pages with this nonsense and start discussing what you bought the book for.

Chapter 2: What Is K-pop?

The meatiest text in the entire book is here, with the author discussing the evolution of the modern k-pop style from Seo Taiji & The Boys onward to the formation of SM, YG and JYP and beyond.  The modern idol system is discussed including the audition process and the financing involved in mounting a successful idol group is also touched on.  The unfairness and unequal income distribution of k-pop contracts is also hinted at, but only barely, and the author insists that “once a performer becomes a star, the balance of power completely changes”… which sounds like rose-coloured glasses to me.  Yeah maybe it’s true if you’re in something as big as SNSD, otherwise not so much.  Following this are some fairly lightweight interviews with Eat Your Kimchi, Kevin from ZE:A and Brian Joo from Fly To The Sky which have between four and six questions each.  I know if I got some time with any of these people for Kpopalypse Interview I’d ask a damn lot more than six questions (that’s a hint, Martina).

Chapter 3: Boy Groups

Two to four-page spreads on the following groups: BigBang, Super Junior, TVXQ, 2AM, 2PM, B.A.P., Beast, Busker Busker, CNBlue, EXO, FTIsland, Infinite, MBLAQ, SHINee, ZE:A.

Chapter 4: Girl groups

Two to four-page spreads on the following groups: Girls’ Generation, 2NE1, Wonder Girls, 4Minute, After School, Brown Eyed Girls, Davichi, f(x), KARA, miss A, Secret, Sistar, T-ara.

Chapter 5: Solo artists

Two to four-page spreads on: PSY, BoA, Jay Park, Rain, Yoon Mi-rae, IU.

Chapter 6: K-pop’s Future

Short one-paragraph entries on History, VIXX, Boys Republic, Wonder Boyz, Lee Hi, 15&, Akdong Musicians (sic), Roy Kim, Crayon Pop.

After this is some short information on traveling to Korea (because one chapter of boring travelogue bullshit that you don’t care about and can find in any travel guide anywhere if you really want that kind of thing wasn’t enough) and some acknowledgements.

And that’s it, that’s all you get.  The same author wrote the 2008 book “Pop Goes Korea“, and while I haven’t read that one, maybe he covered off more of the in-depth discussion in that book and didn’t want to revisit it too much because “Kpop Now” just doesn’t seem to have much to say – don’t come here if you want any searing insight into your favourite k-pop stars, because you won’t get it.  Any in-depth discussion of musical content is generally side-stepped, instead we get fluffy stuff like

“k-pop is overwhelmingly genuine … when a singer loves, he loves completely.  When he misses his love, it is a deep, soul-crushing ache”

Oh please.  K-pop is more brazenly the opposite of “overwhelmingly genuine” than just about any musical style I can think of.  If it’s genuine about only one thing, it’s only about how incredibly artificially constructed it all is.  An author who looks even older (and balder) than me shouldn’t be writing like a 13 year old fangirl buying into the insipid lyrical bullshit, and yes his picture is on the inside rear dust cover.  At least I have the decency to use pictures of Eunjung in my blog as a substitute for my own ugly bald head.

Other notable aspects of the book include:

• Brown Eyed Girls’ “Abracadabra” dance being used in PSY’s “Gentleman” is mentioned, and of course PSY is mentioned all over the place in every chapter of the book with a nauseating “golly gee whiz wasn’t he successful” tone, because there just isn’t enough writing about his videos’ YouTube performance out there.
• T-ara’s Hwayoung controversy is one of the only ones discussed in the entire book (albeit fairly rationally i.e “we’ll never know the truth but it’s a reminder that k-pop stars are human”). Meanwhile, the Open World Entertainment controversy passes by completely untouched – unforgivable, given that the book has a tone of “helping out the k-pop hopefuls” with its needless audition and travel information.
• The author obviously doesn’t give a shit about T-ara because the image captions laughably mistake Ahreum for Dani, but spare a thought for TVXQ fans who get an even rawer deal – nowhere in their own write-up does it mention their issues with SM Entertainment or even that they were once a five-member group!  JYJ fans will probably suspect SM encouraged the author to not discuss the former members at all, and they may not even be wrong – SM Entertainment are listed in the acknowledgements as one of the companies “who participated in this book”, so who knows what that really means.
• KARA’s “butt dance” for “Mr.” rates a mention, I guess the author is a KARA fapper like the rest of us, also there’s a brief discussion of the KARA contract issue.  The TVXQ controversy is referenced here but not explained, suggesting that perhaps it was in fact explained in further detail in an earlier draft of the book, adding weight to my theory that the TVXQ split was deemed “too hot to handle” and chopped out during book editing.

In summary, if you’re deep into k-pop, you’ll appreciate the pictures of your faves and the acknowledgement that an author bothering to publish a book like this provides to your interest in k-pop, but the inconsistencies in the text plus the general lightweight tone and boring fawning over PSY’s success will annoy you, plus you’ll learn almost nothing that you didn’t already know.  On the other hand, if you’re completely new to k-pop this book is actually pretty cool, a quick primer that you can read in about an hour and come away with a generally good grasp on what the style is about.  If you’re a k-pop obsessed teenager living at home with your parents there’s a good chance that if mom and dad see this book while out shopping they’ll buy it for you as a birthday or Christmas present, but to be honest it’s the kind of book that your parents would be better off reading themselves in order to understand you so perhaps if you’re in that situation you should buy it for them instead!

Final rating: 2 KARA butt dances out of 5 (3.5 if you’re new to k-pop)

Never one to shy away from the important issues surrounding k-pop, it’s time for Kpopalypse to cover an often-misunderstood and misrepresented topic of great importance – the effect of horizontal black and white stripes on boob perception.  Welcome to Kpopalypse fashion class!

If you’re anything like me, you’ll be very sick and tired of the superfluous fashion articles that appear in k-pop media.  You’ve all seen them – some lazily tossed-off article about “oooh, look what [insert idol here] wore today, wow, isn’t she so classy!”.  If these worthless articles are not just paid for by the record company to help boost the idol’s profile, they’re churned out by the media outlet simply because nothing interesting was happening that week and someone had an article quota to meet – but they’re functionally fairly useless.  If you’re into k-pop fashion (or perving at k-pop fashion), surely you want some information that you can actually use.  Don’t worry, Kpopalypse has got you covered!

Horizontal black and white stripes are often sadly avoided by many females as a fashion choice, as they have acquired a reputation for making women look fat, and women generally don’t like to look fat for some strange reason that I’ve never quite been able to figure out.  Interestingly, science has in fact shown that the reverse is true and horizontal stripes in the right proportion actually contribute to a perception of being skinnier, but we all know how allergic to science people are in this day and age.  However, all this is neither here nor there for me, as long as women have nice-looking well-proportioned boobs I don’t care that much about their weight, and horizontal black and white stripes also have the great effect of enhancing boob volume.  Therefore it’s in my best interests to promote this fashion choice and show how it can be applied in an effective manner.

For best results, there are a few rules.

Firstly, black and white are the colours to use.  Accept no substitutes.

Sunny’s assets are well-documented, yet she oddly doesn’t look all that busty here – the reason why is mainly the colour red.  To be fair, Sunny is probably already busty enough for most, but it’s worth noting that other colours don’t usually have the same pronounced effect as black on white.  The reason for black and white working better than other combinations is the high contrast between the colours – the only higher-contrast combination possible is black and yellow, but nobody wants to wear that lest they remind people of Stryper.

Gain’s blue top also doesn’t work that well for boob-enhancement, to really get any effect here the colour needs to be stripped out of the image:

That’s a slight improvement, but this leads into the second point – clothing should be tighter rather than looser for the most pronounced effect.  Horizontal stripes work for boob enhancement because they give the curves an easily traceable outline for the eye to follow, like looking at a topographical map.

Lee Hyori’s striped top is hanging just a bit too loosely here to provide any bust enhancement, because the eye doesn’t have enough information to tell the difference between the curves of her body and pockets of air hidden under her clothing.  We know it’s a bit of both, but which bit is what?

This pic of KARA’s Hara is better but it should be noted that stripes have a maximum size before they are no longer effective and this clothing nearly exceeds the limit.  As a general rule, the thinner the stripes, the more enhancement that is generated.

The right spacing of horizontal black and white stripes can make boobs come up nicely even on quickly-snapped airport paparazzi shots.

As you can see, by using a combination of very thin horizontal stripes and well-fitting clothing, sufficient boob enhancement can be generated even when working at a severe initial disadvantage.

Although purely vertical stripes convey no boob boosting properties whatsoever, combinations of horizontal and vertical stripes can work well in certain patterns to increase volume by leading the eye to important areas.

You don’t need to go all-out – as long as at least some horizontal stripes are covering the boob area, this is enough to generate the impression of boob enhancement and thus boost fap potential.

Note that the brightness of the colour white gives the illusion of volume increase by reflecting more light, therefore care should be taken to make sure that the top contains white stripes of a width equal to or thicker than the black stripes.

This picture looks good but the desired effect would be increased significantly with at least equal thickness white stripes.

Thicker white stripes on the other hand works quite well, although minimising the black stripes too much can also be a problem.  Sohee demonstrates the minimum amount of black stripes needed to still maintain a positive effect, any less black than this and the boob boosting effect is lost.

Bom’s top here is sneakily designed to portray her boobs in the best possible light by thickening the white stripes specifically around the boob area.  Good work, Bom!  Next time please get your hands and arms out of the way so we can appreciate this inspired fashion choice more, thank you.

The right combinations of stripes in the right places can be very sexually suggestive.

Jiyeon’s amazing striped top is really just subliminal instructions on how to titfuck her – not that we need any.  The phallic necklace has no doubt been carefully chosen to add to the effect!

We don’t want to go too crazy with details though.  Stripes have the effect of “leading” the eye, so it’s important to not create too much confusion by leading it in too many directions at once.

This top gets bonus points for not only being striped but also promoting cleavage, however the jagged knit patterns make the contours a little harder to follow than they would otherwise be.

It’s difficult to know where to look in the following photograph.

Too much detail can be off-putting and can distract fap because the eye doesn’t know in which direction it’s being led and becomes confused.

For group shots, straightforward horizontal lines with not too many conflicting directions and patterns is best.

Now that we’ve got the basics down, here some more examples of people doing it right.

Everyone’s favourite cao ni ma is as sick of netizen bullshit right now as the next rational person, but she’s not sick of wearing striped dresses that give her form some welcome volume.  Just as well for the rest of us!

Seohyun knows how to rock a striped top and like Sulli she also has her purse on standby just in case she needs to speed-dial security to usher out any losers not worthy of observing this hotness.

I’d pop my crayons all over this great striped top given the opportunity.  Don’t tell her I said that, I don’t have the money to hire a bomb disposal expert to defuse the C4 she’d probably get one of her minions to attach to my car.

Zinger might not be my fave in Secret but she knows how to work with what she’s got.  On top of the stripes, super-sized accessorising is a good way to bring extra attention to important areas.

Nana is known for not being particularly busty but her extra volume in this striped top meant that even Son Dambi couldn’t resist going for the grope.  Look how happy she is about molesting Nana.

This photo of Davichi isn’t great quality sadly and it’s also not a great pose for perving but it’s the best striped-top photo that I could find.  Hopefully some avid researcher will turn up more photos of Minkyung in this clothing and the fapgods will smile warmly.

I’ll leave you now with this great CF featuring Raina that I’ve posted before but here it is again anyway because it’s relevant to the topic at hand.

Hopefully you’ve all learned something from this post, whether it be how to dress to present maximum boob volume with casual clothes, what to buy your girlfriend as a clothing gift, or just what a colossal pervert Kpopalypse is.  In any event I hope you’ve been entertained, and let me know what you’d like to see next on Kpopalypse fashion class!

So Red Velvet’s new song came out and Kpopalypse doesn’t give a flying fuck.  Why?

1. It sounds like miss A’s “Breathe“, which I thought was shit.
2. I’m too busy fapping to the debut by nugus 4Ladies who have a much better song AND a better MV.

I’m sure every blog out there is going to have a 4Ladies review, given the sheer amount of tears being generated from fangirls thanks to the video director taking the sexual content to the next level in k-pop or whatever the fuck you want to call two women doing this sort of tame, coy stuff:

Hey it takes special tactics to be noticed when your nugu group debuts in the same week as SM’s new girl group and naturally I’m all for it.  Of course, you can’t tell people shit – whenever something like this happens, all the armchair feminists come out to play, throwing around stupid terms that they only half-understand.  Some of you have noticed that the latest round of tears from k-pop liking pseudo-feminist dickheads has been infused with a term called “the male gaze” so I thought I’d take a little time out of my fap schedule to explain exactly what the fucking fuck that means to prepare you to deal with the onslaught of complete bullshit that you’ll soon be reading in every 4Ladies article.

Head deep enough into any comments section about the 4Ladies video and you’ll see people talking about “the male gaze”, like it’s something more tragic and depressing than the Sewol Ferry and Fukushima combined.  But what the fuck is “the male gaze”, anyway, and why do people care so much?

“The male gaze” is a term that comes from 1970s film and visual media theory.  The basic idea is that because heterosexual men control the cameras and cinematography, women tend to be the ones being looked at, rather than the ones doing the looking.  Therefore when you’re watching film where this is happening, it’s like you’re seeing the film through a male perspective, even if you’re not male, thus defining maleness as “the norm” and anything else as “the other”.  If you’ve got half a brain in your head, you’ve already worked out what’s wrong with this theory – it assumes that if you’re female you’re such a fucking dopey wallflower and the gaze of the camera is so powerful that it actually takes precedence over the thoughts inside your own head.  So the entire “male gaze” theory is actually really insulting to women straight off the bat, it’s basically telling you that you’re a stupid bitch who is easily tricked by pretty colours and flashing lights like a kitten chasing a laser pointer into a toilet bowl.

Let’s look at some examples of “the male gaze”.  Here’s k-pop singer Son Dam Bi.

You’re a heterosexual guy at a rooftop party and Son Dam Bi is there, she’s looking hot in her red dress.  Nervous but determined (can I ever use that word again with a straight face?), you pluck up your courage, introduce yourself and buy her a drink.  Far from being cold or standoffish, she’s warm and receptive.  You get talking to her, she’s a nice girl and you’re starting to get along.  Hopes are high that this might go further.  After an hour of polite conversation, you’re really hitting it off.  She bends over and whispers in your ear “come with me”.  She takes you by the hand away from the main bar, through a stairwell and up to a secluded balcony.  It’s just you and her, above the traffic.  She looks into your eyes with an expression that says “it’s your move”.

Here’s another Son Dam Bi pic.

It’s late and you’ve taken Son Dam Bi back to your apartment after a night out on the town.  She’s still in her evening dress as she carefully removes her earrings and jewelry.  She looks ravishing and you’re not intending to wait any longer.  You approach her from behind, she sees you in the bathroom mirror and turns around, expecting your warm hands on her back as you gently move to embrace her.

According to feminist visual media theory, these are easily-explained classic “male gaze” presentations.  This is you, a heterosexual male, looking at Son Dam Bi, at precisely that moment when you’re just about to make your move.  Or is it?

Keenly observant readers may have noticed some carefully hidden text in the above images that gives a clue to their origins – see if you can find it.  That’s right you fucking sneaky detective cao ni mas, these images are from a photo shoot for Marie Claire magazine.  If you know anything about Marie Claire magazine at all, you’ll know that it’s a magazine mainly devoted to fashion, and aimed at women. According to the magazine’s own statistics, their readership is predominantly female with a male-to-female readership of just under 1:8.  The 1:8 ratio of male-female readers also correlates with another interesting factoid – recent statistical studies show that the ratio of “heterosexual” to “non-heterosexual” people on the planet is also hovering at around 1:8 so it may not be an incorrect assumption to say that the magazine’s slim male readership may be predominantly gay.  So why is this “male gaze” stuff in there if only women and gay guys care about Marie Claire?  Is it because Marie Claire is part of the oppressive patriciachal system that is conspiring to keep women down?

No, you dickhead.  The reason why is because it’s not really there at all.  It’s just a figment of crazy feminists’ imaginations, who act as if people looking at them is some kind of assault on their bodies instead of just normal human behaviour that humans of all genders and sexual persuasions engage in, plus typical k-pop fans who read too much into everything as always.  It’s a fashion magazine, it’s the clothing that is of interest to the readership in these pictures.  When fangirls get hold of images like these, confirmation bias is at work – if you want to see a porn scenario in these pictures, you will.  On the other hand, if you want to see fashion modelling, you’ll see that instead.  I shadily put inviting heterosexual fap scenarios under each picture to bend the bias inside your head to the way that I wanted you to think because I’m a sneaky cao ni ma too, but the cold hard fact is that Son Dam Bi probably just happens to be on a balcony because the photographer thought that it would be a good spot to take a photo.  If you read more into it than that – great, if not, they hope that you at least will read the magazine and find out where you can get that dress she’s wearing.

“But what about 4Ladies”, I hear you ask “surely they’re just there for the guys to fap to?  Isn’t that “the male gaze”?

Who says it has to be?  If you’re a woman, is you perception of what you’re seeing so weak and wallflowery and threatened that you have to defer your subconscious to what a guy sees?  Is that a problem for you?  Is it an issue that we’re looking at girls and not guys?  Here’s JYJ’s Jaejoong, in a photo that could be of any man in any k-pop group, but I’ve used him because I felt sorry for JYJ being left out of that book I reviewed not long ago:

Is it weird for me as a heterosexual guy to look at Jaejoong with his shirt off?  Only if I’m so weak-minded that I let it bother me.  If girls want to fap to this, I think that’s cool, because fapping is for everyone.

K-pop fans who complain about “the male gaze” are generally fine about “the female gaze”, which is equally catered to in k-pop, by… every single male group out there in k-pop.  You can see plenty of fanservicey action of guys doing stuff to each other onstage for the pleasure of the predominantly female audience which far outstrips the honestly fairly coy groping and grinding of 4Ladies’ debut video, and the boys do lots of photoshoots for their fans too.  But wait…

Is it really “the female gaze” when this photo of Jay Park is for Men’s Health magazine, a publication as squarely and unashamedly aimed at men as the title suggests?  Maybe the photo is arguably “female-gazey” in the imaginations of fangirls, and I could write a scenario about how you, a young fangirl dating Jay Park the man of your dreams, have just interrupted his outdoor gym activity for some cuddle time, to help lead your brain in that direction if I wanted.  However the reality is probably that the photographer just wanted a clear shot of his upper body with his arms up so Men’s Health readers could see in an unobstructed way how unbelievably fit he is, so they said “grab that pole over there and look at the camera”.  So once again, it’s not all about you, you wacky sniveling fangirls.

I couldn’t give a fuck either way anyway.  I’m fine with both “the male gaze” and “the female gaze” whether it exists or not outside of my own personal bias and perception.  I’m one of these crazy radical people who thinks that people of any gender should be able to look at each other and enjoy the experience of both doing the looking and of being looked at.  Wow, imagine that.

So given that this is all completely normal human behaviour why do k-pop fans bring up “the male gaze” like it’s some big issue?  Well, they’re misogynistic idiots who hate women, and as a way for them to engage in their favourite sport which is criticising women in k-pop, it’ll do.  (Yes, a lot of them are women themselves, but you don’t have to be male to be a misogynist.)  So as per usual, feminism is being used by jealous women to promote attacks against other women more attractive/successful than them, which seems to me to be exactly the opposite of what feminism is trying to achieve on a broader scale, things like:

• Women getting paid the same as men for doing the same work at the same competency level
• Equal access to opportunities for career choice, career advancement, leisure, etc
• Being able to walk down a street without some fuckhead trying to rape or kill you
• The same access to choice in the sexual sphere that guys have
• Freedom from some perverted nutbag trying to cut your clit off because they’re stupid enough to take completely literally everything in some religious book that was written hundreds of years ago back when women were considered to have the same amount of human rights as a donkey

I’m cool with all that stuff, and if that’s what feminism is, call me a feminist. However I’m not cool with:

• Preventing sexually explicit art/performance/fashion/activity
• Censorship of politically incorrect (or any other) speech
• Anti-pornography
• Morally conservative bullcrap like telling women that it’s their responsiblity to cover their skin up so guys don’t rape them
• Nitpicking at other women and tearing them down because they’re more successful than you

If you look at the two lists above, you’ll notice a pattern.  Everything in the first list is all about trying to open access up and give women more choices about what they can do so they can be successful and stand on an even footing with men.  Everything in the second list is about trying to close off access to things and to say to people “you can’t say/do/think/fap to that because that’s not what feminism is”.  So in summary I support feminism that gives people more options and ways to experience and enjoy life, but I don’t support feminism that tries to lay down draconian rules in attempts to restrict people into running their lives according to some stupid fucking moral code.  Sadly, most people who follow k-pop only give a shit about the second type of feminism, and that’s why I don’t give a shit about them.  Here’s another GIF of 4Ladies, because my “male gaze” needs a workout.  All heterosexual men please cast your sexual-oppression-beams this way.

Maybe if we all stare hard enough our oppressive “male gaze” eyebeams will disintegrate their clothing.  We won’t know until we try.

I’ve recently written blogs about k-pop’s “sexy concepts” and also about “cute concepts“, and the non-existent differences between them, because everybody is so fucking fascinated by these topics.  Now I’ve been alerted to a new contender on the k-pop scene: “classy sexy” concepts.

What the fuck even is “classy sexy”?  Is it even a real thing?  Does it exist in k-pop?  Does anybody care?  Well, I care, because the word “sexy” is in there, so therefore time to investigate!

So being basically a scumbag I freely acknowledge that I’ve got no fucking class at all and therefore I have no fucking idea what the fuck “classy” really means.  So I looked it up:

Doesn’t sound like any shit that I’m familiar with, except maybe “smart” but then maybe I’m just more of a “smart ass” which probably isn’t what they meant as “classy”.  Then I remembered that I have a completely classy girlfriend, so I asked her “what does classy sexy mean to you?”.  She said the following:

Classy sexy is looking sexy without looking like a slut.  Flashing some flesh, but still giving a tease.  Something like a dress or skirt with a zip on the side, that you can zip up and reveal stockings and suspenders, now that’s classy sexy.

I think this will sound instantly familiar to any fan of k-pop girls groups, especially those who have been following 2014’s “war of the sexy concepts”.

My girlfriend doesn’t like or follow k-pop and wouldn’t even know who Ace Of Angels are, so this is a totally unbiased opinion from someone who truly does not give one solitary fuck about ANY k-pop at all.  She cares about it so little that she wouldn’t even waste her time posting on the Internet about how little she gives a shit.  However. according to her tastes, AOA have got “classy sexy” covered, and this is coming from someone who hasn’t actually seen AOA’s “Miniskirt” video.

Imagine her surprise when I told her:

It’s interesting that you mention this specifically, because the exact idea that you’re describing as ‘classy sexy’ is actually considered by the k-pop world to be right on the cutting edge of sluttiness

Those with memories longer than a goldfish may remember that AOA’s “Miniskirt” routine was considered so hot when it was released that the company toned down their choreography in response to k-pop fans being the usual hypocritical misogynistic fun-ruining pieces of shit that they are.  Obviously there’s a difference of opinion between the normal sexually well-adjusted person and the more idiotic fantasy-driven nutcases that make up part of k-pop’s legions of avid followers.  So what does “classy sexy” actually mean to k-pop fans?

I did some research on people’s opinions and here’s what I got:

• A member of Brown Eyed Girls getting her clothes torn off and fucked up against a wall in the Abracadabra video is “classy” but Girl’s Day dancing with a little bit of tame hip-wiggling that wouldn’t even raise eyebrows on Sesame Street is “perverted”, okay then
• Another vote for BEG’s Gain being fucked up against a wall as “classier” than just about everything else in k-pop
• BEG’s whole output is sexy and classy but AOA, Girl’s Day and Dal Shabet are not – male Soompi writer donate your cock and balls to science because you’re clearly not using them
• BEG are so classy-sexy that even Gain getting raped in a video is classy sexy
• Allkpop have no fucking idea what they’re talking about as per usual, and waffle incoherently about performers owning their sexuality or some crap which is laughable given that the girls are just told what to fucking do by some guy in a suit backstage counting the money
• Let’s hear it again for Gain getting her clothes torn off in a BDSM-themed video as some real classy shit
• This writer prefixes his ideas about “classy sexy” with “some people believe” because he’s too scared to own his own opinions on the issue – at least he links lots of hot fappable videos, including the Gain rape one, oh my well played sir
• This writer says AOA and Girl’s Day make the grade as “classy sexy” but not Rainbow Blaxxx or Dal Shabet because they do too many sexy moves within a certain timeframe, I’ve no doubt he has his stopwatch in one hand tallying all this, hey I wonder what the other hand is doing
• Someone who doesn’t give a fuck – bravo!
• Did I mention that Gain getting fucked up against a wall is not just hot, but classy and even “artistic”?

So the girls of AOA dancing in slinky dresses showing a little bit of skin, that is definitely not cool with most k-pop fans, way too provocative, tsk tsk.  However what k-pop fans really want to see is Gain getting slammed up against walls and guys forcing themselves on her, and lots of it, they definitely don’t have a problem with this and in fact wholeheartedly approve of it.  So these next few images are for them – please enjoy this short gallery of Brown Eyed Girls’ Gain.

A lot of the above linked posts talk about women “owning their sexuality” as a classy thing, and I think that’s an interesting observation that is repeated throughout many of the linked posts about Brown Eyed Girls, stuff like this:

there is an obscene amount of hip thrusts and crawling – but do I feel embarrassed for these women? Heck no! Because they aren’t trying too hard or trying to force it – they are owning every move

Let’s just ignore for the moment how this person is exactly defining “owning every move” and how many leaps of logic and how much confirmation bias that involves.  Call me crazy, but when I think of girls “owning their sexuality” I don’t think about fantasy depictions of them being raped.  Instead, when I think about exclusively “owned” sexuality by anybody male or female I think about fapping – after all, what sexuality is more “owned” by you than something that you do by yourself, for yourself?  So it follows that if “owning sexuality” is classy then masturbation is now the most “classy sexy” activity to me.  Of course Gain went down the implied fap path as well in the “Bloom” video, but that was just for the cameras.  What about the girls who are fapping when the cameras are not rolling?  Who’s the most likely culprit, and thus the real “classy-sexy” k-pop performer?

I’ve found the answer, and predictably, she’s in T-ara.

When I posted this image of Jiyeon from the “horizontal stripes” post, I was wondering at the time “what the fuck is that necklace all about, is that just a little metal rod to emphasize her tits some more or what?” – so naturally being an inquisitive sort I did some research.

As it turns out, that little dangly thing between her boobs is probably called a Vesper and it’s actually a prototype vibrator. It’s designed to hang around the neck as discreet jewelry that you can wear out and about.

Sure, Jiyeon’s version does look a little different to these, but being a celebrity she probably got given the early test model or something so she could put the technology through its paces before they went into consumer production.  The company claim that since 2010 they have “assembled a strong team of …  quality assurance testers“… right about the time T-ara started to really become huge.  Coincidence?

Doubtful.  The company are now currently making the first consumer versions of the Vesper and they describe the device as “elegant-yet-functional”, and if you scroll back to the top of this post you’ll notice that “elegant” is just a synonym for “classy”.  This means that T-ara’s Jiyeon is now confirmed as the official Kpopalypse ambassador for “classy sexy”.  Whatever that is.

People want to know if Kpopalypse supports either 2NE1’s Park Bom or A.KOR’s Kemy in the latest hilarious k-pop drama, and which side they should choose. This post has the answers!

Here’s a quick recap of the situation for those unfamiliar:

So now that we’re all up to speed, here’s what I think of the situation.  Because the Park Bom/Kemy controversy is very multi-faceted and there’s a lot to cover, we’re going to let them both battle it out in several different areas and allocate Kpopalypse approval points, then tally the results up for our final answer.  Let’s get started!

KPOPALYPSE BATTLE – PARK BOM VS KEMY

ROUND 1: DRUGS

Kemy:

Is anti-drugs: +1

Doesn’t smuggle drugs: +1

Bom:

Is anti-drugs: +1

Smuggles drugs: -1

WINNER OF ROUND 1: KEMY

Kemy doesn’t smuggle drugs, or at least hasn’t been caught yet, so I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt – for now.

Total so far – Kemy: 2 Bom: 0

*

ROUND 2: RAP CREDIBILITY

Kemy:

Can rap: +1

Is anti-drugs: -1

Promotes punishment for non law-abiding citizens: -1

Bom:

Can’t rap: -1

Doesn’t try: +1

WINNER OF ROUND 2: BOM

Kemy can rap nice, but racks up negative rap cred by telling Park Bom off for doing drugs and not being in jail yet.  Tsk tsk – everybody knows that rappers should be championing frequent drug use and disrespect for the law at all times.  Someone needs to tie Kemy down and make her listen to NWA and Cypress Hill, stat.  (And don’t come here waving around any of that “conscious rap” stuff, that music is all by fuckheads, for fuckheads.)  So as a result, Bom has more rap cred by default despite never having dropped a single rap on anything, anywhere.

Total so far – Kemy: 1 Bom: 0

*

ROUND 3: FASHION

Kemy:

Wears a Star Wars T-shirt in some of her few promo pics: +1

It’s for Attack Of The Clones (fitting analogy for k-pop though, no?): -1

Bom:

Occasional boob-enhancing horizontal stripes: +1

Most other outfits by Jeremy Scott: -1

NO CLEAR WINNER

It’s enough to give you nightmares, the shit these people wear.

Total so far – Kemy: 1 Bom: 0

*

ROUND 4: FAP

Kemy:

Meets required standards: +1

Probably plastic as fuck: -1

Who cares though, can still fap: +1

Bom:

Meets required standards: +1

Definitely plastic as fuck: -1

Who cares though, can still fap: +1

NO CLEAR WINNER

I can fap to either in the rare instances that they are wearing something acceptable.

Total so far – Kemy: 2 Bom: 1

*

ROUND 5: MUSIC

Kemy:

Kemy’s solo mixtape raps sound good, or at least a lot better than CL: +1

A.KOR’s debut song “Payday” is just a below-average clone of 2NE1 at their peak: -1

Still, it’s better than anything 2NE1 themselves have done since “Scream”: +1

Bom:

Has sung on several iconic 2NE1 songs: +1

Pity that none of them are recent: -1

WINNER OF ROUND 5: KEMY

A.KOR may be nothing special right now but so far they’ve mercifully avoided performing something as ear-shreddingly awful as “Do You Love Me”, “Missing You” or anything off 2NE1’s “Crush” album.  Sure, it’s early days yet – when they start trotting out the shithouse album filler ballads they may lose the higher ground here, but Kemy is safely in front for the moment.

Total so far – Kemy: 3 Bom: 1

*

ROUND 6: NETIZENS

Kemy:

Korean netizens mostly like her: -1

International netizens mostly hate her: +1

Bom:

Korean netizens mostly hate her: +1

International netizens mostly like her: -1

NO CLEAR WINNER

Both are catching lots of juicy netizen butthurt, from different places, in roughly equal quantities.  To tip the scales, one of them needs to step up their game and do something extra-special to be hated globally.  Crossing my fingers.

Total so far – Kemy: 3 Bom: 1

*

ROUND 7: FANS

Kemy:

A.KOR fans seem to be quite sensible and rational: +1

All three of them: -1

Bom:

Has lots of fans: +1

Mostly barking mad lunatics: -1

NO CLEAR WINNER

What’s worse, no fans or crazy zergling fans?  Flip a coin.

Total so far – Kemy: 3 Bom: 1

*

ROUND 8: ATTITUDE

Kemy:

Hilariously dissed Park Bom for attention: +1

Hasn’t apologised (despite fake reports to the contrary): +1

Label released yellow-bellied weak-as-piss statement: -1

Bom:

Hasn’t said shit: +1

Doesn’t need to: +1

WINNER OF ROUND 8: BOM

Just because I understand the corporate reasoning behind A.KOR’s label Republic Doo being a bunch of pathetic fucking pussies doesn’t mean that I have to like it.  The more k-pop labels pander to the whims of spoiled brats, the more spoiled brats will learn that complaining gets them what they want, like a lab rat learning to push a button that releases food.  Labels need to learn to STFU… but they probably won’t.

Total so far – Kemy: 4 Bom: 3

*

ROUND 9: ENTERTAINMENT

Kemy:

Hilariously smart rapping dissecting Park Bom and YG verbally: +1

Hilariously dumb death threats from Blackjacks all over her label’s social media: +1

Bom:

Butthurt from vocalfags who don’t understand why people like to listen to her sing: +1

Butthurt from armchair anti-drug activists: +1

Butthurt from armchair plastic surgery protestors: +1

WINNER OF ROUND 9: BOM

Kemy has generated an admirable quantity of hate from Internet douchebags in a short timeframe but Bom is still one of the true masters at the game of extreme extended butthurt delivery.  Even if Kemy’s current impressive speeds of butthurt-generation are maintained it’s still going to take Kemy a while to catch up to Bom’s years-long legacy of giving k-pop fans the shits.

FINAL SCORE – Kemy: 6 Bom: 6

CONCLUSION

Park Bom and Kemy are both awesome and I can’t give up either.  I particularly enjoyed Kemy’s ability to make Blackjacks embarrass themselves by writing shitty laughable response raps, and Bom’s continual ability to annoy absolutely fucking everybody just by breathing in air is something I’ll always admire and aspire to.  Why k-pop fans allow themselves to get so easily annoyed about either of them I don’t know, but fuck it’s funny.  Kpopalypse shall continue to support both Bom and Kemy’s right to irritate all the rest of you.

Welcome readers, to another episode of…

This time Kpopalypse is interviewing Sarah Wolfgang, formerly of k-pop girl group Tahiti!

A few months ago, Sarah Wolfgang’s Reddit AmA (“ask me anything”) caught my attention.  Sarah, also known as Hanhee, was in the k-pop group Tahiti during their training days, but didn’t stick with the group long enough to debut with them.  Sarah’s revelations about her time in Tahiti were refreshingly honest and candid, you can read more about them here, but most of it was stuff that I already either knew for sure from my own industry experiences elsewhere and/or had figured out through casual observation:

• Training in a k-pop group is seriously hard work like you can’t imagine
• Money distribution is awful for the performers
• Almost everyone who is an idol has plastic surgery
• Groups inevitably have internal politics and members who get ostracised
• Idol diets suck the big one (well, maybe the small one – the big one would be too fattening)

I thought to myself “here’s someone not afraid to tell it how it really is, this person would probably make a good interview subject” and I also had quite a few extra questions of my own so I got in touch and spent the next couple of months exchanging emails where I asked her about various aspects of herself, Tahiti, and the k-pop music scene in general.  Enjoy!

Hi!  How are you?  Answer in as much or as little detail as applicable.

I’m doing great. Just moved out to LA, and although life is certainly a lot more difficult, it’s been an experience I could have never achieved else wise.

Great to hear!  In what way do you find that living in LA is more difficult than Korea?

Korea is a great place to live if you have a) money or b) something that you do really well (ex. speak English to teach it, underground dance for a living). LA has been pretty hard on me because job hunting has been pretty hard… no degree – limited jobs.

Anyone from LA reading, let’s help Sarah out!  Put job referrals in the comments below!

Haha, thanks.

I wanted to ask a bit about the process that led you into being part of a k-pop group.  What was the initial drive that made you want to enter that industry?

I never imagined myself entering into the K-pop industry. As a matter of fact, I always dreamt of being an actress. I started acting from a very young age and it has always been my passion. I first auditioned for my company for an acting gig. That later turned into me signing with my company to use K-pop as a mere stepping stone into my acting career.

How did that transformation occur, from wanting to act, to deciding to pursue singing first?

I don’t think the transformation occurred as quickly as it probably should have. I signed with my company to use K-pop as a stepping stone to get into the acting world of Korea. I, of course, set the acting aside to focus on my K-pop career. I don’t think it was until I actually left the company that I realized I had formed a drive to want to pursue music.

How much of a realistic option do you think it is, in retrospect, to use k-pop as a stepping stone to acting in Korea?  Did you see it work for others, or do you think is it simply not viable except for those at the very top tiers?

I think it’s quite possible. The Korean entertainment industry never has to do with talent. It has to do with a) whether or not your company can pay to support your fame or b) whether or not you’re in high demand because your company already went through route a.

I mean there is the occasional actor/artist that spends years under the light (usually without a company) that may be very talented… but it’s the actual entertainment agency that helps anyone actually see any light or fame.

Sarah Wolfgang, during training

I read that you didn’t end up debuting with Tahiti, but you were on a “sitcom style reality TV show” during the training period.  Can you describe what that experience was like?

I recorded the first album and left midway through the production. I did, however, stay through the entire recording of the reality show. It was definitely a once in a lifetime experience! We went through the whole process of waking up super early, going to the hair and make up artist, and waiting our turns to be filmed.

Can you describe the album recording process that you experienced?

It started off with us hearing an instrumental with a guide (nonsense words) being recorded on top of it. We listened to it many times, over and over again. We then got lyrics a few weeks after. We memorized them and were brought into a recording studio. We each took turns going in and recording for the parts that were given to us. If one didn’t do well, then someone else would be given the part… and so on.

How much of your own vocal part eventually made it onto Tahiti feature tracks such as “Tonight“, or were those parts overdubbed by other girls?

I’m not exactly sure as to how much made it on the actual album as a lot of the voices were altered.

Do you follow or keep track of Tahiti’s group activities since you left the group out of curiosity, nostalgia or any other reasons?

Are you aware of their current musical output?

I see updates once in a while on my twitter feed. I am still twitter friends with a lot of them.

The next set of questions aren’t about yourself, your group or company specifically, but just about things that you may have observed during your experiences.  Firstly, what do you think is the biggest misconception about the world of k-pop that someone just entering the industry might have?

A lot of the things happen behind hidden walls… It’s hard to understand anything fully without actually having gone through it. I think the biggest misconception that a lot of people have when entering the industry might be that things will progress smoothly. Although hard work is definitely one of the things everyone expects, it goes beyond what anyone could ever imagine.

Sarah Wolfgang, during training

There are many stories about artists being very overworked and some of them having only 2 hours sleep per night.  Do you believe that this is a common situation that people in groups may experience?

I think it’s different with each company. I can’t say for sure, but some things are usually blown out of proportion to seem appealing on the news. From my experience, I’ve been through only one day where we didn’t even get any hours of sleep (due to the MTV shooting 2 days in a row). But most of the days we’d get 4 plus hours of sleep depending on what our schedule was like.

One thing I’m curious about with idols that is rarely discussed is drug use, and I don’t just mean illegal recreational drugs but also legal and performance-enhancing drugs.  I know from personal experience in the western music industry that drugs are absolutely everywhere.  I won’t ask about your specific group, but just going on what you may have heard during your time in the business, do you think it’s a different situation in Korea, or more similar to the west than people realise?

All drugs are illegal in Korea. As far as I know, they are really hard to come by. And even if you’re lucky enough.. they’d cost a lot of money. I’ve heard of certain k-pop groups using drugs (strictly through media) but I’ve never encountered it first hand.

Looking at media representation of what life is like for idol groups, what are the things that you think that the k-pop media get right?  Also, what do you think they most often get horribly wrong?

I think the biggest thing they get wrong is that life as a k-pop artist, or even a trainee, is super glamourous. It really doesn’t get glamorous until you’re about 4 years in… One thing that they do get right is, k-pop artists (even though I don’t enjoy calling them artists) do work very hard to perform.

Obviously k-pop performers aren’t “artists”, I prefer to liken the performer to a “crafter” who is assisting to craft the artistic vision of someone else, or a group of people, behind the scenes. It’s the difference between a bricklayer and an architect.

Exactly!

Do you think this is an accurate perception?

The only thing different would be that when it comes to buildings, the architect takes most of the credit… as where in K-pop, the group takes more of the credit.

How aware of the opinions and buzz of their own companies’ media are people undergoing training in a k-pop company?

For trainees, most of the time… they’re cut off from the outside world – no phone, no internet.

In your experience, are comments by the general public and/or fans on news articles noticed and/or considered important by the performers, or their companies?  How much influence do you think such comments have?

I’m not sure, I think companies take suggestions/comments seriously to improve the group.

Do performers get any kind of education in avoiding controversy or controversial statements/opinions, or “cultural sensitivity” training for dealing with media and fanbases in other countries?

I think it really depends on the company. I never received any training for dealing with media/fanbases in other countries. I do think that with the amount of diversity there is in K-pop now, cultural sensitivity is dealt with within it’s members.

I know you’re not into k-pop, musically.  Name some favourite artists that inspire you or that you enjoy the work of – any genre.

I love Jazzhop. My favorite artists include Kero One, Nujabes, Shirosky, Re:Plus, and DJ Okiwari.

Sarah Wolfgang, during training

I’m aware that k-pop trainees and new groups don’t make a lot of money, plus they get heavily into debt.  I’ve heard of people working second jobs just to get by.  Did you meet or hear of people who had to take up outside extra-curricular activities to generate income, and if so, what did they do?  And how did they find the time?

Avid Kpopalypse readers may remember that a while ago I made a post noting the large amount of duckface in the selcas from Lizzy of Orange Caramel/After School, and I started a petition to encourage Lizzy selca improvement. I felt that as one of k-pop’s most fappable ladies, raising the quality of Lizzy selcas by eliminating duckface was an important cause for k-pop fans globally to get behind and support.

I’m sure that you’ve often wondered “when I fill out an online petition, how much difference am I really making?” – it’s certainly a question worth asking in today’s connected age where we’re constantly told that improving our world is but a simple check-box away.  Using the data collected from the petition, as well as data from Lizzy, it’s time to find out – has the situation improved?

At the time of writing, a grand total of 26 people have signed the petition.  That’s slightly less than the amount of participation I had hoped for, representing less than 1% of daily traffic to Kpopalypse and Anti Kpop-Fangirl where the links were posted.  However, was 26 people enough to make a difference, and if so, how much difference did it really make?  Let’s look at the data.

At the time of writing there are 217 photos and videos on Lizzy’s Twitter account.  This includes the 38 photos on Lizzy’s Instagram, which were all reposted to Twitter.

The original Lizzy duckface blog post was on March 15, 2014.  Scrolling through the different photos that appeared on Lizzy’s Twitter between March 15 2014 and August 23 2014, the ratios are as follows:

Selca creation currently takes up approximately 70% of all Lizzy image-posting activity.  Looking at selca posts alone, the current percentage of Lizzy selcas ruined with butt-ugly duckface posing is sitting at 20.4%.

To know whether the petition has had any effect, positive or negative, we now need to look at the data from before it was posted.  The timeframe from March 15 2014 to August 23 2014 is 162 days, so by taking an equal sample of the 162 days before the petition, and noting any changes in posting habits, we can determine if the Lizzy petition had any effect on selca quality.

The 162 days leading up to the petition take us back to 4th October 2013, and the Twitter activity on Lizzy’s account between this date and March 14th 2014 gives us the following result:

Overall ratio of selca activity hasn’t changed much, comprising roughly 65% of Lizzy posting activity during this time period.  However, the ratio of horrendous eye-gouging duckface selcas to normal fappable Lizzy selcas is higher, comprising 36.1% of the selca total.

By subtracting the new figure from the older figure, we can observe a 15.7% improvement in Lizzy selca quality from before the petition going live to afterward.  Since 26 people signed the petition, by dividing the improvement percentile by the number of participants we find that that each signature contributed to an improvement factor of just over 0.6%.

If each signature contributes 0.6% improvement, then assuming each signature carries equal effectiveness and there isn’t some kind of bell-curve effect happening it would have therefore taken only 167 signatures (rounded up) to gain a 100% improvement rating, thus eliminating duckface from Lizzy selcas completely.

So there you go, folks.  Signing online petitions does really make a difference – a 0.6% difference, in this case.  Clicking any of the following hot and 100% duckface-free Lizzy pictures will take you to the petition if you haven’t signed it yet.

Do it, folks – do it for Lizzy

Inquiring minds wish to know the differences between Korean pop and pop from other countries.  What are the differences?  How much has one influenced the other?  Is it true that one is superior?  Why haven’t I posted any images of T-ara girls in tightly-fitting school uniforms lately?

I keep getting asked about this type of shit so here’s another one of those posts where I wrap some vaguely educational information up in my usual snarky blogging style and shovel it down the throats of a bunch of drooling, shambling Koreaboos.  Please enjoy.*

I’m writing about this only because I get asked about it all the time.  I get a lot of questions like these:

I wouldn’t want any of you folks to fail your school and uni assignments, so remember this; one of the favourite pastimes of teachers and markers everywhere is to find the most well-written chunks of your essays and feed them verbatim into search engines to see if you’ve stolen them from anywhere.  To that end, I’ll fill this post with enough typical Kpopalypse-grade humour that you’re going to have to paraphrase my text anyway if you want to copy any of it and don’t want to be expelled when it hits the principal’s desk.  Here we go, cunts.

THE BIRTH OF THE IDOL

The concept of the modern k-pop idol group is not a Korean invention, but an imported idea from western groups.  The first true “idol” pop stars in the sense that we now know them today achieved their first peak cultural relevance to very young people in western countries in the 1950s.  These “idols” fell into two broad categories:

• Solo vocalists, with a backing band (Elvis Presley is a good example)
• Groups of vocalists, with or without a backing band (the “doo-wop” movement)

The rise of television into a ubiquitous family lounge-room fixture shortly after World War II meant that extremely young people now had easy access to audiovisual entertainment, and could ogle their idols up close for the first time.  The ease of emotional attachment that the new technology provided to very young people lacking in discernment and the ability to separate fantasy from reality meant that this was also the time that the first “deludu fangirls” made an appearance.  Of course, music fans existed before this time, but the crazy fever pitch zerg-rush of 1950s pop fangirls were a new breed that society was unprepared for.

The “self-contained” pop/rock group that played their own instruments (or appeared to, but that’s a subject for another blog) came later in the early 1960s thanks to the popularity of The Beatles and similar “Merseybeat” acts.  Although The Beatles got the idol treatment and slotted right into idol infrastructure, at heart they weren’t an idol group and after only a few short years of promotion, they’d had a gutful of this type of fucking shit everywhere they went:

“Fuck these fucking fans – we’re growing our hair, getting ugly and never touring ever again“, they said.  Although this decision helped the gradually-imploding Beatles kick on for a few more years, it didn’t really matter in the grand scheme – by this time a veritable army of record label rubber-stamped Beatles-inspired clone groups picked up the slack and fangirls just transferred their insanity over to these new groups, diffusing the mental retardation across the entire spectrum of pop music.  The market saw the increasing demand, responded with more and more teen-friendly sugar-pop and the “pop idol system” gradually developed into what it is today.

STYLISTIC ELEMENTS

The stylistic elements of k-pop also go way back.  Far closer to the current spirit of idol pop than doo-wop, The Beatles, Elvis or any of the imitators they spawned was the American Motown record label.  Formed in 1959, Motown were the first record label with overt “factory” aspirations and a mission statement to transform their working-class black performers into “royalty” – people that you would (hopefully) find charming and relateable and fetishise and drool over and plaster your bedroom walls with posters of, regardless of class or racial barriers.  Motown specifically groomed, charm-schooled and choreographed their younger artists for maximum public appeal and success just like k-pop agencies do now and to this end they were the spiritual precursor to the k-pop labels of today.  Motown had teams of in-house songwriters cranking out the hits and even had their own SM Town-style packaged concerts.  Their strategies worked, with their first big payoff coming with mega-hit girl group The Supremes.

Many of the key elements that we love about today’s Korean idol groups were present in a more basic form in The Supremes.  In “Stop In The Name Of Love” we can see synchronised choreography, sexy (for the time) fashions and styling, and even the first ever “girl idol hand-dance”.

This iconic hand gesture as well as the general look and feel of The Supremes was given the high-glitz modern k-pop makeover in Wonder Girls’ “Nobody”:

The Supremes also weren’t short on that other common element of idol pop – bitchy in-fighting.  Years after the group broke up and the members went to separate solo projects, Supreme Mary Wilson released the tell-all book “Dreamgirl: My Life As A Supreme” where she spends many pages gleefully outing groupmate Diana Ross as a complete prima-donna cunthole.  Legitimate grievance or petty jealousy?  Like all the best k-pop scandals, only industry insiders will ever know the truth, but it’s certainly entertaining to read Mary’s bitter jealousy-infused version of events.

The other big act on Motown were boy group The Jackson Five, who signed to the label in 1969, when the youngest member Michael Jackson was only 11 years old.  Motown’s PR department then lied about his age, saying he was even younger, to make him look like even more of a child prodigy than he really was for publicity purposes – lying bullshit press releases, another thing k-pop labels didn’t invent.  Michael’s later solo career doesn’t need recounting here but his influence on the dance routines (and maybe also the plastic surgery routines) of k-pop boy groups should be obvious enough to anybody.  It’s certainly obvious enough to the k-pop groups themselves.

CONCEPTUAL ELEMENTS

Back in the early 60s before The Beatles grew their hair, got into transcendental meditation and released shit music that nobody except pretentious music journalists cared about, if you were a Beatles fan you weren’t just a fan of the group as a whole – you were either a John, Paul, George or Ringo fangirl.  All Beatles fangirls had their “favourite Beatle”, but life was hard for Ringo fangirls because Ringo was the drummer so you didn’t get much of a good look at him, the limelight would constantly be hogged by the other three.  It took them a few decades of market research (the music industry moves slowly sometimes), but labels marketing pop music eventually decided that it would probably be better marketing from a teenage fangirl perspective if all the members of a group sung a bit so there was no one “lead singer”, that way they all got a little bit of time on the microphone and with the camera pointed at them so fangirls could develop the appropriate crushes.  Even better if they could also dance.  And if they were all attractive.  And if they all had slightly different looks, so you could identify with each one depending on what sort of guys you were into, whether you preferred the “clean cut” type, the “bad boy”, the “80s mullet casual dude”, the “slightly geeky but still cute” one etc.

New Kids On The Block (hereafter referred to as NKOTB to save me typing) had five guys, all who had a slightly different look.  Every male k-pop group that ever existed is conceptually trying to copy this formula that was initially laid down by whatever marketing gurus were behind NKOTB…. but with the dancing of Michael Jackson, instead of the lame-ass dancing you see in the video above.

Someone figured out that this approach would probably work for girl groups too, and the earliest attempt at this as far as influencing Asia was concerned may have been Australia’s “Girlfriend” who were groomed by their label at the time to be Australia and Asia’s #1 girl group.  Girlfriend mined similar territory to the UK’s The Spice Girls, who copied Girlfriend’s image and concept almost exactly, right down to the cringeworthy feminist-lite “girl power” catchphrases, but predated them by a number of years.  Girlfriend made zero impact globally in other western countries in terms of sales (this was back in the days when music sales still fucking meant something) but charted decently in Australia and mounted a successful Asian tour.  In another first for idol pop, Girlfriend even had their own fully endorsed fashion line and even tried to make large flower-hats a branded fashion thing, which makes sense given the climates of the places where they were most popular.

Compare Girlfriend’s debut song to this early k-pop idol song, and play spot the similarity.

Girlfriend were the first conceptually successful girl-iteration of idol pop in terms of transferring the visual style of the NKOTB formula directly over to females… and any territory they didn’t cover, America’s TLC scooped up a year later… but of course it was The Spice Girls that gave these ideas global penetration in every market.  The Spice Girls were (and probably will remain) the most successful idol girl group in world history (much to the pain of vocalfags everywhere).

The entire concept of the k-pop idol group is just NKOTB, The Spice Girls, TLC and Girlfriend cloned by Asia instead of imported… but Koreans did being something different to the table – they made the style stricter and more rigid.  Choreography that was previously semi-improvised in places (because it was designed with the stage and crowd response in mind) became strict routines that members had to follow step-by-step (or else).  The routines also became a lot more physical and athletic.  Fashion and visual design also became meticulously planned.  The Korean industry did something new by turning idol pop into a tough, regimented university… but it was still the university of “how to be as much like western idol pop as possible”.

But what about overall k-pop concepts in the sense that k-pop fans think of the term “concept” – as a visual hook?  The constant image-changing of k-pop groups every damn time an MV comes out is something unique to k-pop, right?

Well, no.  Any concept that exists in k-pop, if the above groups haven’t already scooped it up, the original pop idol concept chameleon Madonna has probably already done it, or something like it.

• Generic sexy underwear-fetish fap concept?  Done.
• “Classy-sexy”, whatever the fuck that means this week?  Done.
• Exotic fucking whatevers in some other country?  Okay, then.
• Cutesy and retro concepts?  Got it covered.
• Some getting wet at the beach bullshit?  Done.
• Moody gothic dark shit?  Been there, done that.
• Deep and meaningful tearjerker drama MVs?  Done.
• Inscrutable bewildering YG-style fucking wank?  Nothing new.
• Male drag and pissweak female-empowerment-lite?  Check.
• Military shit?  Done.
• Written-while-taking-a-big-smelly-dump OST ballads?  Done.
• Retro big-band burlesque style?  Yeah, yeah.
• T-ara style disco queen shit?  Done it already.
• Some fucking crazy shit nobody would wear in public?  Not just for Orange Caramel.
• Trashy 80’s dancing and fashion?  Madonna invented that shit.

And on and on it goes.  Okay, she hasn’t done Orange Caramel’s “Where’s Waldo” concept or T-ara N4’s “bored Korean farm-hands” concept yet… but give her time.

So in summary, k-pop is Michael Jackson’s dancing with an overall group concept like NKOTB or The Spice Girls, using the visual ideas of Madonna.

MELODIC AND HARMONIC ELEMENTS

“BUT WHAT ABOUT THE MUUUUUUUUSIC” I heard you all cry, “isn’t k-pop different musically?  Isn’t it all ‘Asian’ and stuff?”  Well, okay… time to get a little technical.

Most readers over the age of 15 years will know 6th Century BC Greek mathematician Pythagoras as “that guy with the rule about triangles“, having been no doubt drilled with endless pages of “calculate these fucking triangles before recess” exercises in maths class.  However Pythagoras had other claims to fame – he was not only that annoying triangle guy, but he also was a religious cult leader and on top of that he experimented scientifically with sound (and maybe other things too – but definitely at least with sound).

Pythagoras’ initial experiments involved observing a plucked string, and then cutting off the vibration of the string at various points.  It was noted that stopping the vibration at varied mathematical points produced higher notes.  These notes will be familiar to stringed instrument players as “harmonics”.

By continuing this series of harmonic reproduction by cycling through fifths and fourths until seven distinct tonalities were obtained, Pythagoras was able to conceptualise an early form of the seven-note or “dia-tonic” harmony upon which all western music is now based.  Clicking on the harmonic series of notes below will take you to a post which explains the maths behind the Pythagorean diatonic scale, just in case you give a fuck.

Meanwhile in China, some clever and anonymous Chinese inventors had also figured out this shit.  However, the Chinese had an important difference of opinion to Pythagoras – they didn’t think that the last couple of notes in his diatonic series sounded any good, they felt that these last two notes were cosmically incorrect or something, probably because they noticed that once you get past the first five notes, the maths gets a bit fucking shaky.  It probably wouldn’t bother a wacky cult leader who told his followers not to touch beans or white cocks, but it bothered the Chinese.  As a result, the Chinese stopped their musical scale at five distinct pitches.

Therein lies the key difference between traditional Eastern and Western melody and harmony – five-note (aka “pentatonic”) versus seven-note or diatonic musical scales.  If you’ve ever jumped on a piano, played around with only the black keys and noticed that the result somehow sounds “oriental”, it’s because you’re playing a pentatonic scale (probably F# pentatonic major).  On the other hand if you play only the white notes on the piano and notice that it sounds like a western nursery rhyme or folk tune, that’s because you’re playing a western diatonic scale (probably C major).

This difference is why Asian music “sounds Asian”.  So that’s why k-pop sounds different, right?  Well, nope… 99.99% of k-pop just uses western scales instead, either the diatonic major and minor scales (initially from the western classical music tradition and in almost all pop music) or the “blues scale” which is the minor pentatonic plus an extra note, the tritone/flat 5th/blue note (initially from American blues music, and which is in almost all the rest of pop music).  I’m sure however that you’d like to hear an example of the 0.01% so here you go, introducing the only k-pop song ever* that is completely built on the major pentatonic scale:

If you were of the opinion that this song sounded a bit twee, cheesy and fuckin’ stupid, well now you know why you probably felt that way (although I liked it – but then I also liked Wassup’s debut song so maybe you shouldn’t take my opinion of the quality of music as gospel truth, hey).  You can legitimately say that miss A’s “I Don’t Need A Man” is one of the very, VERY few Asian-influenced songs in k-pop, melodically… but it’s still fucking got a RAP VERSE in it, which is an American thing (or at least popularised in America, rap was actually imported to American cities from Jamaica but let’s leave the rap history lesson for another post).  And that’s about as oriental as k-pop gets from a strictly melodic/harmonic point of view.  Please don’t flood my ask.fm with “but is this song Asian?” questions because they’ll get deleted without an answer – if you are even thinking about doing this, you’re missing the point of this paragraph and you need to fucking go back and read it again… and don’t get me started on trot music, that’s all western melody and harmony too.

SOUND DESIGN ELEMENTS

Of course, pop music is as much about rhythm, sonic production and audio engineering as it is about melody and harmony.  In this area k-pop directly copies the west in every way imaginable, and always has.  Many of the early k-pop producers went overseas to western countries to study sound design and brought the knowledge of pop production back with them to Korea.  Of course the first results were primitive and dismal compared to what other countries were producing at the time.

H.O.T. were the biggest fucking group (at the time) on the biggest label in Korea and their engineer can’t even get something super-basic like volume compression correct, which is why different elements of the mix on all SM’s early material vary in volume so much. No wonder nobody outside Korea gave a shit back then – there was just nothing here to see.

Korea caught up fast though (with a bit of international help) – these days Korea’s audio engineering is just as good as anywhere else, and maybe a little better in some cases because they throw more money at in-housing engineers.  The sonic choices have always been a little bit behind though, and still are.  There’s a running joke with some of my friends that k-pop always runs with trends that were popular in the west about five years ago but have since fallen heavily out of fashion, and that’s why we see:

• Selective hard Autotune in 2009, many years after most western artists stopped using it
• James Brown style drum breaks from 1989 and 1992’s “Diggety” rap fad in the late 90s
• Dubstep in 2013 – nobody in the west outside the actual dubstep scene wanted to hear fucking dubstep in 2013

K-pop’s latest obsession is with “trap”, those horrible languid slow excuses for actual rap beats which have been polluting the hip-hop world over the last decade and making everything shit and boring – it’s the main reason why rap music sucks so much now compared to the style’s 80s and 90s golden ages.  If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, “trap” style is what’s going on in this song from 1:23.

The hip-hop world is gradually realising that this sound fucking sucks penis and they are sloooowly moving on, and it’s always just when the west is starting to move on from a musical trend that k-pop (on average) grabs it and runs with it.  That’s because k-pop is sonically a copyist form, and you can’t copy something until it exists, so k-pop waits to see what works in western pop and then they grab it and use it, hoping it will work in Korea as well.  The Korean industry is naturally conservative and doesn’t like to take chances.  Of course, by the time k-pop comes up with its own clone versions, western pop has usually moved onto something else.  Due to the increasing cross-pollenation between western and Korean producers the cycles are starting to get shorter (while the hip-hop world has used “trap” for a decade it’s only really become a big thing in pop music about two years ago) but it’s unquestionably still a copy.

CONCLUSION

K-pop is taking western music, combining it with western concepts, western production, western sonic trends and western psychological fangirl-baiting to create a popular culture trend based 100% entirely on western culture.  There are no fucking differences.  The only thing Korean about it is that it’s happening in Korea, which means that the competition is tougher – they’re all trying harder than everyone else to create the perfect pop product because they’re culturally perfectionist “keeping up with the Joneses” workaholics who run on two hours sleep.  Except Sulli.

Sulli is taking a break from all that fucking bullshit.  That’s because Sulli is awesome, and because she can.  You would too, if you were a heterosexual female k-pop idol in her shoes and there was a waiting tropical island and an erect dick to hop on.  Get that Choiza dick, girl.  Support freedom – support Sulli.

I’m sure almost all of you reading this have by now heard about the sad passing of 22 year old EunB (Go Eun Bi) from k-pop girl group Ladies Code.  Here she is in the great “Hate You” MV which has got to be one of the most visually astounding k-pop videos ever, as well as one of 2013’s best songs.

Looking around at various posts on the Internet, I can see that the incident of EunB’s passing obviously affected many people quite deeply.  My heart does go out to all of you who are feeling shook by the loss.  My emotions on it are somewhat different to this though, however perhaps I can still help all you readers who are mourning by shining some light into the darkness, as well as giving voice to people who might not be reacting in the typical white-listed-by-society ways but still may wish to read about this incident in a way that they can relate to, in a way that is humourous AND educational AND sympathetic.  Trigger warning: if you’re the ultra-sensitive type there may be better web pages for you out there than this one so feel free to not read further.  For the rest of you, read on.

Firstly, a bit of context for you readers.  Let’s make one thing clear straight away: although my posts do have humour I don’t take death lightly.  I’ve had plenty of experience with people in my own life that I care about dying, including both of my parents due to medical reasons, plus an old partner and several of my friends and acquaintances, mostly suicides.  Bom’s “You And I” video makes me tear up every time I watch it because that’s basically the story of my old relationship with the genders reversed.  I knew my partner wanted to die long before she did anything proactively about it, and I’d do my best to find new and interesting things to entertain her and motivate her to keep herself looking forward to living the next day instead of thinking of ways to off herself, which is exactly what Bom’s character does in that video for her partner.  Getting the phone call from my own partner’s mother after she found the body, less than 24 hours after I had last seen her, now that shit seriously fucked me up.  I put my phone on silent after that call, and it’s still on silent now – ten years later.

That’s precisely why hearing about Ladies Code’s EunB dying in a car accident didn’t affect me all that much.  I felt sad and reflective for a few hours, and maybe a little more paranoid than usual about cycling for the next day or two – and that was all I had.  Hearing about friends and family dying, yes that shit shakes me.  Some celebrity in another country who made some music that I liked dying on the other hand, well yes of course it’s sad and I’d definitely prefer it if she was still alive for multiple reasons but I’m not exactly going to cry a river of tears over the death of someone I’ve never even met.  Who would you be more sad about, your own mother dying, or the mother of a stranger dying?  If you are thinking “equally”, then you’re lying – it’s a fact that people’s mothers die every minute of every day so how come you’re not crying every single day of your life over some stranger somewhere.  The grief of another mother dying around the world every few seconds would be too much for people to handle, so people’s brains naturally prioritise grief for the people who mean the most to them – it doesn’t mean they’re heartless, it’s just a natural way for your brain to cope without being overloaded with sadness 24/7.  It’s a phenomenon known as “Dunbar’s Number” or the “Monkeysphere” which gives people the ability to maintain this emotional distance from strangers – human brains can only biologically hold so much “care factor” for the fate of others in them at one time.  Therefore as we didn’t have any kind of personal relationship, EunB was simply just outside the zone of people who I care deeply about.  If some of these idols start returning my 50 calls and texts per day this could change, but for now they’re all still strangers to me, unfortunately.

Society throws a lot of guilt and shame onto people who don’t react in the prescribed socially acceptable ways to tragedy, and this creates even more problems because those people then feel not only confused emotions that they may not understand (because they’re so unexpected) but also guilt and shame at not feeling the way everybody around them is saying that they are feeling.  This is why I feel it’s important for me to state my feelings on it in this preamble – maybe others who reacted in a similar fashion can relate and understand why they feel the way they do without also feeling guilty.  I think it’s okay to have different emotions to others about a situation, and to express them, as long as you’re not stepping on anyone’s toes in the process.

If anything, rather than feeling sad, the situation with Ladies Code pisses me off.  Just because I’m not openly weeping or sentimental about it doesn’t mean that I don’t give a shit, and in fact I think it sucks that lives sometimes are lost so wastefully for no good reason, the thought makes me angry if anything.  Whenever someone dies, I think it’s natural for people to have a lot of questions, and mine is – who the fuck killed her?  I’m personally not a fan of sentimentality in tragedy, it doesn’t comfort me, I’m a fan of answers, and that’s what I look for when a tragedy occurs.  I want to know what happened, why, who did it, and what can be done about it for the future to prevent it happening again.  So let’s check the facts and line up some suspects to see who the likely culprit is, because I want to know who is responsible for this shit…. don’t you?

A quick summary of what happened, as far as we know it (a more detailed summary is here):

• Ladies Code, along with some entourage, were driving from a scheduled appearance to their dorms
• A rear wheel came off the van they were driving, the vehicle spun several times and hit a guard rail
• Airbags did not deploy and seatbelts were not worn, also excessive speed on a wet road may have been a factor
• EunB was thrown from the vehicle and died at the scene or shortly afterward, she did not make it to hospital alive

Suspect #1 – Hyundai

The vehicle that Ladies Code were traveling in was a rented Hyundai Grand Starex – it’s apparently a piece of shit according to netizens’ statements after EunB’s accident, some of which are below:

Grand starex cars have 2 point seat belts and we can’t even tighten them. If a grand starex car flips and you’re sitting at the back of the front seat, it’ll be extremely critical. The ones that are exported overseas have 3 point seat belts. The domestic cars with 2 point seat belts were also a big reason of the death

That grand starex is said to be the trashiest work of the brand. Years ago, university students were in the same kind of car and it flipped a bit on grass. The roof of the car ripped hard and 6 students died. The car is a definition of a weapon resulted by using cheap materials. It should never be ridden by celebrities or children. If it gets into an accident, it totally destroys itself. If it was a starcraft van, it would’ve been different. They might’ve been seriously injured but they wouldn’t have died or get into a critical condition. This is very unfortunate. Seeing how an innocent person can face a sudden death, it darkens my feelings. I have nothing to say. I can only pray for the dead and hope for the injured ones. Never buy the starex. It’s a total trash that can’t even be exported

There’s a reason celebrities ride vans.. there are more safety features that prevent big accidents. TVXQ and Wanted got into similar accidents but TVXQ was riding a van and got injuries while the Wanted member died because he was riding a Starex.

How true are these claims?  I couldn’t dig up any solid dirt apart from what netizens were saying but I did note that the vehicle’s (supposedly) safer European-market cousin only gets a 3/5 crash test rating, and that’s with crash test dummies in 3-point belts and rear child safety seats.  It’s true that car companies can sometimes be cunts, and Hyundai certainly wouldn’t be the only culprit there.  If you haven’t seen the film Fight Club, go and see it straight away (you might need to be over 18 in some countries, so just tell your parents that Kpopalypse says it’s okay to watch), not just because it’s a great movie, but specifically for this scene:

The Fight Club “recall” scene is probably based on the case of the 1971 Ford Pinto.  The Pinto had a little design fault which was causing the vehicles to explode in flames in rear-end collisions and cremate the occupants inside – surely worthy of a recall, right?  Not according to Ford who calculated that recalling the vehicles to fix the problem would cost more than just continually paying out settlement claims to relatives of the deceased… so Ford just said “fuck it, so what if some people die, let’s save the money”… and if you think that car companies these days have left that kind of mentality back in the 1970s, think again.

So it’s entirely within the realms of possibility (although certainly not confirmed #legallycoveringmyass) that the Grand Starex may be recall-worthy and have regular airbag/structural faults but the company just doesn’t care.  Maybe it could have better safety features – even some of the exported versions of the Grand Starex don’t have rear 3-point seat belts, but on the other hand what kind of seat belt is in the thing is surely irrelevant if you’re not wearing one anyway.  Sure, the airbags on the vehicle EunB was traveling in didn’t deploy, but airbags are near-useless on their own anyway, they’re a supplemental system designed to work in conjunction with seatbelts.  However why would the company make the Korean version of the Grand Starex with decent seat belts if almost nobody in Korea even wears them, which brings us to…

Suspect #2 – Korean road manners

It’s no fucking secret that Koreans seem to drive with a massive disregard for their own and others’ road safety (not that there aren’t even worse countries for this, of course).  Several YouTubers have noticed that Koreans have a somewhat sketchy relationship with road rules, and there’s tons of video evidence out there, but let’s not just take their word for it, here’s some quotes from some friends of mine who have lived in the country off and on for a year or two doing that ubiquitous westerner-in-Korea occupation, English-language teaching:

The bus drivers are insane, they’ll floor it as soon as people get on the bus, they won’t wait for you to sit down, even if you’re an old lady or on crutches or a walker if you don’t grab onto something straight away you’ll just go flying and nobody even cares.  I helped someone up who was knocked over by the bus driver and she looked at me weirdly, she seemed really surprised that someone was helping her, you can tell that it doesn’t happen often.

People in cars often won’t stop for you as a pedestrian even if there are pedestrian signals and it’s at a pedestrian crossing and you have right of way, so you just have to wait for your moment and then go for it and walk out into traffic and hope for the best.  At first I was scared to cross the street at all.  I’d add hundreds of metres to my walking journey and use the subway as often as I could to avoid crossing a street.  [when asked "but what if there was no choice"]  Eventually I worked out that I could just find some other people who seemed to know what they was doing and whenever they walked across, I’d try to keep up with them, because cars seemed more likely to stop for a bigger group of people, if you’re just one person the drivers will almost always bully you out.  There were always lots of people crossing roads so it wasn’t a problem to find people to do this, but even in a big group I never felt really safe and drivers would still cut in front of you.  I basically spent my entire time in Korea living in fear whenever I was within 100 metres of a road.

Nobody wear seatbelts over there, I never saw anybody else wear them besides me and other English teachers from abroad that I was traveling with.  I was in a van with some Koreans and the first thing I did was put on my seatbelt, and the others all looked at me like I was an idiot.  I stared back like “fuck you, you can go through the windshield if you want”.  Of course I had to hunt around for 20 seconds to even find the fucking seatbelt because nobody had used it for so long that it had slipped in the gap between the seat cushions and was hanging down the back of the seat somewhere.  Of course, they didn’t wait for me to do this, they just started driving anyway.

Perhaps this has something to do with the quicker development of driving culture in Asian countries compared to the west, I’ll leave it for someone else to write a huge-ass essay on that part.  All I know is that scary Korean driving is a thing that exists and I wouldn’t have believed all the Internet stories myself if these stories weren’t backed up by literally every single person I know who is in Korea, has been to Korea, or is in a relationship with someone Korean.

So we’ve got a (possibly) shitty van, (possibly) being utilised with minimal regard for driver and passenger safety.  Now imagine combining this with the pressure of:

Suspect #3 – The k-pop industry

The craziness of idol schedules is old news.  However it’s not just idols who are overworked and pushed to breaking point, road managers driving their artists around on non-stop engagements may be functioning on little sleep, which is a very effective killer on the roads, even with relatively safe vehicles.  Idols can at least get a nap on the road sometimes.

Check out this recent itinerary for a j-pop idol with three scheduled appointments on it, which is pretty full.  Now imagine that instead of three appointments per day, these idols have up to twelve, and someone has to drive them to and from all of those and stay awake during all of it.  That’s your road manager’s job.  Your options as a road manager in this scenario are, at best:

• Tag-team driving with someone else and sleep in shifts (for startup labels already in debt and on skeleton staff this ain’t gonna happen)
• Lots of drugs for the driver (dangerously common in any transport industry and one of the reasons why the music business keeps drug dealers a phone call away)
• Deal with it (or find work elsewhere)

Not very good options, but whoever is your boss is pushing you hard because they had to loan millions of dollars just to get the nugu group you’re driving around to this point in their careers where they’re a wanted commodity, and everything is riding on them…. and they’re riding with you.  Combine this with the harsh competition for limited gigging opportunities and it’s easy to see the ticking time-bomb nature of this scenario.  But why is it this way?  Maybe it’s got something to do with:

Suspect #4 – Korean culture

An anecdote from someone who is married to a Korean and has been to the country several times:

If you’re a westerner in Korea with a group of good Korean friends, and you want to go out with them and have a good time, don’t even bother bringing any money with you – you won’t need it.  You’ll be able to eat like a king and get as drunk as you want, your friends will happily pay for everything, and not only that, they’ll always look out for you, they will make sure that you don’t get into any trouble even if you’re acting like a bit of a drunken dickhead.  You’ll be treated like royalty and you could honestly never possibly meet a nicer group of people.

However, Koreans will treat you like shit if they don’t know you.  They’ll push in front of you in lines, they’ll cut you off in traffic, and if you’re a stranger and start talking to someone you’ve never met at a bus stop you’ll be stared at as if you just tried to pull down your pants and take a shit in front of them.  They just don’t give a fuck about you if you’re a stranger.  This all changes once you’ve been formally introduced though, as soon as you’ve been introduced by a mutual friend to a Korean all of a sudden you’ll find that they’re incredibly sweet and nice people.

When thinking about this, everything else falls into place.  Perhaps what we’re seeing is a more extreme example of the “Monkeysphere” stuff I was on about earlier – maybe if you live in a very populous country (like an Asian one) the quantity of people around you means that it’s harder to give a fuck about each individual that you see, so you have to shut more of other people out and be a bit more me-first just in order to function.  (It could also be the reason why citizens of population-dense New York have a reputation for being ruder than other Americans, just to give an example of how this theory plays out outside of Asia.)  Therefore, Hyundai makes a car with minimal safety features on the cheap because who is going to be driving it – just some stranger, certainly someone outside the “Monkeysphere”.  Everybody drives in a very pushy “me-first” kind of way because everybody else on the road is also a stranger to them, they’re on the outside of that “care zone”.  Clienete of k-pop groups push CEOs to push artist managers to push road managers to push idols because the distance between one end of the chain and the other ensures that the opposite ends are still on “stranger level”.  My theory is that the above culmination of factors creates a perfect storm of elements which make it inevitable that k-pop idols will disproportionately die on the roads, and the most truly shocking thing for me about the EunB incident is not that it happened, but how it hasn’t happened more often.  I’ve always worried about exactly this type of thing happening, and now it has, so I hope that things change for everyone’s sake.

Don’t ask about how the not wearing seatbelts thing fits into all this though, I still haven’t figured out that part of the puzzle, so it’s entirely possible that my theory is full of shit.  It’s just a theory after all, but I think it’s important to at least think about these things, because without people willing to really think deeply about the problem, how is anyone ever going to arrive at a solution?  For what it’s worth I think it’s great that idols are now starting to speak up and encourage seatbelt use, but it really sucks that someone had to die for this to happen, it should have happened a long time before now.  Even though Korea has about five times the road fatalies of western countries, current seatbelt use among back-seat passengers in cars in Korea is at roughly 6% despite it being illegal to not wear a rear seatbelt, and I can’t count the amount of selcas I’ve seen of k-pop idols sitting in cars doing various shenanigans while not wearing seatbelts.  Some seatbelt education is certainly needed (or maybe even enforcing some laws, perish the thought), but it also seems to me to be the easiest part of the problem to tackle, I wonder if much else will ever change unless the country undergoes a massive cultural shift… and cultures are notoriously resistant to change.

But maybe this is all thinking too deeply for some people and perhaps they’d rather just:

Suspect #5 – [insert any female you don't happen to like here]

…blame it on a woman, because they’re lame fangirls with insecurities a mile long.  It’s worked for almost every single other k-pop controversy ever, so why not this one too?  Start by grabbing a 20-sided dice of the type used for Dungeons & Dragons and other such pen-and-paper roleplay games (and if you’re even worthless enough to be thinking that this is a good idea you’re probably a nerd who wants to escape your miserable reality any way you can so there’s no doubt that you already have one of these):

Now roll your number, and consult this list of trendy-to-hate people to find out who you should blame!  Weak strawman reasons to hate them also included below just in case you can’t think of any.

1. Minah (is cute, is dating someone, good enough reasons to hate)
2. Hyeri (screwed that Tony guy, who is like, so gross, that you totally don’t have a secret crush on)
3. Dani (14 years old and already more successful than you)
4. Kemy (hates Bom for attention)
5. Bom (plastic druggie, should be in jail)
6. Sulli (lazy cao ni ma)
7. Jiyeon (cyclopean threat to your oppas)
8. Eunjung (probably fucking Amber your lesbo girl crush)
9. Hyomin (how hot is she, also an iljin or whatever, you read about it on the Internet so it must be true)
10. Nana (looks like a supermodel, it’s not fair, also was rude once or something, fucking bitch)
11. Hong Jin Young (is hot and probably stealing any of you oppas with cougar fantasies)
12. Anyone in Sistar (iljin whores, also manipulated the chart, who knows what else they’re capable of)
13. Eunji (dangled oranges out of a car window once, how unsafe)
14. Naeun (in the same group as Eunji, probably watched her do it and cheered her on)
15. Hyosung (ilbe bug, also underwear-flaunting oppa-stealer, no proof just means she hasn’t been caught yet)
16. Taeyeon (how dare she steal your EXO man away)
17. Hyuna (complete whorebag)
18. Yura (no reason but just including her name here to shut up the crybaby Yura fans on my ask.fm)
19. Sojin (looks snobby, she must think she’s the female president, just like the song says)
20. Park Geun Hye (actual female president, looks even snobbier)

There there, a bit of irrational hatred of somebody you’ve never even met over something you read on some lame gossip site and “confirmed” on some other lame gossip site will make everything better.  You dumbass.

The EunB incident is tragic, but I hope (perhaps in vain) that some good comes out of it in the form of driving reform and also reform of the culture of the industry.  I also believe that for all the insensitivity of the timing of his Tweets, Taewoon is right – the time to appreciate, pay attention to and reward people is when they’re still here, not after they leave.  We’ll all die one day, so make the most of your own life and the lives of the people you care about while you’re able to do so.

Ladies Code can have the final word.  RIP EunB.

EDIT: RIP also RiSe (Kwon Rise) who passed away shortly after this post was written, after extensive surgery to attempt to save her life.  She was 23 years old.

The idea for this post actually started from Anti Kpop-Fangirl, because people kept giving him shit about his biases on ask.fm and he wanted to tell those people how fucking lame they were being.  We talked about it and decided that it was a great idea for a collaborative post as both of us were experiencing the same phenomenon.  You can read the post in its entirety including AKF’s contributions at this link, and I recommend that you do, but I thought I’d repost just my own section here on my own site because I think it stands up on its own as something my readers would like.

When I was really young and still in school, I hated girls.  Why did girls and girly things even exist?  What was the point of Barbie dolls and fairy shit?  Nobody wants those dresses and pink toys and stuff, except one dude at school who seemed kind of effeminate and hung around with girls a lot and who was obviously gay.  Not gay meaning “guy who likes the cock” because my uneducated dumb ass didn’t even know that gay sex and guys liking other guys sexually was a thing that existed, I just thought “gay” meant “someone who seemed kind of girly and likes girly things” because that’s the only context I ever saw the word used in (these were pre-Internet days, you couldn’t just look stuff up and discover immature snarky blogs like you can now).  I wasn’t into any of that girly stuff, I liked my toy car and gun collection and 80s action films with guns and explosions and computer games where you get to kill and blow up shit.  Girls hated me too because I was such a misogynist little cunthole, as well as just a really unlikeable and ugly person with no personality or redeeming features generally, which was fine by me because I didn’t want to talk to any of them anyway, and so all was well in my world.

Then, something happened to fuck everything up – puberty.   Those strange female creatures at my school who previously repulsed me became extremely interesting to me, all of a sudden.  I still wasn’t interested in pink clothes, but I became suddenly very interested in what was underneath some of those pink clothes, so I tried to get to know some of these strange “girl” creatures that I had previously shunned in the hope of gaining easier access to these “areas of interest”.  Of course, because I had been so rude to all of them previously, plus I had no social skills to speak of having never developed this side of myself and was a complete ugly drooling tits-obsessed pervert (having only just discovered the wonderous nature of female boobs), they very sensibly didn’t want to know me.  In the meantime, that guy who I thought was gay actually was not gay, and not only that, he was surrounded by all the girls that he had previously been nice to.  It became clear to me quite quickly that I really hadn’t thought any of this through.

Eligible girls in my school were in short supply.  Firstly, they had to be into decent music that I was into just so we’d have enough in common that my vastly deficient social skills could stand some chance of keeping up with any kind of conversation.  I’d also discovered heavy metal, so that knocked out about 97% of the female school population straight off the bat because they were mostly into trash like Bon Jovi (#1 heartthrob material of the day) and not cool stuff like Slayer and Metallica (this was before Metallica became a pop group with the shitty commercial “Black Album” and crushed the dreams of metalheads everywhere) and they wanted to talk about fashion and hairspray (this was the 80s) instead of how that guy from Kreator can possibly scream like that for such a long period at concerts.  On top of this, for me to consider a girl eligible she had to be hot, even though I certainly wasn’t even remotely hot according to them –  but being a hypocrite hadn’t bothered me up until this point so I figured I might as well go with the flow.  Girls being “hot” in my eyes meant a pretty face and some nice boobs… and for most girls at the time both of those things were still a “work in progress” so there went about 90% of whoever was remaining on the eligibility list once music taste was factored in.  This left an extremely limited pool of girls to work with, most of whom already justifiably hated me.

This problem was then compounded some more by the fact that I wasn’t the only weird metalhead with a hard-on at my school, several other guys shared my outlook and naturally had similar preferences.  The other metalhead guys knew that they didn’t stand a chance with some girl who was into New Kids On The Block or Vanilla Ice, how were they going to compete with the carefully chiseled features of American boy-pop?  So they also zoomed in on the school’s few attractive “metal girls”, who suddenly found themselves dealing with advances from desperate scungy-looking long-haired guys left and right – me included.  I found that whenever I’d start crushing on an eligible and attractive girl at school, as soon as I started making advances, one of my more charismatic and socially adept male peers would sense alarm bells ringing and swoop in to redirect her attention.  Being sensible and smart, the girl would choose the more attractive option (i.e not me), and soon they would be walking around in school lunch break holding hands and whispering sweet metal-related nothings into each others’ ears and meeting each other after class at their houses for “music study sessions”.  This happened again and again all throughout high school and by the time I had finally lost my virginity long after school days were over the metal soundtrack to it wasn’t even any good anymore, the cool thrash and death metal of the 80s and 90s having been replaced with some hippity-hoppity garbage for fuckheads called “nu-metal”.  No wonder I’ve since bailed out of the metal scene to the world of k-pop.

I developed a habit thanks to my high school experiences which has continued into my adulthood… whenever I really like someone of the opposite sex and want to get to know them better, I keep that shit as much under the radar of everybody I can as humanly possible.  I’ve found the worst thing I can do after meeting a nice girl is go and tell my male peers “gee, she’s nice”, because the risk that they’ll notice this, agree and do something about it before I do could be quite high.  If I’m single I don’t have conversations with guys about other girls and I don’t like to hear about what they like, because then they might start asking me about who I like and I don’t want to tell them – mind your own fucking business thanks cunts.  Although I haven’t been single for many years, whenever I get questions or comments about my k-pop biases along the lines of “she’s ugly” or “how can you be into THAT?” I smile to myself.  It’s an indicator that my sexual tastes can stray far from the majority, and that makes me feel very comfortable – if I ever am single again, there’ll be less competition… for Raina.

That’s right folks, it’s that time again!  Welcome to yet another episode of:

Kpopalypse will yet again bring you fresh (or stale) nugus to enhance your life (or not)!

Nugu criteria as per usual:

* Less than 20,000 YouTube hits on the MV *

* Your friends who are all into EXO don’t give a fuck *

Let’s get the party started.

T-ara new song and video “Sugar Free” just came out, and of course it’s great.  Naturally, this beacon of light from the k-pop heavens is suffering the usual slings and arrows from the small handful of haters still left who can’t deal with the fact that T-ara have put out yet another song that is really really good and better than anything their faves have done in years so they’ll have to listen to it secretly 6921 times so they don’t get busted and thrown out of their little imaginary Internet Kool Klub.  One of the criticisms directed at “Sugar Free”, which is the same one always directed at all T-ara videos (even the ones that cost over $1 million USD) is that it ” looks cheap”.

Never mind the blatant incorrectness of this complaint in terms of CCM quitting drama MVs, or even T-ara themselves quitting drama MVs (not that it’s exactly up to them), or the laughable inference that the scandal did some sort of permanent financial damage to T-ara on a business level (hahaha nope).  I’ll write the “692 reasons why people who clutch at weak straws to hate on T-ara are dipshits” blog some other time, let’s keep things simple for now and just focus on the word “cheap”.  It’s pretty achingly obvious confirmation bias and/or shocking ignorance weighing in when someone calls a video by T-ara or in fact any of the well-known groups in k-pop cheap.  Genuinely cheap k-pop videos are extremely rare – to get to the cheap seats in k-pop forget all the groups you know about and have heard of, you need to go straight to nugu town and search hard.  It’s time to show you folks what a truly cheap k-pop MV really looks like, and as usual, Kpopalypse Nugu Alert will take you straight there.  We will not pass Core Contents Media.  We will not collect $200.

KISUM ft. RISSO – Like It

There are so many k-pop videos made every year, and so much competition out there, that a little bit of double-up of visual ideas is inevitable.   Some are easy to spot – most people for instance know that GD&TOP’s tank in “Knock Out” was given a girly spray paint job and recycled for f(x)’s “Hot Summer“, and why not, after all who wants to build a fucking fake tank twice?  It’s just good sense to recycle expensive materials when you can, and I’m sure YG appreciated SM buying the plastic tank off them so it didn’t have to sit around in the YG basement taking up space where they could store their hydroponics equipment away from prying eyes.  However you know you’re firmly in broke nugu territory when you see video directors start to recycle things that really weren’t all that fucking expensive to obtain in the first place:

Girl group Tint are also nugu, but in no way nugu enough to qualify for Nugu Alert, after all this video here has nearly half a million views.  Sure 50% of those hits are probably from angry EXO fans trolled into clicking it to see if it’s a sly EXO diss (which it is) and the other 50% are likely from masturbating fangirls hoping to catch a glimpse of Teen Top’s Chunji… but no such luck, girls (check the comments for some amusing tears)!  He might be the one under the wolf’s head though, and observant viewers will notice that it’s exactly the same wolf’s head that’s in the Kisum video.  Not even one that looks a little bit the same or another model from the same costume shop but exactly the same one - look at the creases and dents on the ears, they’re in identical spots.  This was just sitting around in some storage room somewhere with a bunch of old furniture and other video props after Tint’s director used it, and Kisum’s crew found it and thought “okay this’ll be a good visual gimmick for Kisum and she can get all gropey with the wolf’s head without annoying any censors”.  They went ahead and not only used the wolf head but brought in some camera lighting and shot the whole damn video in the storage room they found it in – look at the utterly random props lying around like the clothes dummy and the wall colours that don’t match (because these walls were probably painted different colours to shoot two separate scenes for different MVs with on two different sides of the room, a common practice in TV studios).  This is gonzo shoestring MV making at its finest, the type that only true nugus can bring you.

YouTube views at time of writing: 6338

Notable attribute: Tint’s wolf mask actually still intact and not burned by angry EXO sasaengs

Nugu Alert rating: high

912 Crew – Roller Skate

One of the biggest and dumbest myths surrounding k-pop music video making is that the popular “box” and “indoor scene set” style videos used to showcase dance-based MVs are somehow the “cheap option”.  Nothing could be further from the truth – these are actually some of the most expensive MVs out there of all, because fabricating an entire room inside another room to shoot an MV in is a royal logistic pain in the ass.  Large k-pop labels go to extraordinary lengths to give their “scenes” and “boxes” a lot of detail and details cost money – it’s not unusual to see these type of MVs spend six-figure sums just on set design alone.   CGI is also used a lot less often than you think – check any behind-the-scenes video for a box MV and you’ll be surprised how often the rooms are actually real.

On the other hand if you’re complete nugus with no money and I mean zero fucking money, you do what 912 Crew do – you go to an outdoor location on a day when it it probably isn’t going to rain and you hope for the best (and bring your umbrella – just in case).  Consistent use of outdoor locations is a nugu MV signature, because nobody had to be paid to build any shit.  If you then want some “box MV” action, go find a white box and do some moves – if it looks a little crappy because there are dark spots in the corners just throw some weird filter over the footage later.  It’ll all work out in the end.  It certainly won’t fuck up your totally cool 80s style rap song about roller skating – in fact it’ll probably fit really well because most music videos that had anything to do with skate parks, roller skates or skate boards from western countries were also about this cheap-looking so fuck it.

YouTube views at time of writing: 1884

Notable attribute: pudgy rap girl actually cuter than 90% of k-pop idols

Nugu Alert rating: very high

ROK KISS – ROK KISS

Rok Kiss seem to get everything wrong – terrible dancing, dodgy leather costumes, laughable group name, awful music (of course), horrid budget CGI, uncanny-valley makeup and styling, even a cheesy bas-relief logo… but despite all this there’s one thing that sticks out immediately from them as strangely up-to-par.  These guys are as buff as any k-pop star… actually, maybe even more so because they’re a bit heavier than the usual lithe male k-pop physique. Why is that, I wondered?

Ahhh… thanks for clearing that up, channel owner!  It’s easy to see why Rok Kiss exists.  Imagine that you’re Nicole’s personal fitness trainer and gym coach (if you’re not into Nicole, substitute her name for whoever you bias is).  Every day you get up early, you go to work, and you spend hours per day, every day, helping Nicole stretch and tone her abs and thighs correctly.  Then at the end of each long and hard day of work only matched by the longness and hardness of your throbbing unsatisfied boner, you go home to Starcraft while Nicole skips along to the dorm of some guy in some k-pop group that she’s banging.  Months of this and eventually the sexual tension becomes too much – why can’t you be that guy in that group?  You talk it over at the local pub with your fitness-trainer friends who are all in the same situation, they’re also training girls they have mad crushes on who they will never get with because the girls don’t want to date “just the trainer”.  The decision is made: time to start a group and finally release those fitness trainer blue-balls – the rest is history!  That is, if starting this mega nugu k-pop group actually counts as a history-making activity.

Rok Kiss also earn themselves a special distinction of a type never before seen here on Nugu Alert, but which was probably inevitable someday.  Those who have long memories will remember back in Nugu Alert Episode 2, I highlighted a Nickelbackesque female rock group called Amor Fati and their ultra-average “stadium rock that will never see the inside of a stadium” snoozer “Say The Word”.

Observant types will notice that Amor Fati and Rok Kiss are using exactly the same building!  Sure, Rok Kiss have moved a few bits of furniture around and wheeled in some gym equipment, but it’s definitely the same rooms, same light fittings, same architraves, same pointless stairway to nowhere, same everything.  This means that Rok Kiss are the first k-pop group on Kpopalypse Nugu Alert to recycle sets not just from anywhere but from another group that also made it onto Kpopalypse Nugu Alert, which earns them massive amounts of extra bonus nugu points.

YouTube views at time of writing: 13506

Notable attribute: I’ve actually seen some of these outfits on sale at Adult Superstore

Nugu Alert rating: extreme

That’s all for this episode of Kpopalypse Nugu Alert!  Kpopalypse will return in the future with more nugus, until then try and listen to something that’s not from SM or YG for once in your life!  You can do it!

The experts agree: with a successful career, an eye-catching aesthetic unique among k-pop idol groups and several iconic hits under their belt, there’s no denying the influence of 2NE1, a YG Entertainment production who are legitimately one of the best groups in k-pop.  Oh wait… did I type “are”?  I meant “were”, sorry about that.  It’s not a secret to anybody with reasonably discerning musical taste that 2NE1’s last couple of years’ worth of output has been complete and utter crap compared to their 2009-2011 glory days.  It hasn’t hurt the group commercially but 2NE1 are riding off brand recognition alone at this point anyway, they’ve already built up an insane fanbase that will lap up literally anything they shit out no matter how bad (meaning bad) it is.  Let’s be honest here – if 2NE1 were a brand new group debuting with any of the songs that they’ve been peddling lately, nobody would tolerate it – they would have sunk without a trace.

We all know the “what” and the “when”, but being an inquisitive sort, I’m more interested in the “how” and “why”.  How could such an iconic group suddenly sink so low in terms of musical quality?  Why do all their new songs suck many hard cocks?  This post will look at a few theories, present a case for each one, and attempt to bring an elusive answer to this troubling question.

1.  The Teddy/Han Ye Seul theory

In November 2013 it was confirmed that Teddy, YG’s main producer and hit songwriter for almost all of 2NE1’s material, had been in a relationship with Korean actress Han Ye Seul for the previous six months.. which funnily enough, was when 2NE1’s last decent song “Scream” was released.  Coincidence?  At the time of writing this post, Teddy and Han Ye Seul are still a couple, and 2NE1’s material has sucked ever since they started being an item.  Aside from causing great anguish to fellow bloggers on a purely personal level, it’s possible that this relationship may have directly affected the musical quality of Teddy’s output for 2NE1.

Teddy wouldn’t be the only songwriter to experience difficulty in songwriting during a relationship.  Several songwriters across various genres all report extreme difficulty in writing happy songs or even writing any songs at all during times that their personal lives and relationships are going well, and relative ease of either writing sad songs or writing when depressed.  There’s a good reason for it – songwriting thrives off ideas, and relationship conflicts, loneliness and misfortune have a silver lining for a creative artist – they are a hive of ideas and inspiration.  On the other hand “I’m so happy” doesn’t tend to make for very interesting narrative material, and songs based off this idea alone tend to be complete dogshit.

With this in mind, if Teddy and Han Ye Seul break up, we may start seeing quality 2NE1 songs again.  Or maybe not, but I can dream.

2.  The YG comeback theory

YG have been busy since April 2012, with more than just organising meetups for Teddy and his actress crush.  They’ve been busy with:

• Winner
• Team B (I guess “Loser” didn’t have the right ring to it)
• Akdong Musician
• All five members of BigBang doing solo work
• PSY
• Lee Hi
• Epik High
• Ku Hye Sun (who?)
• Kang Seung Yoon (who?)
• Jennie Kim
• Some new girl group we don’t know about yet (supposedly)
• IKON (may or may not be the same group)
• Sacking some trainee group SuPearls and trolling everyone
• Getting rid of Gummy because LOL
• Some reality TV show wank
• Nothing much else of note

No wonder they haven’t got time to prioritize 2NE1 anymore, they know 2NE1 will sell anyway so they’re farming out all the good shit to the new upcoming groups.  CL was waiting so long for YG to get their shit together and finally give her some tracks for the new album that she started writing parts of the songs herself just because she got so fucking bored.  Maybe the new 2NE1 comebacks have been shit simply because nobody cared.

3.  The YG Cartel theory

I’m not talking about Bom’s jelly sandwich bonus content – but something else.

If you guessed “Motherfucking Reefer Madness” you are correct.  We all know that G-Dragon likes a puff of the green, and anyone who thinks that GD&TOP’s “High High” is a strictly aeronautical reference is probably being willfully naive.  Not that I have any problem with it, I think the shit should be legal everywhere personally, but there’s no doubt that marijuana has been proven to affect people’s perception of music, by making sounds appear more vibrant and detailed than they really are.  This becomes a problem if you’re in the process of creating music – something that sounds really interesting to you as a stoned composer, producer or audio engineer may sound really fucking boring to a non-stoned listener because they’re not hearing it the same way that you are, because they’re not on the same drugs that you are.  Too much lighting up in the recording studio could indeed be the cause of the decline in quality of 2NE1 tracks… and you thought 2NE1’s reggae just sucked because you didn’t like it – as it happens there’s actually a medical reason why you’re not into it.

4.  The Illuminati theory

Look, triangles and shit, plus ominous drones in the background and spelling mistakes… seems legit.  Also, they cover one eye sometimes (which pretty much means every k-pop artist ever is Illuminati as well as every Emocore and Visual Kei artist ever, wow who isn’t in on this?  I’m in the music business too… am I the only one left out?  Where’s my all-consuming satanic power?)  Could 2NE1’s new shithouse music be an Illuminati plot to pummel people’s brains into submission and make them more willing to accept the One World Government in return for 2NE1’s silence?

Something for you to think about anyway (or laugh at the lameness of), in the meantime I’m off to scan my physical copies of 2NE1 albums for hidden RFID chips.

5.  The T-ara theory

Let’s engage in netizens’ favourite sport and blame T-ara!  So far according to Korea’s Internet-warrior bright sparks, these things are T-ara’s fault:

• KKS being cool and gangster as fuck…
• …and getting away with it 
• Ladies Code’s car accident plus CCMs graphic design department’s decisions
• CCM’s release schedule
• The Chuseok holiday being ruined
• Anyone who commits suicide in Korea
• Anyone sad because other people look happy on TV
• Their inferiority complexes because T-ara girls dated the “bad boy” in high school

…and that’s just in the last month!  If T-ara can be responsible for all of that, statistically it’s likely that they’re somehow responsible for 2NE1’s shit songs too.

CONCLUSION

I don’t know.  What do you think?  I’ve devised a short (two question) survey, where you can pick from the above five options.  Click the semi-relevant picture of Eunjung below (courtesy of great French k-pop site Enlarge Your Kpop) to take you there.

Once I get enough responses (which might take a week), I’ll edit this blog post to include the results!

One of the favourite criticisms directed at my own blog writing is that it’s somehow “click-bait”.  Here I am spending hours of my time each week, pouring my heart and soul into articles for your completely free entertainment and enjoyment, with no hidden catches or ruses, and of course entitled me-generation cuntfaces still have to complain that I’m swindling them somehow.  Of course, I only ever get this criticism from people who also don’t happen to like my writing generally speaking, now isn’t that interesting.

Seeing as how there’s so much confusion over what apparently constitutes “click-bait”, I thought it was time that I showed my readers some examples of what I think click-bait is.

I think “clickbait” is a pretty funny accusation to direct at me because I don’t run advertising so there’s really nothing much to “bait” people to – Anti Kpop-Fangirl has no ads to speak of, and my own site only has default ads that I see no money from and have to pay to remove so fuck that shit, get yourself an adblocker you lazy cunts.  Even on sites like Asian Junkie where my writing appears that do also host ads, it’s not like you’re not at least getting some serious fucking well thought-out content for your click (even if you may not necessarily agree with all of it – you disagreeable piece of shit, you).

To me, for something to be considered click-bait it has to meet BOTH of the following criteria:

• Attracts you to content containing advertising that the website host makes money from
• Title is attention-grabbing and high on promise, but actual post has sloppy content and shows signs of being rushed out super-quickly just to meet article content quotas and get you to click on it

The following examples in this post are from Koreaboo, a site so click-bait-a-riffic that it’s fast gathering a reputation for itself as “the Buzzfeed of k-pop”, but click-bait is a high currency in k-pop media generally and these articles could have potentially come from almost anywhere.

1. 14 sexy k-pop idols in classy red dresses

It’s pretty obvious to me that whoever tossed this one off was working against some strict time restrictions.  At least when Kpopalypse writes about fashion you get some solid information and science along with your lazily copy-pasted pictures.  Also, how could they leave out Shindong?

Talk about doing no research.

2.  Top 10 sexiest female butts in k-pop

Yura isn’t even on the list.  How dare they.  And to think people have a go at me for neglecting Yura, all you crazy Yura fans go tell Koreaboo about Yurass.  She got to #2 on my own ass article, which was from collected popular opinion, but she’s not even in the top 10 here.  Anyway enjoy this picture, assuming you have any of your retina left after viewing the Shindong picture above.

3.  14 luscious shades of lipstick k-pop idols wear

They don’t even fucking tell you what the shades are, that’s because it’d require some actual thought and research and nobody’s got time for that shit when they have to pump out dozens of these type of articles per day.  Also, if they looked into it they’d have to admit that this post is more like four different shades of lipstick on 14 different women.

4.  8 times your favourite boybands interacted with each other

All idol groups interact with each other all the time because who the fuck else can they talk to who they can relate to?  Never mind that though, this article is so lazily written that they can’t even draw their own red box and had to steal it from kpop-boyband-interactions.tumblr.com which I didn’t even know was a place, but I guess they’re more serious about their boyband interactions:

5.  5 k-pop groups we want to see make a comeback

Nobody wants to see CSJH The Grace come back, you fucking twits.  Not even SM.  Not even CSJH themselves who keep releasing shitty solo stuff and dodging the issue.  And don’t even get me started on Co-ed School… KKS split them up into F-ve Dolls and SPEED simply because nobody gave a fuck about them when they were together.

6.  12 incredible photos of TaeTiSeo’s comeback showcase “holler”

This isn’t an article, it’s a Google search filter.

7.  11 hilariously hungry idols devouring snacks

I guess starvation-level k-idol diets are hilarious when you’re not an idol and can eat what you want.  Imagine actually being an idol and looking at this post, it’d bring you to tears.  I can almost hear them now sobbing “my manager wouldn’t even let me eat all of that, we had to take it out of our mouths after the shoot”…

8.  16 incredibly freaky and terrifying k-pop photoshoots

Don’t get too excited about clicking this one, the scariest photo here is of Amber in an empty concrete pool having a nap.  Oooooooh.

9.  13 popular k-pop idols teach you how to take selcas

Okay so there’s no duckface here.  Maybe they have a point with this one.  Recently reformed-by-Kpopalypse ex-duckfacer Lizzy would agree that these idols are doing a good job.

Verification here.  She really does care about duckface reform.

10.  Disgusting video of old man slapping Korean student goes viral

This isn’t a “list” article like the others but it’s just as stupid.  “Oh wow, this is so disgusting – click here to watch it anyway” hahahaha nice one cunts.  They know that 99% of the people clicking this are only doing so because they want to see the video and only 1% are interested in the article’s lame phony moralising.  Save yourself the trouble of clicking though because their video link has already been pulled from YouTube, just enjoy this GIF of EXO-M’s manager slapping an autograph hunter instead.

11.  6 k-pop idols who look like busty pornstars

Oh wait, this is one of MY articles.  Hey, what’s the pay rate at Koreaboo, does anyone know?

Many people had questions about the Ice Bucket Challenge.  Some people wanted to know “what is ALS?”, “how can I donate?”, “is this trend a good idea?”, “is this objectifying?”, “will I feel like a dumb trendy fuckstick if I do this?” and more.  My question was simpler – “which Ice Bucket Challenge among k-pop girls is the most fappable?”.  This post seeks to answer this important question.

Ah, we’re all trying to forget about this Ice Bucket Challenge shit now aren’t we, now that the trend has run its course.  Everyone except me, naturally.  Kpopalypse is always absolutely fine with being hated so is only too happy to publish an Ice Bucket Challenge post when you’re as least receptive to hearing about it as possible.  Of course I couldn’t post about this back when it was trendy because people were still making the videos.  Now everyone’s basically given up and moved onto whatever the newest viral trend is, it’s time to collect ‘em up.

A few fun points before we begin:

• I’m very pro-Ice Bucket Challenge (hereafter referred to as IBC to save typing) – and who isn’t?  Money being raised to fight a terrible disease through the virtuous means of providing fap material?  I fail to see a loser in this equation.  A few people complained about it of course because complaining about things on the Internet is apparently even trendier than tipping buckets of iced water over your head was in August 2014, but they were just being hipsters and hating on something because it was popular.  The best rationale haters could come up with was something about the money not going to the right place, which of course was total bullshit, but unfortunately didn’t stop people sharing the myths on SNS anyway like a bunch of stupid sheep.  Oh, and some laughable nonsense about “wasting water”… which is nothing compared to all the wasted jizz from the extra fapping that it generated.
• The whole point of the IBC was to raise awareness of Lou Gehring’s Disease, which is a pretty fucked up neural disease that people can get, that is bad and kills people and that there is no cure for at this time which is even more reason for you not to be a complaining cunt about it.  At least you don’t have the fucking disease and I don’t see anyone with the disease complaining about ice buckets.  Apparently the physical sensation of the disease can make you feel like you’ve had a bucket of iced water tipped on you, hence the connection between raising money for the disease and girls getting wet – someone over at the ALS Association definitely had their fucking thinking cap on the day they thought up this shit.  This completely justifies me compiling the following list of girls getting their boobs wet so shut up.
• I couldn’t find a video of every single female idol out there who I know did this, so there’s probably a few gaps to be filled.  If you know of any that I’ve missed feel free to link me to their videos in the comments below and I won’t add them to the blog post because I’m too lazy but I’m sure someone else will be grateful.
• I’m not featuring any guys (although some are incidentally in the videos anyway) because it would make this list too long as far more guys did it than girls so I prioritised what was relevant to me personally which is girls, but if any of you bloggers out there wanna make an all-guy list so you can fap then you should go right ahead and I may even link to you.  Also, Shindong didn’t even do one despite being called out.by other Super Junior members, and if I can’t include “the Dong” then honestly there’s just no point.
• Because I’m Kpopalypse I write about k-pop so only people related to the world of k-pop are eligible.  No k-drama stars who have never sung a song etc.
• “But there’s no ice in the bucket” – think I give a fuck?  I think a lot of them interpreted it as “Iced Bucket Challenge” (i.e water that is icy cold rather than with actual ice cubes) but who cares anyway.  You can have the conversation about lack of frozen cubes in the comments if you really must, I’m just here for the boobs.

Here comes the list of clickable YouTube links and ratings out of ten for everyone.  Enjoy!

Ailee

Ailee’s commitment to the cause of getting her shirt wet is impressive even though we’ve all already seen her boobs but I’m certainly not complaining about having more of a good thing.  She even wears a white top which is great, pity she wears a thick bikini top underneath it and her boobs are covered by either her hands or a towel for the duration.  Still, Johnny Noh is an asshole so I’m going to give Ailee an 8.

Dahye, Haeryung, Hyeyong (BESTie)

75% of BESTie appear for an IBC video, and it meets required standards, with tops getting wet, and even some light bouncing from Dahye.  Why only three of them though?  Oh well, at least my personal fave Hyeyeon didn’t miss out (her ugliness is cuter than the other members’ cuteness) but she’s not wearing very good clothes for this.  They should have done the challenge in those police uniforms, now that would have been nice.  It’s still a good effort though so let’s give the three BESTie members an 8.

Dara (2NE1)

At first, I was like “what… Dara?  Nobody wants to see that” but then I noticed that she was wearing a mostly blue top against a mostly black background and I couldn’t really see much anyway.  Thanks Dara!  Also, Dara doing this shit means that it lets 2NE1 off the hook for IBC participation which means that I don’t have to see CL doing it out of perceived obligation to light it up and let it burn like we don’t care.  For diving in front of that particular bullet for us all, Dara can have an 8.

Min (miss A)

Min talks in fluent English which is great but more importantly, she’s wearing white.  Sadly she has a few layers on and her boobs seems fairly carefully strapped to her (also see Ailee) so not much is revealed when the water hits.  Still, she nominated Girls’ Generation’s Hyoyeon so that alone deserves an 8.

Jia (miss A)

It must be sad times in idol-land when you don’t even have a single friend you can call on to come over to your dorm and tip iced water on you.  Jia gets the job done anyway though with the help of a bathroom mirror and shows impressive strength by lifting a whole laundry tub of water over her head with little difficulty.  Pity about the T-shirt, which has some text that reads “there is something seriously boring” and I can only assume the rest of the words read “…about Ice Bucket Challenges that don’t display boobs in the best possible light” but I mainly just feel sorry for her because she obviously has no friends so I’ll give Jia an 8.  p.s I’ll be your friend Jia, look me up.

Suzy (miss A)

Who is that person on Suzy’s shirt?  Whoever it is they are very distracting.   Maybe it’s a picture of Suzy in a few months when she finds this blog post and grimaces with disapproval, meaning that unlike phonies such as John Titor, Suzy has figured out the secret of time travel.  Even though her IBC is crap and not fappable at all I’ll give her an 8 in the hope that maybe she can share her time travel techniques with us by taking herself back in time to 1 minute before this video was shot so she can put on a different shirt without a stupid face on it.

Eunji (Apink)

It’s probably not the best marketing idea for Eunji to do the IBC while wearing a T-shirt with the word “generation” on it, lest it draw viewers’ attention to certain other “gosh haven’t they been disappointing lately” k-pop girl groups aside from Apink.  Eunji also is another idol lacking in friends to hold a bucket for her and seems to have trouble keeping it steady on her own.  Let’s give her an 8 just because it might encourage her to go to the gym and hone her bucket-lifting skills some more.

Apink (everyone except Eunji)

It looks like the rest of Apink are equally in struggle-town when it comes to finding willing accomplices to splash them – is their agency really this short-staffed?  Even more disappointingly, they’re all wearing black… someone needs to tell them how to do this shit right.  Mind you the girls in the back do have a nice shiny boobs-catching-the-light thing going on after they dump the water on themselves so I feel comfortable giving them an 8 for that.

Crayon Pop

Crayon Pop do the IBC and it’s a bit of a failure in fapworthiness because after each girl gets the water dumped on her she spends the rest of the video hunched forward so I can’t really see anything.   However I’m still going to give the most thugged-out girl group in k-pop an 8 just because I don’t want to wake up with a horse’s head in my bed tomorrow.

Serri, Woohee, Seungah, Kaeun (Dal Shabet)

They’re all wearing white, this is how it’s done, folks.  However, where’s Ahyoung?  The hottest member of Dal Shabet not being present is honestly unacceptable and so they only get an 8 for this despite their obviously superior wardrobe to most IBC participants.

Subin (Dal Shabet)

Subin ups the ante on the rest of her group by not only wearing white but also undergoing multiple surprise JAV-newesreader-bukkake-style iced-water squirtings.  I can watch this and kind of squint a bit so I can’t see her face properly and imagine that I’m watching my favourite JAV stars instead so Subin gets an 8 despite not really being my fave in the group.

Amber (f(x))

Do I want to see Amber from f(x) do an IBC?  No.  Can I fap to Amber?  No.  Am I impressed that she called out miss A’s Min and Eat Your Kimchi?  YES.  Amber gets an 8 for indirectly servicing the fapgods as well as showing great taste in female boobs not to mention essentially also confirming her much-rumoured lesbianism.  The only problem – it looks like we’re going to be fighting over the same girls, and Amber’s probably also a lot stronger than I am so that’s a fight I’m probably gonna lose.  Damn.

Luna (f(x))

Luna not only is looking great these days but shows determination to keep a straight posture while getting water tipped over her – impressive given that most of the other girls in these videos hunch over or freak out when confronted with the soaking.  Luna’s new short hairstyle also works great here because it’s not long enough to cover her boobs, another common problem with many IBC videos.  Luna receives a well-earned 8.

Sohyun (4minute)

Whoever is doing the water for this one really must love/hate Sohyun, because they really let her have it, squirting her with such enthusiasm that I half expected the camera to pan over afterward to see some guys fapping.  If you’re into those videos where Japanese guys suddenly appear and masturbate onto girls in public places before running off a few seconds later then this video might remind you of some of your favourite scenes.  Deserving of an 8, obviously.

Jiyoon (4minute)

Jiyoon looks like she’s praying before she gets splashed here and it’s obvious that she’s not really digging this at all.  I consider it appropriate penance for that terrible 2Yoon song, the Australian 4minute gig being such a short sharp ripoff as well as “What’s Your Name?” and all the other trash her group have released since 2013 so she gets an 8 here for this fap-friendly apology.

Jihyun (4minute)

I was very impressed with Jihyun’s rack when I watched 4minute in person so why she has to do the IBC wearing some of the baggiest, frumpiest shit seen on a Korean idol since Shindong donned a karate uniform I don’t know.   She looks impressive anyway despite it all so I give her an 8 even if she (unbelievably) couldn’t find anyone to squirt her.

Juniel

Juniel may know how to use a Shure Super 55 correctly but she still hunches over like a leper when the iced water hits her, ensuring that fap value is drastically minimised.  She’s nugu enough to have ignored the IBC completely however, plus she seems genuinely shell-shocked at the end of the video so she gets 8 just for being a sport and doing something that I’m sure was her pervy manager’s idea.

Hyosung (Secret)

The boring, sexually conservative concern-trolls that are k-pop’s netizens didn’t like Hyosung’s IBC because they felt it was too sexually provocative.  A complete fucking joke of course when most western celebs did IBCs that looked like this, but netizens are never ones to let logic and facts get in the way of a good bit of female idol-bashing.  I agree with them on one point though – netizens say that Hyosung shouldn’t have been wearing the black bra under the white t-shirt because it shows too much.  I agree with them, no bra at all would have been much better!  Hyosung still gets an 8 anyway for pissing off Internet idiots which is always good.

Jieun (Secret)

Jieun didn’t make the same amount of waves as her groupmate because she chose the typically boring route of wearing black clothes during the nighttime (a theme often repeated during this list, unfortunately).  Still gets an 8 though because she’s hot.

IU

IU has been showing unprecedented amounts of boob volume lately, and her IBC is no exception – she certainly didn’t look as busty in that nightie shot with Eunhyuk as she does these days.  Pity she’s wearing a loose fitting t-shirt here instead of the black clingy stuff she’s been rocking lately but I’ll still give her an 8 just for throwing her “cute” image firmly to the winds and doing something that her career wouldn’t have been able to withstand a couple years ago.

Ari, Miu (WaveYa)

Already featured on Anti Kpop-Fangirl and for good reason, WaveYa might only be a dance troupe instead of a k-pop act but who’s going to split hairs about that when we can instead split the Red Sea like Moses with the copious amounts of jizz that we’ll be expurgating from our genitalia while fapping to this video.  Only an 8 though because I know there are more hot girls in WaveYa than this and why are they hiding from this.

Chanmi (AOA)

The best bit of this video is the other girl who has the job of tipping the bucket over Chanmi’s head.  She’s so shaking with revenge juices that she struggles to even lift the bucket to head height, and after she’s done walks off with such I-don’t-give-a-shitatude that you just know that working as part of AOA’s support staff has to be a right cunt of a job.  This video easily gets an 8 for revealing juicy behind-the-scenes tension (at least in my own mind).

Yuna & Seolhyun (AOA)

Check out the big-ass shower cubicle where the girls are doing this.  That prison-style shower block could fit a lot of people in it at once.  Do you think that all the members of AOA get naked in there and shower together?  Do you think sometimes one of them drops the soap, and then Jimin bends down to pick it up because she’s the shortest, and on the way back up she accidentally brushes against some genitals with her wrist and says “sorry, I didn’t mean to” and then the other girl shoves her hand back down there and is like “no… keep doing that” and that’s how k-pop orgies happen?  Actually I bet it’s nothing like that at all, but I still think that it’s a good idea for a k-pop-inspired porn film and that these two get an 8 for their inspirational fap power.

Jimin (AOA)

A last-minute addition to this post, Jimin’s IBC was as difficult to find as Jimin herself at an elevator maintenance seminar for ex-basketballers but it was worth the effort to track down because it’s actually in a radio station during a radio program which is totally giving me ideas about how viable this might be on-air if I have guests willing to comply.  Jimin can have an 8 just for this relevant inspirational factor alone despite her IBC being sadly low on fap content, why can’t she have done this while in her “Miniskirt” outfits?

Park Jimin (15&)

Park Jimin is 17 years old these days which is legal age where I live so that means she’s also old enough to go into a Kpopalypse IBC fap post.  Pity she’s wearing a black t-shirt and not any of the hot outfits in the “Sugar” video but she still can have an 8 because obviously she realises that there are guys out there like me who are complete chubby-chasers and really wanted to see her do this.

Tia (Chocolat)

Chocolat are one of those groups that have been around for ages and that will never get anywhere.  Everyone has heard of Chocolat as “that group that has been around for ages and that I don’t actually listen to but gee I like posting their ‘Black Tinkerbell’ song on forums just to troll”, but that’s okay because IBC is for nugus too!  Tia gets an 8 just for furthering the cause of nugu equal rights and no other reason.

Kim Boa (Spica)

Alerted to this one by /dev/null at the Anti Kpop-Fangirl version of this article.  Very good but only an 8 because she’s not Jiwon which is who we really want to see from Spica do this.

Lizzy (After School/Orange Caramel)

Lizzy looks great doing her IBC, gets extremely wet, and even though she’s wearing a black top it’s still sheer enough to provide fap value.  Only problem with this video is that because she did an IBC, Raina didn’t have to.  I’VE BEEN ROBBED!  Therefore Lizzy only gets an 8 despite her IBC’s excellent quality.

U-ee (After School)

Doing the IBC while wearing dark clothes, outdoors during the night?  This is definitely not doing it correctly.  I’m still gonna give her an 8 though because the people casually strolling by in the background make this video really surreal and entertaining.

Park Jung Ah (Jewelry)

This one’s a bit crap, she barely gets any water on her.  Plus, it’s in incorrect aspect ratio.  Still, boobs get wet, so 8.

Hyoyeon (Girls’ Generation), BoA, Son Dam Bi

Hyoyeon gets slapped with more buckets than a sandcastle builder’s swapmeet, meanwhile BoA and Son Dam Bi hardly get any water on them at all but still look good so whatever.  8s for all.

Sooyoung (Girls’ Generation)

Sooyoung is wearing some ridiculously sheer white shirt that becomes saturated and see-thru as soon as it gets with 100 metres of water – good work!  Pity that it’s Sooyoung wearing it and not somebody else who I’d prefer to look at but I think she deserves an 8 just for setting a good example for other k-pop idols to follow.

Yuri (Girls’ Generation)

Flanelette shirt, really?  You’re in the world’s biggest k-pop group, not Nirvana, you fucking twit – dress like it, dammit.  Still she does look cute anyway and this video made me realise just how often I confuse Yuri for Seohyun so it was educational for me and I think that’s worthy of an 8.

Yoona (Girls’ Generation)

Yoona looks good here (well, good by Yoona standards) and gets a double-bucket but this video is crap because it fades out before we even get to see the effect of the water.  Zero.

Sunny (Girls’ Generation)

Possibly the most watched girl group IBC video of them all, Sunny’s attempt was notorious because netizens commented that “her shirt doesn’t get wet“.  This is because netizens are pussies and they can’t just come out and say what they mean which is “Sunny has ginormous boobies and I really noticed them because I’m obsessed with tits but I don’t feel comfortable admitting that to myself”.  Although this may be the perfect IBC video, Sunny is wearing black, plus the video may have given netizens some pleasure, so only an 8.

Minah (Girl’s Day)

Minah has a firm commitment to iced water, dumping on her own head what seems to be the drip tray from her refrigerator.  Why’s she on her own though, why isn’t that sports jock boyfriend of hers soaking her?  Maybe he’s too busy soaking Yura on the side.  Minah can have an 8 because even though she’s wearing black so I can’t see shit I still feel sorry for any girl so obviously being cheated on, especially after she worked so hard to get laid in the first place.

Bora (Sistar)

Of course, Bora had to do this wearing lame hip-hop clothes, that are black no less.  K-pop’s favourite swimsuit wearing group should have their members able to do a bit better than this.  Look at the chubby dudes in this video tipping the buckets though.  See, you don’t have to be super-fit to hang out with k-idols.  Bora gets an 8 for giving hope to fat fucks everywhere that they might get laid by an idol one day.

Dasom (Sistar)

Hey doesn’t Dasom look great here.  Obviously the people driving by in cars think so because they’re all going super-slow like people do when they see an accident and pretend to go slow for safety reasons when really they’re doing so because they want to see human flesh baked onto car radiators.   Wearing fucking black of course like 90% of these people but Dasom gets an 8 for revealing the ugliness of human nature in a fun way.

Soyou (Sistar)

Soyou wears grey which shows up boobs a bit better than black, plus she looks cute in glasses.  Pity she didn’t leave them on during the challenge, but she smacks herself on the head with the guard rail at 1:15, so that makes up for it and is worthy of an 8.

Cao Lu (Fiestar)

Alerted to this one by Sevpoots at the Anti Kpop-Fangirl version of this article.  Great t-shirt but elbows mostly in the way – so she gets an 8.

Nada, Dain (Wassup)

More nugu action and Wassup really freak out over the iced water, for a group that spends so much time courting South America I thought they’d be used to cooling off in the Braziliam sun with a few ice buckets… or maybe that’s just their marketing working on me really well.  In any case they spend the whole time crouching or doubled up and you can’t see anything but hey at least they did it even though they’re more nugu than a packet of nugu crisps so have an 8.

Dohee (Tiny-G)

At home in the bathtub, I guess Tiny-G really run on a shoestring because this is as homespun as the IBC your crazy friend at school did.  Still gets an 8 though for wearing the internationally recognised appropriate colour for wet t-shirts (white) – good work Dohee!

Mint (Tiny-G)

How fucking fast is Mint, this girl intros the challenge, nominates three people, gets squirted, screams a bit and shakes it all off in just 14 seconds without skipping a beat or even pausing to take a breath.  The video itself isn’t much to look at (black and at night again wtf) but I’ll give her an 8 just for the impressive speed that only a Korean pop idol with a ton of schedules per day in a foreign country (this was shot in Thailand) can muster.

Ferlyn (Skarf)

Ferlyn, one of the Singaporean members from Skarf was called out by Tiny-G’s Mint but actually does her video in the opposite style to Mint, making it as long-ass as possible.  She even fucks the whole ALS cause off, instead talking about a local Singaporean issue of helping out street dogs, effectively promoting two causes at once (because people will associate it with ALS anyway so they might donate to both) AND getting her boobs wet.  What a fucking champ, now that’s thinking outside the square.   Only giving her an 8 though because this video is so bright that I can’t even see what effect the water has, also the guy’s bucket-tipping skills are really lame.  But she’s still ace.

Baek Ji Young

Baek Ji Young isn’t much younger than I am, proving that it’s okay for old fucks to do this shit too.  Anyway she’s great, dressing appropriately and not wussing out.  However I can only give her an 8 because the aspect ratio of this video is so completely fucked that it’s nearly unwatchable.  Why can’t you kids who upload things to the Internet get this shit right?

Jaekyung (Rainbow) + NS Yoon G

These girls are hot… but AGAIN with the black clothes, outdoors at night, whyyyyyyyyyyyy…. I’ll give them an 8 anyway just to encourage them to do better next time an Internet fad comes along involving wet shirts.

SeungA (Rainbow)

Too much white can sometimes be a bad thing – this is just a little too over-exposed so you can’t really see any relevant detail.  The gratuitous squirting however is great so this still gets an 8.

Yubin + Yenny (HA:TFELT/Wonder Girls)

Outdoors, at night, wearing dark clothes.  Did the trend for this hit Korea late at night and these idols with their ultra-insane schedules just couldn’t fucking wait until the next day dawned for some sun to shoot with or what?   Still, they get an 8 because a T-shirt with Jesus on it gets wet which is like some sort of pervy k-pop baptism and hilarious.

Sunye (ex-Wonder Girls)

Speaking of batshit crazy religious nutters, Sunye’s currently being a missionary in Haiti poisoning the local population’s minds by shoving down their throats some shitty organised religion nobody cares about but at least took the time out of her busy schedule of emotionally manipulating the locals to let some guys tip iced water over her head which is kind of cool and restores my faith in humanity slightly so have an 8, Sunye.

Lim (Wonder Girls)

That little pan that Lim is holding doesn’t really meet minimum required “bucket” standards, but then she probably knows this because video comments have been disabled.  There was probably a ton of “where’s the bucket” comments she had to endure so I’ll give her an 8 because I’m feeling sympathetic.

Sunmi (ex-Wonder Girls)

The shortest, crappiest IBC video ever – it’s at night, outdoors, she’s wearing black and it only goes for four fucking seconds… hell, I’m only taking it on good faith that it’s even Sunmi in the video, for all I know it’s some coffee-machine-changing intern with a similar hairstyle.  Still it’s a pretty hot intern so have an 8 anyway, Sunmi or whoever you are.

Megan Lee

Megan makes a point of showing you that there’s ice in the water for those who care and also makes sure her song is playing in the background while she wets herself, now that’s consideration and clever thinking!  She barely gets wet though but I’ll give her an 8 just because she called out Park Jimin.

Seungyeon (KARA)

Kara’s Seungyeon has obviously been reading Kpopalypse blog because she’s wearing a correctly-proportioned striped top – however it’s a bit too loose to get full marks so she only gets an 8.  Also a missed opportunity to pull her weight as a veteran member and make new member Youngji do the IBC.

Younha

Younha’s IBC is so cube-heavy and with the cubes dropped from such a height that I’m amazed she didn’t get concussed by the event, have an 8 for exhibiting cranial fortitude.

JuB (Sunny Hill)

JuB is dressed really nicely for this shit with some sexy office wear.  The top is black though, plus it’s at night – I’m convinced that this is some fap-prevention conspiracy.  Forget your Illuminatis and your One World Governments (and for those wanting me to blog about any of those wacko conspiracy nuts – no fucking way, Kpopalypse will not even consider it, let’s not give those pieces of shit any more attention), it’s the black tops for IBCs that we really need to fight.  8 anyway because she’s a babe.

Misung & SeungA (Sunny Hill)

These two don’t have JuB’s fashion sense and of course they wear fucking black but at least they scream appropriately and seem to be going through discomfort which they totally deserve for wearing the wrong type of clothing for this, so they can have an 8 because justice is served.

LE (EXID)

LE looks great here.  How come she never looks anywhere near this good in any music videos?  This revelation is almost enough to compensate for the… once again… wearing black outdoors at night, so let’s give her an 8 just to show that we care.  Also she didn’t bust out a rap while getting soaked which is a plus.

Hani (EXID)

Hani performs her IBC in the same setting as LE but wears something slightly more appropriate colour-wise, but less clingy.  The positives and the negatives counterbalance each other so it’s only fair that she also gets an 8.

Minkyung (The Seeya)

Hey this one’s great – outdoors in the daytime, with a nice light-coloured top, several other IBCers could learn from this.  Pity the camera’s so fucking far away that I can’t even see anything.  Have an 8 anyway for at least getting most of the important points right.

Tint

A whole fucking nugu group decided to do the IBC, on a stage no less, while wearing “cute concept” (read: fap concept) clothing – that’s white!  Rejoice!  PIty that the video fades out just a little too soon so we don’t get to see much, but I’ll still give this an 8.

Martina (Eat Your Kimchi)

The gods of luck were smiling on me the day that Simon and Martina played “rock paper scissors” to decide who was going to get the iced water on their head.  Martina lost so I got to see her boobs get wet AND lots of fanservicey slow-motion bouncing which I really appreciated.  However she’s wearing the wrong fucking colour of course, I really wanted to give you guys a higher score than 8 to troll everyone because I know how much EYK divides opinions around these k-pop blogging parts but I’m sorry.  I can’t do it.  You guys must try harder to give boob fanservice.  8 for you until you do a reshoot with a clingy white t-shirt (you know you want to, Martina – if you do one, so will I, I don’t give a fuck that the trend has already died in the ass and the ALS foundation are probably now making two cents per day).

Clara Lee

Clara did actually make a k-pop debut so she does count for this and it’s just as well.  You can tell that Clara is a model with lots of experience under her belt (and over her belt) and she gets a 10 because she’s a pro who shows everyone how it’s done.  Light coloured top that is clingy, outdoors, during the daytime, doesn’t hunch over when hit with the ice but realises that we’re watching this to see her pert boobies get wet so she maintains good posture and looks unfazed.  She’s probably done this already dozens of times.  Thank you Clara for showing the k-pop world that boobs matter.

Boobs were shown and money was raised to fight a terrible disease, it’s a win/win strong enough to bring a tear to the eye.  That’s all for now, rest assured that the next time some pervy trend sweeps the k-pop world, Kpopalypse will be there to cover it in unnecessarily creepy detail!

It’s been called to my attention that my blogging has been noted by the Block B fan community, so here’s a little story written by Kpopalypse especially with them in mind.  Although I could have written this about any group really, but I hope they enjoy it… or not.

You’re a Block B fangirl living in Seoul, and you’re 15 years old.  You’re not one of those crazy fans, though… oh wait, yes you are.  You’re actually completely crazy for them.  You don’t feel crazy inside but you know you’re kinda crazy because everyone keeps harping on about how obsessed you are with your idols, especially your favourites Block B!

Just the other day, your mother came into your bedroom to tell you something, you’re not sure what it was because all you can remember about it was that she leaned on your life-size Block B poster, and it tore a little in the corner.  “Noooooo, my babies!” you cried, as your clumsy mother instantly flinched back – she’s done this before and she knows how you get about the posters.  Luckily it was just a small tear in the corner, it could have been much worse – but you felt violated somehow.  Nobody has the right to touch your posters but you!  As you sobbed and carefully applied new adhesive to the poster corner, your mother walked out of the room muttering something about “they mean more to you than your own family”… which isn’t true.  Well, it is but it isn’t.  You’ll always love your parents, there’s no doubt about that, but there’s also a special place in your heart reserved just for Block B, that nobody else can come close to; parents, friends, not even boyfriends.  You only ever had one boyfriend and when he came into your room and sat on your bed and was talking to you, you were staring at the picture of Block B’s Jaehyo behind him on the wall and thinking “if only my boyfriend’s jaw was a little squarer like Jaehyo’s…”.  He noticed your distant gaze and asked if you were okay.  You apologised and said “I’m just looking at Jaehyo, don’t you think he’s pretty?” He called you crazy and left.  Maybe he’s right but you don’t care.  He doesn’t see you anymore, and you’re fine with that – he didn’t measure up anyway.

A fangirl’s life is a busy life.  A typical day for you commences with getting up extra early and getting on the Internet so you can see what’s happening for Block B that day.  The unofficial Block B forum that you follow has an anonymous person who claims to be “on the inside” and who posts detailed daily schedules of the group’s activities every morning.  The person must be legitimate, because the schedules are never wrong, and many forum members who are just as keen as you rely on the information to keep close tabs on what the group are doing and stalk them massively.  You then swap messages with other fans and chat about all things Block B related, including how impossibly great their new music is, how dreamy all the guys are, and most importantly if there’s any events happening close to your location where you can go and catch a glimpse of the guys.  Then it’s off to school for the day, where you keep your mobile phone handy just in case there’s some surprise activity from the group or the fandom that you need to know about, because you can’t be too careful.  You’ll willingly skip school for a chance to see your idols, if it’s a good one where you can get really close to them.  (Block B did a short notice fan-meeting once in a park near your school and you missed it because you were at school and your phone was out of charge – you won’t make that mistake twice!)  Once school is over it’s back home in the evening and then checking out any Block B news or variety show appearances before bedtime… or if Block B are doing something near you, you’ll go and stalk them, you’ve even caught sasaeng taxis a couple of times, but that’s expensive so you only do it if it’s really critical.  This has been the pattern of your life ever since you became a Block B fan two years ago, and you’re happy with how things are progressing, because you’ve already gotten to see your idols a few dozen times.  You can tell from the looks some of them give you that they are actually starting to know your face!

Today you woke up feeling especially excited – it’s the day that Block B come back from Japan!  They’ve been promoting over there recently for some unknown reason, you don’t really know why groups spread themselves thin like that, you wish they’d just stay in Korea because then they’re closer to you.  It’s good that they’re coming back, but you’ve heard they’re going back to Japan again the very next night and the thought pains you – it’s tough being a fangirl when your oppas are overseas.  You’re still feeling positive today though – you live very close to the airport, and they’re arriving late tonight so you’ll definitely get to see them.

Your daily ritual begins with some checking of recent messages on your favourite Block B forum:

OMGUkwon: You don’t know how much I’m spazzing right now!!  Like…OMG!  Block B are back!

Zicoismylife: Okay I can’t help but fanboy over Block B, I just discovered them and I can’t help not to fall in love with Zico and P.O. – by especially Zico!  Where have I been?

BlockBfan326: Wow, we’re so lucky to have them back.  Everyone support them and vote on their music shows!

VeryGood81: My feels, I know they’re only back for a day but I have to buy Block B stuff now to show my support – next time I hope they stay for longer but they go away again soon, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO ;o;

POfap: I’m definitely going to be at the airport.  I can’t wait – P.O. is so gorgeous, I hope he sees me this time!

BlockB4eva: IF I DON’T GET TO CATCH A GLIMPSE OF THEM IN THE FLESH I COULD DIE

Yoloswag420: The JAV industry pays more than the k-idol industry, that’s why they’re over there, they’re cumdumpstering some Japanese whores.  There’s a shortage of male JAV stars, so the companies gotta import the talent.

Herherher: How can I stop myself fangirling… my ovaries hurt!  They’re going to do a fanmeet tomorrow as well – nothing could keep me away from that!

So much spazzing!  The mood among the fandom is definitely ecstatic.  You think about leaving a message saying that you’re also going to meet Block B at the airport tonight, but you decide against it.  Maybe some of the others will forget about it if you say nothing, and less other fans there means that you’ll stand out more and it’ll be easier to push through the crowds.  You’ll post about it tomorrow instead, and show off pictures, then everyone on the forum who missed out will realise that you’re the biggest Block B fan, and that will make you happy.  You wonder for a moment if any Block B members actually check the forum, maybe if they do, they’ll see it too!  Maybe you’ll get a message from one of them – that would be amazing!  The thought warms your heart.

School hours are long and the day goes very slowly, it always does when you know you’re going to see Block B that night somewhere.  It’s hard to concentrate on your studies, especially during algebra because they always use the letter B and of course that just makes you think of Block B and then you drift off and forget what the teacher is saying.  Eventually the sun sets and it’s time to go back home.  Your phone hasn’t rung all day – on the bus home you pull out your mobile phone (with a shiny pink Block B case that you’re very proud of) and check the Internet for the daily Block B schedule, just to make sure nothing has changed:

*** TODAY’S BLOCK B KOREAN SCHEDULE – GET READY TO SPAZZ ***

22:10 – arrival at Incheon International Airport, gate 45 – warning, will be crowded!

22:35 – arrival at dormitories

*** END ***

That’s all it says – the Japanese portion of their schedules earlier that day before the flight isn’t listed.  Usually there’s a bigger list of Korean appointments, but it makes sense that they would just go straight to their dorms and get some sleep after a long flight.

There’s no way that your mother would let you go out and see Block B at the airport, so after dinner you tell her that you’re having an early night so you can get a big day of study in tomorrow, then you go to your bedroom, turn out the lights and climb out the window.   She won’t check – once she opened the door suddenly and caught you with your skirt half down mid Jaehyo-fap (you tried to play it off like you were just getting undressed and your hand was stuck in the skirt zip but you’re pretty sure she knew what was really going on), ever since then she’s stopped coming into your bedroom at night time.  You head off down the street and begin the 30 minute walk to the airport.

The airport is a huge curved structure but you’re familiar with it, having been here many times before, mainly chasing Block B around.  As you pass through security you notice that the terminal monitors say that Block B’s flight has already landed.  You pick up the pace and run straight to the gate where Block B should be arriving at any minute.  As you get closer, you can see that the terminal is thick with fans and photographers… they’re already here!

You push your way through the crowds, run straight up to the security cordon line and stop.  You know not to extend beyond the line – fangirls who do that get smacked down harshly by airport security, experience is a great teacher of that!  Instead you stay put and immediately start spazzing and jumping up and down on the spot:

“BLOCK B I LOVE YOU!  I LOVE YOU!  LOOK OVER HERE, NOTICE ME OPPAS!” you scream at the top of your lungs.

It works!  The entire group all stop and look at you at once.  Well, you think they’re looking at you, most of them are wearing dark sunglasses.  You then notice P.O. get called off by an offsider, he walks over to the side and something is whispered in his ear:

A nod is exchanged, and then the man in the blue jacket reaches for something in P.O.’s black travel bag.  It’s a small, shiny black object, you can’t quite see what it is from that distance.  The man in blue then throws it at you – hard!  You try to catch it, but it all happens too quickly – the object glances across the side of your head, causing you to flinch in pain, and skates across the floor a few metres behind you amongst the crowds.  Damn, that really hurts!  Holding your left temple which you can feel is already starting to bruise, you quickly get on your knees and scurry across the floor to pick up the object before anyone else does… you’ve seen Block B in person many times now, but this is the first time Block B have given you a gift.  Finding the object, some kind of metal black square, you stash it in your bag quickly, you can examine it properly later.  You race back to the cordon line to see Block B and say thank you but it’s too late… they’ve already made it to the other end of the arrivals lounge.  You wonder if it’s a new tactic – create a distraction by throwing something interesting so the fans leave the idols alone giving them time to escape.  Oh well, you’re happy to receive the gift, and you might just need to train your reflexes and bring a baseball glove to airports from now on.

That night, you arrive home, climbing back in through the bedroom window.  You sit on your bed and take the metal object out of your bag.  Now you can really inspect it properly!

It’s a small metal folding hand mirror with the Block B logo, what a cute little gift!  You open up the metal hinges and take a look at yourself in the mirror’s reflection.  Wow, that guy really got you a good one, you can see the tender swelling red bump on the side of your head very clearly using this.  The pain is making your head throb though and it’s difficult to concentrate on anything so you put the mirror on your bedside bookcase for now and drift off to sleep.

-

The next morning, you wake up, sit up in bed and immediately look to your bedside bookcase.  The mirror is still there, what a relief!  Last night was so surreal that you weren’t entirely sure if it actually happened, but the presence of the mirror reassures you that it did, as does the swelling on your head which has thankfully receeded slightly. You boot up your laptop and begin your morning ritual of checking messages on the Block B forum.  You decide to make a post:

I saw Block B last night at the airport, they were so dreamy!  They are all so hot, I could die!  P.O. also gave me a gift, a little fan mirror!

You take a selca with yourself and the mirror – and your bruise – and attach it to the post (because people don’t believe anything these days), then you open up the mirror beside you on the bed and look at your reflection as you type.  Sure, it’s only a cheap fan mirror but it’s actually from Block B to you so it’s imbued with specialness and magic.  You refresh the forum page, the replies have already come flooding in:

BlockBfan326: WOW, you’re so lucky! What an incredible blessing! :D :D :D

IloveKyungggg: I saw you – did you get hit in the head?  What an honour to be physically touched by Block B!

VeryGood81: That’s amazing, I’m spazzing so hard thinking about how spazzing you must be!  Please show it to me at school!  We can spazz togheterSGEOIGNDSJGHLEIHNLIW

Yoloswag420: You got hit in the head by oppa – sucked in, bitch.

POfap: It’s not fair.  P.O. threw that mirror at ME, you dived in front of me and caught it first.  That mirror is rightfully mine.  -_-

What a liar that last responder is!  Feeling a sense of indignation building, you start to draft a reply when suddenly you’re distracted by a stabbing pain in your leg.  You look over and notice a small card on your bed digging into your thigh.  You pick it up, it’s a business card from a gift shop retailer… you have plenty of these, they often come with Block B merchandise.  It must have fallen out of the mirror when you opened it, you were certainly in a lot of pain last night so it’s little wonder you didn’t notice it.  You flip the card over… there’s something written on the back…

You do as the card instructs – sure, it seems silly but well, why wouldn’t you?  You don’t know what a “quantum-multiverse project” is supposed to mean, but it’s got something to do with Block B, so that means you’re in!  You touch the mirror surface and hold your hand there, slowly counting for 30 seconds and waiting… but nothing happens.    Well, that was anticlimactic, and now you feel like an idiot… but maybe you’re just “more connected” to Block B somehow.  Hmmm.  You go back to drafting your response to that lying fangirl who says she was supposed to have the mirror, but wait a second… she’s not saying that at all.  In fact, all of the responses are now different:

BlockBfan326: That’s nice that they gave you a gift!  I’m happy for you!  :D :D :D

IloveKyungggg: I saw you – did you get hit in the head?  I hope you sought prompt medical attention for that injury!  It still looks very bad on your selca!

VeryGood81: Next time I see you at school, I’d love to see the present.  It looks very nice, I’ve always thought about getting a mirror like that but I wondered if they were worth the money for what they are.  After all it’s not like I would spend too much extra on a mirror just because it has a Block B logo on it so I hope the workmanship is good enough to justify the extra they’re charging on that website.

Yoloswag420: You got hit in the head by oppa – sucked in, bitch.

POfap: P.O. threw that mirror in my direction, I thought it was going to hit ME right in the face!  I’m lucky that you dived over and deflected it, because it sure looks like it would have hurt!  You probably saved me a trip to the hospital, thank you so much!  Why did they throw it so dangerously though?  It’s a solid metal object!  Do they have no regard for our safety?

That’s odd.  Did they all edit their replies – or were you just not reading them correctly the first time?  Oh well, at least you don’t need to send that reply anymore.  You delete your draft and check Block B’s schedule for the day.

*** TODAY’S BLOCK B KOREAN SCHEDULE ***

10:00 – Weekly idol (pre-record session)

14:00 – Music Core (pre-record session)

18:00 – Fanclub meet and greet *** CANCELLED DUE TO LACK OF INTEREST ***

20:00 – Starry Night Live Radio

22:00 – Departure to Japan

*** END ***

There’s usually a lot more detail than this “departure to Japan” – what gate?  Where’s the address information that they always post for the other events?  It’s a good thing that you already know where everything is through prior experience.  Also, why doesn’t it say “get ready to spazz”, that’s like the schedule-poster’s trademark!  And what’s with “lack of interest”?  Surely not!  You make a reply:

Why was the fanclub meet cancelled?  “Lack of interest” seems like a lie.  We had heaps of people going!  Any why aren’t there any details like there usually is?  At least give us addresses and gate information!

After a few minutes the replies come in:

IloveKyungggg: I don’t know about others, but I decided against it.  I’ve already seen Kyung a bunch of times.  He seems like a nice guy as far as I can tell but I’m meeting my boyfriend around that time and well, you know… priorities.

Zicoismylife: Honestly last time I met them they were a little rude.  Mind you they’re probably under a lot of stress and pressure, especially with the amount of schedules they have these days I can’t blame them for showing it a little.  It’s probably best for them to take a break from fan meetings until their activities calm down.  Really, the industry is to blame.  They’re just kids like us when you think about it.

POfap: I’d like to meet P.O. again but let’s not be selfish.  It’s a tough job being an idol and we should give them some time out.

Yoloswag420: They won’t meet any of you because they’ve already seen your faces and you’re all ugly sluts.  They’ll probably use that time to bang some trainees.

Herherher: They can meet us and be nice to us but it’s not like we’ll ever get to know them properly.  We don’t know the reality of what they’re really like, just the face that they have to show in public.  They can’t really be themselves so it hardly seems worth it to meet them again and again if they can’t reveal anything further, it just means more pointless busywork for them signing our things and pretending to be happy when they’ve had a long day of work.  I saw them once, that’s enough for me to be happy that I got to meet some people who I admire.

The person who posts the daily schedule lists also weighs in with a reply:

BlockBSchedule: We don’t publish sensitive info like exact locations and gate information out of respect for privacy of the members.  We never have done this.

Liars, that’s definitely a change in policy from yesterday.  Taking a deep breath, you close your laptop.  What’s with everybody, why have they all gone so… weird?  You just don’t get it.  You look around your room and suddenly notice something even more disturbing – your posters are GONE.  All 76 of them (yes you kept track).  You swear you remember seeing them when you woke up only a few minutes ago… or did you?  What is this?

“MUUUUM! ” you cry out.

You hear “Just a second, honey” from the other room.  A few seconds later, your mother opens the bedroom door and walks in.  “What is it, dear?”.

“Where are all my posters?  What did you do with them?”

“What posters, dear?”

Your mother looks confused, but you’re not having any of it.  “MY BLOCK B POSTERS!  THEY WERE ALL OVER THIS WALL!  WHAT DID YOU DO WITH THEM?”.  You start to sob.

“But… you never had any posters up here.  What are you talking about?”

You’re speechless and inconsolable. You try to say something but you can’t.

Your mother continues – “I know that I once suggested that you might like to put some of your favourite k-pop groups up, but you said no because you didn’t want to mark the walls, but… oh god honey, what is that lump on your head?”  Your mother suddenly notices and stares at the lump on the side of your head, very concerned.  “That’s right on your temple, it looks very dangerous, I’m taking you straight to the doctor!”

Your mother leaves the room, to prepare to take you to the doctor’s office.  You grab the mirror, put it in your bag, get dressed and make your way out the front door before she can do anything about it.  Your mother sees you leave the house and calls after you to come back, but you’re so upset that you don’t even register or react… you just start running.  After running a few streets, you take your phone out of your bag.  Time to dial a sasaeng taxi – only meeting Block B in person will be able to get you out of your slump.  You press the speed dial number that you’ve previously saved for your favourite sasaeng taxi company.

“Hello?”  A female voice answers.  You recognise it, but it’s not the usual voice, it sounds… quite casual, not very call-centreish…

You take a deep breath and try to curtail your sobbing enough to speak.  “Hello, is this Block B Sasaeng Taxis?”

“Who?  What?” Wow, that voice is very familiar…

You repeat: “Block B Sasaeng Taxis?”

“Are you crazy?  What are you talking about?  Come back home!”  The penny drops.  You’ve dialed your mother.  But how?

You look at the phone… it’s definitely your phone.  But where’s your pink sparkly Block B case?  This is just a normal phone case.  But… it’s your phone, you can tell by the scratches on the front which are in the same places as they’ve always been.  You go to your address book – all your phone numbers are there, as far as you can tell.  What’s going on?  That’s the last thought you have as you pass out in the middle of the street.

-

You wake up.  You’re back in your bedroom, lying down on your bed.  Your mother is here.  There’s also a man here, in a white coat.  He’s obviously a doctor, he’s wearing a stethoscope around his neck and he smiles briefly when your eyes meet his.  He’s examining the lump on your head, which doesn’t hurt that much… you do feel a general dizziness however.

“She’s awake.  Might be some kind of brain damage.” he remarks.

Your mother nods.  “She’s certainly been acting differently.  I’ve never seen anything like this from her.  She’s usually such a good kid”

“She’s possibly still concussed.  The best thing for now is to rest it, we won’t know the full extent of the damage until the concussion has passed.  Let her get some more sleep.”

The doctor and your mother both give you concerned stares and leave the room.  You feel very dizzy and drift back off to sleep, noticing that there are still no posters on your wall.

-

You wake up.  From the lack of light in your bedroom (still sans posters), it’s night time.  You must have slept all day!  Your head doesn’t hurt that much anymore.  Your first thought – what’s the time?  Block B might have left the country already without you even seeing them!  You boot up your laptop and check the time, there’s only 20 minutes left until they leave!  Looks like you’ll have to taxi it.  You quickly check the Block B forum to see if anything has changed:

*** TODAY’S BLOCK B KOREAN SCHEDULE ***

10:00 – Weekly idol (pre-record session)

14:00 – Music Core (pre-record session)

18:00 – Fanclub meet and greet *** CANCELLED DUE TO LACK OF INTEREST ***

20:00 – Starry Night Live Radio

22:00 – Departure to Japan

*** END ***

Still the same, that’s a relief.  You look at some of the recent threads.  There’s a post about their Music Core appearance.  Apparently Block B lost to EXO.  You read some replies:

OMGUkwon: Congratulations to EXO!

Zicoismylife: I really wanted my faves Block B to win but I’ll admit that EXO tried hard, plus they had the better song.

BlockBfan326: Block B did a good effort but EXO performed better in the end.

POfap: It’s tough to beat anything from SM Entertainment.  They’ve been in the idol game longer than the other labels, they’re more entrenched.  Not that it really matters who wins these things, it’s all just promotion.

BlockB4eva: Block B’s new songs are the problem.  They really need a lift in songwriting quality, they don’t have the catchy songs like Nalina and Nalili Mambo anymore.  Let’s be honest, their new material is a mess.  If they had debuted with Jackpot nobody would have cared about them.

Yoloswag420: Block B just suck, admit it you losers.  That’s why they’re called Block B, not Block A.  Always coming second.

VeryGood81: I felt like Block B were just going through the motions, but it’s not their fault – they’re being pushed too hard.  You can’t realistically expect someone to fly in at night after non-stop Japanese schedules with barely any rest and then take out #1 spots on music shows the next morning.

ZicZicZico: Congratulations to EXO for a clean win.  I’m glad that they only use judges with industry experience like professional singers and choreographers to determine the winners on TV idol shows.  They’ve been talking about bringing in fan voting and ranking-by-sales but I think everyone agrees that’s a bad idea, including fans.  After all, fans appreciate that the people with the highest aptitude, best songs and best performances on the day should always win, regardless of how many people support them or any other factors.  There’s no point to these things otherwise, if they’re going to add elements to make it more of a popularity contest they might as well just make it a simple TV concert instead and get rid of the competitive aspect completely.  Which I wouldn’t mind at all, actually – but if you’re going to have a competition, do it right.

Wow, how conciliatory.  Where’s the righteous indignation that your fandom usually demonstrates?  What’s happened to the fandom?  It’s like you don’t even know these people anymore.  You know that Block B should have won Music Core… even though you haven’t seen it yet, they’re always flawless because they’re your faves.  No time to think about that for now though, it’s time to meet Block B at the airport!  You get organised, sneak out the window, run down the street and take out your phone (still with just a normal phone case) to dial the sasaeng taxi number – this time, not with the speed dial but through the address book.  You scroll through the list of contacts, but you can’t find it anywhere – what happened to it?  No time to search, fortunately the street is busy and normal taxis are everywhere, so you wave one down.  It’ll have to do.

You get in as fast as you can and throw some money into the front seat – more than enough to cover the fare.

“Incheon – quickly!”

The taxi driver complies and speeds off.  You find that normal taxis will drive nearly as fast as sasaeng drivers if you pay them enough, as long as the trip is short.

“You are in quite a hurry.  What is the rush?” asks the driver.

“Block B” you reply.

“What is a Block B?”

Sigh.  “They’re an idol group.  I want to see Block B but don’t have my sasaeng taxi number.”

“Oh.  But what is a sasaeng taxi?”

How can a taxi driver of all people not know what a sasaeng taxi is?  Those guys are their main competition!  Oh well, whatever.  “Never mind.  Just be quick, please”, you tell the driver.

Thankfully it isn’t long before you reach the airport.  You get out of the taxi, and move through security to the gates as fast as possible.   But which gate are they at?  The forum didn’t say.

You try and work out the most likely gate by departure times and destinations.  The airport is strangely quiet as you run up and across the huge walkways.  Eventually you find them, just as they are boarding.

It’s weird.  There’s no cordon line to keep fans back apart from the standard one that all boarding flights use to form a queue for boarding pass checking.  There’s a couple of photographers here, but no screaming fans at all, the boarding is peaceful and quiet with the group casually chatting to both each other and airline staff as they present boarding passes.  Oh well, that just means that if you scream they’ll definitely hear you!

“BLOCK B I LOVE YOU!  NOTICE ME, OPPAS!”

They sure do – all members of the group instantly flinch back.  Not only Block B but everyone else in the immediate vicinity all turn to look at you.  You take the mirror out of your bag.

“I got your gift, P.O.!  What does it do?”  You hold the mirror up to P.O.

P.O. looks at the mirror, confused.  “It’s… a mirror?”

Zico starts laughing.  Under his breath you can hear him chuckle to the other members “Jesus Christ… what a dumb bitch.  Do people like this even exist?”  Some of the rest of the group start smiling.

“But what about the… ” you struggle to find the words “…quantic-thingy?  Isn’t it meant to do something?”

P.O. shrugs.  “It’s a mirror.  You can see yourself in it.  Try it sometime.  Now if you’ll excuse us, we’ve got a plane to catch.”

The members of Block B shuffle off through the boarding gate.  You watch them leave and then look at the mirror.  You can see your face, with a bruise on one side gradually getting better, and you can also see someone coming up behind you.  It’s your mother.  Suddenly you feel someone grabbing you.  “I can’t believe what’s gotten into you today, you’re acting like a crazy person”, she exclaims as she frog-marches you out of the airport with the help of airport security.  The humiliation is unbearable.

-

It’s been a while since you entered your new home, it hasn’t been easy to adjust.  There’s not much in the way of school or learning here, and you don’t have to make any meals or do any chores, but there’s also no Internet and only strictly regulated contact with the outside world so it’s extremely lonely.  Doctors visit often, and your mother visits every day at the same time, she cries often and tries to explain to you how you can come home as soon as you change back… but back to what?  You don’t understand – you swear it’s everything else which has changed, while you and your love of Block B has remained constant.

It’s funny because there are two shower blocks in the ward, also called A and B.  Sometimes you go into shower “block B”, press your hand against the full-sized mirror and wait for 30 seconds.  And again.  And again.